Cade Michael - 5 Months

Today Cade is 5 months old! This morning, we all sang happy birthday to him. Since Dylan's birthday is coming up very soon, we've been prepping him on birthdays, parties and how these things work. Later in the day, Dylan mentioned we would sing to him on his birthday too. It's going to be cool to celebrate with him this year now that he "gets it" more. Anyway, back to Cade.

Let's start with sleep since that seems to be how I've started out his other b'day month posts. It's still not happening. When Dylan started sleeping through the night, it happened and kept on happening with very little exception (normally when there was a health issue involved). Not so with Cade. After 3 nights in a row of 6+ hours sleep, he didn't repeat again for over a week. I'm still getting up at least once a night with him. Last night was the best night we've had in a while (by far) and I think he barely hit the 6 hour mark. While I'm getting a lot more sleep than other new mothers (since Mike's home with me), it doesn't mean I'm not ridiculously tired and exhausted a lot. I really am unable to nap. So if we've got something going on in the mornings and I don't get that couple of extra hours of sleep Mike tries to give me, well, I'm pretty much a zombie. 5 months of not sleeping plus about 8 during pregnancy that I really didn't sleep well either. It's taking a toll. I'm trying not to stress about going back to work in a couple of weeks but it's hard not to think about from time to time.

What Cade lacks in sleeping skills, he makes up for in other ways. He is a mild mannered happy baby. A true joy to be around. His smile melts my heart and I could just never tired of his giggles (which his brother makes him do lots). Cade adores his big brother and the feeling is mutual. Dylan loves having him around and they seem to be great friends. Let's hope that mutual admiration and friendship lasts for many years to come.

I seriously just want to eat up these legs!

While there haven't been great developments in the sleep department, there have been great strides elsewhere. Cade has really become interested in toys. It's great in many ways because it shows his little brain is developing well but also frees us up a bit since we're not constantly have to hold him and be the ones to keep him entertained. Dylan loves "teaching" Cade how to play with all of the toys too.

One of Cade's first encounters with this toy. He was truly in awe.
I think his eyes almost popped out of his head.

Cade has also really taken to eating solids. After his start last month, his mouth opening skills have improved by leaps and bounds. Instead of us trying to aim and shove the spoon in while he quickly opened and closed his mouth, he now opens wide for us to shovel it in. We're feeding him solids 2 times a day most days and he's still nursing every 2 to 3 hours. A very large portion of his day is spent eating. He's tried lots of new foods this month too. Of the baby food variety, he's had green beans, bananas, sweet potatoes, peaches and prunes (which truly do move things along as advertised). He's also enjoyed sucking the juice out of apples, oranges and kiwi.

Physically I know he's grown from all that eating but we'll have to find a scale to find out how much. His next wellness appointment isn't until the 6 month mark. Also on the physical front, he's done a lot more rolling from back to stomach, stomach to back and even some barrel rolls across the floor. While he used to hate tummy time, he now spends lot of time very happy on his tummy...especially when his brother joins him there. Over the last couple of days, Mike and I have even witnessed him scooching around while on his belly, pushing with his legs. Does this mean he'll be an early crawler? Time will tell, I suppose. Cade's also been doing lots of ab work which leads me to believe he may also be sitting up solo before we know it.

Cade is such a wonderful little guy. I can't wait to see what changes the next month has in store for him. 

New Guest Suite - The Bathroom

What do you know, I actually finished a project, start to finish, in one week! I decided a couple of weeks ago that I just couldn't live with the boring builders beige that still existed in a few of our rooms so it was time to eradicate it. One of those rooms is the guest bedroom that I posted about a few weeks ago as completed. Well, I decided I didn't love how the artwork turned out and that a better color on the wall would bring out the crown molding better...and be more exciting that what is currently on the walls. But I wasn't sure of the color so I headed to the paint store for some samples. On a whim, I bought a full gallon of the paint I was 90% sure I wanted for the guest bathroom.

