Caden's first trip to the dentist

Caden had his first appointment at the dentist this week.  He did such a good job.  They were so impressed at what a good patient he was.  I'm so frustrated at myself because I completely forgot to take a picture of him sitting in his chair.

"Blow leaves, cut grass"...I probably hear those words about a hundred times a day.  Caden is very interested in anything that makes noise, but he's especially into watching people do yard work.  Tuesday mornings are VERY exciting at our house because three of our neighbors have yard crews come cut their grass.  The past few Tuesdays we have had our breakfast interupted when Caden hears them start their lawnmowers.  He immediately darts to the guest bedroom and sits on the bed watching them while repeatedly saying, "man cut grass, blow leaves".  He is completely enthralled for the 10 or 15 minutes it takes them to do the two yards.  So the past few days he's started pretending to "blow leaves".  He started using pool noodles in the backyard, and then today when we were at the park, he found a big stick and walked around the park with it for a long time saying, "Mommy, I blow leaves!"  Here's a picture of him.

Something very exciting happened this week...or rather it would have been very exciting had it happened to teenage Laura 20 years ago...I got an email from Troy Aikman!  Well, me and hundreds of other people because really it was from the United Way, but it said Troy Aikman in the "from" line :).  One of my old coworkers gave us an Aikman jersey this week.  Here are a few shots taken with our phones.

Annabelle is 10 weeks now.  She's changed so much.  I'm so glad that we're slowly creeping out of the newborn stage...it's just so hard to function this many weeks on the constant lack of sleep.  I've been so tired this week and really feeling flat out stupid.  I think my brain is just fried from not having a good night sleep in so long.  So it was SO NICE when Annabelle basically slept through the night for the first time last night.  She didn't wake up to eat until 5:45!!!  Of course, I'm so accustomed to waking between 3:30-4 that I still woke up at that time, but it was nice not to have to get up then.

Here are a few pictures of Annabelle from this past week.

 



Sliding and smiling

This past weekend there was a 5k in our neighborhood.  It was a pretty hilly course, which is really tough when you are pushing a double stroller.  Brian and I shared pushing it, and I was very happy that I was able to run the whole way.  I didn't set any records, but we did run a little faster than I had anticipated.  At the end there was a fun carnival with a petting zoo, pony rides, bounce house, and slide.  Caden loves inflatable slides like this.  Brian took a video of him going down.

Annabelle is such a happy little girl.  She's smiling so much.  I still haven't gotten any really good pictures of her smiling, but I did get a short video of her smiling with my phone the other night.

Here's a video from about 6 weeks ago...Caden really loves anything that makes noise.  Since a big hail storm hit us last Sept, about 75% of the houses in our neighborhood have gotten new roofs.  He loves watching the men climb ladders and hammer up on the roof.  I took this video of him talking about his little toy man climbing a ladder and hammering on the roof back in March right after we got our new roof.

Annabelle is Two Months

Annabelle is two months old today.  She's getting so big.  I can't wait to find out how big she is on Monday.   ***Size update:  She measured 10 lb, 9.5 oz (50th percentile) and 23" (75th percentile).  I knew she was getting long; her 3 month onesies are getting to be almost too short in the body.***

Here she is with her "2 month" sticker on.

And to see how she's changed, here's 1 month... 

And 0 months. 

I took the kids to the Arboretum this week to try to get a few good pictures of Caden for his two year pictures.  It was quite a challenge because all he wanted to do was watch the construction vehicles through the fence working on a new addition to the Arboretum.  But here are a few that I did get...

Annabelle is eight weeks

Annabelle is eight weeks old today.  She's getting so big.  Her 2 month appointment at the doctor is next Monday, and I can't wait to see how big she is.  Here are a few pictures of her over the past week or two.

Getting ready to take a bath.

Taking a bath.  She does great in the bath.  But really she's such a good baby, she really only cries when she's hungry. 

She has started smiling quite a bit.  I still haven't gotten a good picture of her smiling though.  As soon as she sees the camera, her smile usually changes to a look of scepticism as she's not quite sure why there's a big black thing that flashes a bright light in front of her.  But here's a half smile that I caught last week. 

Here's a picture of Caden at 8 weeks.  They definitely look like siblings.  Her hair is even starting to receed in the same pattern that his did.  Caden had his 2 year check up today.  He is 36 inches (90th percentile) and 29.4 lbs (75th percentile).  Although, at his appointment 2 weeks ago, he weighed 31 lbs, which would've put him in the 85th percentile.  We found out he has an ear infection today, and I think that has been affecting his appetite over the past few days.

Caden is Two!

We've been celebrating Caden's birthday for several days now.  Saturday Nana, Papa, Great Grandma, Great Nanny, Jeffrey, Mimi, and Tia all came over for a family birthday party.  And today we had Caden's play group friends over for a party.  The theme of both his parties was construction trucks, since he loves construction vehicles right now.  Everytime we get in the car he asks to see bulldozers and front loaders.

Caden enjoyed opening his presents.  Here he is playing with his new Little People Zoo.

He was very excited about his new zoo train.

We tried to get a picture of Caden and Annabelle, but Caden was too busy playing with his trucks to look at the camera.  It is a good picture of the birthday shirt that I made for Caden, though.

An attempt at a family pic.

I made Caden a cupcake cake for Saturday's party.  Here he is attempting to blow out the candles.

Here are Mommy and Caden with his birthday cake for his friends party.

There were no candles on this cake because before I lit them, he grabbed them and ran into the kitchen with them to put them away.  Apparently, he didn't like them after having them on the cupcake cake on Saturday.

Easter 2012

Annabelle wore a vintage 1979 dress for Easter.  It was my first Easter dress, which was a gift from my Nanny & Paw Paw.

Here's Annabelle in her Easter dress.

A very blurry picture of me in the same dress on April 15, 1979.

Annabelle is changing so quickly; she turned 6 weeks old yesterday.  Here's a picture of her playing on her blanket yesterday afternoon.

 Annabelle's neck is getting so strong, so I decided to pull out the bumbo seat today to see if she's strong enough to sit in it.  Sure enough, she sat in it for a good 5 minutes and did great.

Of course, Caden wanted his turn sitting in the chair, too.  He actually probably fits in it better now than he did when he sat in it as a baby.  His thighs were so chubby back then they barely squeezed into it. 



Annabelle's first trip to the zoo

Brian was off from work yesterday for Good Friday, and we headed to the zoo bright and early.  We got there right after they opened and left a little before noon.  It was starting to get really crowded...it was quite a zoo :).

Annabelle had her animal shirt on and her giraffe paci & was ready to see some animals.

The new Australian Outback area just opened a few weeks ago.  Here's Caden and Daddy checking out the kangaroos & wallabies.

& seeing the koalas.

Annabelle checking out the spider monkeys...

I think Caden's favorite part was "driving" this truck. 

The back half of the truck is inside the cheetah's exhibit.  Uh oh, Daddy, there's a cheetah behind us. 

The giraffe's are always a hit.

Caden talks a lot about "bia's" (i.e. zebras).  We got to see them only from a distance.

But we got to see the elephants a little closer.