2 and 1/2 years ALREADY?

Hello my little man,

Been along time since I wrote, I know...I think about writing almost every day but I just have to admit that by the time the day ends I am so tired that I just CAN'T! You are so busy, and so full of energy that we are more tired during THIS time of your life than any other time...even when you were born! :) But oh how how FUN you are during this time!!! I am just having a blast with you!!!

Well....where to even start..... You are a talkin' little boy. How fun is this? You can pretty much tell us anything that you are wanting to express....3 and 4 word sentences now...and it has happened over night it seemed. It is sooo sooo cute. Sometimes you just sit there concentrating so hard on what you are trying to say....I love those moments cause you are just so precious. I am sooo proud of your vocabulary little man! You are doing sooo well!! Also, your language is a mixture of English AND Spanish. They say that kids can't distinguish between the two languages until they are about 4 or 5. As a result, we notice that you pick the easiest word of the two languages to use, so your vocabulary is a real mixture of both languages...so, not everyone would fully understand you! :) It is mostly English though, but you completely understand everything your dad says to you in Spanish. It is truly amazing!

You had your first "kids say the darndest things" moment. We were in Branson visiting my Branson Grandparents and we went out to dinner and you ate pancakes. After we got in the car, Leta said, "Caden, did you like your pancakes?" and YOU said, oh gosh...:) "Um, no, no, they were NASTY!" I thought I was going to DIE. Seriously did you just SAY that??? I don't even know.....hehehehehehe.....

Other cute things you say:

Isabel (the little girl we watch) is "BAHBEL"

Milk is "Mooks"

Eliott, your little best friend it " I E "

Snacks is still " NACKS" no s on the beginning... :)

Hand you say with this funny accent... like German... "hahnd"

When your diaper is dirty you say... " Mommy, pee yew!"

You speak often of yourself in 3rd person, "Caden wants a cracker..." cute


You have so many FAVORITES right now...the biggest one being playing with Eliott in the rocks in the vacant lot near our house. From the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep that is all you want to do. You wear me out!!! So cute you two are though....you will seriously spend HOURS just picking up rocks and throwing them over the edge of the foundation...again and again and again. I wish I could stick to one task that long! I'm lucky if I get HALF our bed made in a day! :)

Other favorites right now:

Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese

Bees

Ladybugs

The book "The Mine-o-saur" (which I want to burn cause you make me read it so many times a day that I want to scream!!! hahahahaha! I definitely have it memorized)

The book " Llama Llama red pajama" Another one I have memorized :)

Your train table and all your little trains

The Bee Movie

Madagascar 2


By the way....now this is another month later as I am trying to finish this blog...I need to just go back to doing smaller ones every day....starting TODAY! YAY!! I'm back and ready to write!! For now, I am just going to add some pictures and a few videos from the last few months and then back up and write more specific things....there is so much!!! I don't want to miss a minute of documenting your precious life my little one.....so....more to come later!!!

I love you my precious 2 year old! Whoever dubbed "the TERRIBLE two's" didn't have you as a little one.....I love you!!!

Love, Mommy

Mexico!!!

Hey my perfect...

It's been awhile, yet again, and I have so many blog posts cramming up my mind that I need to get them all out! It has been a crazy summer! You will see alot of writing from now on cause I have to catch up!! So...I have to back up a tad bit and just touch on our Mexico trip that we took in June! What a fun trip! Our easiest so far with you. Not that you aren't easy my dear, but younger than 2 can be sorta difficult in places that are NOT baby proof!! :) So...this trip you were much more "grown up" and it was a little more relaxing for your parents! Most of our days were spent at the club where we swam, ate, swam, ate and swam...and then ate some more. It was wonderful.

You became a little FISH there in Mexico. We put some water wings on you, and on some days you spent about 7 hours in the water....UNBELIEVABLE! I was thrilled that you loved the water so much...yay! I always hoped that! It sure gave us a nice break! :)

It was great spending a bunch of time with your Grandparents, aunts, uncles and your cousin Sergio! (Who you called Shoo Shoo the whole time....) Cute! :) Here are some pics from our trip......I will write more later about the rest of our summer!!

Love you my little fish,

Love, Mommy

So...Tired....Just...Can't....Stay....Awake....

Hi my little love, I just HAD to post this video of you that I took a couple days ago...it is one of my favorites! We had just come home from playing hard at the indoor playground and you fell asleep in the car JUST as we pulled into the subdivision. I knew you were so tired and so hungry all at once...I asked you when we got out of the car if you wanted to eat or go to bed...you opted for the latter, so I put you in your highchair and this is what followed....needless to say you didn't last long. Dang you are the cutest thing alive. I love you sweetness... Love, Mommy

Your Mommy's Worst Day

Hi my love,
It's been a long time my little munchkin...It seems that as summer gets started, things get busier and your mommy gets so exhausted that it makes it hard to write! Also, because of what I'm about to write, I was just so stressed and traumatized that I couldn't seem to sit down and put it all out there. So...here I am FINALLY...back with lots of stuff to write in the coming weeks, and ready to breathe again...

