Mr. Independent

Cason is pretty much the opposite of independent. He follows me around the house from room to room all day long. He doesn't like to play on his own, he likes one of us to sit with him at all times. But the last few weeks, he has taken a few strides toward becoming more independent. He insists on buckling the straps on his booster seat at all meals and the straps on his stroller. He has actually wandered away from us from time to time to play on his own. He also insists on feeding the dogs dinner at night. This independence could not have come at a better time! I took these pictures of him tonight feeding the dogs.

First I scoop the food.

Then I feed Kielers.

Next I give food to Jenner.

Yay!

Elmer, the Paintbrush, and the Pool

Some kids get attached to a stuffed animal. Some kids get attached to a blanket. Cason has become quite attached to a paintbrush. We were at Home Depot two weeks ago, getting some paint and I grabbed a cheap paintbrush so he could paint with water outside. Then the weather got cooler and we didn't end up playing with water until the last few days. I gave him the paintbrush anyway and he ended up becoming quite attached to it. He carries it around the house most of his waking moments. It also goes in the car with us anytime we leave the house. It goes with him in the stroller when we go for a walk. He asks for it when he first wakes up and hates to part with it when he goes to bed.

Cason also loves this stuffed elephant that his Gramma B. sent him. It too, has been carried around the house with him and taken on many a car trip in the past week!

I just liked this picture. He picked out the shorts that morning himself because they had flowers on them.

We impulse bought this little pool for him today. Notice the paintbrush in his hand.

Elmer had to stay inside and watch Cason play because Elmer did not want to get wet.

Jenner actually had more fun in the pool than Cason and got way more wet. Jenner kept digging in the water. We think he was trying to get the fish that were molded into the bottom of the pool. Not really sure what he was doing. But here he is attacking Cason's cup.

Baby Shower and Easter

When Cason was a few months old, I became determined to find some other moms my age with babies Cason's age that we could hang out with. I joined an online meetup group and went to one activity. I met Lauren and Tanner, who is one month younger than Cason. She introduced us to Katie and Harrison, who is about 6 weeks younger than Cason. The three of us hung out and got together a few times over the next few months. Over that first winter when we were all desperate to get out of the house, we started doing all the free trial classes at places like The Little Gym and My Gym. That is where we met Bailey and Collin. Bailey also introduced us to Nikki and Christian. The five of us and our little ones try to get together a couple of times a month. We take turns hosting play dates at our houses, go to the park, and find local places geared toward toddlers to visit.

These wonderful friends of mine offered to host a baby shower for me, more like a sprinkle since we didn't need much. I was so touched that they wanted to do that for us. So the four of them planned and hosted my shower and I also invited some friends from church, my neighbor, and a friend I used to work with. They filled in all of the gaps of little things we needed and we had a fun morning playing games, chatting, and of course eating food and yummy cake!

I just realized I should probably explain that Bailey is holding my neighbor, Jenny's baby boy Jax. He is 4 months old. Collin is much bigger:)

Thank you Lauren, Bailey, Katie, and Nikki!!!

These pictures from Easter are pretty crappy because it was dark and rainy outside and I was forced to use the flash. But I just realized that this is the first holiday in Cason's 21 months that I actually remembered to take a picture of him! So I guess it's progress.

We were going to have an Easter egg hunt for Cason but it rained most of Easter. We thought about doing it the next day but never got around to it. Oh well, he did go to two egg hunts in the previous week so he didn't really miss out on any fun. I did have some goodies for him. A plastic set of golf clubs, a watering can to play with outside this summer, and his basket was actually a sand bucket. I didn't want to spend money on an Easter basket that we would either have to throw away or find somewhere to store for a whole year. So I thought this sand bucket would be perfect and it would multitask for us. Yes, I'm cheap. Inside his eggs were stickers, punch balloons, fruit snacks, and teddy grahams, he loved them.

Cason's Big Boy Room

We had a very busy weekend and I have lots to talk about. I need to share about Easter and also my awesome friends who threw me a baby shower! The shower was wonderful but I have a ton of stuff to do tonight so I just wanted to post some pictures quick of Cason's big boy room. We finally finished tonight.

You can't tell in these pictures but the mural is actually 3D. The construction trucks and cones are painted and cut out of 1/4 inch plywood. I did NOT make them. I am not at all that talented, I bought them from a lady off ebay. The dirt and the road Kelly and I made this weekend. We bought a piece of wood and Kelly used his jigsaw to cut it out. The dirt and the road are actually textured to look more real in person. These pictures really don't do the wall justice, it looks really cool in his room!

Close up of the bulldozer and the excavator.

Close up of the cement mixer and the steamroller.

Cason loves this helicopter sign. We moved his name to above his closet, and then of course there is his growth chart.

Some road signs -- a stop sign, a route 66 sign, and a railroad crossing sign.

And the airplane wall which I've already shown but didn't want to leave out of this post.

