First Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday, Jon and I took Caden to his first Pumpkin Patch. He had fun up until the point until he realized he hated straw. I get it...it's pokey. Especially when your mama makes you sit in it. :) It was fun to see him take it all in,and enjoy the animals and bright colored pumpkins. It was also funny to see all the other families, cameras in hand doing the same thing we were doing. Here is a few moments we captured of the day!







Mom, why am I in a tipee?

Shopping

Yeah, I'm that mom.
Caden and I love our trips to Target we seem to take about once a week. We wander from aisle to aisle, and Caden loves seeing everything and everyone around him. He makes new friends (we always get stopped with comments on how cute he is (yeah, Im bragging; what?!), what a good baby he is, and people trying to guess how old he is (I get everything from 4 months to 18 months. Some people are really bad at that game, myself included). He hardly ever gets fussy while we are there. I usally end up buying baby food there since its cheaper than the grocery store or Whole Foods, and since we usually are in need of some. But I usually do such a good job at not getting tempted at buying any toys for Caden. Notice the "usually" in that sentence. We have been lucky enough so far to not have had to buy that many toys for Caden--he's gotten so many as gifts or hand me downs that we've been set. Grammie Kathy even occassionally shows up with a new little toy when she comes to babysit weekly, so really, we've been blessed.
Wednesday, we were wandering down the baby toy aisle (mistake #1), and I saw this cute little bath toy tug boat on sale. It even came with little sea creature animals including an octopus, which I've declared as one of Caden's favorite animals. (Ok, so maybe there are just more legs for him to chew on on his little octopus stuffed animal that he loves). So, I innocently took it off the shelf to look at it. Then Caden started waving his arms, and screaming with excitement...so I let him take a look at it. And of course, he wanted it...(see picture above) Ok so he didn't SAY he wanted it, but look at that face. He is pretty much saying "Pleeeeaase?" (As Jon pointed out when I told him this story, "He's a baby--if you put anything in his hands, he "wants" it. You are such a sucker.") I took a picture of him with my phone, sent it to Jon, asking "Pllllease?".
You can guess what happened next. Caden is chewing on his new octopus as we speak. See? Hours of fun in the bath AND out. Yes I'm still justifying...:-)

DISCLAIMER: While Caden is a blessed child and has more than he needs, I do not typically buy him whatever he wants. However, I do believe in splurging and spoiling once in a while. Had Caden screamed when I took it out of his hands, it would not have made it home with us. But, being it was a shot day, he was looking so adorable, and well, I just darn felt like it, Caden got a new toy. Ok, I am officially done justifying.

Dog Toys

Recently, as Caden has become mobile, we have had a frequent battle/problem. Caden is always going for the dog toys. Though he has TONS of toys that are his, of course, he is drawn to all of Roxy's stuffed toys and bones. I am constantly putting Roxy's toys back in her basket, and she finds it a fun game to constantly take every single (I'm not exaggerating) toy out to play with. Thus, Caden having easy access to them all. And of course, both Roxy and Caden enjoy putting all toys in their mouths, so.... well, you see the problem. Roxy has even claimed a couple of Caden's stuffed animals as her own since apparently any stuffed toy on the ground is fair game. (My mom was nice enough to give one of those toys a cleaning makeover, throughouly washing and disinfecting it so Caden could once again call it his own after Roxy had been carrying it around, slobbering and wrestling with it for a few days without us noticing it wasn't her toy). So as problems go, this is minor in the scheme of life, but makes us laugh and frustrated all at the same time. Just had to share. That's all. :)

Here are some pics of the struggle. The pink pig and reindeer in the pics below are Roxy's that Caden is constantly going for.

"Back off my pig, baby"--Roxy

Surrounded by his toys...oh wait, that's Roxy's. Ew. Atleast the book and monkey are his.

Rock and Roll

Just want to warn you, this probably isn't exciting for very many people outside of family :), but I wanted to post a short video of Caden rocking, very much on his way to crawling. Put a remote control in front of this kid and he will do anything to get it. Awww...just like daddy.
(This is for you Kristi! Love you and miss you!)

Pool Time

Here are a few pics of Caden enjoying the pool! One of the moms at Mariners gave us this little boat that her kids loved for the pool and he loves it too! He loved riding around in it and even tried to "stear" it a bit!

6 month Pictures

Here is a sampling (I would say small sampling, but let's be honest--I'm his mama and could post all 200 pics cuz I think they are all adorable. But I did my best to pick some favorites) of Caden's 6 month pictures! We are so blessed to have a family friend who sets up a little studio in his house and takes these pics for us for free. He is the same guy who did my pregnancy pics and the ones we took when Caden was 3 weeks old. Caden did so great, and it was so much fun. Turns out this kid is quite photogenic, and should look for a side job. :) Enjoy!

Just some pics

In case you were wondering how Caden is...

My Weekend

This weekend was a good one. One of those that you wish every weekend could be like. First off, I took the weekend off work. (Hey I like my job and everything but come on, don't we all wish we could enjoy our weekend and not work but still be getting paid at the same time? The beauty of vacation days)
Saturday morning started with a mani and pedi that I snuck off to while Jon happily played with Caden. It was niiice. I think I fell asleep at one point.

