little valentine and party!!!

It was finally party week... Monday February 11th, Caden turned 29 weeks old. After school that day, we stopped by the pet store to finally get a new tag for Molly. Zane was equal parts excited and nervous about the engraving machine.


Caden tried avocado that night for dinner. He made his usually yucky face, but this time it stayed that way and he didn't eat more than a couple spoonfuls before he pursed his lips and refused to eat anymore. He was quite offended!


The next day he thought it was good for painting but certainly not eating!


Caden also got to break out an oldie but goodie... the beagle onesie! I should have put it with the smaller sized clothes, but Caden got to wear it a few times before it was too hard to snap it closed.


Zane got to hand out Valentines to his friends at school on Thursday, and he brought home a collection of cards and treats in the glittery red envelope he had made the day before. That morning I took a bunch of pictures of the boys to commemorate another of Caden's first holidays. They weren't really in the mood for it, but Caden was awfully excited to sit next to Zane in the big chair:




Saturday was the day Zane had been waiting for.... his birthday party! We invited his friends for some bouncy house/inflatables fun at his soccer place at 3:30 that afternoon. They jumped, ran, climbed and slid for the first half:














After they were nice and worn out, they stopped for a snack of berries and cheddar bunnies chased down by birthday cake - just the thing to reenergize them:








They got to bounce a little more at the end to burn off some of the sugar, and I think they were all worn out. It was a success!


There was more silliness the rest of the weekend, and thankfully Zane was able to stop asking if today was his party and instead ask if today was his birthday.


Caden tried butternut squash, and thankfully he liked it more than the avocado. He also added plums to his food list on Sunday. I think the new foods inspired him to whip up a few things in the kitchen:


Only to be distracted by daddy to flash him a big smile


He also worked on his tummy time, and still goes through many emotions:











He was also totally enamored with Molly:

truck!

February 4th, Caden turned 28 weeks. It was a fairly busy week, and I hardly took any pictures! He did go through a serious feeding frenzy for about 36 hours though. He was already growing fast enough!

Our new neighbors moved in next door on Wednesday, so we got to ogle the moving van before and after school. I had a tough time getting Zane to walk away from it in the morning. In the evening, Zane sat at his little table by the window so that he could watch them finish unloading and then drive away while he ate his dinner. It was a big compromise to get him inside, and I was lucky he was hungry, otherwise we would have been standing out there much longer!

Zane started saying, "NO! I don't want to!" much more often both at home and school. I think he was preparing for turning 3.

We had quite the adventure one morning when our printer temporarily broke, just while I was trying to print out invitations for Zane's birthday party. We managed to swing by the UPS store with our bright card stock in hand on our way to school. We put an invitation in all of his friends' cubbies, and from that day on, Zane asked me if today was his party at least twice a day.

Caden moved into his own room at night and out of the pack 'n play. It didn't make his sleep any more or less predictable! He also tried out apples and green beans for the first time.

We wrapped up the week with a play date with our new friend Nataly on Saturday, and on Sunday the three boys spent some quality time together while I finished up the rest of the touch up paint and little projects at the old house to get it ready to lease. So Caden got to nap on the couch:

big big...

The week of January 28th, Caden turned 27 weeks old, and that Monday he had his 6 month check up. He weighed in at 18 lbs 6 oz and measured 27.5" long. That put him at the 62nd % for weight and 82nd % for height. He's tracking at the same height that Zane was at the same age, but 11 oz heavier. I'm curious to see how long their heights will match like this! Everything else at his check up was good, and his doctor said she expected him to go 6-8 hours for his one long stretch, but his colds could very easily throw that off. So Caden's varying sleep pattern wasn't a concern to her... Just his sleepy mama :)


He got one oral vaccine, and that offends him way more than I expect it to. He was appalled again about the rest of his vaccines, including his very first flu shot, that went into his sweet chubby legs. He recovered relatively quickly and was snoozing by the time we made it to daycare. I'm pretty sure he told Miss Brenda about how I held his arms down while the nurse poked him with needles once he woke up though!


Caden also added pears and bananas to his expanding food repertoire.


At dinner one night, Zane announced that he is a dancer. We had a fun conversation about dancing and arrived at the conclusion that we needed some tunes while we ate. I found out the next morning that they'd had a big dance party, and Zane broke out some awesome dance moves. I'm taking credit for that because of our weekend (and occasionally weekday) morning dance parties!


