A typical night for Caden

Now that we are in Spokane, we really miss the doggy door. When I get home from work each day, the circus begins. I get Caden all bundled up, put him in the stroller, get the dogs on a leash, and then we set out. Our dogs can't just go to the bathroom anywhere, they have to find the perfect spot. Then we head home. This is Caden when we are taking the dogs on a walk. We got him a hat and he is wearing one of his sweaters knit by Grandma Irene.
After walking the dogs, it's time to eat. Caden usually has some sort of Vegetable & meat combination in a jar with Rice cereal added. He likes it pretty well. You can kind of see his tooth in the picture. I will work on getting a good tooth picture.

This was yesterday's experiment. I decided to let Caden help feed himself. We suctioned the bowl to the tray, I gave him a special spoon with a looped handle and then I fed him with another spoon. As you can see, this made a huge mess, but he had fun. The funniest thing he did was submerge his hand into the whole bowl of carrots. When he took his hand out, he wiggled each finger and was very surprised to see that there was food on it. Pretty entertaining to feed this guy.

After he eats, then he gets a bath and goes to bed. Bedtime is getting better since he is so tired, he doesn't really fight it anymore. He goes to bed around 7pm each night. Once he is down, I get to make myself something and get prepped for the next day.

I go to Sacramento on Monday and will be back late Wednesday. I will miss the little guy, I know he will learn something new while I am gone. Justin will be on his own with the little guy, so I am sure that will be fun for him.

A quick look into eating with Caden

Well, I hope that this is exciting for everyone.... I think I figured out how to upload a video on here. It's not too exciting since this was a test, but if it works, I will try to do more. I know that it's exiciting to be able to see Caden in Action. He has been very active lately. He really likes to feed himself, or at least help you feed him. He grabs on to the spoon a lot. He also has 2 teeth now. A new trick that he learned in the last few days is he can pull himself up using me as the anchor. He can get himself to standing. He is definitely a climber. Nothing is safe now. If he keeps at this rate, he may skip crawling and go from army crawl to walking. We will see what happens. Well, I hope the video entertains you. It's mostly me talking, but Caden makes some noise too.

What's new in Spookaloo?

At work, someone does not like to have negative nicknames of Spokane, so she likes to call our town Spookaloo. So I will go with that too.

This week, we have been busy with Caden. He is getting his first 2 teeth, has a cold and is spitting up a lot. He seems to be doing better now that we are giving him his medicine.

The other excitement here is Dancing with the Stars. That's right, it's a new season! I have now reached a new level of coolness - I voted online for my favorite stars! WE will see who the winner will be, but I know it will be an entertaining show. Don't worry, Justin is thrilled that I am into this... Not really, but he puts up with it.

It's getting cold here, so I bought a winter coat. It kept me warm today, so it was a good purchase. Even better since I got it at Costco!

That's all with the Finnegan's today. No pictures, but maybe tomorrow.

Green Bluff Farms

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to Green Bluff farms. It is about 30 farms in an area that have all sorts of produce. You can pick your own or buy it already made. I chose to buy the apple pie that was already made. My sister is a bit more ambitious about the apples than I am. They bought a box that they picked and she is a baking machine. It was a pretty entertaining day. Cousin Charlie was frightened by the pygmy goats and the ponies. So I guess they will be saving a lot of money since they won't have to buy him any pony rides any time soon.

Caden pretty much just hung out and smiled alot during the day. Charlie found that he liked to push the cart. He didn't want to ride in it though.



We could not get them in the cart at the same time for a picture. Each time they were in the cart together, Caden grabbed Charlie and he would scream. We also met Jeannette's friend Rikki with her baby Samantha. Caden actually grabbed her mouth and pulled her lip so she cried too. I guess Caden is a bit of a bully. He also gave Samantha a kiss, so he's a lady's man too.

Swim class

Saturday morning was our first swim class. It's called Swim Kippers at the YMCA. It's the mommy & baby swim class for 6 months to 18 months. Caden is one of the youngest and Charlie is one of the oldest.

It's hard to get these two to look at the camera because Caden is usually poking Charlie in the face. Caden really liked the water. It's not really a swim lesson, there is no one screaming "pull touch" at the top of their lungs at you. It is more to get them to like the water.

Caden likes to pretend to nap in the water. Whenever the kickboard was being used, he put his face down on it like he was going to sleep. I have to watch him to make sure he doesn't drown himself.

