15 week old burrito

Caden turned 15 weeks old yesterday! Since he's a ripe old 3 1/2 months old, we attempted letting him sleep unswaddled. It was a bust! He maxes out at 30 minutes in a sleep sack right now for both naps and nighttime.


Needless to say, I wrapped him up tightly like a burrito again last night. :) His arms are still out when he wakes up... so maybe it will be soon.

Zane has started using his nightlight turtle on his own. We moved the turtle next to his crib one night as a compromise to keep his door closed, and one evening we caught this on the monitor:


Caden turning 15 weeks old also means that my maternity leave ends in two weeks. Time is flying by! Caden and I made our first visit to the baby room this morning. We hung out with Miss Brenda and Miss Violet and the babies for about an hour, and Caden seemed to like it. He got to snuggle with his new teachers and hang out on the activity mat with a new friend :)

Caden's also starting to bring things to his mouth:


Zane will be happy to know that he correctly called the election before bed tonight. When asked if he wanted blue or red to win, he said "blue," and then when asked if Obama or Romney was going to win, he said "Bama." He's a Seattle kid. ;)

treating

I'm sure Hurricane Sandy changed Halloween plans for a lot of our New York family and friends, but it sounds like everyone is doing ok and the power is coming back slowly... sending hugs and prayers!

Halloween in Seattle was pretty normal - a little cold and rainy! Last Friday, all of us went to our daycare's Halloween party, and the boys debuted their firefighter costumes for the first time. Zane had already been wearing parts of his costume while driving his fire truck around the house:


Then on Sunday after soccer, we went trick-or-treating in the Junction with his BFF Eli. Since it was Zane's first time, I tried to explain it a little before we went, and he started saying he was going "treating" :) The idea of getting treats just by asking for them made it easier to send daddy off to the airport. Here he is before we left, the last time he wore the hat ("No, Mama. You wear it."):


Caden was wearing his outfit too, but I couldn't get a good selfer with him in the Moby. We took a break on our walk back home to enjoy a treat:


Then yesterday we went to Amazon for more treating... Zane has a heavy treat bag now! We all struck a pose at daddy's desk:


Then we handed out candy at home to trick or treaters. We also got to celebrate "Kimber-LEE's" birthday with cupcakes since she was staying with us on her birthday eve. It was a pretty awesome day for Zane. Caden was pretty wiped out afterward too!

Here are a couple more cute pictures... Driver Zane:


Last weekend Zane gave Molly a "loose tuck" while she was snoozing by the fireplace:


And one more of Caden for good measure:

3 months

Caden turned 3 months old on October 23rd! He's becoming more giggly and chatty as the days go by, although he still has his very serious moments. He also no longer hates bath time, and I might even go so far as to say that he looks like he enjoys wiggling around and splashing in the water. Everything is great until I have to pull him out and wrap him in a towel... that's still a highly unpleasant experience for him! He unfortunately came down with another cold right around the time the first one was finally fading. :( Those are the perils of having a big brother, especially one who's a toddler with no personal boundaries :)

Here are his three month pictures:






Some good tummy time with his doggie:


Looking for some assistance turning back over..


Getting more irritated...


Angry toes:

12 weeks and cupcakes

Caden turned 12 weeks old on October 15th, and he was getting over his cold even though he was still coughing some. He had already been wearing his 3-6 month size sleepers ever since we got home from Charlotte on the 9th, but I still kept trying to squeeze him into 0-3 month onesies and pants. :) That lasted for a week... here is the last 3 month size outfit I squeezed him into at 12 weeks old:


I can't deny it, Caden's growing by leaps and bounds! When we took him to the pediatrician the week before, he weighed in at 13 lbs 5 oz (with clothes on). He also used his very last size 1 diaper on his 12 week birthday... he went through 2 cases of newborn size and 2 cases of size 1. Hopefully he stays in size 2s a little longer!


Zane couldn't be left out, and he seems to have sprouted again... Most of his 2T pants had become high waters all of a sudden! Both boys had a big wardrobe shift... it was a lot to take all at once!

That week was also daddy's birthday. Although he specifically requested "the cake" for his birthday, birthdays mean cupcakes to Zane, so we added cupcakes to the birth week celebrations. When we stopped by the store to pick up some ingredients, Zane got to cruise around in one of the car shopping carts for the first time:


He was so excited that I had a really hard time getting him out of it and into the real car when we were all done. Zane was an excellent baking buddy, and we made some scrumptious white chocolate filled chocolate cupcakes (Zane picked out the polka dot papers):


Zane was pumped about singing "Happy Birthday," and he even wanted to blow out a candle too.

