The Trend Continues

My new trend is to not be good at blogging regularly... I hope it won't keep up but it's been a crazy few weeks. For starters, I had a great birthday! I can't believe I'm 28. Yikes! I've been enjoying my new MacBook Air and especially the awesome photo editing capabilities it has.  You'll notice I've played around with a lot of Kaden's pictures and changed the colors and added other things as well.  I'm really enjoying our cool camera and learning to take better pictures and edit them now too.  Hopefully someday I'll be good enough to need an upgrade on both my camera and editing software, but for now I'm loving what I have and am enjoying this as a new hobby.  I have not mentioned yet that I got a tutoring job for second grade twins.  They are Asian and very smart but their mom wants them "above grade level" in all subjects, so I'm tutoring them in writing even though they are already good writers.  It's only two hours a week but it's nice to get to use my teaching skills still a little bit.  And let's be honest, the people here pay what I wanted to charge in Utah and got laughed at for so that's not too shabby either :)

 Kaden's 3 Month Update-

Kaden is such a delightful boy.  We love the cute personality he is developing.  These pictures highlight so well some of the things that he does on a regular basis now that he's 3 months old.

 Kaden is our smiley boy and he is smiling almost all the time now.  He is so cute to listen to because he is constantly cooing and making cute noises with his smiles.

Lately Kaden also LOVES to suck his thumb. I have mixed feelings about that... while it is a self-soothing technique, I happen to think the slurping noise is disgusting and the teacher in me worries he'll be the awkward kid in first grade still sucking his thumb... but for now, I let him because he's still only 10 lbs and it doesn't matter. Plus how can you deny this boy what makes him so happy?

 This is something Curtis and I find quite funny, captured perfectly in this photo.  Kaden has a really strong neck and is pretty good at holding himself upright, until he becomes tired and it's too much work.  Then he simply does this and puts his head down and leaves it down until we switch his position.  Obviously I tried to do too many "sitting up" pictures and he'd had enough clearly.  

 

Maybe I shouldn't include this last picture, but sadly this is a major part of Kaden's life still at 3 months. He has really bad reflux and the poor boy is sad a lot of the day from discomfort, despite the medications and other things we do to relieve his pain.  He is such a sweet baby that it is sad to watch him be in pain.  Hopefully for him this phase of life will be over soon.

Love this boy's big eyes!  He is getting more curious each day and has a few "lines of concern" over his left eye (looking at him it's his left at least).  This is a look he get when he is staring at something new. 

 Kaden also loves to sit up on our laps, especially at mealtimes.  We eat almost every meal of the day with him on our laps since he gets so sad if we're at the table and leave him on the floor on a blanket or in his bouncy chair.

 Switching gears completely, we had Thanksgiving with 40 people at the church in Rochester.  All of us that were without family bonded together and made a meal of it.  It was fun but it did feel a little bit more like a ward function than Thanksgiving since a lot of us didn't know each other and were asking "first date" questions over our turkey.  (You know, "where are you from? what brought you here?" etc...)

 Kaden wore his little turkey outfit that my mom sent him.  It was cute on him, though the pants kept riding up as you can probably tell as well :)  This boy is so long and skinny, that usually his pants fall off his waist but are too short on him. If this trend continues he may be the boy wearing "man capris" that are actually supposed to be pants someday... ha ha!

Someone must have come to Thanksgiving with a stomach bug because I caught it and so did a bunch of other girls.  We all spent the rest of the weekend puking our guts out and other details I will leave out.  I actually got so dehydrated on Saturday that I had Curtis take me to the ER Saturday night to get some fluids since Instacare couldn't do that and I couldn't feed Kaden.  It took a few days but I am finally feeling better and am so glad.  I sometimes forget how grateful I am for a healthy body until I'm not healthy.  A good post-Thanksgiving reminder to me I guess to remember my blessings I sometimes don't stop to think about like my healthy body. 