Riding the Daddle

WE were over at Jeannette's house on Friday and we wanted to see if Caden could ride the Daddle

It turns out he is a little too small to ride it on his own, but as you can see, he is having fun trying. Justin is wearing the daddle - It's a backpack that is a saddle. It was pretty funny.

Spokane Interstate fair

This week we went to the Spokane Interstate fair with Cousin Charlie and his entourage (the Ring family). It was quite fun. The highlight for me was Mutton Bustin, where the kids under 60 pounds try to ride the sheep bareback. They get decked out in helmets and chest pads and then get "2 hands full of wool and hold on!" It was pretty entertaining.

Caden just loves to be held by whomever wants to hold all 18 pounds 15 oz of him. He is all smiles with Cheryl (Charlie's grandma).
This is Matt (Jeannette's husband) climbing the rock wall. When they visited us in November, Jeannette tried to climb the wall for a candy bar or a drink, not sure which. She didn't make it to the top, but neither did Matt.

Yep The World Championship of Mutton bustin. I am pretty sure that Caden will be doing this in 2 years. The kids were so cute, holding on to the sheep for dear life. They just had to stay on for 6 seconds in order to have the chance to win a belt buckle. No one made it 6 seconds, so they gave it to the person that stayed on the longest.

It was good old fashioned fun for us at the fair, and cheap too. It only cost $4 to get in!

It's official - we are Washingtonians!

That's right - we have Washington License plates again! Oh yeah, not just Washington plates, but Cougar plates! Showing the Cougar pride - Go Cougs!
On a side note - last week was my first week at the new job! I love it! It is going to be a fun job, but also a challenge. I get to sell the city of Spokane to groups. The hard part is going to be finding the groups. My market is the Southwest US, so I will be looking for companys and associations that could have their events in Spokane.

Caden has been at Kindercare and he really likes it too. Our agenda this week - Go to the Interstate fair and Caden has his 6 month check-up (he's 7 months now...) I hope we don't get in trouble.

Hanging out with cousin charlie

It seems that lately these 2 guys can't get enough of each other. Caden and Charlie get to spend a lot of time together. Charlie doesn't like it when Caden touches him, so when that happens, he peels Caden's fingers off of him one by one.

When we go on walks with the strollers, they give each other the stare down. It's pretty funny to watch them.


Today we went to the mall. I watched the boys play at the play structure while Jeannette got a hair cut. Charlie climbed up the tree slide about 30 times. Caden just crawled around the carpet.

We also went to lunch in the food court. Caden can now sit in one of the restaurant highchairs. We just sterilize the area first with baby wipes since you never know what was there before.

On a side note, Caden is very mobile now. He can pull/drag/crawl his way around. He is very interested in the dog dishes, so we have to move those off the ground in order to not have any dog/baby fights. We are keeping a watchful eye on him since he moves so quickly. He also is getting rug burn on his legs, so we are trying to keep him in pants. It doesn't work very well because he just crawls out of them. I guess he needs to wear overalls.

Driving home from Seattle

I can assure you that driving 5 hours with a 7 month old is not fun. I do not reccomend it on your own with a baby. Case in point - Caden did not want to be in his car seat starting at hour 2. At that point he started crying. My solution - stop at whatever rest stop is available and change his diaper, feed him and let him sit in the stroller. As you can see, he was fine with the stroller. This is the view from one of the many rest stops - this was near the gorge and that is the Columbia River. for the locals out there, this is across the river from Vantage at the horse monument. Not a bad view to look at with your crying baby. The funny thing is that at the rest stop, there was another person with a 2 year old who hated the car too. They had a portable DVD to watch goofy, but it didn't help that much (at least that's what they told me).

A new babysitter - Good Rates

Caden had a new baby sitter for the wedding - Grandpa Rick. It was definitely a good deal for us - free! Caden and Grandpa had fun scooting around the floor.

Caden is definitely an eater. When we got there he ate 2 jars of food for dinner. I keep expecting him to push the food away when he is full.... It doesn't seem to happen with this one. I think that is an old wives tale. :)

Emily & Derek's Wedding

Moving back to the Northwest makes it easier to get together and go to the special events that I haven't been able to go to living in Phoenix. On Labor day weekend, I was able to meet-up with some friends and go to Emily & Derek's wedding. This is Jessica, Julie, myself and Natalie. We have a picture of the four of us from about 4 years ago and we all look very different.

This is the first official picture of Mr & Mrs Witt.

Congratulations to the happy couple! It was a beautiful wedding.