Annie & Charlie's Birthday

My sister decided to have a combined birthday to save herself some work. Charlie & Annie's birthdays are about a month apart, so she decided to have 1 party for all the family and then Charlie is having a kid party. It was fun to see everyone and Annie was all dressed up for her big day. She has a little bow in her hair. Caden is showing her how to use her new toy piggy bank. (my mom is reading the directions). This was just a cute picture - Caden & Charlie are looking out the window to see what Grandpa Rick is doing. He brought them balloons since Charlie's escaped out the mini van after Caden's party.

Charlie & Caden are testing out Charlie's new wagon. They like it, it has cup holders.

Now for the cakes! Jeannette made a light saber cake for Charlie. He loves star wars and so it's only fitting that he got a cake.

Jeannette made Annie a doll cake. My mom used to make Doll cakes for us and we thought they were pretty great. So when Jeannette pushed us to make the pirate cake for Caden, she realized, she could definitely make the light saber and doll cake. Good work sister!

Happy St Patrick's day!

We went to the St Patrick's day parade this year again, and we had more people with us. Charlie & Caden were like little candy magnets. People kept giving it to them. At one point, Caden was drooling blue!

This is Charlie's Great uncle driving the car. Fun to see someone we know in the parade.
This is Caden & Charlie with their candy. it was cold out there, but they were thrilled to have the candy. Jeannette and I started hiding after a while because of last time Caden had too much candy (lots of diaper explosions)!

Speaking of knowing people. The girl in the hat is one of my co-workers. Her husband is in the green tie. :)

A trip to Deer Lake

After my first trip to DC, we went to Deer Lake for the weekend so that Justin could go skiing with my sister and her husband. Her in-laws live at Deer lake and it's close to one of the ski areas so it makes for less driving in a day of skiing. Her in-laws have tons of toys for the kids to play with, including another wiggles guitar. So, of course Caden found the guitar and got busy dancing. Charlie wasn't real interested in that. Caden decided to push Annie around on a truck for a while.

Then Caden & Charlie got out the car ramp and started sending the cars flying. Ken (Charlie's Grandpa) made Caden a ramp too, so he has one at our house that he loves to play with.

While everyone was skiing, I was supposed to head home with Caden. I apparently didn't bring my purse with me for the weekend, and I didn't want to drive the 45 minutes back to Spokane without a license, so I stayed put. Caden & Charlie climbed up this snow burm with Ken.

Fun times were had by all at Deer Lake.

Working in Washington DC

I have been to Washington DC for 2 weeks out of 3 weeks. I am a happy to be home. We had a great trip for work and met up with the Hartford CT CVB and the Madison WI CVB and did some dinner events and sales calls during the 2nd trip. The first trip was for a trade show. During the second trip, I feel like we mostly ate and talked. Not a lot of healthy eating and not a lot of exercise.... Below is a group of us at dinner one night. My boss Keith is at the bottom left. This picture does not do this dessert justice. We went to bucca di beppo and I wanted to have a little tiramisu. This is what I got - a serving bowl with serving spoon. Don't worry, I had a few bites and shared most of it.

The rest of the pictures are not in order, but we were able to do some sightseeing on the last day. It was a whirlwind of site seeing and really cold outside.

This is Arlington Cemetary, below.

This is the back of the Lincoln Monument from Robert E Lee's house at Arlington Cemetary.

Another shot of Arlington Cemetary.

The Lincoln Monument - notice my ear warmers. It's about 35 degrees out. When we arrived in DC it was 70 degrees.

This is a picture of the back of the capital building. That is where the inauguration took place and the grass area was still a mess.

The Washington Monument - we didn't go in this time, just walked by.

We also went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. We saw the orignal star spangled banner on display along with a lot of school groups. I really like that these museums are free. At least I know where some of my tax money is being spent and it's a worthy cause. I hope to be able to squeeze in some other museums on future visits. We will see what the schedule brings me. Next trip to DC is in September.

The Wiggles Guitar

Caden got a few duplicate presents for his birthday, so we headed out to toys r us for a return. We told Caden that this could possibly be the most exciting place he has ever been! We were right, Caden was in love with toys r us! There was so much to see, and so much was at his level. We found this wiggles guitar and he is in love. It plays music and even has a wammy bar! Who knew that this even existed, but we are sure glad that we found it! I will try to get a better picture of it for future updates. Caden wants to take the pictures these days, so that definitely creates a bit of a challenge for us to take pictures.

Here is a video so you can experience the wiggles too! ( you can't really hear the songs, but you can hear Caden say his name)

I mastered the picture upload!

So the pictures are actually in the order I wanted them to be! finally!
I am just accepting the fact that right now, we will be posting about 2 times a month. That's the way it goes. So, below I have some pictures from Caden's birthday party. We had a pirate party for Caden and he loved it! This is a picture of the pirate ship cake. Just want to say thanks to my husband for making this. It was a big hit! This is cousin annie. She will be 1 in a week so we are excited for her birthday too!

Here is Caden opening his presents. I am so glad that you get a great shot of my arm in this one! :)

This is one of the kids that came (Cole), I work with his mom and he is about 4 month's younger than Caden.

This is Caden & Layla. I work with Layla's dad and she is about 7 months younger than Caden. She is an eater. She actually reached up to the table and ate a pepper and liked it. It made all of us laugh.

I guess I will have to take more pictures next year! I didn't take any this year, someone else did for me.....

Not trying to slack, but it's beyond my control

I am not trying to slack on the blog, it's just beyond my control right now. Our camera battery doesn't last very long right now, and apparently I am too cheap to buy another. So, I just have to charge it before I use it. Then it has no power to upload. Maybe tonight I will get some pics up. Until then, here is what is going on with us.

Caden had a great birthday party last weekend. Justin made a pirate ship cake and we had some friends over to celebrate. Caden had fun with all the little ones that came over. Cousin Charlie had to come later (like 10 minutes before the end of the party). He was sick.

Caden had his 2 year check up and is growing as he should. His weight was around 29 pounds and I don't know what his height was. I didn't take him to the doctor appt, Justin did.

Work is a bit stressful these days. 2 sales managers have been let go for not making their numbers. Thankfully right now I am making my numbers. But with that, I do not want to be missing any work if I can avoid it. Justin's job is slow going. With people tightening their belts on spending, surprise surprise, they are not going out to eat, which means, Justin works less.

Caden is still at Kindercare and really likes it. He is surprising us with all sorts of things. We don't know if we are teaching him things or kindercare or both. For instance, he knows his name and says Caden Finnegan. He also know many colors (red blue yellow green pink and purple) He does confuse some, but is learning. He also knows some letters thanks to his alphabet talking magnets. He knows "D" is for Dad, "M" is for Mom, "A" is for Annie and "Q" is for Quincy. He also likes to torment our dogs, which we are working on this since that is not nice.

Caden has a naughty spot if he is bad he gets a warning and if he does it again, he goes to the naughty spot. He hasn't been there in a while, so that is good. The doctor told Justin that his room cannot be a naughty spot. That is his safe haven. A little disappointing since Justin wanted to send him to his room when he is bad.

That's all to report for now. :)