Fairbourn and Halloween Hoopla

Wow! I am behind on blogging... The Fairbourns (Marv and Dana) came to visit us October 25-29 and we had such a good time together. It was fun for Kaden to meet his Nana and Papa and for them to meet him too.  We love having company come visit (hint, hint) because we tend to be more adventurous when others are here and we go and explore the new places around us more.  Notice in this picture that Kaden's hair almost has a reddish hue to it.  We've decided he may be more of a strawberry blonde than a pure blonde.

The first day Marv and Dana were here the weather was AWESOME! It was 70 degrees outside, which it hasn't been since August. We walked along the Erie Canal Trail which is by our house.

 

 We hung out at the house a bit too so Kaden could play with his Nana and Papa

 

 

We also went to Letchworth State Park the "Grand Canyon of the East."  We had heard it was beautiful in the fall, which it was, but I wish we would have gone just a week or two earlier because I bet it would've been even prettier with all the leaves still on the trees.  By the time we got there a lot of the leaves had already fallen off.  Still breathtaking though!

 

Curtis took this picture- I love it!!! 

 

 

We also went to Palmyra and to the Sacred Grove which is incredible in the fall!

 I was looking at this picture and decided I know where this boy gets his face shape from.  See a resemblance? Anyone?

 

We couldn't have been together around Halloween without doing a Halloween dinner. I just knew we would miss it if we didn't do that with them this year since that is one of my favorite traditions the Fairbourns do.

 

Marv and Dana timed their visit just right with Hurricane Sandy so that all the airports were closed and their flight out of Rochester got cancelled.  They were scheduled to leave on a Monday and the soonest changed flight they could get would have gotten them home on Friday, so being the brave and awesome people they are, they rented a car and drove through the night and made it home Tuesday afternoon! Wow! I could never do that.  It sure was fun to have them come and visit and I'm glad they were able to get home safely.

 

Since I love the Halloween dinner tradition so much I decided to invite over the families in our ward that live in Elmwood Terrace for a Halloween dinner on October 30.  Everyone wore costumes and brought fun, Halloween food.  We had chili, spooky cheese, spooky corn bread, ghoul-aid (punch), chips and salsa, Halloween veggies (arranged in the shape of a monster face) and monster cupcakes.  Everyone contributed and it was fun. 

We had a "pumpkin walk" for the kids (like a cake walk, but they got a mini-jack pumpkin instead), a "witches' swamp" (fish pond) and dancing to Halloween music. Our house was CRAZY with all those little kids running around but we had a good time.

 Curtis and I were "laundry" and "static cling" ha ha.

 

And of course the cutest and happiest skeleton you've ever seen in your life... Love this boy! His costume glowed in the dark- pretty cool if you ask me. 

Happy 2 Months!

Kaden celebrated being 2 months old on October 16! I can hardly believe it.  Time flies quickly with a baby.  He had his two month checkup this week and he is weighing in at 9 lbs 8.5 oz, 22 1/4 inches long.  He is 10th percentile for weight and 25th percentile for height still.  Still small, but growing.  He has finally outgrown a few of his newborn outfits.  We'll see how long it takes him to fit into the 0-3 month size though...

 

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest and wanted to try it with Kaden...

 

This is how Kaden's version turned out! He HATED it!! I tried it with things inside the pumpkin propping him up so it'd be soft. I thought maybe he was cold and brought down the space heater. Nope. Despite my best efforts this boy was not happy to be in a pumpkin. Oh well. Maybe next year?

 Curtis was snuggling Kaden after the traumatizing pumpkin event I caused

 He's still a cute little pumpkin even if he won't sit in the pumpkin for me

 My favorite thing about Kaden getting bigger right now is that he is smiling more and he will coo at you.  If you coo back he keeps doing it back and forth. It is the cutest thing! It's like he's having a conversation with you. I love it.

Auntie Missy Comes to Visit

Missy got to come visit this past week.  We had so much fun with her and it was fun to see her bonding with Kaden for the first time too.  We got to go a few fun places so here are some of the highlights.

This may sound weird but Rochester has the COOLEST cemetary! It is like 10 city blocks large. It is super old and has a few famous people buried there like Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony. Anyway, we took Missy there because it's beautiful in the fall.

