2 years and 3 months

I decided to do a quarterly update this year.

Caden LOVES toast.  It's one of his favorite things to eat.  He continues to love food and some meals eats more that I do. Daddy says he needs to be potty trained so we can use the diaper money to pay for all the extra food he eats :)  We've been attempting to get him interested in potty training. At this point, he's still in size 5 diapers and wearing 2T clothes. He has 16 teeth now.  At his 2 year well child appointment they said he was 28 pounds and 34 1/2" tall.  He's grown since then because he can now open all of our doors and flip the light switches off and on.  They also heard a very faint heart murmur at his appointment and we've been back one time since then to check on it.  It was still present, but the Dr feels confident that it's an innocent murmur, so we'll wait a little while longer to re-check then decide if an echocardiogram should be done to confirm that it's all ok.

One of his new phrases is, "that's my favorite!" He talks all the time! He likes to make up words, followed by, "That's funny word!" I love when he uses big words.  His cousin, Owen, taught him the word "gorgeous."  Pretty cute! There are a few words that crack us up.  He's started calling the kitchen, the chicken.  He says this one in all seriousness.  He used to say kitchen, so I'm not sure why it's changed, but Mitch and I tend to call it that, too, since it's funny.  At night he also hears the "loocusts" outside his window. :) He keeps us laughing with that fun personality!

He's very interested in the alphabet and matching things that are the same.  I feel like we're already doing some preschool with all the time we spend doing his alphabet puzzle, his matching games and workbooks.  He's been enjoying coloring, also. He can count from 1-10, then goes straight to 14.  When he says  the alphabet he makes it to P, with L-P running all together.  Q throws him for a loop.  If you help him with Q he can usually make it to Z.  It's so fun watching him learn new things.

He promoted to the 2's and 3's Sunday School class at the beginning of June.  It's fun to pick him up and have him show me his craft and tell me about his lesson.  It looks like they aren't paying any attention at that age, but he's learning.  He continues to love reading. He has most of his books memorized and fills in the words as I read them.  Some books he has entire paragraphs memorized.  He also loves singing and can sing several songs.  I've sung him hymns before nap and bed basically every day since he was born and he can fill in several phrases of the hymns as well.  He requests "Tis So Sweet" most days.  I love that his favorite songs and books are the ones about Jesus.

We've done a lot of celebrating over the last 3 months.  Here are some of the pictures from those celebrations and a few that are just too cute to not post :)

Memorial Day at Grandma Mary Lu's.  We went earlier in the day to put flowers on the graves at Chapel Hill, then walked across the street after dinner to my grandparent's graves.  

 Memorial Day lunch at Hancock's. Having some fun with Uncle Mike & Aunt Aimee.

 First haircut :)

Owen's 3rd birthday!

 Reading bedtime stories with Baw-Baw.

 Family party for Daddy's birthday.

 Helping Daddy blow out his candles.

Reading books like a big boy on his new bed.

We took down the crib and got him a full size mattress that we're just keeping on the floor for now.  I rearranged his shelves with less baby decor and more little boy things.  A friend was updating his room and gave Caden all his automobile canveses.  They look great in his room!

The pack and play got moved back in his room for a contained time-out space.  He'll be glad to tell you he goes in time-out "because he not listen!"

Celebrating Papa & Memo's 40th Anniversary at Stroud's. 

Daddy's birthday celebration with the Whitneys.

I took Caden to his favorite store, Dollar General, and let him pick out some things for Daddy for Father's Day.  Bacon was the first thing he picked.  He knows what his Daddy likes!

Happy 25 months, Caden!!

He loves to eat corn on the cob and if we don't eat ours fast enough, he eats his then wants to eat ours!

4th of July fun at Hancock's.  He loved that ALL of his family was there!

Riding in Denny's golf cart with Daddy & Papa.

 

Aunt ShooShee

 

He is such a great laundry helper.  When he's on the stool he can reach to put the "laundrys" in, as he likes to say.

Celebrating Baw-Baw's 60th birthday!

