It was a rough day at daycare today...

No picture of this... I went to pick up Caden today and once again... He got bit. He actually was bit 2 times today. It turns out that it's a different girl from the last biting episode. This time Caden actuall pushed a girl down and when she got up, she bit him. Oh boy. He likes to bite me & Justin and we are working on teaching him that is not OK. I guess we should be happy I didn't get a report that he bit someone.

He also fell and scraped his knee but no incident report on that one. High drama at daycare today!

New Discovery - the broom

Well, I thought I would be ambitious and sweep the floor last night. Wrong. I guess I don't normally sweep when Caden is around - usually this is a naptime activity. Well, he really wanted the broom. I am a softie, so I gave him the broom. What happiness! He just pushed it around for about 5 minutes. Here he is running full speed ahead. Notice he leads with his chest/stomach. It's pretty funny to watch.
Caden is very accident prone, I am not kidding. This weekend, he had a few bumps and bruises in what I am sure is the beginning of a lot more climbing and crashing. He actually pulled a lamp from a dresser into his pack & play. Thank goodness it didn't break or it would be a new lamp for the Rings and a trip to the ER for us. After that bruise, Caden bonked his head on the wall, tripped and fell many times, and even climbed up a chair to the window sill. Oh yeah, He also stuck an entire walnut - shell & all - in his mouth and then smiled.

As one friend pointed out to me, this could be a great weight loss gimick - chase the toddler! I wonder what he will find on the cruise ship? Good thing there will be 8 of us to chase him. I think we will need all the help we can get.

Some new tricks that Caden has up his sleeve:

He can say 6 words - mama (new 5/25), eye (5/25), uh oh, dada, "bobbi" (we don't know what that is, we are calling it his imaginary friend) and down

He can also point to his cheek when he says eye (at 15 months, what do you expect)

He also knows how to play "so big" and ring around the rosy.

He also brings us his sweatshirt to put on, and usually wants to go to daycare when that is on.

He is talking to himself when he opens a book, I think he is imitating me reading to him. His official check-up is coming up in 2 1/2 weeks, so we will have his height & weight stats then.

More fun on Memorial day

We put Caden on this trike. He really liked it, but it was a little bit too big. His feet didn't touch the ground or the pedals. Maybe next time. He still loved it. In case you don't know, this is what he looks like when he is doing something he probably shouldn't be. Halfway through, he turns around and gives a grin of "ha"
Caden & Charlie took a bath together. This could have been a disaster since Charlie doesn't always like to share toys or be so close to Caden. This was a good bath. They shared the toys and no one drowned. :)
After the bath, they put on their super hero pajamas. Charlie was Robin and Caden was batman. the roles were reversed since batman is typically bigger than Robin, but Charlie's Batman pjs were dirty, so we didn't switch them.
This was definitely a wonderful weekend to spend with the Ring family, and let Charlie and Caden play together. Thanks for inviting us, and we hope to be invited back again. :)

Memorial Day weekend - Part 2

My dad was able to stop by for a quick 24 hour visit. He was on a wildland fire call, so after he was finished, he came to hang out with us.
Okay, here is the real prize fish. Justin caught this using a worm! It is a rainbow trout and it's 24 inches and 3.5 pounds. He was very proud of his catch. He called his grandpa immediately to tell him the good news, but he wasn't home. This is Justin and I relaxing on the pontoon boat ride. We left Caden on dry land. He had already tried to go in the water in his lifejacket from the dock, we decided not to tempt fate with a boat. Matt's aunt offered to watch Caden so we could go on a boat ride. it was fun.
this is how the boys like to eat. Up on the counter in their booster seats.
While on the boat ride, this seemed to be one of the safe places for Caden - the swing. His feet weren't touching the ground so he couldn't go too far.

Memorial Day weekend - Part 1

It was a wild and fun weekend for Memorial day. We went to Deer Lake and spent the weekend with my sister and all of her in-laws (parent in-laws, sister in law, cousins in law, aunts in law and grandparents in law) Lots of family. We had so much fun. We went on a walk and put Caden & Charlie in the double stroller. This went pretty well. They seemed to be happy.
When we got back to the house from the walk, justin caught a small fish. The big fish came the next day. Here is him holding the small fish. Caden discovered the sit & spin. He really liked this. At one point, he even stood up on the top part. Just call him Dangerous!
This was Caden jumping on the Thomas the Train bed. It's actually for Charlie to sleep in, but he wasn't as excited about it as Caden was.
The next day, Charlie hadn't been eating much, but when Cheryl got out the tongs for hot dogs, they seemed like the perfect eating utensil for Charlie. This was pretty funny to see him eat deli meat with tongs.