Well, it's been almost a month since that day...your mommy's worst day ever...You had started a fever the previous evening and on THAT day it was still lingering. I had given you Tylenol and it seemed to help a bit but wasn't knocking it out completely. You, however, were acting completely normal. I tend to watch the attitude more than the fever as kids can get fevers for silly things all the time. By mid afternoon I called the doctor and said I wanted to bring you in, just to check on things...we made an appointment for 5:30 so that your dad could go with us. After your nap you felt a little warmer...took your temp and it was 101..nothing CRAZY, but still... I gave you a cool bath and we sat around cuddling and watching Tigger and Pooh. :) Right before 4pm you wanted to go outside and roll your cars down the driveway. We had been inside all day as it was a bit too warm outside to play with a fever, but by now it had cooled down and the driveway was shaded. I checked your temp, it was 100, so I thought that as long as you just sat there we would be fine. So...out we went and we both sat on the driveway together and started rolling away!

We were watching baby Ian that day and his mom had just gotten there to pick him up. We chatted for a few minutes in the driveway and then I got up to get Ian's diaper bag for her, and get Ian out of the stroller sitting on the porch. All of that took about 20 seconds, and when I glanced back to look at you I saw you lying on your back and shaking. At first I didn't realize what I was seeing...I thought that you were messing around or something, but after 3 seconds I realized what was happening. You were having a full blown seizure right on our driveway!! I had JUST left your side, and now your little body was bouncing off the pavement in a way that I just can't explain...don't really want to actually.... I'm trying not to conjure up too many memories of that moment as I write this. It was just so awful... I had to go pick you up as your little head was bouncing on the driveway, and then I just held you on your side as the seizure was happening. I had absolutely NO knowledge about seizures and had no clue what to expect. THe only thing I knew was to turn you on your side so you wouldn't choke in any way. It was as if you were being struck by lightning over and over again....there were strange electrical pulses ripping through your body.

After about a minute of your seizure you started turning blue...really blue...you weren't breathing...I had seen such things in movies or pictures but never in person....I never knew a face could get so blue. Inside I felt a panic like I have never known. You were my baby...my life....my motivation...my world...my love...and you weren't breathing!!! Ian's mom was FREAKING OUT telling me, "He's not breathing! He's not breathing!" It made me panic even more even though I was shockingly calm through the whole thing.... You still weren't breathing and I was thinking in the matter of 30 seconds, "Is this it?" "Is this the way it's going to end?" "Right here?" "Right now?" "You were fine just 2 minutes ago, and now you are going to die on me?" Your whole life passed before my eyes and I almost thought I was going to throw up. I even imagined my life AFTER you...how I would be...how I wouldn't care about anything.

FINALLY, after what seemed like an eternity, your seizure ended and you started breathing again. It was the weirdest raspy sound, but I almost DIED with relief. However, after enduring all that had previously happened, a new terror had taken hold. The second your seizure ended you went limp in my arms.....completely limp...although you were breathing you were not responding at all. I was yelling at you, trying to sit you up, opening your eyes, (that were rolled back in your head) and slapping your back....NOTHING...absolutely NOTHING. Since I knew nothing about seizures, all I could figure at that point was : You had a seizure, you weren't breathing for 30 plus seconds...now you are brain dead. I was thinking, "You aren't there anymore are you?" "You are breathing, but you you aren't really in there...it's not you." That was almost scarier to me than anything. This lasted about 5 minutes before the ambulance got there and Lori and I were just numb with fear.

The ambulance got to the house and the guys jumped out and grabbed you from me and we hopped inside. At that point you were still non-responsive and I was crying and asking them if you were going to be ok....was this normal? They were yelling at you and shaking you and you just WOKE UP as if you snapped out of a trance. You started WAILING...screaming "MOMMY!" "MOMMY!" "MOMMY!" It was the sweetest, most wonderful sound I had ever heard in my life. My tears just flowed and flowed and flowed at that time I was so happy.... They tried putting an IV in you and kept screwing it up and you were just SCREAMING..."OW, ow, ooooow!" I wanted to kill them. I couldn't hold you as we were rushing to the hospital and I had to sit on the side with a darn seatbelt on..(I wasn't too happy about that) but I could hold your finger and I asked you questions about your favorite movies, sang you songs from them, and made you tell me the names of all of your favorite Disney movie characters. You were sobbing the whole time but still talking through those sobs...how ridiculously precious you are...

