2 Years Old!

My little man turned two years old on October 1st. We celebrated his birthday party with my family on his birthday and yesterday with Ryan's family. Kaden was showered with attention, presents (yay! lots of new clothes) and food.

He's starting to talk in whole sentences now: "I eat bar." (eating a cereal bar). "Sit down Papa." "Come here Dada." "Hold you!" (We're working on telling him that it's "hold me" when he wants to be picked up.

I never really fully understood what people meant when they said to me "You're growing up so fast!" As a matter of fact I remember rolling my eyes a couple of times. Oh but how true it is. Kaden is already showing signs of independence - not wanting to snuggle so much, wanting to eat by himself, trying things out on his own. He's such a big guy.

Did that just come out of my mouth?

I don't exercise. I should. I could make time for it. I just haven't. There are two medicine balls that live in my bedroom. They look pretty on the floor. One green ball and one blue - 6 and 8 pounds. Somewhere there's also two little red 2-pound balls. Not quite so sure if Kaden hid them some place and not quite concerned enough to go look for them.

My little man will be 2 years old next week. I am currently 45 pounds lighter than my heaviest pregnancy weight. Gaining 30 pounds during my pregnancy, I am also 15 pounds lighter than when I found out I was pregnant with Kaden. Yay me.

I have no clue what has possessed me this week but a devilish thought has poisoned my mind: I want to run a marathon. *Blink-blink* Did I really just think that? Yep. Did I really mean that? I think so. The big problem I see with this is that I'm scared I won't be able to follow through with it and that I hate running.

I'd really like to be able to do this and I think it may be achievable. I obviously need to build up some kind of endurance. We hang out a lot with my neighbors and their family. My neighbor's sister-in-law is a sweetheart of a girl and she runs marathons and has been doing it for a few years. She told me about the "Couch to 5 K" program that (in theory) coaches you in 8 or 9 weeks from a lot of walking and a little jogging to 30 minutes of jogging straight.

Another challenge I'm going to face is to find the time to workout. Four nights out of the week I only get to see Ryan for 2 1/2 hours. By the time he leaves for work, the daycare center at the gym is closed.

We'll see if this is a fleeting thought or if I can at least start doing some kind of long distance walking. I'll be attending the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure 1 mile walk this Saturday with Kaden and my mother-in-law Terri. There's a two mile run scheduled the week before Thanksgiving to look forward to and a new running store that should be openning within the next few weeks. Here's to the start of my Bucket List.

I'm an Airbender!

We have recently started watching the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoons on Nick. It's a cute little series that only ran for 3 seasons. For a short explanation there are people who can control elements (air, water, earth and fire).

The reason I'm telling you about this cute cartoon is because earlier this week the knob that controls which direction the air flows in my car (head, feet, both, defrost etc) broke off. It's a good thing it wasn't winter and I needed to defrost my windshield. I called one of my favorite mechanics and they ordered a replacement for me and had it waiting for me within 4 hours (that's prompt service!). It wasn't until the next morning that I thought to myself "It's so wonderful to be able to control the air. ... Hey! I'm an Airbender!"

It's ok if you don't get it .... I like my stories. :)

Happy Birthday @ Cross Timbers

Sunday was Ryan's 31st birthday. We celebrated the weekend by going camping at Cross Timbers with my in-laws. We tent camped and they pulled the camper out.

Kaden was completely spoiled with a wonderful pool that Papa (grandpa) and Nana (grandma) brought for him. No swim diaper or swim suit? No problem. Naked baby swimming! (He actually had on a pair of shorts though.)

Brent and Terri watched Kaden while Ryan and I went on a hike on a nearby trail. They were doing some repair work on the dam, so the water level was lower than normal.

Here's what the same bridge looked like last September:

It's a good thing we each had our own camelback. I sucked down 3 liters of water on our 5 mile hike. The temperature was over 100 degrees that weekend.

Kaden loved sleeping in the tent. It sprinkled off and on during the whole night. Ryan was very attentive to the rain fly over our tent so we wouldn't get soaked.

A new playground had been build in the tent only camping area. We had fun chasing Kaden down all the slides and following him around.



Terri and I sat on the swings (at Kaden's request) and watched while Papa Brent pushed Kaden and gave underdogs.

Like I mentioned before, we really were roughing it.

Yes. Kaden is watching Coraline. For the millionth time.

Our last evening there, one of our neighbors came over with a copper pipe contraption that you put in the fire and get blue, green and pink flames. It was too cool. I must find out (first if this is toxic) how to recreate this for later.

Your child's digital history

Not surprisingly I've fallen about 2 years behind on scrap booking and Kaden's baby book is sadly neglected. I've been looking at pictures that we've taken of him, one being his first time on the potty or him in the bathtub. I know that most if not all of you who read my blog were born before the Internet ever existed. We've also heard a story or two on the news about pictures that people took ages ago coming back to bite them on the behinds.

Here's my philosophical question: How much consideration to your child's future do you give before you post a picture of them on a blog, twitter, facebook, etc.?

Gotta go pee-pee!

While we were on vacation in July in Bull Shoals, Arkansas, my mother-in-law Terri helped Kaden go #2 on the toilet for the very first time. We haven't started pushing Kaden to potty training and hadn't really discussed when we should. At a recent trip to Wally World we picked up a training potty just to be prepared.

I pulled the thing out of the box and quickly assembled it with Kaden watching intently. As soon as I had it put together, Kaden lifted up his shirt and said "Pee-pee." I asked if he needed to go potty and wouldn't you know, he knodded his little head. We rushed him into the bathroom where he pottied on his training potty for the very first time! My little guy is growing up so fast!

No more Ba-Bas!

We have officially crossed the line into the world of no bottles! Kaden bit a hole through one of his bottle nipples last Friday. We came home from daycare, opened the trashcan, tossed in the bottle and said "Goodbye, Ba-Ba!" He has adjusted very well and is requesting his "sippy" instead of a ba-ba.

To celebrate the event, we purchased Kaden some Spongebob sippy cups. He loves them!