Caden's Pictures

Caden got ahold of the camera the other day when I wasn't paying attention, and I thought that it was funny so see what he took pictures of.  I think that there must've been like 30 pictures, and a lot of them were out of focus.  In fact it was making me dizzy to look at them.  I was impressed that he was pretty good at getting his subject actually in the picture.  Here are some of the highlights.

 

Look at that cute dirty face.   

His jack o lantern night light. 

His favorite stuffed animal Daisy. 

His Mater clock driving on the rug. 

His bed.

Fun Outside

Last Saturday we spent pretty much all day outside doing yard work.  It was time to plant new flowers and the winter grass now that it is starting to get cooler.  It was so nice to finally be able to spend some time outside without dying of heat exhaustion, and our yard is looking pretty great now too!  

 

Here are the flowers waiting to be planted.  I bought 16 six packs, so it was a lot of flowers! 

We found this huge Praying Mantis in the flower bed.  Caden tried to touch him, and the Praying Mantis tried to get him.  It looked like he was doing some Kung Fu fighting. 

We also found this huge grasshopper. 

Here are some of my flowers planted. 

I also trimmed up our rose garden since it was getting a little wild and out of control.  I couldn't believe how big that some of the thorns were! 

Here is the pile of rose bush clippings that didn't fit in the garbage can.  At first I tried to smash them in, but the thorns poked me right through my gloves. Ouch! 

We also colored in chalk on the patio.  Caden usually loves to have his hands traced with crayons, so he was really excited to have his whole body traced with chalk.  I had to do it in every color.

Carnival

Last Friday we went to see Ashlyn and Hadley perform with their dance class at a little carnival in Mesa.  I forgot to take pictures of the dancing, but they did so good.  They had the cutest little dance outfits, and Ashlyn did some really good tumbling.  I think that she was the best one there!  Afterwards Caden was excited to go on a couple of the rides.  He really wanted to ride on the Ferris Wheel.  I thought that he might be scared, but Matt said that he really liked it.  He kept saying "Look! I can see the freeway!"  I'm glad that I didn't have to go with him because I hate when it stops at the top!

 

Arizona Natural History Museum

We've been wanting to take Caden to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs.  Well Saturday was the Smithsonian free museum day, so we decided to go and check it out.  

 

This is a Pteranodon which is the same dinosaurs that are on the Dinosaur Train show that Caden likes to watch.   

Caden "flying" like a Pteranodon.  There were also another flying dinosaurs that were as big as an airplane.  It was so crazy.  I can't imagine how scary that would be to see them flying around! 

This is a Mammoth 

The highlight for Caden was the T-Rex.  We had to go back and look at it again.  We also some other dinosaurs including the Stegosaurus and Triceratops.

He also got to excavate some dinosaur bones 

and do some panning for gold. 

There was also a jail replica. 

 

We saw some other Arizona history about the Indians and mining, but the most interesting thing there was definitely the dinosaurs!

New Windshield

Matthias came over and put a new windshield in my car today.  Caden was very interested in what he was doing, and stayed out there to watch him the whole time.  He had to take his tool box out there too, so he could help fix the car.  Caden would come in every once in a while and give an update like "he took out the big window."   He told Matthias to leave the big window out, and that we would have to be careful when it rains.  He is so smart and funny!

Camping

We went on our third annual camping trip up to the Mogollon Rim with my parents this weekend.  The weather was awesome during the day and definitely a little chilly at night and first thing in the morning.  It was nice to get away and relax (although honestly there is not a whole lot of relaxing going on with Caden around!).  I do miss having a bathroom and sleeping in a real bed so one night is usually my camping max.  It always makes me a little sad when we are driving home though and the pine trees start turning into cactus and other desert bushes.

 

Admiring the view from our camping spot. Caden was so funny and kept telling us not to get to close to the edge.  I guess that we don't have to worry about him falling off. 

He also would not let us get too close to the fire. 

My parents 

The place where we camped is right next to Woods Canyon Lake to we hung out there for a little while too.

1st Day of Preschool

Today was Caden's first day of preschool! For a really long time he has been telling us that he wants to go to school, and that was his incentive to be potty trained.  Well he's been potty trained for a couple of months now, so we decided to sign him up.  We enrolled him in Totspot Preschool, and we are all really excited about it.  After we toured the school we were really impressed with it, and it felt like the right place for him to go. When I dropped him off this morning the teacher seemed a little surprised that he didn't cry because I guess that most of the kids do the first time.  He was perfectly fine though, and ran off to play as soon as we got there. He had a fun first day taking school pictures, and they had a visit from a fireman.  I had some fun running errands and doing a little bit of shopping all by myself, but it made me a little sad too.  It was kind of weird being without my little shadow, but I guess that it's time for him to have a little bit of independence.      

 

Crafts!

Yesterday I went to Super Saturday for my ward.  I had planned on making two crafts, and I thought that I would be done fast.  Not only did I spend all 4 allotted hours at the church, but I ended up coming home with two unfinished projects that I worked on for several more hours.  It was lots of fun though, and they both turned out really cute.

 

After I got home I had lots of "help" working on the wreath even though Caden was sleeping. 

Here is the finished result.  The lady who taught this craft said that she saw a smaller version of this same wreath selling at a boutique for $60!  Also Caden cracks me up, so I have to write about the conversation that we had when he saw it. 

Caden: What is that?

Me: A wreath

Caden: A coral reef? (maybe he has been watching too much Octonauts!)

Me: No. Just a wreath.

Caden: Oh.  It is so pretty! 

I also made this cloth banner that says happy birthday/.  It looks cute, but the letters are kind of hard to see from far away. 

Here is a closer up look.

Silly Caden

I ran out of places to put Caden's stuffed animals, so I just tossed them all in the crib since it isn't being used anyways.  This is where I found him the other day.  It actually looks pretty comfortable.

A Little Project

I'd been wanting to get another bookcase for Caden's books when my sister-in-law (thanks Josefine!) told me about this cute idea that she saw on pintrest to refinish a cheap bookcase. Well,  I just happened to have a really cheap laminate bookcase hidden in one of our closets because I hated the way that it looked, and I decided to give it a try.  It did cost a little more then I was expecting ($45 after primer, paint, trim, and painting supplies. Yikes!), but it turned out really cute in the end.  I also have to give credit to Matt and his friend Brigham for putting on the trim.

 

 

 I forgot to take a before picture, but it pretty much looked just like this.

 

Here is the end result!