When we got to the hospital your temperature was 105. Scary, scary stuff. What you had was called a Febrile Seizure...brought on by a fever...and the scary part is that you can have a low-grade fever and it can just spike super high in a matter of minutes. Some kids are more prone to them, and usually if they have one once, they will have them again until they are 5 or 6 and then they just stop. As if I could live through THAT AGAIN??? I'm still freaking about that...I can't even go there...
Anyway, they got your fever down and you just ended up passing out laying on me..(I climbed onto the hospital bed and had you lay on top of my so that I could hold you) You were so precious during all the poking and prodding...you were sobbing with pain but would still say "bye bye" during a sob as a nurse would leave. They would almost cry they thought it was so sweet, and at those moments I swear I have never loved you more.

Your daddy made it to the house just as the ambulance was leaving and he followed behind in his car. When we were in the hospital he kept trying to ask me questions about what happened and I couldn't even look him in the eye...I couldn't even talk. He kept trying to talk to me and I couldn't seem to find any words. I knew later that I was in shock. I couldn't process it all... After a few hours in the hospital you woke up and acted completely normal. Perfectly fine. I was thrilled...but for some reason I couldn't smile...couldn't act happy... We got home, put you to sleep after holding you for a LONG TIME....and then I just FELL APART. I don't think I have EVER cried that hard. I kept telling your daddy, "I thought he was going to die...I thought he was going to DIE!" I was soooo glad that I was right there with you when it happened, but at the same time I wish I didn't have to witness all that. I couldn't stop reliving it over and over again for weeks to follow, and I felt like I was walking under a cloud of fear and trauma. I definitely squeezed you a bit tighter.....

I cannot tell you how happy that I am that you are ok and unfazed by the whole thing. To even think that I could have been close to losing you makes me still feel nauseous. You are my entire life Caden. My whole heart. Everything that I do is for you, everything that I am is wrapped up in the love that I have for you. I can't even begin to tell you how my world would be nothing without you in it. Please don't get any more fevers munchkin.....and please always know how much your mommy loves you with every ounce of her being. Be healthy......

Love, your traumatized, but better now, Mommy

TWO And More Fun Than EVER!

Hi my love,

I have thought over and over since you have been born that there is NO way that I could love you more than at THAT moment in time. No way.... And every month that passes, I manage to find even more places in my heart to fill with my adoration of you. Well....you have officially been a TWO YEAR OLD for just over a month now, and for sure I can say that this is the MOST fun that I have had with you. I'm just not sure how many more cavities this heart of mine holds, cause it feels like it is going to burst every day my son! I FREAKING LOVE YOU!!!!! You are a BLAST!!!! You make every day a JOY! Thank you, thank you, thank you for that....

Your vocabulary JUST since you've turned two has doubled and tripled....it is soo soo exciting for you to be actually communicating with us! And you are just too precious...You want to point out EVERYTHING you see and do and tell us the name for it. Cute.... And that memory of yours? You don't forget a THING! You fell off of the front porch the other day and scraped up your knee pretty badly, and ever since then you have explained to us what happened each time we go outside to play. "Mommy, mommy, fall..knee....knee...owie...ouch...mommy...knee...ouch!" Soo cute...OVER AND OVER AGAIN...! :)

You won't say the name for animals...only the sound they make. I will say, "What animal is this Caden?" Your replies are....mooo moooo, or bock bock bock,(chicken) or woof woof! I can't for the life of me get you to say DOG, or COW or any animal for the matter. :) It's cute though....I can wait... :)

One big milestone since you turned two is that we are no longer bound by the pacifier!!! Woohoo!!! I can't tell you how happy this has made us!!! I know you loved that darn thing so much, but it was SUCH a pain for us! I thought we were NEVER going to get rid of it!!! It was the smoothest transition EVER though...I never would have believed it, and now you are free buddy! I'm so proud of you!! Seriously...I really am proud...you took it so well, and so sweetly. I'm sure others haven't acted the same. :) Again...thank you for being the best child EVER! :)

Some of your favorite things to do right now are to sit outside in the driveway pushing cars down the driveway into the street...over and over and over again...literally HOURS.. :) and to play with your little neighbor friend Elliot pushing your little lawnmowers together, playing with the cars, or sliding and swimming in your little pool. You are in HEAVEN just being outside playing, and you always want Elliot to be there too. He is exactly one year older than you, but you are both the same size and you just have the cutest little bond between the two of you. Not many words are spoken, but you communicate quite well. It's so sweet that you have your first best friend. I hope you learn the importance of great friends one day.....I will make sure of it!






You are SUCH a great eater, and soooo good with utensils now! Boy...you've got it down now! No more help needed with anything anymore! Nice, but sad at the same time....I do miss feeding you. You are growing too fast!

You've started belly laughing anytime WE laugh at anything. It's probably one of the cutest things EVER. You just throw your head back and let it loose....If only we could all just laugh for no reason at all like that....Don't ever lose that laugh my love....It's music to your mommy's ears.