Well, that was last Sunday. That night, Cade slept 8.5 hours straight! Now, mind you, I didn't sleep that amount of time because I woke to his fussing at one point before he fell back asleep and then checked to make sure he was breathing a couple of other times. In any case, I still got more sleep than usual and was super excited that he might be turning a corner of starting to sleep and I might start getting some more energy back into my life. I awoke Monday morning raring to go! I got up, took the boys for a walk, got the whole family showered and ready and then decided I would paint the bathroom! (Note, that night was the last time that Cade slept. Since then, it's been back to 4 hour stretches at best. Sigh. Hopefully soon. Hopefully soon.)

Of course, I didn't think of getting a good before picture since I jumped right into this so when I thought of it, I'd already done some trim work. But, you can see by comparison how extremely dull the wall color was. Boring!

Bathroom in Progres

I'll give credit to Mike for about 10% of the project since he had to get some spots I couldn't reach over the tub but for the most part, it was all me. Monday, the painting was 100% complete. During the rest of the week, I shopped for and bought a new curved shower bar, towels, hand towel rack, artwork, and nice containers for the sink top. All was installed by yesterday and voila, I have a pretty "new" guest bathroom!

It's all ready for my parents visit next week. Also, we found a painter to do the guest bedroom and the basement. He's coming tomorrow so I hope to get the rooms decorated and pretty soon so I can share those completed projects as well. I've also been working on some other decor around the house this week and, this morning, Mike started hanging the garage organization system. We are in full steam ahead mode to get some things completed at the house before I go back to work. Now, to convince Cade that he doesn't need to eat in the middle of the night....

Family of Four Pictures

I mentioned a while back that we got some family pictures made and I haven't had a chance to post them yet. Despite Dylan not really being into it (as usual), we got some good photos of the boys and the family. I guess these were done over 6 weeks ago now. Cade's already changed a lot since we took these. Here they are....enjoy!

My Big Boy

Cade and Daddy

Cade and Mommy

Baby's Gonna Knock You Out!

I'm so mad at myself for forgetting the super cute diaper cover
a friend of mine made for Cade. We had to use the studio's
granny panties. Next time I guess.

My Cute Boys
We got this one in black and white to put up in the house.

And Then There Were Four

Only Two Years Old For a Few More Weeks Now

Heat Wave

Yes, New England had a heat wave this week. For two days we had to endure what Texans call "a nice summer day" - temps in the mid to upper 90s! I am so glad that we have central ac in our new house (which is not a given in a house up here).

Both Dylan and Cade were a bit cranky on those two days despite the fact that we minimized their time outside. Now I can't prove it without a shadow of a doubt just yet, but I suspect my boys are like me and just don't like the heat. Seriously, I have no idea how I not only endured that kind of heat for so much of my life but also got out and played tennis in it. I just can't fathom it now.

To "celebrate" the heat wave, we busted out our water fun. We had a little tiny spray pool from last summer that Mike got out and working. On Wednesday, the boys had fun playing in it a while until Mike plopped down on it and it popped. Oops! Good thing we had the sprinkler for back up.

Love the look of pure joy on this boy's face!

On Thursday, we had some playdates coming over both in the morning and afternoon. Friends without central AC were happy to escape for some play time at our place. Since pools just happened to be on sale at Toys R Us that day, Mike went in the morning to pick up a new one. So, for our afternoon playdate, we had a fun new pool to play in. Funny thing is that the brand of the pool is the same name as my company - Intex. It came complete with slide. Dylan and his friend Mia had a great time playing in it.

Slide!

Cade Chillin (He was not a fan of the cold water.)

Cute Mia

Cheesy Smiles

I also thought it would be a grand idea to make popsicles for the kiddos. Mike bought some juice and I went searching for our popsicle molds. I have no idea where they are. So I tried to improvise thinking we had fun fish ice cube molds and popsicle sticks. Instead, all I found was regular ice cube trays and craft sticks (which are wider and, it turns out, more splintery than popsicle sticks). Dylan and Mia were very interested in the popsicles....not to eat mind you but just to hold. Telling Dylan it was like juice ice cream (2 of his favorite things) didn't even sway him to try it. Sigh. Oh well, the adults enjoyed a juice ice cube and we were able to navigate the splinters easily enough. I'll have to be more prepared for popsicle making on our next heat wave.

In any case, we survived pretty much unscathed. Other than some crankiness and possible heat rash on Cade that is. I miss my family dearly but man oh man am I glad I don't live in that weather anymore (sorry Mom and Dad)!

