Longboat Key, FL

May 2012

Because I made the mistake of scheduling our wedding date on May 9th, each year we celebrate my birthday, our anniversary and Mother's Day all in the same week. We decided that instead of celebrating each day separately we try and plan a vacation around the same time to hit three birds with one stone! Lucky for Jered and for me!

This year we decided to go to Longboat Key, FL. The flights are direct from Greenville and super cheap so why not?! About a week before leaving, we started talking to Caiden about taking a plane ride to the beach and he was so excited. He told his friends at school that he was going to wave at them from the airplane in the sky, haha. The last time we went to the beach Caiden was just 10 month old so he wasn't sure what to expect.

This was Caiden's 4th flight so we've almost got it down to a science. Some snacks, a sticker book and his epi-pen and we're all set! Jered even recorded a movie on his i-phone - like literally recorded it from a DVD player to save the $3 it would take to download it online. So we had that for back up in case Caiden got restless.

We arrived to Florida in the late afternoon so plenty of time to head straight to the beach, toy farm animals, floaties and all. Just as we thought he would, C loved it. He spent a lot of the time chasing birds up and down the beach and playing in the sand. He wasn't the biggest fan of the waves quite yet, but we knew he would warm up to them eventually.  

We have realized lately that these are the last few months that we have with just Caiden before his little brother joins our family so we really wanted the week to be all about Caiden and letting him just enjoy, learn and explore - and that he did. We made sand castles, took a long walk down the beach as he chased the birds along the way, found a big hole that possible was made by a sea turtle laying her eggs, chased the waves and swam in the pool as much as we could. Swimming was probably Caiden's favorite thing to do the whole weekend. When he first got in he just laughed and laughed, splashing and spinning around and soaking up all the fun! This made for one tired little guy by bedtime! They had a couch that pulled out into a bed so that's where he slept, and it was perfect. A few pillows around the edge to keep him from falling off and he was all set. We weren't sure how it would go since we all shared the same room but he would just sing and talk out loud to himself for 10 or so minutes until finally falling asleep. Every so often he would look over at us and give us a sweet little smile.

I loved sleeping in the same room because we would hear him start to wake up in the morning, he would talk to himself about "Bert the Bird" and other things that were on his mind until he was ready to come over and snuggle with us. He even slept in until about 8:30 every morning - which was GREAT!

We ate breakfast and lunch at the hotel and most night we went out on the town to try out the seafood! The first night we went to Dry Dock - right by the water and it was DELISH! The ladies at the table next to us kept looking over at Caiden and saying what  good boy he was. Even a guy at another table told us we have a genius on our hands - he said Caiden communicated better than most kids he knew and was very well behaved - that's our little man and we are so thankful we can take him to a nice restaurant without him disturbing others around us.

On our anniversary we went to the Mote Aquarium where we saw a manatee eating lettuce, tangs eating broccoli and a dolphin doing flips in the air - along with much more! Caiden couldn't get enough of it and still talks about it. I love going to places like that with my boys because Jered is so good at explaining to Caiden what things are and even exploring the touch tank and letting Caiden feel some of the star fish and other sea life. Since I'm a little over 7 months pregnant, I had to take a few breaks so it was fun watching them run around and explore.

We had a great weekend and can't wait to go back! Next time we'll be driving the minivan since our family will grow by two feet :)

Rental House

Renting, bleh ~ September 2011

Lately we've been having problems with our rental home. This morning we got a call from our leasing agency saying there's a water leak coming from our sprinkler system. No big deal, we never use the sprinklers anyway so just shut off the valve and we're good to go, right? Well it turns our that the house is on a slab and the plumbing is UNDER the concrete. Sooo, now they have to tear out our kitchen to get to everything. Not good! Needless to say we're ready to move on and find a place of our own. We've been looking at homes for some time now - I'd say we've seen abpout 20 in person. It's been exhausting but we know in time we'll find something that will fit our family perfectly.

No more crib

Transitioning from the crib to bed ~ December 2011

We've held it off as long as we could. We kept waiting for Caiden to try and climb out of the crib on his own before making the transition to a big boy bed but he never even once tried it. He loves following rules and making us proud, so the thought of actually climbing out of his bed never came to mind, or so it seems.

We knew that we wanted to wean him off of his Nuni before making the bed switch and the transition from the Nuni actually went very well. It was bed time on New Years Eve - Eve and I told Caiden to find his Nuni. He said, "No mommy, nuni went bye bye in daddy's big truck." We hadn't even discussed it with him that we would soon be taking it away so he came up with that all on his own. I let him sleep with his nuni one last night...I wasn't quite ready for him to be done with it FOREVER!

The next night at bedtime we laid him down and said our prayers. He was looking around for his nuni and asked to help find it. We told him that it did went bye bye and daddy's truck and he simply said, "ok!". We shut off the lights, closed the door and went down stairs. In the baby monitor we could tell that he was getting restless and he starting crying a little. After a few minutes Jered went upstairs and had sweet little talk with him about being a big boy and after that, Caiden went right to sleep. The next night was the same, a little crying, a talk from daddy and then he slept through the night without a peep. Since then it hasn't even been an issue. He hasn't even asked for it! At Kim's she said he did great and even told Sonome that she shouldn't take her paci anymore either.

I'm a little nervous what the next few nights are going to look like with him being able to hop right out of bed, but I really have faith in Caiden that he won't make it too hard on himself. Our thought is to really not make a huge deal out of it but explain that he has been such a good boy and that it's time to start getting ready to be a big brother. I can't believe how hard it is to watch him grow up so so quickly and become this sweet, independent happy little boy. I see him waddle around in his diaper and cowboy boots and try my hardest to capture these moments, knowing that one day all we'll have is memories.