You LOVE, LOVE books and want to read them all the time. THANK GOD for that!! :) We have fun reading our own books side by side (as you often instruct me to do) and me just reading to you. For some reason you will NOT let your daddy read you books. He wants to sooo much, but you won't hear of it. JUST MOMMY. Secretly I'm glad...hehehe...I just enjoy it so much. Please, please, please never lose that love of reading! It is such a wonderful thing to enjoy for your entire life.....

Right now you have three items that you HAVE to have when you go to bed....a little plastic Pooh (this is the main thing that has replaced the paci as it is in your mouth alot), a little Lightning McQueen car, and a tiny plush Piglet. Most of the night they don't seem to even leave your hands....again....adorable.




Every day you thrill me, and everyday I just want to eat you up you are so cute!!! I might drive you crazy with how many times I make you give me kisses and hugs, but they are the highlight of my day and I will never stop! You make my life more fun everyday Caden. I wake up excited for what that day will bring, what new things you will learn, and what new words I will hear you speak. It's just all so exciting. I am looking forward to this year of you being TWO...and in NO WAY will it be the terrible twos......it's been the most wonderful twos.....

I love my little two year old to death!
Love, your Mommy

Bathtub Spanish Quiz

It Only Takes ONE Minute

My crazy, crazy child,

All I'm going to ask is....what goes through your mind sometimes?? Do you premeditate these little adventures? This is what I found you doing after one minute of putting the clothes from the washer to the dryer. Just not sure what else to say.........LOL You crack me up....and give me gray hairs! :)

Wonder what I'll find tomorrow?

I love you my crazy child! Love, Mommy

Did I Actually Just Say That?

My silly monkey,

You just make me laugh...all the time I just have to laugh at how silly, crazy, kooky, hilarious, wonderful and weird that you are. :) I am so completely immersed in my absolute adoration for you that sometimes I just feel like I cannot contain it!!! You fill absolutely every crevice of my heart and soul. You make life SO worth living and I love that we have so much fun living it!!! More and more people are saying lately that you have my personality...that things you do, and the dramatic way in which you do them, is all ME. I love that.... :) It's nice that people are finally seeing SOMETHING of me in you! hehehe I'm glad that you are quirky like your mommy. It makes life a little more bearable and fun!

So in being your mommy, and witnessing all these quirky and crazy things you do on a daily basis....I often hear myself saying the CRAZIEST things....things that MUST be said at the moment, but things I look back and think...WOW...Did I actually just have to say that?? I KNOW that pretty much every mom will relate to at least some of these and probably have a whole bunch more to add to the list...if so I would love if you would leave a comment and share!

So....here is my list of crazy things that have actually come out of my mouth in just the last lets say, two months...ENJOY!

*Stop licking the TV Caden

*That's not poop honey, it's a raisin

*Caden! Stop walking with your eyes closed!

*Quit wiping your boogers on the window!

*Come here and let me smell your booty

*No, we don't wear boots in the bathtub

*Put the dog poop down!

*Quit flushing the toilet Caden!

*Stop spinning in circles with the blanket on your head!

*Quit pulling on your pee pee

*Get your mouth off the toilet seat!

*STOP putting things in the toilet!!

*No more shoving things in the dog's mouth Caden!

*DO NOT eat that bug!

*No drinking the dog's water!

*If you flush that toilet ONE MORE TIME....


Never a dull moment my love....and I'm sure it will get even more fun. I'm looking forward to every moment. I love you munchkin and I miss you already....come cuddle with me in the morning.....

Love, Mommy

Caden's 2nd Birthday Party!!

Hi my new little 2 year old!

Whew! What a party we had for you little munchkin! So much preparation, fun, presents and pictures that it has taken me this long to even write about it! Sorry your mommy is a slacker...get used to it... hehehehe :)

Because you are obsessed with the movie CARS right now, and just cars in general, I decided that the theme for your party this year needed to be CARS! So....I started preparing a few days in advance getting all of my ideas carried out. I made a few signs, blew a few balloons, created a race track throughout the house with colored DUCK TAPE..(another great use DAD :) ) AND a racetrack outside with chalk. I borrowed some tires from a tire store for the day to help create more FUN FUN FUN, and I had a blast making you your racecar cake! I really enjoy doing these things for you little monkey....it truly is a pleasure...

Here are some pics of the decorations....










We had SOOO many people show up...and sooo many gifts...good grief kid! No child should have that many presents! You were truly blessed that day with lots of car stuff! You had a blast playing outside with the other kiddos, opening presents and eating your cake....what a funny moment....you made a mess! I am truly thankful to have such amazing friends.....

Here are a bunch more pictures of the party!!! It was such a fun time...I'll remember it forever!!!

Love, Mommy