small fry

Caden's 18 month check up was yesterday afternoon. Although he was highly offended by most of what went down in the exam room, we were extremely silly and giggly during our down time between the nurse and doctor. Caden even practiced saying "ball" a bunch when we were checking out the soccer players and soccer ball decals on the wall. He says between 10-15 words now, but he's starting to more clearly mimic word sounds. He does, however, have "no" and "mine" down pat! I believe those are the result big brother vocab lessons. Overall, he's doing great developmentally. Unfortunately, she had no magic solutions for his food throwing habit or tantrums. Particularly his throw-his-body-backwards-with-no-concern-for-what's-behind-him tantrums. I think we are in for some trouble with him in that realm over the next year... the Force is strong in this one!


Caden gained about 5 oz and 1 inch since his 15 month check up to put him at 25 lbs 10.5 oz (70%) and 33.25" (78%) long. For the first time so far, Caden weighed less than Zane at his corresponding check up! At 18 months, Zane was 4 oz heavier and a 1/2 inch longer. So pretty close!


Capturing Caden's 18 month pictures was pretty challenging to say the least! He was in a good mood, but he wouldn't lay still on the blanket long enough for me to even turn around.


It was a pretty fun game, and I think he got faster while I got slower...


Molly and Zane got in on the action too, of course.


There was also a baby Godzilla sighting:


Eventually I gave up and let them play, and I caught this sweet moment in the middle of jumping up and down:

And it's only taken 18 months, but I'm finally caught up on blog posts!  Hooray!

18 months

Last week, I had my one day a year at home with no boys on MLK day. It's amazing what I can get done without any helpers. I got a bunch of things scratched off my list that had been holding on for quite some time, like reorganizing the garage so that we don't need to move the strollers every time the trash cans need to go out.

But then we were short our giant boy from Tuesday through Saturday because he was off gallivanting in Texas, partly for work. We had a lot of opportunities to chat, and Caden even gave my phone a few big sloppy kisses when he was FaceTiming. Caden also got to push the button to end the call one time! Now the race is on! As a side note, if we ever FaceTime with you, don't take it personally if we hang up really quickly, pushing the button is just really awesome, and hearing the "boop, boop, boop" as it hangs up is really satisfying to know that it was pushed first on our end. Because doing things first is also awesome. ;)


One evening at bedtime, we were reading a book that referred to "three" of something, and Zane asked, "where's the 3??" It took me a minute to realize he was asking for the number 3 in the text and not 3 of something in the picture. I was impressed, and he has started pointing out numbers like that when he sees them.

And on Thursday... Caden turned 18 months old! Pictures to follow with his stats from his check up.  It's hard to believe we have already known him for a year and a half now!  He's quite the character.


On Saturday morning, we went to the aquarium to burn off some energy with Eli and Noah. The boys had a great time, and Caden showed off his baby bam bam skills when we stopped off at the touch pool again on the way out. He was pretty mad at me when I pulled him away and said it wasn't for splashing and gentle touches only...


Zane skipped his nap that day, so he helped me trim down our big grass bunches out front since the weather was so gorgeous out. He mostly rode his tricycle, but he did haul a couple bundles to the yard waste can on the back of his tricycle. We even fixed Zane's balance bike that evening so that it was no longer a "unicorn" bike. :) He also was excited about the shark he had painted on his face at the aquarium.


On Sunday morning, the boys woke up to find daddy home, and I spied Caden's 10th tooth, another molar. It's on the lower left. Sneaky teeth! At the playground after breakfast, Caden got to try out the famed yellow swing for the first time:

tower of boys

One evening at bed time last week (January 13th), all three boys piled into the rocker to read books. It was a cute tower of boys! Caden's still into books, hooray!


We tried out their new squeeze pouches from Santa for smoothies for dinner one night. Both of the boys like smoothies, which has been a good way to get fruits and veggies into them. Recently, our go to has been milk, one yokid yogurt, an orange, an apple, a couple carrots, a couple handfuls of kale (ever since we found lacinato kale, aka dinosaur kale, Zane actually gets upset when we don't add it... occasionally I can sub spinach without a fuss), and frozen berries. Yum!


On Thursday evening, Zane requested a new tattoo. It was "Cesco," as Zane refers to him, from the Cars 2 movie - Francesco Bernoulli. :) this time Caden got in on the action too and got his first tattoo. Zane picked out one of the smaller race cars for Caden because he has a smaller arm.


Caden has still been working hard on his spoon skills.


He's especially good with important food like yogurt, and he gets almost all of it into his mouth.


That weekend when the boys were helping me out in the backyard, Caden climbed into Zane's chair. Zane thought it was so funny that he asked me to take a picture of Caden sitting in Zane's big boy chair and not his own little chair:


Caden started saying "no" repeatedly all week long. A few times I replied, "yes," and he cracked up laughing. On Saturday night, Miss Tara came over to watch the boys, well really just Zane since Caden was asleep the whole time, while we went to the Amazon post-holiday party. Zane was really excited about her coming over, and they put together a few puzzles together. We also got the inside scoop that he's working on writing his name - I had seen a picture of his handiwork on their Facebook page, but thought he had gotten a lot of help because it was legible. Miss Tara said she just started the Z for him, and he needed some help with the E, but the rest was all Zane! I'm going to have to try to get him to repeat it and see what happens!