 

 

 

 We also went to this cute little pumpkin farm that is a few miles from Rochester called Wickham Farms.  If it hadn't been sub-zero temperatures with freezing wind we would have loved to stay longer.They had the world's most delicious homemade donuts.

 

 I got the cutest picture of Kaden in the pumpkin patch and it somehow got deleted so I'll have to try and re-take a picture of our little pumpkin.  For now these can suffice...

 Kaden has started smiling recently and we were trying to get a picture of him smiling.  This was taken 10 seconds after he wretched ALL over Curtis but the look on his face was pure delight and I couldn't resist including it for your enjoyment. :)

 My sweet smiling boy! I love this picture!!!

We also went to Watkins Glen State Park with Missy.  It is near the Finger Lakes (about an hour and a half south of where we live).  It was absolutely beautiful with all the fall colors!

Despite his best efforts Curtis is not very good at frowning.  Missy was just trying not to laugh at him trying...

 

 Kaden thoroughly enjoyed his first hike.  Thanks Chelsea for the darling beanie,  It finally fits him! Yay!

 

My Two Favorite Boys

This past week was Curtis' birthday (on Monday October 1st).  He was busy with tons of homework and preparing for a career fair in Orlando on Wednesday so we didn't get to do a whole lot for his birthday on the actual day so we'll be celebrating late on October 10th.  I made Curtis a birthday breakfast and he opened his presents, which were all biking-related.  Curtis likes to bike to school each day since we only live about 5 miles from the University of Rochester.  He was worried that his nice road bike would get trashed since it rains a lot and the people aren't very careful around the bike racks here so we found this awesome 1970's road bike on Craigslist which has been getting him to and from school ever since.  Since it rains a ton here (not just talking frequency, but the actual quantity of rain is INSANE when it does rain), he needed some rain biking gear.  I think he will stay dry in all of this stuff for sure :)

 

Curtis also received a package of spoons and forks for his birthday (only as a joke) but I have to explain.  I pack him a lunch every day and without my gentle reminders he often forgets to eat. (I personally don't understand that... I NEVER forget to eat. Mostly I have to remind myself not to eat so much.) He got in the habit of waiting so long to eat on certain days that by the time he went down to the place where you can get forks and spoons and napkins, they've already put them away for the day.  There was a period of a few days where he didn't eat any lunch since he had no utensils... so he got this brilliant idea. Why not just take several days worth of forks and spoons so he wouldn't have to eat lunch at a normal time? He came home one day with his bag full of forks and spoons and salt and pepper packets.  I thought it was quite funny so I decided to buy him some utensils for his birthday so he can keep them in his locker and doesn't have to steal large quantities of them from the school.

Now onto my other favorite boy.Kaden is a happy baby.  Lately he only likes to sleep in his carseat if and when he decides to sleep.  (Most of the time he seems to like to be awake and be held and be right in on the action at all times. He is one spoiled boy!)  He sleeps in strange ways sometimes...

I've mentioned before that Kaden is super wiggly.  He has started this new thing where when I try to burp him he doesn't burp but instead likes to try to climb up me.  Here is one such instance.  Or he'll pull his head back and then abruptly slam it into my face or shoulder while he's supposed to be burping.  He has a really strong neck for such a tiny boy and can hold his head up on his own.

Kaden is 7 weeks old and he just finished a growth spurt and is weighing in right around 8 lbs. which for him seems huge and chunky but then when I really stop and think about it I realize that is still smaller than average babies birth weights. For the first time since he's been born his newborn clothes are actually looking a little bit tight on him. Imagine that! Don't be fooled though by his "growth" because all of the 0-3 month sized clothes I have for him look like they will drown him for sure so I think he'll spend another few weeks in the newborn clothes.

 

 Kaden really likes his bath and I really like his bath because he smells SO good after! I love Johnson's baby products... (He really does like his bath but in this picture I accidentally got the water too cold so it looks like he hates it but usually he is all smiles and cooes. Oops!)

 

 Thank you Grandma Richelle for the cute Halloween sleeper! He loves it and he is so cute in it :)

 

This little boy has the cutest personality.  He makes really cute noises and faces and is starting to smile which is so FUN to see.  I love how this picture really captures a bit of his personality and expression.