How We Celebrated Dad

Last Sunday was, of course, Father's Day. There just so happens to be a wonderful Dad living at our house so we did as much as we could to celebrate him. Unfortunately, Cade and I had a party from 4-6 am so we then slept in late. Wanting to give Mike a big breakfast he would love, I wanted to take him to our great local diner but by the time we got there, the line was out the door. So we opted for the bagel place. We filled our bellies and went home to give Mike the gifts we made and bought for him. 

The card Dylan made for Mike
He liked getting his hand traced....he said it tickled.

It Reads "I Love You This Much!"
Totally cute card I can't take any credit for since I stole the idea off the internet.
Love how it turned out though. 

Artwork Made By the Boys
The top picture was brush painted by Dylan and the bottom foot painted by Cade.

After Mike and Dylan took naps and Cade and I ran a few errands, the family headed to the zoo for the afternoon. If you read my blog at all, you know we're regular zoo folks. However, there was a special exhibit at the zoo we were very excited to see.....

Zoorassic Park!
An exhibit of Animatronic Dinosaurs
Super Cool

And, of course, we took time to enjoy the animals. The zoo is celebrating its 100th birthday and there were lots of great signs around the zoo giving some of the history of the zoo that we found very interesting. In addition, the zoo had very recently added some new playground equipment and was still doing construction on the main playground there. We didn't have time to explore these so will definitely have to go back when we have lots of time so that Dylan can discover them all.

Cade and I Feeding a Budgie

The day was not over yet. We topped it off with a family pizza night (aka the only time I cook at the house so Mike had the day off from family food prep) and had a skype call with another great Dad - mine! Dylan and Cade even gave Mimaw and Pipaw a great giggle show. 

I try to let Mike know daily that we appreciate what a great Dad he is but it was nice to be able to officially dedicate a holiday to him. But it was exhausting too! Apparently Cade thought so too because he slept for 8.5 hours that night. Wow! I can't even tell you how excited I was about that. Unfortunately the next two nights regressed back to being up a lot. I'm hopeful this sleeping thing will take hold soon. I really hope so!

Chocolate World

Somehow I never posted about our last day of vacation in Hershey, PA. It's been a few weeks now and honestly the details are fuzzy now so here's a quick run down of the day.

We woke up, packed up and said goodbye to our lovely hostess, the owner of the apartment we stayed in. With a long day of driving in front of us, we opted to use the small amount of time left to explore the area with what it's most famous for - chocolate! Aptly named, Chocolate World, it's a "free" tourist attraction that also offers other activities like a 3D movie and make your own chocolate bar that are ridiculously priced. We kept it simple and cheap and just rode the chocolate making experience ride with the boys.

Family Portrait on the Ride

It was informative but also really cheesy complete with singing cows. Dylan loved it. Upon exiting the ride, we were handed a free sample of chocolate then dumped in a huge chocolate store.

We got a few souvenirs to commemorate the trip and looked around. That was all there was to Chocolate World for us. So since there wasn't a line, we went on the ride again. Dylan loved it even more the 2nd time around and Cade was, as he always is, along for the ride. Then we filled the car with gas and hit the road.

While the trip there was a horrible disaster the trip home was, well, equally disastrous. Before we left, I looked at Mike and said "Whatever happens today, I want you to know I had a really great vacation with you and the boys." Good thing I said it when I did because I was not in a state to make that statement when we finally arrived home almost 9 hours later.

The weather cooperated with us but traffic did not. We missed our NYC bypass turn off and got great views of the NYC skyline while sitting in traffic around it for 2 hours. Cade, when he wasn't sleeping, was pretty much screaming. Dylan didn't sleep more than a few winks. However, even though a kid his age is normally a wreck with no sleep, he was the only one that seemed to get through the day mostly unscathed. He was pretty happy watching movies and tried to close his eyes and fall asleep when I told him it was bedtime (but just couldn't). Mike's nerves were shot after driving in traffic for so long and mine were shot as well with trying to keep Cade happy for so many hours. It was a rough trip and we just barely survived it. Let's just say we're not planning any car trips again any time soon. At least none of that magnitude.

Man, it was so great to be home. We had a great first family vacation (minus the trip to and from) but there truly is no place like home.