Cutest Kids Ever

Last night our company left - we were lucky enough to have Jeff's mom & his sister Noelle and her sweet baby Sabrina come visit for a couple of days - and we were a little bit sad. So we did what any good parents would do and set up the tent for an indoor campout! That got the kids' minds off of our lonely house and onto something fun & exciting. We got them all snuggled up with their sleeping bags inside the tent and we left to start getting ready for bed. Funny thing happened though; when I checked on them later, Madlyn was nice & cozy...in her bed. Cade was curled up tight...in his bed. Cole was the only one left in the tent and he slept there all night. I guess Mads & Cade aren't too big on camping:) They were so cute about it though and I just had to take some pictures!

Don't you just love the kids' jammie shirts? Mesa Bank was good for something, right?! j/k

I just thought this was a cute picture of Cade - he is pretty funny. Oh, I took him for his 3-yr. checkup on Friday and he weighed 31 pounds. I got to thinking about it and realized that he has only gained about 12 pounds since he was 4 months old. So either he is just small or else he was really huge when he was 4 months. I'm guessing it was the latter!

This boy just makes me smile! He has the funniest facial expressions and vocals! He just loves being a part of the action and thinks he is just as old as the rest of us! Tonight he came up to me and was telling me something and pointing. So I followed him to our front entryway to a closet. He had pulled the vacuum out and started jabbering...I guessed that he wanted me to vacuum. Well, it needed done so I plugged it in and started vacuuming. He lit up and did what he always does - he ran to the vacuum, stood right in front of it and laughed. He's been watching the boys who like me to chase them with the vacuum and I guess this is his little variation on that same concept:)

Seriously, don't you want to just eat him up?

OK so the tent thing was really not a good idea. We left it up today and let them try sleeping there again. Jeff & I have been in our room for over an hour and I just went to check on them because they started being noisy. The light was on and they had a whole party goin' on in there. Toys, cookies from FHE, all kinds of fun stuff! And Cade is seriously so funny. Whenever you ask him to get in bed, he will stand there (or walk super slowly) and say, "I'm gooooo-ing. I'm goooooo-ing." It is so funny. As I type, he is trying to sneak into our room like a puma:) He thinks that if he is on his hands & knees, I won't see him. Speaking of pumas, the other day Cade was looking at a BYU Cougars hat that we have. He observed, "Look Mom! It's a white puma!" "Cade, do you know what a white puma is called? (really it was tan but he doesn't know the difference) It is called a cougar." "No, Mom. Santa is a cougar. The puma is not a cougar." It took me a minute to figure out what in the world he was talking about but then I remembered one of his favorite Christmas movies is "Mr. Krueger's Christmas". Santa Claus, cougars, pumas....they're all connected!

Well that's it for now! I guess it's time for me to work on some other things - I've been procrastinating long enough!

"Since it's My Birthday"

Yesterday we celebrated my sweet Cadeson Glen's 3rd birthday. Wow! It feels like yesterday I was walking around my neighborhood trying to go into labor with him. And jumping on the Slaters' trampoline, and bouncing on my exercise ball, and all the other things I did to try to induce labor, hehe.

Yesterday morning when Cade woke up (as usual, he was the first one), we presented him with his first present: a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch:) He was pretty excited and proceeded to eat several bowls for his breakfast. I had to teach Cole's preschool from 9-12 so poor Cade didn't get much birthday attention for those hours. He did join in the preschool fun a little...and distracted us all a lot. At a couple of points, he tackled Cole and they wrestled on the floor for a bit. I think he just wanted Mom to remember whose birthday it was:) He liked the soft pretzels we made into the letter "x" for snacktime and then when preschool was over we had Ramen noodles for lunch.

After lunch, I pulled out some cakes I had made & frozen last week and proceeded to make a very amateur-looking race track cake. The perfectionist in me lasted about a second, especially when I was halfway through frosting and decided my frosting was too thick (too late now) and when I couldn't find the tip I wanted to use for piping the stripes and when I chose not to use the blender for the Oreo race track (never wake a sleeping child) and couldn't figure out another good way to crush them. Oh well. Cade was very excited for his cake and that is definitely all that matters to me.