Then Saturday evening was our good friends Scott and Jennie's wedding. It was at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, and it was a beautiful wedding and so much fun. My mom and dad watched Caden for us so we could go, and Jon and I had a great time with each other and with friends. Dinner, dancing, a night out with friends--all in all, a good time! Here are some pics from the wedding: On the water

Julia and I on the dance floor!

The happy couple with Jon and Chris

Girls being silly dancing! (Deanna, Me and Julia)

Julia and I with the beautiful bride! Jennie looked so beautiful and so happy!

To round off the weekend, since I had today off I was able to sleep in (Caden had a slumber party at Grammie's, hence me being able to sleep in) and then I headed off to Burke Williams. When Jon found out I was taking today off, but he had his once a year huge "Fantasy Football" draft today, he insisted I make it a spa day for myself. No arguments here. It was wonderfully peaceful and relaxing. I enjoyed all the amenities as well as a relaxing massage. It was so nice to have some much needed "me" and quiet time since needless to say that doesn't happen much these days.
When I got home and told Jon all about it, he was saying how I need to do that more often. He said, maybe if it feels too expensive to get a full treatment, go for a "half massage" and then still enjoy the amenities. Um OK! Sign me up!
What a sweet husband I have to let me pamper myself and then even offer it up again so quickly. I could get used to this. :)
When Caden got home from Grammies, it was wonderful to hear how much fun he had and what a good boy he was. It's such a blessing to be able to leave our son with family that we love and trust, knowing that he gets so much attention and love. And we are even more blessed that everyone says he is such an "easy baby". (We think he is, so its nice to hear that from others too!) It makes it so much easier for us to get to do special things like this, knowing he is in good hands and enjoying himself.
Ok, that's all for now. Time to get ready for bed since I have to work tomorrow. Getting up for work has been a lot easier lately since Caden is sleeping through the night. And after my relaxing weekend, I'm thankful it shouldn't be that hard tomorrow!

This Kid Can Eat

So after we've introduced cereal and he got used to it, he never looked back. He's on to baby food and man, this kid loves to eat (not that we didn't know that already from all 18 lbs of him). Here are some pics of him chowin' down.

Gimme Gimme...

Is that food for me?

Caden's First Angels Game

Jon, Caden and I went to our "All Church Angels Game" last night, and it was Caden's first baseball/Angels game! It was so fun sitting with all our friends, passing Caden from friend to friend (he was SUCH a good little boy and made lots of new friends too!), hanging out as a family. We made it all the way to the 5th inning before deciding we had tortured him long enough (keeping him 2 hours past his bedtime). You wouldn't have known it--he hardly fussed, just was really red in his eyes, poor thing! Here are a few pics of our night:

3 Years

Jon and I celebrated three years of marriage on Tuesday! He took me to the Melting Pot which is probably our favorite "fancy" place to eat. We stuffed ourselves with great food and had a fun, romantic night out just the two of us. Without getting too mushy, I will say what an amazing year this one has been. For obvious reasons (Caden), it has been full of priceless memories, lots of tears and even more laughs, and a year where I can honestly say its hard to imagine that life can get better than this. With our new little blessing, we have been blessed with how we have grown closer as a couple and how we've made it through some highly emotional times (ok so that was me) and come out the other end all the stronger. Jon and I have known each other for 10 years now (we met in August 1998!), and its amazing to see the journey we've been on, and the place we are in. It's even more amazing to know God knew how it was going to turn out all along! We are blessed, and I can't wait to see what the next year will bring. Love you, Jon.

On a funny note--we started Caden on rice cereal and here are some pictures of his "first feeding". He's doing really well with it now, but we weren't so sure at first:

"What is in my mouth?"

"Ok, this is NOT milk and I don't think I like it..."

Backtracking a little: Camping in July

Here are some pics I forgot to post from our Mammoth camping trip. (I posted some on my Facebook but forgot to put them here!) Jon, Caden and I joined my family (Grandma, Grandpa, my parents, aunt, uncle, cousins and their wives/girlfriends) for our annual camping trip to Mammoth, specifically Lake Convict. They all camped there while Jon, Caden and I stayed in town (Mammoth) since camping with a newborn could have been interesting. :) It was great to spend time with my family, and Jon had a great time catching fish and hanging with my cousins. Here are some highlights!

Grammie and Caden

"Um Mom, what are we doing..."

Here is Caden in his "camping outfit" my aunt bought him before he was born! It fit perfectly! He's all strapped in ready for a walk!

By the creek

Isn't the view amazing?

Caden with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma

Caden playing cards...Daddy is proud!

Our "visitor" to the campsite. Yep, that's right. A bear. It was less than 20 yards away from us. This is the first year we've seen one in all the years we've been up there (my aunt/grandparents have been going up for 20 plus years, and this is the first one they've ever seen there!) Caden was excited to see his first bear...but not too up close. Caden would be an appetizer for that thing.