Cayden's Birthday

The morning of Cayden's birthday he woke up to balloons covering the floor of his room. We greeted him and filled his crib up with balloons. At first he was confused but after he figured out what was going on he loved it!

 Sleepy face.

Then he and Adalyn sat in the living room to eat their breakfast of a banana and yogurt while they watched Disney Jr.

Jonathan took both kids to visit his office/work while I ran some errands for the party the next day. He took Adalyn to his work on her first birthday too. We met up for lunch at Chick-fil-a and then went home to take naps (kids) and work on party stuff (us). While the kids were asleep my parents came to town and helped us clean/decorate/make food/make curtains. (Yes, I did make curtains at the last minute because I couldn't stand my old ones a moment longer.)

After we had pizza for dinner (and baby food for C) Cayden got to open his gift from us. He was pretty cute the way he pulled out all of the tissue paper and then got so excited about his new tractor. We didn't have boyish toys in our house so a tractor was a necessity:)

We had a wonderful day celebrating Cayden. Of course the entire day I would look at the clock and think "last year at this exact time..." I don't think I'll ever grow out of doing that on my kids' birthdays. He was going to bed on his birthday night at the same exact time he was born last year and it just struck me as ironic as I was kissing him goodnight. I still can't believe my baby is ONE!

Happy Birthday Cayden!

Happy Birthday Cayden! I honestly can't believe this day is here already. It has been the fastest year of my life. After seeing it happen with Adalyn, I knew that each stage would fly by so I tried so hard to soak up every moment and enjoy every stage with Cayden. Yet I still feel like all of those stages went way too fast.

Cayden is the happiest baby! He is such so much fun to be around. He laughs and smiles so easily and is super ticklish. He absolutely loves his sister and wants to watch her and do everything she's doing. Now that he is a serious crawler, he is exploring everything! He loves crawling into his sissy's room and pulling the books and puzzles off her shelf. He also loves to explore all of the kitchen cabinets that he can get to while mommy's hands are busy making dinner. Anytime he hears music he stops what he's doing and starts dancing/swaying. He also loves clapping his little hands.

Here are a couple pictures from his birth day.

That day absolutely feels like yesterday. It is so vividly etched in my mind. If you would like a trip down memory lane with me, you can click here and here to read Cayden's birth story.

My newborn baby.

He has grown so much this past year! Here is the picture that I used on his birthday invitation. My little man!

And here are a couple pictures from Cayden's 12 month pictures with Jes. My little chunker with kissable cheeks!

Cayden, you are such a joy. I can't even imagine our family without you in it. We love you so very much. Happy 1st birthday baby boy!

One Year ago...

One year ago today this was me. Little did I know that I would be induced the next day! I can't believe it's been a year! Someone please pass the kleenex. Mama's having a hard time accepting reality.

 And look at my baby girl!! She had no hair! Someone please stop time. I can't handle it!

Anniversary Date

So I just have to share this picture from our anniversary date. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you saw this picture, but I still have to post it. Jonathan and I don't go out to dinner without the kids near enough! We need to be more intentional about going on dates, but it's just hard to do. We got a friend of mine from work to watch the kids (the kids had an awesome time!) and we went to eat at a Hibachi Steak House. Our dinner was delicious and Jonathan even let me order a sushi roll and he ate 2 pieces!  After dinner we were full but we really wanted some chocolate-y dessert so we went to another restaurant to get desserts. And oh my. We each ordered our own HUGE dessert and we both finished them!  All in all it was a wonderful 2 hours spent with my hubs!

4th of July!

Yes, it is the end of July and I'm posting our 4th of July pictures. That's my life lately:) Leading up to the holiday we had been living in monsoon land and it had been raining for days. So of course the 4th got here and it rained and poured all day. We were bummed. We usually spend the 4th with Jonathan's family at a fun cookout. His aunt always has everyone over and rents blow up slides for both the big kids and the small kids. We have yearly pictures in our matching red, white and blue outfits for the past 3 years there and I was so bummed that we didn't get to go this year. I had to get pictures of my kids in their red, white and blue tho.

Adalyn kept walking around saying "Happy Independence day!" It was so stinkin cute so I had to get it on video. Of course Cayden was yelling and Adalyn was whispering. I hope you can hear her!



So what do you do on the 4th of July when your cookout is rained out? You do the All-American thing and go shopping at Sams! Adalyn absolutely loves going to Sams because she gets to sit next to Cayden in the cart. (Just the other night she got in her Cozy Coup Car and told us "Bye, bye. I'm going to Sams." She cracks us up!) BTW, all stores should have these carts!

(She was throwing me a kiss in this pic.)

I had to dress them in holiday clothes for church on Sunday too. Here are some pics. Of course I can never get both kids looking and smiling at the camera at the same time! 

