Moments that Make Me Smile...

Today was one of those days that Caeden just kept saying funny things.  And there was one I just wanted to record.  I realize that it might not be as cute or funny to those reading it.  But having been in the moment, it just made me smile and I don't want to forget it.

Caeden had gone with me to pass out fliers in our neighborhood for our upcoming block party.  He was riding his tricycle.  While I was at one house, he waited on the sidewalk and squealed "Mommy!  A ladybug!"  As I turned around, he was squatted down trying to pick it up.  Since he was occupied, I walked 20 yds over to the next house real quick.  I walked back down to the sidewalk and called for him to come on.  I see him lift the compartment lid on the back of his trike and put something in.  He starts riding towards me very quickly, with the biggest, proudest smile on his face, saying, "Mommy!  I put ladybug in my tricycle!  I'M GIVING HIM A RIDE!!!  I'm pulling him!!"  He then repeated this a couple times.  He was so proud that he was giving the ladybug a ride. Ha!  I'm sure the ladybug appreciated it as well!

Once we got back to the house, we checked and the ladybug was still there, so we got some pictures!

And just for fun, an extra pic:

A few minutes later, he and Ella chased a beetle around the driveway!

These kids and bugs....

Caeden: 30-32 mos.

This will be a summary of what Caeden was doing from 30-32 mos (the best I can remember).

Surrounded by stuffed animals in his bed

EATING
Caeden's eating has gotten better during these months.  We give him smaller afternoon snacks and he eats a better dinner....go figure! ;)  He's truly not as picky, especially if he's hungry.  So I'm praying we're over that hump...but not going to get my hopes up. His all-time favorite food is macaroni and cheese - and would eat this everyday if I let him.  Some of his other favorites are applesauce, pizza, RANCH, hot dogs, and Gogurt!  He will dip ANYTHING in ranch.  If there's fruit on his plate, and ranch, he'll dip the fruit in ranch.  It's been a helpful tool in getting him to eat lots of foods. Ha!  He has not been liking many varieties of fruits lately, so that's no fun....mainly grapes and applesauce.  We still offer different things, but he rarely eats them.

PLAYING
It's been warmer outside so his favorite toys have been outside toys!  He's loving his tricycle the most.  He also still loves to play basketball and hit his tee ball.  We did lots of Valentine and Easter crafts during this time and he always loves this.  I have been awful at implementing Room Time so we need to start this back up soon - it will be very helpful when the baby arrives!

SLEEP
He is still sleeping normally.  He goes to sleep great and basically never gets out of his bed.  His nap lasts about 1-1.5 hours long and he sleeps 11-12 hours at night still.

LANGUAGE
His vocabulary is still growing all the time and he is speaking more clearly, so more and more people understand him. His favorite questions are "What's that?" and "What you say?"  He asks these numerous times a day....We just answer them simply and go on  :)

POTTY
He is still doing great at the potty!  He tells us 98% of the time that he needs to go....maybe only 2ish accidents a week...and they're always #2. :)  He basically never has a pee accident.  And just recently he's been taking himself to the potty if we leave the bathroom light on.

DISCIPLINE
We've dealt with some very difficult tantrums during this time period.  But over the last few months they've gotten better.  He was consistently put in time-out when he would throw a fit, so I think that helped a lot.  Caeden is just so social, he hates being isolated...so time-outs are something that work for him.  We are having to work a lot on not whining.

SURGERY #2
Caeden had his second surgery during this time.  In March he had his hernia repair done. He did great before the surgery, but waking up from the anesthesia was the worst part!!!  Once we got home, he did awesome and his recovery was very quick!  Now he's just got a one inch scar down his belly...

SIBLING!!
Caeden learned that he has a sibling on the way during this time.  He knows its in mommy's belly and at first, he kept telling mommy to take it out.  We showed him how small it was with our fingers and are always reminding him that we have to let the baby grow big and strong in mommy's tummy before the doctor can take it out.  We've shown him pictures of mommy being pregnant with him and talked about how big he made my belly - and this baby will do the same thing.  He loves to talk to the baby and say, "Hi baby!  This is Caeden!  I love you!"  Sometimes he will say other random things to my belly....like telling the baby what he will teach it and telling the baby that he will share his toys with it.  We are daily praying that he loves and accepts this baby and has a lifelong bond with it.  We have lots of things we're trying to teach Caeden to do independently before the baby comes.  He will be 3 yrs and 2 mos old....so hopefully he'll be at an age where he can do many things independently!

We still thank God every day for the precious gift of Caeden....even on our rough days!!

Baby #2 Pregnancy: Third Month

I think when I updated my blog last and broke the news of us being pregnant, I only covered the first month of us finding out.  So I'm going to recap the month of March here (which was the third month of my pregnancy). Being the last month of my first trimester, I continued to experience lots of exhaustion, gagging, and some AWFUL migraine headaches!!  My irritability continued (Sorry Caeden & Reid!)   All of these symptoms seemed a little worse than they were when I was pregnant with Caeden.

Here is a picture of my belly at 10 weeks.  My waist had already grown .5" around (uh-oh) and I knew it wouldn't be long before I was out of my regular clothes.  