Over the weekend, we got Zane's big bed ready for him. It has cool new vehicle sheets and the guard rail is up! He took a nap in it on Saturday before we went to have our family pictures taken and slept in it again that night.


The boys did great for the pictures, and its great to see that a professional can't get them to both look at the camera at the same time either. :) one advantage to being so behind on posts is that we have the pictures already to include!


Due to a recruiting trip and flights scheduled around the Super Bowl, it was just the boys and me that Sunday. We ended up skipping soccer that morning for a Caspar Babypants concert with some of his friends from school. Zane was oh so excited about it!


Later on, we went by the old house to take down all of the blue tape I had put up when painting over the stripes in Zane and Caden's old room. Zane had fun with the big balls of tape and had Caden laughing hysterically by tossing them around.

happy half birthday!!!

Monday, January 21st, Caden turned 26 weeks old, and on the 23rd he celebrated his half birthday! He celebrated by trying a new veggie, peas. He was skeptical about the first few bites again, but gobble it all up.


Caden had his monthly photo shoot with his dogs, and of course Zane and teddy had to get in on the action:


Although he didn't want me to shine the light (aka, use the flash):


We all got together with the Michigan crew for dinner on Saturday, and almost everyone besides Zane had a glass of wine. So of course he wanted one too. When we told him it was just for grown ups, he replied, "but I'm a little grown up!"


Then on Sunday, three of Zane's closest friends from daycare had a joint birthday party. After the party, we had a fun visit from Sarah and Kathy!! Zane was pretty excited about having overnight guests two weekends in a row, and Sarah and Kathy did not disappoint. I even managed to sneak away for dinner with just the girls!


Also, sometime the previous weekend, I'm fairly certain it was Sunday, Zane clearly had gotten his hair cut. We wait so long between hair cuts, that it always feels a bit shocking to us to see him with short hair. You can see the garage he built out of our grocery totes:


Caden continued, not always so happily, working on his tummy time, and he added sweet potatoes to his list of new foods. He was a fan!

hot potato

Our 25 week old Caden started to feel yucky and was stuffy the evening of January 14th, but he didn't have a fever on Tuesday morning, so Zane and I dropped him off at daycare before we went to the dentist. Zane's check up went pretty well. He sat in the big chair by himself...


Until the hygienist tried to have a look in his mouth, so she sent us off to play with the toys for a bit until the dentist was ready for us. Zane loved the dentist though! He was sitting on my lap in the big chair, but he let her count, scrub and poke on all of his teeth. He drew the line at the polisher that spins - it was freaking him out watching the bigger kids having their teeth cleaned in the spots next to him. He did let her put a fluoride paste on his teeth though, and then we were all done! We got the all clear to keep brushing twice a day with his big kid toothpaste and to keep avoiding juice for a while longer. So we got to watch the trucks at the construction site next door on our way out. I might be in trouble if they're all done with their job the next time he goes back!


I dropped off Zane and checked in on Caden, who was napping, so I went back home to meet the shades installer and work from home. A couple hours later, I got called back to pick up Caden because he had a fever. Boo :(


He spent some time in the Moby, which we hadn't been doing much of lately, and took Molly for a few long walks to help cool him off a bit:


Caden had to stay home the rest of the week, but his fever ended on Thursday. He did manage to stay ticklish and giggly, even with a viral fever. He got to stay with a back up care nanny on Friday for the first time. They did really well together, and Caden got to read lots of books with her.

Thankfully Caden was feeling better again by the weekend because Zane kept telling him that Tal was coming to visit! We got to hang out with Tal while he was in town, and Zane really liked being one of the boys:


Then Zane and Caden "helped" me do some touch up painting at the old house... that didn't go so smoothly, but we managed to get the front porch looking good before they both had a big melt down - Caden because he was tired and we kept toting him around and Zane because he got in trouble for bolting down the sidewalk and not stopping or coming back when I asked him to. Zane has definitely gotten faster and more fearless!


The other highlights of the weekend were Zane holding Caden all by himself, and Caden trying out his first veggie - carrots! He made a funny face again the first few bites, but then happily finished the rest of the jar:








Then I had to take a picture of Zane eating his applesauce snack because I was taking too many pictures of Caden eating!


And here's Caden doing his favorite new trick, which is pretty messy when you're eating puréed carrots, blowing raspberries! He started the week before, but was doing it a lot throughout this week: