It's officially Cold!

Winter has arrived! It actually arrived on Monday night! It snowed about 3 inches on Monday night, so it took us an hour to get to work on Tuesday due to the snow on the roads and the large amount of people on 1 road. Lucky for me, my dad is in town and he shoveled my car out of the snow and scraped my windows too!

The Escape did well in the snow, after a few years of being away, we didn't forget what to do in the snow! Although I did have a few flashbacks to the supertrooper sliding into the highway divider. That was 10 years ago, which is extremely hard to believe. I only know it was 10 years ago, because it was right before the rose bowl.

With the snow, I am not fully prepared. It's like I didn't believe it was really coming. I don't have snow boots yet, but lucky for me, my mom has a pair here that I can wear. I also couldn't find my gloves, hat & scarf, so I bought new ones about 3 weeks ago. (we found the gloves, hats and scarves on Sunday, so now I have back-up).

Caden doesn't really know about snow yet, but our dogs don't really like it. Their feet get cold, maybe we need to get them some shoes. We only have 1 Christmas decoration out right now, and since it has started snowing again, I don't think any decorations will be added tomorrow.

On a side note, Justin is really liking his job and is having fun. I too am loving my job. The change has been good for both of us. Sadly, our house is still for sale in Phoenix. Let's make that our Christmas wish - sell that house!

It's the Apple Cup - Go Cougs!

For Apple cup Saturday, we got all dressed up for the occasion. We all put on our favorite cougar attire and went over to the Rings house (Matt is a husky fan). It was a long afternoon, can Caden wasn't in to napping this afternoon. Here is my dad with Caden and Charlie. Charlie is in his husky jersey and Caden is wearing his new cougar shirt, courtesy of Pete and Vanessa. It's a little big, but it should fit him during football season next year.
Caden is pushing Charlie a bit, that is what the Cougs did - Push the Huskies around a bit.

Ultimately the Cougars won, and Charlie likes to say Go Cougs! I think if Caden could talk, he would say Go cougs too!

New tricks for Caden

Well, it's official, nothing is safe in our house. Caden is crawling and really likes to pull himself up to standing, so that means we have baby gates up and anything that he could harm, put away and up high. He moves pretty quickly now. In fact, he was banging our dog food dishes together tonight and chipped one, so those are now going away and we will be buying some metal ones that won't be a baby hazard.

Sorry this is blurry, but he was on the move. You can see he is doing more crawling and less army crawl.

Caden and my mom found a new game to play and he really loves it. She takes her finger and swirls it in the air and buzzes like a bee and he laughs so hard. It is so funny to watch.

Can you just hear him laugh? He is pretty cute!

Just one more dog!

Don't worry, we did not get another dog... Justin finally got to meet my brother's dog Hamlet. Justin got to take him on some jogs around the neighborhood and play with him in the yard. Pete and Vanessa did have a surprise for us, they got a second dog. That's right, they now have 2 great danes. Good luck with that. We have a hard time with 2 dogs and ours weigh 15 pounds each at the most.
Last but not least, here is our crazy thanksgiving picture. My camera was the last one, there were 3 others before me and they all had multiple shots. I got one chance. As you can see, Charlie was real tired of getting his picture taken. I think it was because Caden was touching him in some previous pictures.
Thanksgiving was fun, my sister hosted the shindig. We all brought different items to dinner and she cooked the turkey. Her in-laws also came for the festivities, but we didn't get a picture of everyone. Maybe next time.

Nap time with Charlie

My mom was babysitting Charlie and I came home during naptime. Caden was asleep in his crib, so Charlie needed a place to sleep. The solution was, Charlie can just lay down next to grandpa and take a nap. This worked well until Charlie woke up and didn't remember where he was or who was sleeping next to him. There were some tears, but all was well within a minute.
Back to the books - Charlie loves books.

Babysitting Charlie

Last week I was able to finally return the favor to Jeannette, I could babysit Charlie. Things went very well until bath time. I was just going to give Caden a bath, but Charlie kept walking into the bathroom and saying "bath" and when I asked him, do you want a bath? He said "yes!" So he went in the tub with Caden. It was pretty funny they like to play with all the toys and are fine sharing the tub. After we got everyone into their jammies, Jeannette and Matt came back from their date to pick up Charlie. They had a nice date, which I know is rare to have a date when you have a small child.

This was another day when Charlie was here. He climbed into the big rocking chair with a lego helicopter. Caden just likes to stand up, so he is holding on to Charlie. This is rare that they both looked at the camera and are not attacking each other. Usually Charlie peels Caden's fingers off of him, he doesn't want to be touched.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a heads up, I know I need to upload some pictures. We had a nice Thanksgiving with my family and are getting settled back in. I will try and add some pics and updates tonight. We are thinking of everyone in this holiday season. We definitely are missing everyone in all of their locations.

Cadne had a good DR check-up yesterday. His head is in the 100th percentile, but his weight is in the 30th and his height the 40th. That means he has a large head. Oh well, he doesn't seem to mind.

Milwaukee

I have been in Milwaukee for the last few days. It's pretty chilly here, but we are mostly inside. I am staying at the Hyatt here, this property has been renovated in spots (new beds, old furniture). Anyways, I have basically been networking with Nurses for the last few days. In some ways it is like sorority rush, trying to remember who I spoke with and what I can remember about them. The good news is, they are remembering us - we are giving out starbucks coffee cards and my co-worker had some extra jars of apple butter, which turns out is very popular. Who knew?

I definitely am missing my family, but will be home tonight. I can't wait for Thanksgiving! We will have lots of family time then.

Justin is really liking his new job and he should be off for Thanksgiving which will be wonderful.

That's the update here.

Family Day at Green Bluff

Saturday was a great day, we called it family day. Justin had the day off, so I got to tour him around Spokane to many places he had not yet visited. One of the unique places we went was to Green Bluff, which is an area with about 30 different farms. Each farm has something different and not all of them are open at the same time of year. There are Christmas tree farms, winerys, Fruit orchards and Pumpkin patches. With it being November, it is the end of the season, but it was still fun to see. We bought some apple cider and another pie. Maybe next year I can pick my own apples and make a few pies... anyways, Here are some pictures of Caden in the Pumpkins. We couldn't get him to look at the camera, he kept looking at me instead.

You can definitely see his red hair, now if only he would grow more of it.

Spokane Update!

Just a quick heads up to everyone. Justin has resigned from the Davenport hotel and has started working at a brand new restaurant here in Spokane called Scratch! They open on Wednesday, and today was his first day. He is thrilled at the concept of the new restaurant - everything is made from scratch, hence the name. I know that it will be a new challenge for him, but one that he is looking forward to. On a side note, this will let us cut back at daycare and go to part time, which is way less money!!!!!!

Finnegan Family Photo

Here is a picture from Caden's 6 month pictures back in August - It's the Finnegan Family. Aren't we cute all in Red! It's amazing how much bigger Caden is from just 3 months ago.

Halloween Fun

Halloween was pretty fun this year. I dressed up for work - I was a Chef. (thanks hubby for the clothes!) The Ring family came over before they went to visit the relatives and show off Charlie. They also needed a place to eat their Zips. We were happy to provide the location.
This is Charlie saying Cheese with his mouth full of cheese! Funny what this guy thinks of to do.
This is Caden eating his dinner before trick or treating. Ravioli's and green beans. Yum!
This is Caden for Halloween and me as a chef. Stunning, I know.
We had a hard time getting both Yoda and Pooh to look at the camera at the same time. Especially since we had all these toys that Charlie doesn't get to see all the time.
This is after trick or treating to about 10 houses. Caden was asleep on our walk home. (He woke up for the picture).

His new trick this week is to actually crawl. He finally has done it with his belly off the ground. He does go back to dragging himself around, but we are making progress.