Caeden is already loving to kiss on the baby

Some highlights from this month

• Getting to hear the heartbeat on March 21 - I was 10 weeks pregnant. Reid and I both felt relief to know everything was okay, excitement to tell people, and an automatic love for this baby!  The heart rate was 164 bpm, which was very comparable to Caeden's at this time.  Our doctor also made our due date October 12!
• Caeden's interactions with this baby.  He loves to talk to my belly (even though the baby can't hear him yet). :)  He often calls it "Adalyn" because we have a baby girl neighbor with that name.  This could be a problem if he continues to call it this name...Ha!  One time this month he was talking to my belly and said "Hi baby!  I wanna share my toys with you."  So sweet!...We'll see how long that thought lasts! ;)  He also said he wanted the baby to look like mommy...
• Our most exciting moments this month were simply telling people!  I loved seeing everyone's reactions! The best were people who were very shocked and not expecting it at all!
• This month I continued craving Chick-fil-a, but this time it was their chicken wraps.  This is kinda funny because normally these don't sound good to me at all, but this month...LOVED THEM!  The thought of eating their nuggets actually made me queasy...which is normally what I want when I go there. Crazy what hormones will do to you!
• One day I was craving ice cream so bad and we had none in the freezer.  I sent Reid a text telling him my latest craving, hoping maybe if I put the thought in his head, he would "allow" us to go get some later in the evening.  Instead, he showed up after school with my favorite shake from Sonic! :)  Such a good husband!
• Smells continued to make me sick and gag.  Mainly being around the sink (even when there were no dirty dishes or food in it) and the fridge...  This was also the month Caeden had his hernia repair done.  I gagged many times that day, as I kept smelling the hospital smell and anesthesia smell on him...ugh...
• I finished my first trimester actually a little under my pre-pregnancy weight....just by a couple pounds.

With all my unpleasant symptoms, I was glad to finish my first trimester! :)  We already love this new little addition to our family and can't wait to meet "him!"  (I.e.: I think it's a boy!)  We think about "him" every day!!

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday, we were blessed to have Reid's family in town to celebrate with us.  When Caeden woke up Sunday morning, he went straight to his Easter basket to see what the Easter Bunny had left him! His favorite part...the candy!

Next we all loaded and went to church to CELEBRATE that the cross was not the end of the story!  Jesus has risen and is alive!  We had been doing Resurrection Eggs with Caeden each night for the two weeks leading up to Easter.  He had really been taking in the story of what Jesus had done for us on the cross and that he was now alive!  While we do the Easter Bunny and egg hunts, we always want him to know these are just fun things we do on Easter, but that the real reason we celebrate is because Jesus IS alive!  So glad we got to spend part of the day with our other Christian brothers & sisters celebrating this!  Here are some fun pictures of us all dressed up in our Easter clothes...

After our amazing, filling lunch, we did an Easter egg hunt outside with Caeden & Emerson (my nephew).  Emerson just turned a year old so this was his first egg hunt!

This is Caeden bringing eggs to Emerson...he was trying to "help" him. :)

And these two boys are so busy it's hard to get them in a picture together.

But they're just so darn cute I had to post one picture of them in the same frame!

So here ya go! ;)

After our egg hunt, it was naptime for the kids and relaxation time for the adults.  Then our afternoon closed with good-byes and resting that evening.  It was a fun day, celebrating with our family and I'm so glad Caeden had a cousin to celebrate with this year!  (Next year, he'll have a sibling to celebrate with!!)

Easter Party!

So, I realize that I'm way behind in updating my blog.  I'll be doing several posts on various happenings over the last few weeks.  First up: Our Easter party we went to the Thursday before Easter.  This was a party associated with P.A.T.  When we first arrived, Caeden & Ella went straight to the snacks - cupcakes and Teddy Grahams!

Next up, we made several crafts.  Here they are coloring their bunny ears they made:

And Ella proudly showing hers off!

Next, we decorated an Easter egg:

And the last craft was making an Easter bunny out of paper plates:

Finally, the best part...the Easter egg hunt!

I love doing things like this with Caeden & Ella.  It's fun that Caeden has a best friend to do these things with...I love seeing the fun times they have together!

Springtime!!

This is the first weekend in awhile that we've just been home, with no "official" plans.  So we did lots of spontaneous things, and relaxing things.

Friday night...We just stayed at home and played outside. :)

Saturday morning, we woke up and decided to make doughnuts together. This is something my Grandma used to do with us when we would come visit her and it's so easy!

I let Caeden do all the smashing of the doughnuts, and do the doughnut-hole making!  

All he had to do was push the bottle cap down, twist it a few times, and then take out the middle.

Then he got to help pour in the sugar & cinnamon for our topping!

Then into the oil they went...perfectly golden brown!

And then the best part - EATING THE DOUGHNUTS!

After we stuffed our tummies with doughnuts, we took it easy, played inside, played outside and just enjoyed our morning together.  After naptime, we headed to the Bentonville Easter Egg Hunt!

Here he is getting a head start...He picked this up before it

started, so he had to go put it back...

And the hunt begins!!

Just for kicks, I took a picture of the crowd.

This was everyone on the field DURING the Easter

egg hunt - quite some competition for Caeden!

Thus why he only ended up with 7 eggs, out of 25,000. 

Opening the eggs to find some candy! 

The hunt was put on by Hershey's, so we got

some pictures with the candy characters!

And the Easter Bunny!

Later that night, he told us seeing the "big real Easter Bunny"

was his favorite part!

That night, we went to a friends' house to play and eat dinner.  Here is Caeden with his friend, Zoe!

The next morning, we went to church as a family, came home to eat lunch, and then dyed Easter eggs.  Yes, we did this a week early, but Reid is going to be out of town for most of next weekend, so we had to get it in before he left - this is another one of our traditions!!

Reid finished Sunday by going fishing with some buddies.  And Caeden and I played outside for a straight 3.5 hours while he was gone!  We even ate dinner outside!  Talk about a tired, pregnant momma!  But it was a fun weekend and I try to cherish each of these special moments!