Caden Look-alike Meter

That's right, Caden looks equally like both of us. Just in case people were curious.

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Sitting at the table

Tonight Caden ate dinner at the kitchen table with me. I put him in his booster chair and he didn't use the tray. I bought him a new monkey plate so that he could try eating at the table. It's plastic so if that plan backfired I wouldn't have a broken plate. He did good until the end. When he was done, he picked up his plate and gave it to me, spilling peas all over. Oh well, we will keep teaching him about the table. Someday he will get to sit there all the time.

It's warm here in Spokane!

So it has been a little warm here lately, nothing compared to Phoenix, but in my defense, no one's AC works like Phoenix either. In fact the A/C at work broke and it was about 85 inside and 83 outside. Talk about misery!

Caden now has some sunglasses. He likes to play with ours so we got him his own pair. He likes to put them on and take them off.
The next two pictures are of Caden in his new summer romper. It's hot out, so this was the best way to cool off. He is looking out the window at the Ring family leaving. They came over to fix our sprinkler system. Matt has sprinkler skills that he put to work for us. I am happy to report that our sprinkler system now is operational! Thanks Matt!

More parade shots

This is actually before the parade started. Caden and Charlie were just chillin in their strollers. The people next to us started talking to the little guys and it freaked them out a bit, so they ended up on our shoulders. I really like this new green shirt Caden is wearing. The color is very springy. It's a cars shirt. He doesn't know about the Cars movie, but Charlie knew what Caden was wearing.

Fun at the Torchlight Parade

Caden seems to like the parades, so we went to another one. We should have gotten there a bit earlier if we wanted to sit on the curb. Little did we know, but people put their chairs out the night before. We just picked a spot where we could see and I put Caden up on my shoulders. Justin was working, so he watched the parade on TV. Jeannette and Charlie were with us. We enjoyed the bands and the princesses. On the way to the parade, we asked Charlie what we will see at the parade. After listing off the instruments in a band, he also said we would see lions and tigers. We thought that was a circus. We were wrong. One of the high schools has a tiger for their mascot. So Charlie was right, we saw a tiger.

Jeannette and I had some good laughs about our days in the parade. Her blog refers to her nerd days in the band playing the drums. I was nerdier and played the clarinet. I ditched that after middle school, but do remember the parade practice with Mr Blank. He made us practice the corners a lot. Don't worry, in high school I still got to be in the parade, I was behind the band as part of the flag team. It was glorious! No pictures of that online, but maybe we could find one. :)

It's a scorcher!

It's going to be a hot one today! It's going to be in the 80's. It has been so fun to go home after work each day this week and see what is blooming in the yard. We have a compost that is working overtime too. We also have a sprinkler system that we haven't yet figured out how to turn on. That is this weekend's plan. We have a lot planned for the weekend, so I should have some great pictures to add. Daycare has asked us to bring in some family pictures. I asked why, I guess Caden is going to be child of the month. I don't know what that means. I wish it meant he got a free week of daycare, but we are not that lucky. :)

Here in Spokane it seems that we have skipped spring and are going straight to summer. Time to find the shorts!

Things you don't want to hear at daycare...

When I went to pick-up Caden today, the first words out of the teachers mouth - "so you heard about his bump right?" No, I hadn't. It turns out, Caden took a bit of a spill on the playground. He was climbing up the stairs, tripped and bumped his head. sounds a little like humpty dumpty if you ask me. Well he now has a big red mark on his forehead and I had to sign another incident report. We usually have about 1 incident report a week of something he did or fell or my favorite - He got bit. That has happened a few times.

Well here is a picture of this tough little guy - He is wearing his camouflage sweatshirt that Aunt Ashley sent him. He is a funny one.

Happy Mothers day!