When Jeff got home, we ate homemade mac & cheese and edamame for dinner (this kid is pretty easy to please) and talked about the reasons why we all love Cade. Maddie said that she loves him because he is a good brother and because he makes her laugh. Cole said that he is a good brother and he plays with him...sometimes. Lane plead the fifth. I said that Cade is a good basketball player, is smart, and gives the best hugs around. Jeff said "That's what I was going to say." He said other things too but I can't remember what they were - sorry honey. We also talked about the day Cade was born - how we had to drive to Grandma's house kind of early in the morning and how Mom was "squealing" in the front seat (quote from Maddie - I promise you, I did not squeal. I barely made a sound. Even when we made it to the hospital & it was discovered that I was VERY far progressed, nobody could have guessed it). How Maddie came up with the name Cade (in her mind, yes...in reality, no:) ) and how we didn't know he was a boy or a girl until he was born, and how he was a big baby, 9 lbs. 4 oz. How much we loved him and were so excited to have him in our family, and how good of a baby he was.

Cade then opened his presents and when he got a plastic bowling set, his eyes got wide and he exclaimed in his cute high-pitched voice, "Oh! I love this!" He said the same thing when he saw the picture my mom had drawn of him playing basketball. "Oh! I love it!" It was the darlingest thing. I know that's not a word but I'm a mom here, not the grammar police.

Cade spent some of the evening watching part of the movie "Cars". "Mom, I told you that we had it!" - again in his cute high-pitched voice. (Ours got lost and we just recorded it on TV the other night and surprised him with getting to watch it for his birthday).

Cade's 3rd birthday ended with him watching country music videos on the computer with his daddy (one of which I heard him singing this morning - "blow, blow, Seminole wind") and then lying down next to him and getting tickles to lull him into dreamland. What a lucky boy. And what a special dad.

I love my Cade boy. He is so smart, funny, sweet, creative, cuddly, athletic, and good-hearted. With just a dash of mischievous and feisty thrown in for good measure. I'm so happy he decided to join our family 3 years ago; he was definitely worth the wait*.



*For those who don't know, my labor with Cade is the only one for me that was not induced...but it was 9 days past his due date. Those were some of the most agonizing & excruciating days of my life. But I think his labor story is my favorite because it was so super exciting to finally be experiencing labor on my own. And the sweet baby I got at the end of it all was the icing on the cake.

Once there was a Snowman...Texas Style

Thursday night, Jeff's sister Lyssa & her children stopped at our house on their way home from San Antonio for a little sleepover. It was such a fun way to break up our week just a little bit and relax from daily pressures. While they were here, they found out that their school was cancelled for Friday because of all the snow the Dallas area was getting; that meant they didn't have to rush home early the next morning to make it back for school - yay! We were all a little bummed though because the snowfall hadn't been too impressive here in Hewitt so we knew school would be in session for Mads.

Jeff went out to start his car Friday morning before work and came back in & said that it was being announced on the radio that some schools were being delayed 2 hours and that we better check on ours. So we checked the website and sure enough - 2 hour delay!! I thought, "Wow. We must have gotten a lot of snow last night to warrant a snow delay." I looked out the window and the ground was basically sprinkled with snow - I laughed because "There isn't even any snow out there!" But I didn't complain because it meant that we got to take our time eating yummy french toast, playing with our best TX cousins, and making a snowman. OK, it was really just Maddie & Jake who made the snowman, which stood about a foot & a half tall - hehe. Everyone else wimped out and didn't last very long outside. I don't blame them though because we desert Arizonans are not prepared for snow and the kids were using socks to protect their hands from the cold. Maddie said "It was sooooo cold. Me & Jake had to share socks:)" Cute kids.

I love the Dallas Cowboys hat the snowman is sporting - that doesn't mean we're fans or anything (it's Jake's hat) - but I thought it very fitting for our "Texas snowman". (Not that I have anything against the Cowboys either...I'm just an AZ girl:) )

Oh, and when I went to get the newspaper out in the front yard, the headline read, "A SNOWY MESS". Haha. Tell that to all the folks in northern AZ and Washington, D.C. and all the other places where they've been getting snowed in all winter:)

It was such a fun morning - thanks McAleavys for coming to play with us!