Happy 3rd Birthday to Cade!!

What whirlwind couple of weeks it's been! Blizzards, my parents came and stayed for a week and we were prepping and then throwing a great party then even more snow. But, most importantly, Cade celebrated the big 3 last week! Happy birthday to my sweet Cade Michael!

Dylan and Cade Playing in the Snow

By some miracle, my parents were able to fly in and out without problems in between all the storms. They came the day after his birthday and helped to make his birthday week extra special! Cade loves being outside and playing in the snow, so we did lots of that too.

Pipaw Even Got to Go to the Father's Breakfast at Cade's Preschool

Cade LOVES His Pipaw

This was also Cade's first school performance!
Mike said he looked like he didn't know the words to the songs at times but seemed to enjoy himself.

It's impossible to truly describe a little human being so others can even start to know\love him like we do. But, I'll try to give you a little snippet of this awesome kid.

Cade is sweet but firey, adventurous yet appropriately cautious, a very independent player but also loves hanging with his big brother. He makes the most amazing sweet, silly, amusing and mad faces. His laugh is infectious. Although they have started to butt heads a bit more often, Cade absolutely loves and adores his big brother (the feeling is mutual). They really are best friends. And most likely because of that friendship, Cade loves being around the big kids. He'll do his best to keep up with them during playtime.

He's been doing early intervention for his speech for a while now and has just got transferred over to a therapist with the school systems (3 years is the official switch date). They're just helping him get up to speed with his intelligible speech (no concern in any other areas). And, in this area, he has been really improving a lot. About the time we were able to understand him more is the same time he got to an age where he started talking about things out of his immediate environment\context more. In those cases just a couple of months ago, we rarely were able to connect the dots to figure out what he was referring to. Now, though, we are able to figure out what he's saying more often than not. Still working on other non parent\brothers understanding those words.

So far, he has absolutely no interest in potty training but there have been some baby steps in his actions that make us believe he's making his way there. He loves to play video games with his brother even though he really just pushes one button on the controller. But it's cute. Cade LOVES books but usually doesn't sit still long enough for you to read one to him. He's often found sitting and flipping through pages on his own though.

Cade loves to sing and asked us many times to sing happy birthday to him leading up to and after the big day. Every time we sang, he would end the song by pretending to blow out his candles. The practice paid off because he did a great job with the cake we had on the actual date and at his party.

loves Mickey Mouse, Baymax, batman, buzz lightyear (still), trains

Big Smiles While Being Sung To

Blowing Out the Candle
Excuse the PJ's, we were having a blizzard thus it was a jammie day at our house.

Cade was super cute with all his birthday presents. He was excited to open each and every one and gasped with excitement with present reveal.

Cade gives great hugs....is always ready and willing to give me a tight one before I leave for work then runs and greats me happily with one at the door when I get home. On the flip side, he definitely has a stubborn streak. If he's upset with you, he will absolutely shun you. But here's a little secret..if you do something silly that can crack a smile, he'll let you back into his good graces pretty quickly. But beware, he really really hates being told no or being scolded. He's content to not to listen to us at times but if you raise your voice to get his attention, he'll act like you just smacked him across the face!

School has been great fun for him. He's made a great friend that he likes to hang with...not surprising, he's the oldest kid in the class. If you ask him about school, his answer is always, "play with Jack. I play with 2 firetruck!" He also loves his animals...our whole menagerie, but mostly interacts with the cats. Every time he seems them, they make him smile, he wants to give them a hug and he says "AHHHHH, Cici\Baby Luci\Pumpkin!" (whichever cat applies at the time).

What a great little guy Cade is and we just love him to pieces. We've had a great job celebrating another year of his life. Now we are excited to see what the next year brings. We love you Cade!