Most people I know put up pictures on their blogs of their peaceful mother's days captured on film. Ours was very relaxing, but we don't have a photo of that. I woke up to Caden delivering me a present in bed. When I opened the card, he started to unwrap the present. He knows what to do with a present - unwrap it! Then Justin made us omelets and mochas. No need to go out to brunch when you can have it in your pj's. then we went to Lowe's and bought some flowers for our flower beds in front of the house.

Later we had dinner - Shepherd's pie. Nothing fancy, but delicious. (and I didn't have to cook). Caden continued to master feeding himself. The crowning moment of dinner was after he ate his yogurt, and smeared it on his face and shirt, he then decided to balance his spoon on his head. Justin and I got the giggles, even though we should not be encouraging him to throw his food around, we couldn't help but laugh.

Happy Mothers day to me! After dinner, he went straight to the bath.

Dinner at five mile pizza

It turns out, the ball crawl is becoming extinct. That was my favorite part of chuck e cheese when we were little. Chuck doesn't have a ball crawl anymore, but five mile pizza does. We had heard about it, but this was our first visit. True to form, Caden loved it. When he got to the edge of the pit, he just stepped off into the balls! Of course, we had to pull him out so he could do it again, but he really liked it.
After the ball crawl, we went back to the table for our dinner. To entertain us while we ate, Caden did a lot of "how big is Caden" So big!
He is an entertainer to say the least!

Another day at Shrimp Kippers

Saturday was Caden's last day at Shrimp Kippers swim class. We took a parent child swim class and I went for most of the weeks, but convinced Justin to go the last week and get in the pool with Caden. We decided it was definitely more of a mommy class, but everyone was a good sport. Caden used his little kickers on the kickboard, Justin tried to teach him to surf. The teacher said every dad tries that with their child.... This is Caden and Cole swimming together. I work with Cole's mom Amy and they are about 4 months apart. We are hoping they can be friends.
After swim class on the walk to the car, we took the bridge over the Spokane Falls. The water was really moving. Caden likes to be in the back pack, which is good since that is how he will spend our excursions on the cruise next month. He doesn't like to be in the stroller anymore...

Caden can take his shirt off!

We knew it was a matter of time before it would happen. Caden can take off his shirt all by himself. We were all hanging out on Saturday and Caden went into the kitchen and all of a sudden he was quiet. So we said Caden where are you. He peeked around the counch and Justin and I started laughing. He didn't have his shirt on. Our little tarzan was too hot so he took it off. It was pretty funny. This is the beginning of being afraid if he is quiet.

Part 2 - last night after dinner, Justin was laying on the floor playing with Caden. Caden took off and came back a minute later with Justin's soda in a cup. He handed it to Justin without spilling any. Justin was so surprised Caden brought him his cup, that Justin then spilled it. We both were very confused how he got it. We forgot that he can reach things on the table now.

I think we are headed for a padded house soon!

Bloomsday 2008

Every year in Spokane, the first Sunday in May, there is a run. It's called Bloomsday. Many people participate in this every year. Some say that you are not a local until you do it. So, in my quest to become a spokanite, Jeannette convinced me to sign up with her. The morning of the race, she got sick, so I went without her. Here I am, ready to go on Sunday morning. I have my number on and had a great breakfast. I am hydrated and ready to walk the 7.46 miles. Oh boy, I was tired at the end. There is not an after picture because I couldn't even move at that point. My official results are: time 2 hours 17 minutes. I estimated 2 hrs 15 minutes, so not too shaby. Bloomsday gives you other rankings too: I finished 30,583 out of 42,697 overall, I finished 336 out of 459 in the category of 31 year old females, but my favorite stat is this: I finished 3rd out of people with the same last name. (there were only 3 of us, and I finished 3rd) Funny thing is, there was a man with the same last name who finished in 2hrs 15 minutes. I guess that I will try to beat him next year!

It was fun, but I am very tired and sore. When I got home, I crashed on the couch. Caden jumped on me, but that's ok. you can call me a Bloomie now!

Sigma Kappa Ladies

Well, Anne is married now, so the single sigma kappa ladies are dwindling down. Here is a picture of us the night of the rehearsal dinner at Greg's Uncle's house. It was an amazing location! The 4 of ladies all lived in Sigma Kappa 1996 - 1997 and now, 11 years later, we are all married. It's fun to stay in touch and be able to see everyone again. In case you don't know who everyone in the picture is, this is the run down...
Me, Anne (bride), Stephanie and Jessica.