April 8, 2009

We went to a local Easter egg hunt on Saturday but it was way too crowded.  They had the ages split up but not much candy for the 0-3 year old bracket.  So poor Cason didn't get any eggs.  He only got 2 pieces of candy at all.  And he even had Kelly helping!  Good thing he is too young to know how lame it was!

This morning we had another Easter egg hunt with our MOPS group and he did much better.  Every kid was guaranteed to bring home at least a dozen eggs so he got probably 18 or so candy filled eggs.  He had a lot of fun with that and since the weather was so nice, we hung out at the park and played for a couple hours.  I'll have my own egg hunt for him on Easter and get some pictures then since he won't have any competition.

I put a poll on the side of my blog because I'm bored.  Kelly and I have a bet going.  He thinks that Bryce will have red hair.  I don't.  So please vote to humor me.  

Other than that, not much going on here.  We had our first Texas storm last week with almost baseball sized hail.  Thankfully, Kelly's car was in the garage and my car was in another town so they are fine.  But the insurance guy just came out and told us we need the entire roof replaced, as well as the gutters, downspouts, garage door, etc.  

Here are a few videos since I haven't put any on in awhile.

Cason Tidbits

On Thursday we went to take Kelly to the airport and instead of airlining to another city to his plane, they had a plane sitting for him at our airport.  So for the first time, I got to see what his airplane looks like and go in it.  Cason LOVED this and we could barely drag him out of the co-pilot seat.  Unfortunately, we didn't think to bring the camera so these pictures are from Kelly's cell phone and not great quality.

Cason has been doing some cute/funny things lately so I thought I would put them on here.  I realize that they're probably only cute and funny to us but my blog is just a journal for myself to look back on someday and show Cason when he's older.  So you can either suffer through reading them or just skip this post:)

- Ever since two weeks ago when Kelly did some yard work for the first time this year, Cason has been obsessed with the lawnmower and the edger.  He is constantly talking about them.  For a few days there, all I heard, ALL day long was "mow-mow.... off.  eyer... off"  (lawnmower.. off.  Edger.... off).  Now, whenever we leave the house, he has to go touch the lawnmower and edger before he gets in the car.  Then as we are backing out of the driveway and the garage door is shutting, he says "mow-mow... bye.   eyer... bye."  And when we are on our way home, as we get close to the house, he starts chatting about them too and has to see them when we get back.  At least he's getting over the fire hydrant!

- One of his other new things is to sit on the floor or couch and pat the floor or couch next to him and say "sit!"  It's hard to resist that so we go sit next to him and he gets so excited.

- I also somehow taught him to say "see ya!"  When we tell him to say bye to someone, he usually says "bye.... see ya!"  It was particularly funny one day when he was eating breakfast and I was running some stuff out to the car.  I opened the door and started to walk out and he yelled "see ya!"

- He also started saying "noooooo" in a really funny tone when he knows something is wrong.  Like he will do one of his puzzles and put the piece in the right spot, then pick it up and put it in a wrong spot and say "nooooooo" while shaking his head.  Or he will be playing with something right before bed or nap and will go throw it in his crib and say "nooooooo" and laugh because we don't let him have toys in his crib. 

- It's allergy season here for me so I've been sneezing a lot lately.  I almost always follow up by saying "excuse me".  Cason caught onto that and will say it after me.  One day last week, I was in the bathroom and sneezed.  He came running in saying "scuze me!"  

- One of his other new sayings is "touch it?"  He often will point something out, either in the house or out in public, and then ask "touch it?"

And here's two things he does now that I'm not proud of AT ALL!

- Unfortunately, he knows what McDonalds is.  He and I will drive through once or twice a month when Kelly is out of town so he knows the golden arches.  Whenever he sees the yellow M, he'll say "M!  Donalds!"  Ugh.  At least he's not asking for it yet, just pointing it out.  

- I also have to be careful of what I say when I'm driving.  Anytime I get impatient with another driver I say "Go!", which he repeats.  One day I said "Go!  Seriously!"  And my little parrot in the back seat said "Go!  Seesly!"  

Yup, it's no accident that his sunglasses, shirt, and shoes all match.  I'm such a dork!  Maybe someday he'll actually keep the sunglasses on his face!

Bryce's room -- Pics

Bryce's room is DONE.  

Here is the corner, with the poison arrow frogs hanging out in the tree:

A closer look at the sign:

Two poison arrow frogs peeking out:

The crib bedding was stolen by Cason.  I am selling Cason's fish bedding since it no longer matches his room.  Bryce's crib bedding was a perfect match in there so Cason's going to borrow it for awhile.  Bryce only really needs a sheet anyway.  I won't put the bumper in until he's about 6 months old or so.

I don't know what I was thinking.  With this many pictures, there are ALWAYS several crooked frames.

I guess it's not totally done.  We are still working on these two leaf shaped shelves.  I designed these and Kelly cut them out using his jigsaw.  We just need a router to make some keyhole slots on the "stems" so we can paint them green and hang them on the wall.  They will go to the right of the crib, near the window.  I have some more red eyed tree frogs to put on the shelves.