Interviewing Caeden (4 years old)

Last year (at 3 years old), I started interviewing Caeden with a list of questions.  I thought it would be fun to record over time, to see how his answers change.  We have a 10 minute video of the interview, which is pretty humorous.  But I'll just record his answers here.  Enjoy reading!

How old are you? four
What is your favorite color?  dark blue
What is your favorite toy? Superman....not the Superman movie...my Superman toy
What is your favorite fruit to eat? apples
What is your favorite TV show to watch? Superman (While he does watch this show, I personally wouldn't say it's his favorite.  He currently wants to watch "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" multiple times a day!)
What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? I really want a hot dog, and macaroni & cheese.
What is your favorite outfit to wear? I don't have one...
What is your favorite game? Candy Land
What is your favorite snack to eat? goldfish (the crackers, of course)
What is your favorite animal? Elephant!!! Because I like loud noises to help me go to sleep!  (Definitely agree with the loud noises part....not sure about the sleep!)
What is your favorite song? "Hush little Caeden don't say a word" (This is a song we often sing at bedtime).
What is your favorite book to read? The one where the two kids get lost, and the mommy makes the good soup they like.  (He's referring to the book Hansel and Gretel.  Again, we rarely read this book, so I'm not sure what made him think of this one! Ha! I would say his favorite books are Jack and the Beanstalk and the Magic Tree House series).
Who is your best friend? Ella (with a big smile)
What is your favorite cereal to eat? The marshmallow cereal (a.k.a. Lucky Charms)
What is your favorite thing to do outside? play baseball!
What is your favorite drink? milk and orange juice
What is your favorite holiday? Easter....because I get lots of candy and chocolate bunnies.
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Moo my bulldog, and my dolphin, and my two blankies (and I'll add that he will not go to sleep unless he is holding 3 of his corners from his blanket...he doesn't like the corner with the tag).
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? cereal
What makes you happy? when you hold me and play with me (melt my heart...)
What makes you sad? when my Superman doesn't fly...because I forget that I have to straighten his legs out...cause then he flies and does this (makes jumbling motions with his hands) (He then proceeded to give me a lengthy explanation on how to throw his Superman so he flies).
What do you love best about Callie? playing with her!
What do you want for your birthday dinner?  I wanna go to the park and eat. But first before we go to the park, let's go to Chicken-fil-a cause I want those kind of chicken nuggets...and then eat them at the park!
What do you want to be when you grow up?  (in a sad, whiny voice) I don't want to get bigger... I just want to be a kid (He actually talks about this often - a couple times a week - it's kind of sad hearing him talk about how he wants to stay little and how he doesn't want to grow up).

We don't want you to grow up too fast either Caeden!  You are so precious to us and we love you more than we could ever express!  Happy fourth birthday big boy!!

Turning FOUR at the FIRE STATION!!

For the past 6-8 months, Caeden has been very into fire trucks and fire men.  So it was only fitting to celebrate his fourth birthday at the local fire station!  We scaled it down this year and only invited 7 friends, which was nice for mommy!  Like I mentioned in another post, he was very excited about this party and asked multiple times a day if it was time!  So we made our birthday chain and was he ever excited when we reached the RED link....which meant fire station day!  In the days leading up to his party, he would tell random people, "I get to see a REAL fire truck and a REAL fire man!!!"

Here is the invitation for his party at the fire station:

So, here we were at the party.  Decorations and party favors in place!

Once Caeden's friends arrived, we started on our tour:

This picture is just perfect

at showing how excited he was

about this fire station!  He was 

jumping the whole way to the door!!

Caeden and the REAL fireman!

The bunk room!

Playing with their pool table

INSIDE of the REAL fire truck!

Checking out the fireman in his real gear...

this was great for them to see that the man 

under the scary mask is the nice fire man!

Little sister Callie checkin' him out too!

Then it was back to the party area for a few games.  First we played "Find the Fire Hydrants!"  The kids had to pretend they were firefighters who needed to find a fire hydrant!  They had to scatter and find all the hidden fire hydrants to put into their bag!  Lucky for him, Caeden the birthday boy, ended up finding the most!

Then it was time for our fire truck pinata!  This was most of Caeden's friends first time to hit a pinata, so it was pretty awesome watching this experience!!

Samuel getting ready to take a shot!

Ella's turn!

Now Darby!

Lincoln had a good arm!

And his cousin - Emerson!

Then was Caeden - he was probably the most 

enthusiastic, as you can tell by the pictures! 

And the reward falls from the sky...

