9 months!!!

The following week, April 22nd-28th, Caden turned 9 months old on Tuesday. During Caden's early morning photo shoot, Zane stumbled out of bed and helped me get some giggles out of Caden.


I also couldn't resist getting a few pictures of Caden in his red striped jammies with his dogs before he outgrew them.


I also learned that Zane eats way more carrots (at least for right now) if they're just peeled big carrots. Take that baby and cooked carrots! He also eats them in our yummy muffins that we baked together. He's a big fan of baking, and he was so excited about our muffins that he had to bring one for his friend Ben at his birthday party that Sunday. It was pretty cute, but a little hard to explain that Ben probably was going to save it for later and not sit down and eat it on the spot. :)


Unfortunately that week, a few of the babies in Caden's class came down with hand, foot, and mouth. He had a quick fever on Saturday morning that was gone after a nap. I thought for sure I saw a few blisters in his mouth, but nothing else popped up anywhere else. I spoke with the nurse at our pediatrician's office, and since his 9 month check up was coming up on Monday, we decided to wait until his appointment to have him checked out.

special guests

I love this picture of Molly posing with our ridiculous beagle pillow (thanks, Amazon home team!) in her chair. The pillow does fake us out occasionally when we walk past it.

The week of April 15th to the 21st, we had a few fun highlights. Caden got to have big boy applesauce just like Zane one morning at breakfast, and Zane was so excited that he could barely contain himself while he was telling Caden's teachers all about it while I signed him in. Zane also conquered the no longer scary potty at the Y after swim class. Woohoo! He's turning into such a big kid, and makes sure to let us know too.

The real highlight of the week was a visit from grandma and grandpa! They got into town on Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday. Zane got some needed 1 on 2 time (it's tough being a big brother sometimes!) on Thursday, and on Friday, grandma and grandpa got the fun of 2 boys. I was trying to be stealthy and get a picture of Zane reading with grandpa, but he spotted the camera and hid. It was still a cute moment!

training

April 8th, Caden was 37 weeks old. He moved into size 4 diapers and was talking ("da, ba, ga") a lot more. His nighttime sleep was still all over the place though and ranged anywhere from 5 to 10 (rarely!) hours for his long stretch. Thankfully he falls back asleep pretty quickly and doesn't fully wake up for the day until sometime after 6:30.


He also took a bath in the big tub for the first time! He wasn't impressed and couldn't figure out why I was making a big fuss over him.


The boys also had one of their cutest moments to date on our walk home one evening, and they held hands for about ten minutes. It was so sweet.


Then the next day, Zane insisted on getting out of the stroller and he jogged about halfway up "the long hill" and the rest of the way home. It was quite the workout, and of course he wasn't tired at all. I was still puffing by the time we got to the top, even with the stroller about 35 lbs lighter!


We also finally got our new lawn mower, and Zane happens to love lawn mowers, trimmers, leaf blowers... most lawn care equipment, really. Giant farm equipment would be better though :) Needless to say, he was pumped about helping set it up and get the battery charged. Caden was pretty excited about checking out the box.


Then Zane had to help daddy get started mowing the lawn for the first time.


Caden and I just observed since it was such a pretty day out:


That weekend was one of my first real training runs for the half marathon I signed up for at the end of June, and Zane was extremely upset about me going out for a run without him... so he ended up being my training partner in the stroller. We stopped off at a playground in the middle. I thought taking a break would help power me through to push him back uphill home, but it was still pretty rough ("Mommy, you have your fast shoes on. Go faster!")! At least we had fun while we were at the playground:


Then Caden got his own ride later on in the hamper: