My First "Crazy" Christmas

Merry Christmas Family and Friends!

Well, the stockings were hung, the tree was trimmed, and the house was all decorated and ready for Christmas. Mommy even found time to make Christmas cookies and treats. This holiday stuff sure is a lot of work and it was very busy! It all started a few weeks ago, with Grammy's side of the family in the Dells. We didn't stay at the amazing hotel we stayed at a few months ago, but we stayed at one where we could swim in their fun pool. We stayed in the Dells for just one night. Grammy's family is SO big, that we have to stay at a hotel just to get everyone together!

Me and Daddy were getting ready for the gift exchange. I am sitting here so patiently!

My time finally came and cousin Stella gave me this super funny ball popper. I just loved watching the balls zoom around the tube and pop out of the top. I laughed and laughed at this thing!

I must have worn myself right out. I fell asleep on Mommy's lap and didn't even get to meet this Santa guy that everyone raves about. At least my first picture isn't of me screaming and crying! He looks pretty friendly in this picture. He came all the way from the North Pole to the WI Dells for our Christmas party! What a guy!!!

We drove home on some bad roads on Sunday and Mommy was really happy that she only had two days of school. Unfortunately, at her Monday night soccer game, she badly sprained her ankle and called Daddy to take her to the ER. I got to go see neighbors Dan and Nancy until Grammy came and picked me up. Mommy had to take the day off on Tuesday to recover and she even needed crutches for the first few days. She now just hobbles around the house and makes funny faces. On Christmas Eve, we went to church and Grammy met us there too. We came back to our house and had a big dinner (well, I probably just ate the same ol' stuff). I was really excited because Daddy kept talking about Santa coming to our house that night. I must have been sleeping again, because I never saw him come. The next morning we had lots of wonderful presents. I really love this holiday!

Here's Grammy giving me lots of kisses and hugs!

Mommy and I wearing our Santa hats

Here are the two gifts I made for Mommy and Daddy at daycare. They said it was their favorite gift ever. WOW!

Here I am on Christmas morning in my jammies. Some of my many gifts included new roll a rounds (for the dragon toy), books, a chime ball, my first tackle box, clothes, trucks/cars, bath toys, PJ's and more! Mommy and Daddy are trying to find a place for all of my new toys (and no, they are not putting on an addition to our house)

I loved eating the paper and bows!

After our own little Christmas party,we went to Grandma Carla's and Jamie's house for Christmas with them and Samantha and Maggie, Auntie Stef, Uncle Bruce, Uncle Jim and Karri, and cousins Lexi and Sam.

Me and Grandma Carla

Cousins Lexi (she has no front teeth, just in time for X-mas) and Sam! Aren't we cute!?!?!

Our little family

After Mommy's side celebrated Christmas, it was back home and then to Grandma's house. Uncle Matt came home to celebrate with us. Uncle Ben, Aunt Erin, and cousins Kyra and Bennett did not come home from Georgia for Christmas this year (missed you guys!)

Uncle Matt and I hanging out by the tree. Sweet skiing shirt Matt!

More fun presents... wooden toys, little boots, clothes, and Christmas money for my saving's account, yeah!

Getting so sleepy from all the gift openings, food, and people!

I have to say that Christmas around here is C-R-A-Z-Y! We have so many people in our families and we travelled all over WI and MN to see everyone. It was lots of fun but it sure is nice to be home with all of my new toys! Happy Holidays and talk to you soon! Caden

Joy to the World!

Happy Holidays! I thought this picture would get your attention! Cousin Kristin came a month ago to take my six month pictures and this was one of the poses Mommy thought would be funny. Hopefully I will get my hands on these pictures before I am a teenager and am ridiculed the rest of my life. This is the only age where fat rolls are cute!

I am just loving this time of year. Mommy showed me a picture of what I looked like one year ago. Here I am, a little gingerbread cookie! This was our Christmas card we sent out. For some reason, it only scanned in black and white. Originally, it is in color.

The past two weeks have been busy. I am enjoying daycare and all of my buddies there. We are all kind of sick right now with colds, but at least we are all dealing with it together. I am sleeping in my swing at night so that I can breathe and Mommy keeps putting this thing up my nose to get the boogies out. I hate it! Anyways, we put up our Christmas tree in the living room and I love looking at all of those colorful lights. Mommy thinks the tree is too little, but Daddy thinks it's the best tree ever. Here I am sitting by the prickly thing! By the way, we do have lots of presents wrapped under our tree. Don't worry, my parents do plan on spoiling me this Christmas!

This weekend, we went to my Great Grandpa Jim's house in the cities, for our big family Christmas gathering. There were lots of cousins to play with and there was even a special guest, "Christmas Moose." His nose even blinked and I thought he was pretty amazing! The gifts I received from the gathering included a special gingerbread crystal ornament from great grandpa, some money to spend, a really cool outfit with a VW bug with a surfboard on it's roof, a season's pass to the MN Zoo, and Brava Strega Nona Pop-up book!

Here I am with Great-Grandpa Jim. He whistles a lot (Mommy explained because he is in the late stages of Alzheimer's)

Our family with Great-Grandpa. He is whistling some songs to me still! I like to hear whistling, so I smiled and listened to him.

Here's that crazy Christmas Moose I mentioned. All the kids liked him a lot!

Cousins Lexi and Sam played with me at the party. Poor Sam threw up and had to go home early.

Cousins Maddy, Lexi, Jack, and Rieder were giving me lots of attention. I soaked it all up!

After Great-Grandpa's Christmas party, we went to Papa's house to have our Christmas with him. He is leaving for Florida for six months (Mommy and I are sad), so we had to celebrate early. Papa really spoiled me, as usual. He bought me a really cool farm fun rug, some Tonka trucks, little trucks, a musical table, some books, and a huge lollipop (Mommy said, "NO" to me eating it at six months old...bummer!)

Me and Papa giving hugs to each other before heading out. We are both in our jammies at this point, reading for bed and our ride home.

My new rug and a few of my cool new toys!

Here are two other pictures that Kristin took of us when she was here. I like our family picture a lot and going inside of the big box in the bottom pictures was a lot of fun. I am wearing my "Grumpy Old Man" hat, one of my favorites!

In closing, some of my latest news includes sitting up ALL by myself, lots of talking/babbling, a little ridge of a white tooth popping up, and the BEST BREAKING NEWS.... I said, "Ma Ma" while Mommy was helping me write this post. She jumped out of the chair and asked me to say it again and again. Of course, I can't repeat it again or she might get bored with me. She said it was the most beautiful thing she has ever heard. Little does she know that it probably just slipped out, but I will let her smile and brag to Daddy about this one! My next picture will hopefully be of me sitting on Santa's lap. We were supposed to go see Santa this weekend, but it was WAY too busy and we are all recovering from colds and the flu. Have a great week!

Hi Y'all!

Hey there! I was hoping to post the Thanksgiving blog earlier, but you know how busy things are now. Mommy is working at school again and that means I go to Sara's everyday to play with the other kids. I am finally getting into my routine there. I think Sara was getting worried that I would never nap while she watched me but she has it all figured out now. She lets me sleep in the comfy bouncy chair and that is so much better than a crib! Mommy cries when she drops me off and a lot at night. She says she misses me all day long. Then again, who wouldn't miss this adorable face! I think it will just take her a little time to adjust. For me, I like the new toys, new kids, and of course, Sara. I flirt and smile with her and she takes good care of me. Backing up... we went to Georgia for Thanksgiving. I was a perfect angel on the plane and I even sat in my own seat! Georgia was a little cooler this year, so we didn't spend as much time outside as we hoped. We mostly visited, played, and ate and ate and ate! Auntie Erin is a great cook and we had many delicious meals. Mostly, I loved playing with cousins Kyra and Bennett. They had a super, bouncy seat that I jumped like a little kangaroo in. We loved it so much that auntie Erin gave it to me! Bennett is one year older than me and he liked playing games such as "give the baby a cracker" and then snatch it away. He sometimes gave me dirty looks because he thought I was stealing his food. Everyone kept laughing at us, although I don't really know why. Kyra liked making noises, playing peekaboo, and doing other silly things to make me smile. Here are some pictures of us.

It was hard to get all of us to smile at the same time!

Kyra was playing peek a boo with me here!

On Thanksgiving day, we watched the parade on TV, went for a ride on the golf cart, ate lots of food, and Mommy went to the outlet mall at midnight to shop (she said she would never do this again because it was c-r-a-z-y!!!!! The most exciting part of Thanksgiving was eating real mashed potatoes and my other favorite foods such as carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, and mashed bananas. I mostly wore the food that day.

My outfits says, "Thankful for Mommy and Daddy!"

Since we stayed in Georgia for five days, we also decided to celebrate Christmas with Ben, Erin, Kyra and Bennett. They won't be home in December so we had our first Christmas party with them. I opened a great train that balls go around in and I also got a football bank and bulldog jammies. Here we are opening gifts.

Cousin Bennett and I wore the same sweater. Don't we look like a pair of studs!

Of course, we also took family pictures too. Here is the crew all together (Mommy, Daddy, me, cousin Kyra, Auntie Erin, Uncle Ben, Grandma Lois, cousin Bennett, Uncle Matt and his girlfriend Kari).

Sorry about the crazy color of the picture!

Mommy and Auntie Erin

Our little family, minus Liberty

We had a great trip in Georgia but it was nice to be home too. Daddy put on Christmas lights outside of our house. Here I am playing with a string of lights! I am so excited to have my first Christmas soon! Happy December everyone!

Happy As Can Be!

Hi friends and family! It's been a few weeks since I have posted an update. It's been really busy and Mommy's camera battery died. Here is the latest around here. First of all, the most WONDERFUL news in our family is that Mommy is going to job-share next year with Finley's Mommy, Heather. Heather has taught Kindergarten for 6 years and she loves teaching. Both Mommies decided that they will miss us too much and they don't want to miss the "firsts" of many stunts up ahead. They started to brainstorm and before long, they came up with a grand plan. Heather will teach on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning and Mommy will teach Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday. This will give me more Mommy time and I know she will appreciate getting out of the house a few days too. She said "adult contact" is critical... whatever that means! Here is a picture of Heather, Patrick, and my buddy Finley.

Mommy and Heather have done lots of planning for next year which is great! This means Finley and I can hang out together. He was an early bird, just like me. We both had a crush on our favorite nurse, Stephanie, we both were born one month early, and we both have a flat spot on our heads (more to come on that later). Here we are on the chair together. I am the chunky one smushed between the pillows. This isn't a good camera angle for my physique and Mommy should have pulled up my socks.

Here is a picture of Mommy and Heather in the principal's office. They are troublemakers I think!Onto more important news... me! A few weeks ago, we went to the cities while Daddy went deer hunting in MN. Nope, no deer for him, although Mommy has almost "got a few" just driving on the roads around here. We didn't want to be lonely while Daddy was gone, so we went to the cities and had a lot of fun. Grandma Carla watched me while Mommy and auntie scrapbooked, I played with cousins Lexi and Sam a lot, we went shopping (not my favorite and I pooped a ton just to be a stinker... literally!), and Auntie Stef and Uncle Bruce watched me when Mommy went to the Vikings game with Grandma, Uncle Jim, and Karri (and the Vikings WON!) I also went to Meggen's house to have a playdate with Lauren and Abby. They are two little cuties! I also saw Sara who gave me a huge bag full of stylish clothes from Jack and Sam. The roads on the way home were really icy and Mommy was doing yoga breathing, I think.

Hangin' out with cousins Lexi and Sam

One of my latest tricks I want to share with you includes rolling over. I did this finally at Grandma's house, but haven't done it since. I like to worry my Mommy! I also do push-ups with my arms when I do tummy time. You should see my biceps... ok, some of it is baby fat. I also love hearing my voice so much that I squeal to startle anyone nearby, yell a lot, laugh, and talk jibberish. Daddy and Mommy think they know what I am saying so they make silly noises back.

Attempting a push-up

Now that I am almost six months old, cousin Kristin came to take photos of me and the fam. I didn't want to smile this day and everyone was trying to make me smile by making weird faces and noises. I was just kind of crabby and tired. We did get some great ones for X-mas, luckily. I will post those later in December! You will love them... hint... naked baby on a sled in a Santa hat! Also, I had to see my friend, Dr. Van de Loo and he checked me out and said I was "perfect" as we all know. I had some ouchie shots that made me cry, but I slept like a baby last night. Thanks to the Tylenol! Here are my stats: Weight= 16 pounds, 9 ounces (50% for my age), Height 2' 1" (25% for my age), and head was 25% (exact measurements, I don't remember). Surprisingly, I still don't need a helmet for my flat back of my head. Mommy was certain I would be wearing one soon. She is going to check into it a little more. I think my head looks like my Grandpa Klay's and Charlie Brown's. I wonder if that's a good thing.

Waiting ever so patiently for Dr. Van de Loo

Finally, I have spending a few afternoons at Sara's house. She is the nice lady who will be taking good care of me while Mommy is at work.

Daycare items checklist: Diapers, wipes box/refills, bottles, bottle liners, formula, baby food, rice cereal, pacifiers, Desitin, lotion, blanket, two outfits, onesie, socks, and my enrollment forms!

Just making sure the most important thing is packed!