 Margot's 1st birthday!

 Picnic at the Basehor Park

Caden loves story time at the library.  He participated in the Summer Reading Program and these were his prizes from Mr. Patrick.  

 Playing in his water table from Aunt Shannon.  He was carrying water to the empty flower pots and splashing in the mud.  Needless to say he was a dirty mess and got a bath before bed.  He also takes water to the bunny that hangs out in our gazebo.  Happy 26 months, Caden!

We had dinner at Trezo Mare to celebrate 10 years since Daddy asked Mommy to marry him!

 Family party for Baw-Baw, Aunt Megan and Grandma Mary Lu. 

 We went to Topeka for Mitch's cousins wedding.  

Daddy taught him to say, "I'm so handsome!"

 Trying out his new helmet at Papa & Memo's house.  Pretty cute! He loves to say, "watch out!"

 Wanted to wear his hat and sunglasses :)

 Helping Aunt LeeLee blow out her birthday candles.

 Swatting flies is something that make Caden laugh the hardest.  If he sees a fly he'll ask for the swatter and go after it.  Sometimes he carries my spatula around the house looking for flies, too.

 A very competitive game of Winnie the Pooh Uno was going on at

 our dining room table!

 He wanted to brush his teeth like Daddy :

 Hard at work on his new learning workbook!

Happy 27 months, Caden!

2 year update

Our little baby is 2! He is so much fun!  We haven't been for his 2 year well check appointment yet, so we did a few measurements at home.  Our scale shows he weighs 29 pounds, dressed.  He is 34 1/2 inches tall and his head circumference is 19 1/2 inches. He is wearing 24 mos/2T clothes, 7 1/2 wide shoes and just got his 14th tooth. His hair is getting so much longer, but is still pretty fine.  I think he's going to need a trim very soon.  I have no idea how many words he can say now.  He talks all the time and says several new words a day.  His digestion is doing much better.  We've been able to work all foods back in to his diet, except nuts,  and he's been handling dairy and wheat at dinner just fine, also.  He decided he didn't like sleeping in his crib anymore and started asking to sleep on the floor on a blanket.  We let him do that for more than a month and went ahead and took the front off of his crib to convert it to a toddler bed.  He was sleeping really well in there, but recently has gone back to sleeping on the floor.  

He loves to use the word, "nice" in many ways.  If he steps outside and the winds blows his hair, it's nice.  If he likes some food he eats, it's nice.  If some food is hot and he blows on it to cool it down, then it's nice.  If something hurts and then gets better, it's nice! :)  Jumping and running are some of his favorite things to do these days. 

We had a great time celebrating his birthday.  The Sunday before his birthday we invited some friends from church come play at the Basehor City Park.  We went with a barnyard theme.  I had fun decorating with that theme and Aunt Shannon helped me with the cake and cupcakes.  That evening we had a family BBQ at the park and he got to open his presents.  On his actual birthday, we went to Portrait Innovations and had his 2 year pictures taken.  Then we went to Deanna Rose Farmstead so he could play and see the animals.  The weather was really nice.  We ran a couple of other errands and had lunch at Fritz's.  We'd been there one other time and he liked it, so we went again.  He chose the turkey melt and fruit cup and kept asking for the train to come again.  After that, we went home and made homemade ice cream and had dinner.  We let him open his presents from us and play with them for a while before bed.  We got him a train set, some clothes for the fall, a couple of books and a play mat.  It was such a fun day!

Here are some pictures from the last month and from the parties :)

He needed all of his friends in his high chair with him.

He loves whipped cream!  He likes to help me make it and then lick

 the beaters, of course!

Mother's Day dinner at Yard House.  

We went the Tuesday before Mother's Day because I wanted to sit on the patio and that was the only day that it wasn't supposed to rain.  I had chicken nachos since it was also Cinco de Mayo. 