As the week progressed, Caden definitely started feeling better and became more playful again:



Which led to some cute naps (we apparently sorted a lot of laundry on our bed too!):


That weekend, I got a picture of sweaty Zane when we left the bouncy house after soccer. He's saying "cheese!"


That same weekend, Zane helped me finally put up the mobile on Caden's crib. He did an excellent job of testing it out and is quick to turn it on anytime Caden hangs out in his crib.


Zane also did some work with the birthday boy... He's such a helper!

carolina on my mind

On October 3rd, we started our first trip as a family of 4! We were totally crazy and opted for the red eye. Amazingly, it worked out well, and both boys slept most of the flight. It was a reward ticket, and we ended up in first class on the way there... not too shabby for Caden's first flight!


We landed in Charlotte early Thursday morning and drove to Uncle John and Aunt Ginger's house while the boys slept some more. Zane loved following his big cousins around after school. He and Mary were stuck to each other like glue again. It was very sweet.


Check out those serious faces!








Caden even got in on the action:





And Uncle John put his sleeper hold on Caden:


On Friday night, all of Zane's most favorite people were all in the same place... Grandma and Grandpa came to Greenville for the night before we headed to Charlotte for a wedding.


Unfortunately, Caden also experienced another first on this trip... his first cold. Boo.

On our way to Charlotte on Saturday, we met up with some other friends for lunch, and Zane, Mateo and Sergio got to play together before we loaded the boys back up in their respective cars. It was definitely a fun pit stop:


This is what I looked like for most of the trip:


After we checked into the hotel room in Charlotte, we all went to the rehearsal dinner and had a great time. We even met the family we were going to share a sitter with the next night. Here's Zane helping me unpack:


Then on Sunday, Zane's cold hit its peak, and Caden started coughing more. Zane actually curled up on a bench at the mall at lunch time... definitely not normal behavior! So we decided I would stay at the hotel with my two clingy boys while daddy and grandma and grandpa went to the wedding (congrats Alley and Mark!).

On Monday, Zane was actually feeling much better, so we decided to go ahead and check out Discovery Place to burn off some of his energy. He could have stayed at this awesome water table for hours:





Caden was pretty fascinated by it too, and then promptly fell asleep! That night, Zane asked for his towel around his legs after his shower. It was outrageously cute!


We headed back to the airport early Tuesday morning to fly back home.





The boys did well again, but Caden was feeling pretty bad by the time we got back to Seattle. We managed to get him in to see his pediatrician that afternoon, and she confirmed that it was just a bad cold. So we gave Caden his prescribed extra snuggle time for the next few days (which wasn't hard to do since I was pretty wiped out too... sick Caden doesn't sleep for very long).

firsts

I've fallen behind on posts again! Before I get to our latest adventures, I want to track a few fun things that have happened in the last few weeks. Otherwise, this isn't a very good baby book!


Just before Caden reached 8 weeks, we decided to pull out the bumbo seat so that he could take it for a spin. He wasn't super impressed with it, but it was cute to see him wobble around in it!


Zane of course had to test it out before Caden could sit in it, and amazingly his booty fit in there:


One thing I forgot to mention about Caden's two month check up is that he rolled from his tummy to his back for the first time! When his doctor placed him on his belly, he craned his head around to look at Zane, who was sweetly telling him that he was ok.


His little body followed that big noggin right around and flipped him over. He was a little startled by it all to say the least. It wasn't even a complete fluke because he repeated his amazing feat again at home one week later.





Caden also started focusing on and waving his hands at the toys on his activity mat around that time:


Caden also got to test out the baby swing for the first time... we actually got to work out together!


Another important first... Caden's first hoodie:


The weekend of September 29th we finally let Zane try out one of his most desired activities.... riding the bus! Zane knows his buses... there are shuttle buses like the water taxi shuttle and the Microsoft connector, school buses, charter buses (those still throw him off sometimes), and city buses (metro).


He had been repeatedly asking us to ride the city bus, so that Saturday afternoon, we hopped on a bus and took it a whole 4 or 5 stops up the road to a playground.





We hung out at the playground for a while and then had some dinner at a nearby restaurant before catching the bus to head back home. Zane was pretty excited about it all.


The beginning of the first week of October, Caden spent some quality time in the Moby helping me do laundry and pack for one of his next firsts... his first flight! I'll save the rest of that story for another post...