The next day was the big Seahawks and 49ers game, and Zane had a birthday party to attend that started right at kickoff. Needless to say, there were fewer parents than usual, and mostly moms there!

morning sunset

One positive thing about the sun coming up so late during the winter is that this was our view from Caden's changing table the morning of Monday, December 6th. I said that it was a pretty sunrise, but Zane insisted that I was wrong and it was a sunset. It was a lovely morning sunset in the east!


It was a fairly uneventful week as we all settled back into our routines for our first full week after the holidays. Caden started climbing onto the step stool along with Zane to see what's so interesting. He is definitely not wanting to miss out on any fun these days!

Zane's class took a quick trip to Alki to walk on the beach on Tuesday. They practiced writing letters in the sand, but, according to Zane, they didn't swim because they didn't have their swimming clothes. That and the fact that the water was super cold! We did get a glimpse of another sunrise, er, excuse me, morning sunset, later in the week:


On Saturday, we got messy! The boys got a fun book for Christmas called "How do dinosaurs eat cookies?," and it has a couple of cookie recipes at the end (thanks Addison and Fischer!). Ever since Zane asked me to read the recipes, he's been asking to bake them. Saturday was the day! It was our first real baking project with Caden fully involved too. We made the lemony cookies - yum! The clean up was quite lengthy! But we did invite some school friends over for a play date and to eat cookies after nap.


On Sunday, our main adventure was the playground. Both of the boys made a beeline for the sand and stayed there for quite a while.


Zane wandered off with a couple of the diggers, and then to play on the ride on toys (which he's comically big for some of them now - it's crazy to think it wasn't all that long ago he looked little doing all of that stuff), and eventually Caden left the many shovels to swing with his big brother.

happy new year

Monday December 30th was a boys day! They went to a playground in the morning and had a few other adventures while I was at work.


Caden wrapped up 2013 by working hard on his spoon skills! We went to a little kid friendly New Year's Eve party at a friend's house that started around 4:30. We had a lot of fun, and we were all back home and in bed by about 9 to watch the fireworks people in our neighborhood were setting off. Happy 8th anniversary to us! :)

On Thursday evening I installed the boys' new car seats! I had panicked after reviewing Caden's stats at his 15 month check up because it meant he had been over 32" tall for a couple months and was riding around in his seat that is only supposed to be used up to 32" tall, even though he was far from the max weight of 32 lbs! I went ahead and ordered the harness to booster seat for Zane that I'd had my eye on for a while, and as soon as it arrived, I installed the new seat for Zane and turned his seat backward once again for Caden to sit in. They were both pretty tickled on Friday morning when I loaded them into the car.


On Friday night, Caden expanded his cooking skills by helping me make pizza while Zane was busy working out with daddy.


After dinner, Zane got a new tattoo (thanks, Uncle John!). He was pretty excited about his new monster truck tattoos.


The next day, Caden discovered that he's now tall enough to reach the counter from the regular step stool.


This has opened up so many more opportunities for mischief!


On Saturday, we met up with one of our favorite families to see the Bellevue botanical garden's Garden D'Lights and eat dinner afterward. Considering we had two toddlers and a preschooler, things went relatively smoothly!

christmas week

Monday, December 23rd was the only school day the boys had that week, and it was a pajama day.


Through lunchtime on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, it was just the boys and me. We took advantage of the nicer, and drier, than usual for December weather and played in the backyard for a while and had a picnic lunch. Picnics really just mean eating outside!


While we were playing, there was an incident in which Zane's giant plastic tee ball bat collided with my face. It was totally an accident, but I'm still a little wary when he wants to play with it now! I ended up with a small cut and a shiner (Uncle John got a kick out of it when we talked to them on FaceTime the next day).


We left out cookies and milk before bed! It's an understatement to say that Zane was giddy.


Santa came to our house!


Caden and Zane both made the nice list, too!


We woke up to a Seattle style white Christmas with fog rather than snow:


The boys were in their matching pjs.


The first order of business was taking Zane's new helicopter for its first flight.


Molly managed to get into her stocking all on her own:


Caden liked the car ramp that Santa brought him.


After playing with all our new toys, we got the boys ready for dinner with friends at their no-kids-live-there house. That always makes me nervous, but the boys did well! Zane did ask where they kept their toys, which he followed up with, "why don't you have any toys?"


That evening, Grandma and Grandpa got into town. We all hung out on Thursday.


"Wanna see this???"


Then on Friday, Zane asked to come to work with me, so we went on an adventure together since it was probably our best opportunity. We rode the bus, walked to my building, picked up oatmeal and a short hot chocolate (that he never has more than 3 or 4 sips of), and met new friends. I kept my door shut, and we actually did really well for a couple hours (with a potty break and a trip to visit more friends). Then Zane started to turn into a wild boy. :) so we left for the day and stopped off to get lunch on our way back to the bus stop. Taking the bus back was equally exciting as it was on the way there, but he wasn't nervously squeezing hand this time.


That afternoon I noticed Caden's 9th tooth was already out a good part of the way - a molar on his top left side. Who knows when that happened! The rest of the week went well, and Caden showed off that he could really run now. He's getting faster every day it seems. We ran up and down the sidewalk when we went out to brunch on Sunday while we were waiting for everyone else to finish up: