21 month update

I feel like most days I spend a lot of my day repeating these phrases, "don't throw that" "be careful" "set that down softly" "sit down, we don't dance on chairs" "just a minute" "no, no" " don't play on the fireplace, that's dangerous!"  Wow, I must be the mom of a very busy and curious 21 month old little boy!  Let's just say we're tired WAY before he is! 

He is 33 inches tall and weighs 26 pounds , according to my calculations.  He is wearing 24 month clothes and a few 2T.  His vocabulary continues to expand! He has started saying his grandparent's names and this makes them just a little bit happy :) He repeats them over and over, which makes me just a little bit crazy :) He also says the names of several of his aunts, uncles and cousins.  He asks to go see them daily and if he can't go see them, he wants to look at their pictures.  He has developed a love for toast and gets quite excited, screaming, "TOAST" when he gets to eat it with butter. We have continued to work foods back into his diet that he didn't use to be able to tolerate.  Little by little, his digestion continues to improve and we love that he can eat wheat now.  It opens up a lot more options for him.  Mitch and I have done a lot of reading and research about foods since we had Caden.  We were wanting to find the best foods for him to eat, figuring out what needed to be organic and foods that would be easy for his digestion.  In doing all that, we were more educated and convicted to make some changes in our own eating habits.  Last year we started trying to eliminate highly processed foods from our diet and eat more "real foods."  In January, we tried to take that to the next level and cut out a few more things.  It's been difficult and we still allow ourselves several cheats :)  Sometimes you just can't resist an Auntie Anne's pretzel while shopping at the Legends, or going out to dinner, etc.  We're just trying to eat better, when we're at home.  This means a little more work in the kitchen since we make a lot of things from scratch now.  Good thing I like to cook!

We booked a trip to go to Orange Beach, Alabama in April with my family and are looking forward to that.  Hopefully Caden does well on the flights!  I'm excited to see how he reacts to so many new things he's never seen before.  I ordered him some new swim trunks this week.  Yes, I'm ready for winter to be over!  Although, I was happy it snowed this week, because he hadn't been able to go out and play in the snow at all this winter.  It was pretty fun to see him play in it.  I'll post pictures below, of course.

He continues to love music, dancing, reading books and watching out the window each morning and afternoon when the school buses come by while yelling, "bus!"  For some reason, he's started waking up earlier and earlier in the mornings and taking shorter naps.  No matter what time we put him to bed he wakes up in the 6 o'clock hour.  We invested in an "Ok to wake" clock this week to see if it helps.  When he falls asleep he likes to be holding a domino and the mailman from the Little People set.  He loves to hide and will hide most anywhere. Most of the day he makes messes, but every once in a while he's helpful.  He helps me move clothes from the washer to the dryer, puts the clean socks away, gets a towel and cleans the floor if he spills his water and helps me make our bed.  He loves to throw things in the trash. Most of the time he understands what's trash and what isn't, but we keep a pretty close eye when he takes off running while yelling, "trash" to make sure we agree!

We went to Basehor Library for story time a couple times this month.  He starts off really shy then is up participating by the end.  We've also gone to a couple of Upward Basketball games to watch friends play.  I was surprised by how much he loved it.  He actually sits still and watches and has been trying to dribble ever since.  When the cheerleaders came out he started yelling, "ball!"  Something tells me he won't always prefer the game over the cheerleaders. 

He understands about praying before meal time now and it's so sweet to watch him bow his head and hold our hands while we pray.  When I ask if he wants to sing before bed, he'll start singing, "Bible, Bible" in a sweet little voice meaning he wants to sing, "Jesus Loves Me."  He also loves to sing, "Wheels on the Bus" and do all the actions.  He learned to whisper this month and has been working on his numbers.

Here are some of my favorites from the last month...

Looking sharp for church in his sports coat

 Aunt Aimee's Birthday

 He loves to hide behind the curtains

 He convinced Daddy to get in his house with him.  That took a little maneuvering!

 He's pretty excited that I let him start using a fork.  I was afraid of what he'd stab!

We went to Paulo and Bill's for Valentine's Day while Caden stayed with my parents

 What's not to Love?

Watching Upward Basketball on Valentine's Day with Aunt Shannon and GiGi

Then we stopped by "Mimi and Mike's" cause he'd been asking to see them :)

 Opening the Valentine treats from us

 All bundled up and ready to play in the snow!

 He wanted to get his mower out.  I guess it's like a snow blower?

 He loves to sit behind the rocker in his room and read to his bear, Dodo.

 We built a fort in the living room to help keep us entertained on these cold winter days. 

We had the privilege of attending Pastor Steve's retirement and 25th anniversary celebration on Caden's 21 month birthday.  What a blessing Pastor Steve has been to our family!

Happy 21 months, Caden!!

     

20 month update

Caden celebrated 20 months yesterday!  That's sounding much closer to becoming a 2 year old!  We had a great Christmas and New Year and were able to spend alot of time with our family.  Caden has been sick off and on for the last 2 weeks and finally seemed more like himself yesterday.  He had a cold, then felt good for a couple days, then got feeling bad again.  It's been great to have some nice warm days where we could go outside and enjoy the sunshine since we'd spent alot of time at home getting well!

He weighs 26 pounds, dressed, according to our scale at home.  I tried measuring him and I'm not so sure that it was accurate ;) He continues to say new words and repeats what we say.  I love that he says new things every day! He even talks in his sleep.  I guess he's practicing.  Earlier this week, we were at the store and I picked up a box of raisins.  He tried opeing the box to eat them, since raisins are a favorite.  I told him he couldn't eat them and, "we need to buy this first."  He proceded to run through the aisles yelling, "buy this, buy this!" It was pretty funny.  One of my favorites right now is, "Oh baby!" He uses this phrase when he's excited about food or when he's done something impressive :)  He loves to throw things and has quite the arm.  Daddy says he throws a 75 mph fast ball. He loves to dip his food!  He'll dip anything in salsa and also likes marinara, berry sauce and chocolate sauce for dipping.

When we ask for a kiss he points to each of our cheeks, asking where we want the kiss.  If he's not in the mood to give me a kiss, he'll tell Daddy to kiss me instead.  He is pretty clear about what he wants and will be glad to communicate it.  Daddy has been teaching him his left and right and he knows which is which when you ask.  He continues to love books and has recently started really liking to do puzzles.  He likes to give high fives and fist bumps.  He even gives himself a high five after he gives us one. 

He loves the Jars of Clay CD we got Mitch for Christmas.  He knows how to turn the CD player on a plays that disc multiple times a day.  He dances all the time and has different moves for different kinds of songs.  I love watching him dance!

Sugar cookie baking

 Aunt Lesley drove from Minnesota all day and came straight to our house to see Caden.  She got in on the cookie baking fun!

 Annual Christmas Date

We went to the Classic Cup on the Plaza

 We spent Christmas Eve with my family and went to the Christmas Eve Service at Fellowship West. 

 Christmas fun with Baw-Baw and GiGi

 He opened one present from us when we got home.  We bought him a Cookies for Santa plate and milk cup from Pottery Barn.  He also got his Christmas pjs.  He sampled Santa's cookies :)

 We spent Christmas Day with Mitch's family.  Caden was trying out his new motorized vehicle from Papa & Grandma.

 Playing in the new ball pit

 We got him the Happy Home Grill & Cottage and put it together the day after Christmas.  He loved it! He ran right over and started ringing the doorbell.

 Making an important phone call

He had a pretty bad reaction after I touched pecans and then touched is food.  We knew he had a peanut allergy, but we hadn't tried any tree nuts.  I neglected to wash my hands after touching the pecans and we had to give him Benedryl.  He was back to normal about an hour later.  So, we're going to have to talk to Dr Holly and be very cautious from now on. 

Aunt Shannon's surprise 30th birthday party. Can you tell it was bedtime?

This is his friend, Anderson, from church.  They like to play together in nursery.

New Year's Eve Smiles

We went to dinner at Longhorn with Mitch's family and some friends for New Year's Eve.  Then we went home and put Caden to bed.  We stayed up until midnight watching a movie and drinking sparkling juice :) I'm not sure why he had his fingers in his ears.  That's the only time I've ever seen him do that. 

  

Working hard on a puzzle

Selfie with my sweetie

He loves hats, socks and shoes all of a sudden.  He's disliked all of those things and now asks to wear shoes, boots or slippers while playing at home and likes to wear his hats and ours.

So cute!

All wrapped up in my scarf

Helping me dust with the Norwex dusting mitt

 He wanted to eat his snack in this box :)

Happy 20 months, Caden!

This is as close to sitting in his chair and holding the sign as I could get! 

19 month update

Happy 19 months and Merry Christmas! We have been having so much fun preparing for Christmas with Caden.  Everything takes on a new excitement when you see it through the eyes of a child. He loves to look at the lights as we drive around and gets pretty animated when he finds Santa or some inflatables.  The first thing he likes to do when he wakes up in the morning is run to the living room and have us turn all the Christmas lights on.  We are enjoying starting new traditions and continuing some that we started last year.  He's been having fun playing with his Little People Nativity set that he got last year.

He seems to be adding new words to his vocabulary almost on a daily basis.  A few of his new words are: apple, not me, no, dominoes, mailman, tick-tock and PU! It's so fun to hear him say new things.  He's added the animal sounds of a monkey, cow, snake and owl.  "I do" is still one of his favorite things to say and if he's really excited he'll repeat it three times.  He also says, "I this" meaning I need/want this.  He loves food and some meals I'm convinced he eats more than I do. He says, "oooh" when he sees his favorite foods.  He still only has 8 teeth.  I keep thinking those molars are going to come through because they seem to bother him and he's always chewing on his fingers, but so far nothing new.  I haven't weighed or measured him this month.  I'm guessing he's taller because he can climb up onto the couch and open the refrigerator now!  His hair is getting longer and thicker.  I actually had to comb it last week!  He is still wearing 18/24 month clothes and size 6 1/2 shoes.  He has an opinion about most everything and likes to choose what he'll wear each day.  He has been sleeping great at night this last month and this is so wonderful!  Nap times aren't as long and he's been fighting going to sleep, but I'm trying to count my blessings since we're making progress.  His digestion seems to be doing better and that is helping him rest better.  We've even been working some wheat back in his diet and he seems to be tolerating that well.  He loves to get ready for the day with Daddy by pretending to put on deodorant, shave, put on cologne and use mouthwash.  It's pretty funny!

We are looking forward to this week as we celebrate Christmas and are so thankful that God chose to send His Son and for the hope that we have because of His life, death and resurrection!

We hope you enjoy the pictures :)

We had a fun Thanksgiving Day and spent time with both families.  We had lunch at Hancock's then went to dinner at Mary Lu's house with my family.  His shirt says it all, "Everyone is Thankful for ME!."  He loved the turkey on his shirt and pointed at it all day!

He and I made these turkey name cards for everyone.  I let him use the glue stick and he drew the eyes on with a Sharpie :)

Helping Daddy rake leaves one last time!

Goodness! So very handsome in his shirt and tie and I love the smile! 

No smile here!  He wasn't a fan of Santa this year.  It was quite a traumatic event apparently!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and he had fun helping me turn the door into a snowman.

We had a family Christmas date again this year.  One of the places we went was Union Station. It's so beautiful at Christmas!

We took the elevator up to the 3rd floor for a great view of the tree and clock.  They were hosting an event so they had one room blocked off and we weren't able to go see the trains.

Caden's favorite part of the day was the walk across The Link!  He loved it!

 

We also spent some time at Crown Center and he thought he fountains, lights and

tree were pretty cool!

We finished up our date at Potbelly Sandwich Shop on the Plaza.

 

We walked around and looked at the lights since it wasn't too cold.

 

Looks like he was enjoying our drive through Christmas Card Lane in Olathe :)

 

We were loving the warmer weather and Caden was filling Daddy's pocket with rocks.

 

Cookie baking at GiGi's house

 

These 2 had a blast playing with the new cookie baking set GiGi bought them.

 

"Holding" sweet Margot

 

Caden was watching me wrap presents and wanted to join me, so he wrapped his snowman up.

 

We celebrated Christmas with all 40 of our cousins, aunts and uncles on my mom's side of the family last Saturday and this was the picture of Caden's generation.

 

Christmas Sunday morning at Fellowship West.  Aunt Shannon bought him the adorable suspenders and bow tie.  He got lots of compliments at church!

 

Happy 19 months, Caden!!

 

Sunday evening we went back to church for Family Christmas at Fellowship West.  The kids all came in their pajamas and Pastor Matt read them a Christmas story and we sang carols.  Each kid got a goodie bag with a Christmas book and coloring sheets.  It was a fun evening to celebrate Jesus birth!

Merry Christmas!!