Since our day was rained out I feel like we missed out on the holiday this year. We didn't eat cookout food or watch fireworks. (Thanks to our neighbors we HEARD them for days afterwards...) I'll never complain about a day off work to spend with my three favorite people though!

Cayden Crawling!!

I can't believe I did it! I captured Cayden's first crawl on video! Cayden started crawling June 30th right after he turned 11 months. I could tell his was oh so close to crawling and was doing lots of almost-crawling so I pulled out my phone and I captured it. Of course I have to share it on here. You're just going to have to ignore the crazy excited mommy voice:)



He is now a crawling pro and is all over the place. I think since he started crawling so late, he had had extra time to sit and look at items that he wanted to explore and check out when the time came that he could get to them. It was like he had an agenda. Adalyn is still getting used to her brother getting into her toys/crafts/treasures. :)

11 Months

Cayden turned 11 months old June 26th while we were in Florida. He's getting to be such a big boy. At 11 months he was not yet crawling but he was oh so close. All of his cousins were working with him trying to get him to crawl. They would hold out their iphones or Nintendo DS and he would try oh so hard to crawl to whatever it was. They each wanted the "win" at teaching since cousin Lauren had gotten Adalyn to crawl when we were on vacation at their house two summers ago! Cayden was able to scoot around on his belly a little bit. And was excellent scooting backwards. We weren't used to him moving so we were all surprised when he moved himself over to a side table and pulled a lamp down on his head. Poor guy got a little goose egg on his forehead. Of course the day after we returned home (the 30th) he started officially crawling!  While we were in Florida Cayden figured out how to get from his tummy to a sitting position. We saw him sitting up in the pack-n-play on the monitor!

Cayden had (and still has) 4 teeth. He has three on the bottom and one on top. The top tooth is a side tooth so he has the funniest smile! I just figured after the third bottom tooth popped through that the other side would be right behind it, but it still hasn't come in. It feels like he's been teething for forever!

As of last week at the doctor's office, Cayden weighs 22 lbs. He's a little chunk. He's growing out of a lot of his 12 month clothes. He's wearing a size 4 diaper but he is still in a size 1 or 2 shoe! Little feet!!

Early in June Cayden got sick and had a lot of nasty diapers. I took him in to the doctor and after some testing we found that he had C.diff which is a bacterial infection. Thankfully he didn't have many other symptoms. The medication was for 21 days and he seemed all cleared up until he had been off the medication for about two weeks and his diapers got bad again. So as of yesterday we are back on another 21 days of medication. Hopefully the second time is a charm. Thankfully he's not crabby and he's being such a trooper about it!

Cayden has the best little personality. He's still super laid back and just loves being entertained by his sister. He buries his little head in my neck and cuddles. (Unless he's ready for bed and in that case, he doesn't want to cuddle at all!) He's very ticklish and it's precious to hear him giggle. The only time he's not happy is when he is hungry. And boy can EAT. He is never ever full and doesn't like running out of food! And you better not let him see his bottle before you're ready to feed it to him (he won't hold it himself) or he will go off!

Here are some pictures from Cayden's 11 month pictures. After we took these pictures Jonathan tore his bed apart and dropped the mattress down so now he feels like a big boy in a big bed!

I can't believe how tan this little boy got on vacation! He was lathered in sunscreen and under shades at all times!

7 Years ago

Seven years ago today I walked down the aisle (in a church that is no longer standing - glad our marriage has lasted longer than that church!) to marry my best friend. It's amazing how fast the years have passed. I'm so blessed to have him as my partner in life. We work so well together. We just "get" each other. I honestly feel like I can read his thoughts most of the time. He is the best daddy! He paints Adalyn's nails when she asks, plays Pretty Pretty Princess, and will sit through Disney movies with her just because she wants to cuddle with her daddy. He loves his boy too! Now that Cayden  is mobile, he gets on the floor with him and lets him crawl all over him. I know he's just itching until Cayden is old enough to wrestle. So for now he'll settle with tickling and playing with him!

We celebrated the exact same way as we did last year. We booked a couples massage and went to brunch at a fancy restaurant downtown (in the same building as the massage). We decided last year that we enjoyed just spending some time relaxing together instead of just buying each other stuff for our anniversary. It was such a nice way to spend our Saturday morning! I do have to say that it was a bit surreal because my mind kept flipping back to last year when we were at this same massage center. I was less than 2 weeks away from delivering Cayden. It's just baffling to know how fast that last year just went!

Tonight we're going to go out to dinner and enjoy eating dinner at a restaurant without trying to keep two kids quiet!

Jonathan, I love you so much. Thank you for sticking by me these last 7 years. I can't wait to see what God has for us in the future. You are such a wonderful husband and daddy. I couldn't ask for any more!