Lastly, we headed back to the party area to sing "Happy Birthday!", and eat some "Blazing Popsicles,"  "Water-hose Melon,"  and drink our "Thirst Extinguishers" (bottled water)!  

We said good-bye to our friends, and headed back to our house for a smaller family celebration.  There we had dinner, cake, and opened presents from family.  

 I have to admit, that I made this birthday cake.  :)

We had an awesome time celebrating Caeden's fourth birthday

at the Bentonville fire station!  It was simple, and absolutely

perfect!  But most of all, Caeden had a blast!  We love you

Caeden and hope this was a birthday to remember!

Caeden's FOURTH Birthday!

Our little man turned FOUR YEARS OLD last week, and we did lots of things to let him know how special he is to us!!  About 2 weeks before his birthday, he started asking every day (sometimes multiple times a day) when it was.  So we made the infamous paper chain to hang up.  Towards the end, there was a RED paper link...he knew that this was the day he was having his fire truck birthday party!  A few days later on the chain, was a BLUE STRIPED paper link...he knew that this was the day he was actually turning four years old! So, on Monday, August 5th, he knew that was his actual birthday!

We wanted to do lots of things to make his day special!  So the night before, while he was sleeping, we decorated his room with streamers, balloons, and other decorations!  We also wrote on his bathroom mirror with dry erase marker - so his morning was full of surprises!  He slept through all the decorating, and when he woke up, he came out and was so excited!  He said, "There's lines connected all in my room!!"  He was talking about how we had TP'd his room with streamers!  It was so great!

DECORATING THE NIGHT BEFORE:

BIRTHDAY MORNING!!

FINDING THE DECORATIONS!

After playing with the streamers and balloons for awhile, we headed to get doughnuts - this is something we started doing when he was two years old - getting donuts on his birthday!  We brought them home, put candles in his doughnut and let him blow them out!

We had also decorated our minivan the night before!  He was so excited for people to honk for his birthday on the way to Krispy Kreme.  Unfortunately we only got one honk - we must have lots of fuddy-duddies in Bentonville!  But I will say we got several more later in the day when we went out.  He got so excited every time someone honked for him!

We spent the rest of the morning just playing and hanging out together.  Daddy & I put our to-do lists aside (along with our computers and phones) so we could give Caeden lots of attention!  We did his "four year old interview" that morning and got lots of fun/cute answers!

Then since he was born at 2:31pm, we sat with him right before nap, and told him about when he was born - showing him lots of pictures of him as a newborn.  He smiled so big the whole time, and kept asking lots of questions!  I think it's funny to him that he used to be a baby.  He loved hearing all the stories we had though!

After naptime, he got to pick what we were going to do for dinner.  He said, "I want to go to the park to eat dinner!  But first let's get the kind of chicken nuggets from Chicken-fil-a and then take them to the park to eat!"  So, that's what we did!  A picnic at the park for his birthday!  And boy was it a scorcher outside!

Once we got home, Caeden and Daddy filled up some water balloons for his bath.  We had never done this before, but since it was his birthday, we thought it would be fitting!  I tried to get pictures, but he had popped every balloon within 90 seconds!

We then said prayers, read a book, and put our big boy to bed.  It was truly a special day for him, and us.  We definitely don't take for granted each day we get with our kids - especially when we get to celebrate another year!  It makes me sick at my stomach to think of how old he's getting, because I just want him to stay little.  But I'm also thankful to be able to see him grow!  We love our little man so much, and will cherish this next year with him!!

Callie Crawling!

Right at 10 months old, Callie took off on all fours! She has been very close for about a month now, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. She would even crawl one or two strides and then just stop. I think she was just so cautious, it took her until now.

This has been a funny milestone for us to watch because Caeden never really crawled. He scooted on his belly at 9 months, and then started walking at 10.5 months old. He was way more interested in figuring out how to walk than crawl. So we never really got to experience a crawling baby! I know she will be all over the place soon, and it will be harder to "manage" her but its so fun seeing her meet these milestones! Thank you Jesus for this gift.

Here's a short clip of the day she started crawling!

Walkin' & Rollin'!

No, Callie is not actually walking by herself yet!  But she walks everywhere in her walker!  She started doing this a few weeks ago (at 9.5 months old).  She absolutely loves having the freedom to walk anywhere she wants to in the house.  She walks into almost every room, just looking around and exploring.  One day, Caeden was running around in big circles and she was chasing him in her walker - while they were both laughing.  It was hilarious!  I didn't catch that on video, but here's a short clip I caught of her today.

Rainy Days

Playing in a fort on a rainy day!!