happy new year!

As we wrapped up 2012 and rung in 2013, Caden turned 23 weeks old. That Monday was our 7th anniversary, and the boys had a half day of daycare that morning, so we went to brunch to celebrate. Oh how things have changed! :). Afterward, we finally got a few of the shades installed. Getting window coverings for the new house turned out to be quite the ordeal, so it was nice to only be in a partial fishbowl.


On New Years Day, we invited a bunch of friends over to see the new house and watch the most epic football game of our relationship - South Carolina v. Michigan at the Outback Bowl. Needless to say, the Gamecocks totally dominated. :) The boys had fun and added an extra layer of chaos. We even had a few of their friends over too. One of Caden's buddies reminded us to try putting his sleep sack on with his arms zipped inside. I had tried it unsuccessfully a while back, but when we tried it again, it worked! No more swaddle, sort of.


Caden started out 2013 by moving (bursting) into 6-9 month size clothes and trying rice cereal for the first time! He made a funny face at first, but then seemed to really like it. He even got most of it in, despite halfway pushing the spoon out every bite. He had been trying to swipe food off of our plates for several weeks, but we kept holding off because of his never ending string of colds.





Zane made the transition to big kid toothpaste, the kind you have to spit out. He also talked about going to the playground with the yellow swing all week long, so I finally took him and Caden over the weekend. After playing in the sandbox for a long time, he did get in the yellow swing for a little bit after all.











Zane also was cracking us up talking about "hanitizer," aka hand sanitizer. We definitely were washing hands and using hanitizer an awful lot to try to chase the cold germs away.

merry christmas

I forgot to post the picture of the gingerbread house that Zane made at school the week before Christmas - graham crackers and icing. :) he was very proud of it and said it was tasty too.


On Christmas Eve we left out cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer. Luckily we had some yummy cookies on hand for Santa since all of our baking supplies were just making their way out of boxes.


Santa followed through on his word and delivered yellow treats, lots of them:





The boys wore matching pjs, and they had fun posing for the paparazzi:





Santa brought Zane yellow treats AND a big teddy. Caden got a fun kitchen and baby treats (a few jars of food and rice crackers) in his stocking.





It was a fun filled family day.








And it even included one of Zane's most favorite pastimes, washing dishes!

squeaky door

With only one weekend in the new house under our belts, the boys and I were flying solo already that following Monday and Tuesday due to an ill-timed, rescheduled work trip. The picture above is from when the three of us woke up together Monday morning and had to get ready together (somehow Zane ends up in bed with me more often than not when his daddy is out of town... old house or new!). Zane is definitely Caden's most favorite person! Here Zane was reading to Caden on Tuesday morning:




That week we had some exciting visitors... Grandma and Grandpa arrived on Thursday night! They gave Zane some special 2 on 1 time on Friday that I think he really needed! And then they helped entertain the boys, unpack, and put things together, like the new grill.




One evening, we went to see the Garden D'lights at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. Zane gave Grandpa a workout while we all had fun checking out the light displays:




On Sunday December 23rd, Caden turned 5 months old! He acquired the nickname of "squeaky door" that week at daycare because of the high pitched cry he let loose when he woke up from naps.












That evening, we also finally decorated our tree:

santa picture

As promised...