Caden wanted to ride the escalator a couple times before we left.  He rode one for the first time in the Atlanta airport and liked it

Mother's Day!  We had brunch on Saturday with Mitch's mom and I went to Cheesecake Factory with my mom and sisters on Mother's Day for an early dinner. When I got home, Caden gave me a card that he'd written on and a gift card for the new Dominos they're putting in Basehor so I can have a couple nights off from cooking.  Love that sweet boy that made me a mommy!

Giggling while he and Daddy were playing catch.

The Barnyard Birthday Party

The Barn Cake

with animal cupcakes :)

Looking excited for his party!

Loving his cupcake!

 Deanna Rose Farmstead

Lunch at Fritz's

 Playing with his new train set

 Caden is 2!!

This is the video I made of Caden's 2nd year

We love you!!

23 month update

I'm a little behind on the blog update.  Caden turned 23 months old just before our beach vacation, so the blog post got put on hold.  If you ask him how old he is, he'll say, "2 May!" He's already practicing.  It will be here before we know it.  Three new teeth are working their way in, finally!  His lowers molars and his other upper cuspid are part of the way through.  He can say all his numbers from 1-10 except 7.  Now we're just working on getting them in the right order.  He'll repeat the letters in the alphabet and can say all but 4 of the letters.  The "k" sound is tricky for him to say, so words involving that sound get substituted with a new sound of his choice.  It's pretty funny, because it's different in each word.  Last month I counted the words he could say but I can't keep track anymore.  He says so many new words all the time.  He says, "oh, sheesh" and it cracks me up.  I also like how he says, "ummm" while he's thinking and he says, "nope, yep, and yes" all the time.  He sound so grown up.  It's nice that he can communicate more.  For the first time he was able to tell me when something was hurting him.  He'd been kind of crying in his sleep and when I asked him about it the next morning, he pointed to his tooth and said it was owie.

I can't believe how closely he pays attention when we're driving around.  I'm pretty sure he could direct you to both of his granparent's houses.  When we take walks, he likes to walk now and when we get to an intersection, he likes to pick if we will go straight, left or right.  He still loves to sing and dance.  The 2 new songs he likes are "Ain't No Sunshine" and sings along when it repeats, "I know, I know, I know..." and a Need to Breathe song that has some "ohs" in the chorus that he sings.  If you even start whistling that song, he'll recognize it and start singing.  I love that he loves music and can't wait to sing more songs with him.  He has a lot of his books memorized and when I pause he fills in the words.  We have been spending lots of time outside.  He still watches the school buses each morning and afternoon and loves it when the bus goes by his house.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last month.

My boys were checking the oil and putting gas in both of their mowers.

 The day before Easter Caden took part in his first Easter egg hunt at Judson.  He wasn't sure what to think and kept saying there was trash in the yard.  He seemed to get the hang of it by the end of the hunt.  His cousins were hunting with him,  too.

 A few hours later he went on his 2nd egg hunt at Hancock's.  There was no competition here, all the eggs were his on this hunt.  After that, we got to hunt our eggs with Mike & Aimee.  Aimee & I changed into our running shoes and got lined up to hunt.  We are a little competitive :) There's money in our eggs, so of course we mean business!

 Helping Uncle Mike count his eggs

 Easter morning we worshipped at our church, Fellowship West.  What an exciting day to celebrate the hope that we have in Jesus!

Snuggling with the little lamb he got at church from Miss Reba.

 He looked so handsome in his Easter outfit. 

 So cute in their matching vests and pants. 

 Here he is hunting eggs on his 3rd and final hunt of the weekend.  We went to dinner at Grandma Mary Lu's with my family and Aunt Sally.  Caden & Owen hunted some eggs in the house since it cooled off that evening.  

 Caden and I started working on packing the week before the trip.  Well, I was packing and just as quickly he was unpacking.  :)

 The circle on his tray is where he puts the food he doesn't want :)  He used to throw the food on the floor if he didn't want it, so this is our compromise. 

We put him to work on his 23 month birthday.  That's old enough to start mowing, right?  He has to earn his keep!

 Doesn't he just look ornery?!

 Happy 23 month, Caden!!