Our New Backyard

We are so excited to have a fully fenced backyard! One of the gates needs a little bit of work and it could stand some reinforcement, but it is there and it is tall, and I am so excited to be able to let my children play outside without worry of them playing in the street!

Kaden stands at the threshold wondering if it is true? Does he REALLY get to play outside?

He loves to be outside he starts 'pleasing' and pointing outside from the moment he wakes up. He is always bringing me socks (anybodies socks will work) and both my shoes and his, hoping to convince me to take him outside to play or for a walk around the neighborhood. Our neighbors across the street love to watch us walk. They get a kick out of Kaden trying to make a break for it or walking backwards trying to get me to chase him. He also has discovered a love for mud puddles, I'm sure that is a shock to all of you mothers out there!

Look Mom! We're outside!

I often sit on the step right outside the door to watch Kaden play. So he has decided that is what big people do. Only when he sits there he has a tendency to bounce up and down... hard! My backside wouldn't appreciate that at all!

He has picked up several new bruises and scraps on his face with the nice weather we were enjoying. He thinks that he is big enough to walk down the stairs like I do. He knows how to safely maneuver the stairs backwards, but decided it is much cooler to go forward while standing instead of crawling. Unfortunately he is only successful about 1 in 20 times. The rest of the time he tumbles down, usually rolling without incident, but occasionally he takes a pretty nasty spill. If I am close enough he will reach to hold my hand while he walks down.

We have very little grass in our yard. I hope to change that some day soon, but the previous owners obviously didn't like to mow. There are a couple of different kinds of rocks and bark chips like you would find at a playground.

Luckily Kaden is getting pretty good at navigating the rocks although he still falls all the time.

Kaden explores our pile of flower pots.

Guess he didn't want that one... notice it is airborne.

Just playing mom.

He loves to stack things like cups or apparently flowerpots.

Notice the irritated look on his face?

He made it this close to me and stopped in the position saying 'please, please, please'. When I went to investigate he had a stick from the cedar tree up his left pant leg. I started to pull it out and realized it was WAY up his pant leg. I brought him into the house and carefully pulled off his pants since the branch was fairly prickly and discovered that it went ALL the way up his pant leg and was folded over and stuck to his diaper in the crotch. How in the world did he manage that?

We love to get out and enjoy the sunshine! He will run and run and run (which includes falling and getting up and falling and getting up) until he can hardly stand up anymore.

I was moving some of my big flower pots with the hand truck the other day. Kaden watched with interest and when I was done he looked up at me and asked 'please'. I told him sure he could play with it. So he steps on the front grabs the bars and looks up at me with another 'please'. He wanted to go for a ride! So I pushed him around for a little bit and boy was that cool!

Such a Big Boy

Mom I noticed the floors were a little dirty, let me help you out.

He is working so hard.

I did it!

Now for the real story! My new house has mostly laminate floors which look very nice, but always feel dirty. (We put carpet over it in Kaden's room which probably will make some people gasp!) I desperately need to get a rug, and plan on checking out IKEA to see what they have, but so far haven't found the time to get up there (any great rug shops you have to recommend? Great=Inexpensive). My kitchen/dining area is linoleum, ugly linoleum at that. So I spend a lot of time sweeping, or trying to sweep! Whenever I get the broom out Kaden is there to grab it and 'help' me out. He works hard at it, bless his heart, but really is no help at all! In fact his favorite place to sweep is the pile of dust I managed to collect before he swiped the broom from me. If I don't share the broom then he just sits in my pile of dust and plays in it. So now I sweep everything under a chair or a table a little bit at a time, then all I have to do is move the table or chair and sweep it into the dustpan. :)

The instant the refrigerator is opened Kaden comes running. The boy has hawk ears! He pulls open the second drawer from the bottom, reaches in...

and starts popping grapes!

Good thing grapes are good for him! At least this keeps him from pulling everything off of the shelves as fast as he can.

Bits and Pieces of Our Lives

So since I am trying to catch up I will just share several pictures and short stories to get you up to date!

Kaden has a tendency to have wild hair anyways, but if you play peek-a-boo with a fleece blanket... Wild Thing!

These pictures are just because I think he is stinkin' cute! He has my dimples.

Kaden now has 9 teeth and is working on his second premolar (at least I think that is what they are called, he skipped his eye teeth). How do I know he is working on another tooth? Because if he can find my bare toes he will nibble on them. Yeah, I know, that is strange (Julie try not to faint at the idea!), but nevertheless, that is what he does. He doesn't actually bite them, he just kind of rubs his teeth on my toes. It actually tickles pretty badly. I may have told you this before, but I couldn't remember and it is definitely something worth sharing! I personally have never heard of a stranger teething habit.

As I was trying to put linens and things away Kaden took advantage of my back being turned to pull out the extra blankets and put himself away!

He climbs on everything and is so proud of himself when he succeeds.

Kaden had another Dr. appointment yesterday. He is up to 25.4 lbs now! That means that he has put on 4 pounds in 2 months. I thought he was growing, but that is a lot! Of course he got to stand on the big boy scale for the first time, so some of that is his clothing I suppose.

His TSH levels went back up again (that's the one that tells his body to make more thyroid, only it can't), so now we are doing 75 micrograms a day. We will check again in 2 months and see if we have stabilized yet, but with as fast as he is growing right now he will probably need more yet again. :)

When Kaden gets tired he finds a binky and a blankie, a silky blankie that is. If he is fighting being tired he will pull the coats on the floor then lay down on them. Otherwise he brings me his blankie for some snuggle time!

27 weeks

Sorry, this picture is pretty old, I need to go take a new one. It is just so hard to find time these days when Jeremy is home to man the camera for me!

So it was pointed out to me that I haven't given any updates lately on our little Kindi. She is doing great! We are 32 weeks now so only a couple of months to go. I limp around a lot these days, but that is just part of being pregnant, she seems to be pinching my right hip somehow. She is a busy little one and is going to be strong like her big brother. At her last appointment her heart rate was 145 and she is measuring right on track still, so hopefully she won't be quite as big as her brother was!

I have also been asked how we decided on her name. I was looking up name meanings one day and ran across Kendi, which means 'The Loved One'. I really liked the name so we just changed the spelling and there you have it, our sweet Kindi Kae. (Kae is my mother-in-laws middle name.) It actually works out well too because Amanda means 'Beloved'.

Christmas with the Wells'

We made our annual trip to Milton Freewater to spend Christmas with Jeremy's family just a few days after moving into our new home. (I didn't even get to put a tree up this year. That was really hard for me!) Kaden did really well on the drive considering that it is a 5 1/2 hour trip, although it is usually more like 6+ now that we make more stops for Kaden's sake. He only melted down at the very end of the trip.

Gosh it has been so long I don't remember a whole lot of what went on, but I do have some pictures to share! We got there Christmas Eve which is a big dinner and presents day at the Wells'.

This look cracks me up.

Opening presents with Daddy.

Grandma got him a new Christmas outfit to wear for the day. The onsie is really cute with snowmen on it and she also got him a great pair of green bib overalls to wear with it, but since Kaden has such short legs we would have had to roll the legs up about 6 inches or so. :) Luckily she discovered that on her last trip down to help with the move and bought him a regular pair of pants with shorter legs.

Lily obviously needed some help opening her presents!

He figured out this noisy toy from Uncle Heath and Aunt Alyssa in a hurry. It spins and has several different modes. Our favorite is the music mode. He carries this toy into the kitchen when I'm working (grunting and groaning all the way), and we will dance and stomp. If Kaden hears music, anywhere or anytime he immediately stops whatever he was doing and starts dancing! He bobs up and down and nods his head, once in awhile he gets a little bit of Elvis hip action and some stomping.

If you shake this piggy in a bathtub on wheels, then set it down, it plays a tune, oinks and drives away. When Kaden tries to catch it, it ends up going between his legs.

Helping Grandma open her presents.

Snuggles for Papa.

He gets tons of cool toys and what is he excited about? Grandma's new cheese grater!

I think he didn't care for being buried in the wrapping paper...

On Christmas morning the girls come over and open stockings and one more gift from 'Santa'.

Kaden had this figured out. He would reach into his stocking as far as his little arms could go.

A bath toy!

Being cool in Papa's hat!

Christmas with the Wilson's

Family Photo and everyone is at least looking at the camera!

Hurry Up MoG, we can't open presents until everyone is done eating!

Kori's new Christmas dress! What a doll.

My handsome little stud!

Lillie got a dog bigger than she is!

Opening presents is serious work!

Yay a frog!

Kaden didn't feel real well, but he sure loves this singing, riding airplane from Grandma and Grandpa!

Sippy Cups and Computers

So Kaden officially weaned himself at about 11 months. I had planned to nurse until he was a year, but I sure wasn't going to force him to when we were that close anyways. So thankfully weaning was an easy process, getting him to drink whole milk on the other hand?

He gives it a try, then makes a 'yucky' face.

Then chugs down his water.

Add a touch of chocolate to it though and he will chug until it is gone stopping only once or twice for a quick breathe. So since I spent a few weeks trying to get him to drink his milk without more than a sip or two I decided to change my tactics. I gave him chocolate milk instead, I know, bad mommy. But honestly, isn't it better to give him a little bit of chocolate and get that much needed milk? What I am doing is slowly weaning him off of the chocolate. Currently he is getting slightly tan milk, but he doesn't seem to notice that most of the chocolate is gone now. Hopefully soon he will drink his milk white like normal children! But as a milk hater myself, I don't blame the poor boy! Milk is yucky!

Kaden 'helping' Daddy fix Mommy's computer. Daddy getting a lesson in patience!

They succeeded, but it died in the move, so now I have a new one.