Christmas 2013

It's always sad when Christmas comes to an end. You look forward to it all year and then it's just over in a blink of an eye. We had the pleasure of spending 10 days in Nebraska at my parents house. I'm not going to lie, all the help with Caiden was worth the Holiday flying. We spent the first few days inside because it was like 10 degrees or some crazy single digit number but it was in the 50's for a few days and we took Caiden out to see all the animals. He loved being outside on the "farm". The dogs, chickens, birds, and acres of land to run, he was in his heaven.

Caiden has his own seat on the flight out. We even strapped him in for takeoff and landing.

My parents have two dogs. One of them is Bud, in this picture, who is 3 years old. Caiden was giving him a hug.

And this little rascal is Liz, three months old. She is crazy and wanted to jump all over Caiden when she first met him. Caiden was a little freaked out but after a few days Liz calmed down and Caiden would be so happy to see her.

Remember last year when we took that cute picture of Caiden's bare butt in front of the fire? We tried to recreate it. He would sit still for all of one second.

Helping Grandpa start a fire.

Building a log cabin with the lincoln logs my grandfather made.

I've been waiting for this picture since he was born. Here's hoping next year goes better.

Watching Grandpa snow blow. We didn't have any fresh powder on Christmas Day. But a few days after we got there it did snow.

So my Dad bought a Santa suit this year and says he's going to dress up like Santa and come in on Christmas Eve every year. Well this year he just scared the living s*** out of Caiden. He started "ho, ho, ho-ing" as he was walking up the stairs and Caiden started running to the stairs to see what all the commotion was about but the minute my Dad turned the corner Caiden started crying and ran to Marc. My dad took the beard and hat off and then Caiden was cool with it.

Christmas morning!

Caiden got a ton of farm animal related gifts for Christmas, not sure what that was all about ;) Guess no one from back home thinks he knows enough about farm animals. He wasn't too in to opening gifts this year. If you made it a big deal and got all excited about a gift he would "help" you open it, but that's about it.

He loved this rocking horse Santa brought him. He would sit on it for 30 minutes while everyone took turns rocking him. By the end of the trip he was able to rock himself for 10 seconds or so at a time. Downside was it was super annoying. When you pressed the ear it neighed and galloped for a good minute, and Caiden would push it every single time it stopped.

Going to check chicken eggs.

Checking out Daddy's gun before hunting.

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!

Snow Day at the park

Ocean Air Park, up the street from our house, hosted a snow day this weekend. They brought in snow and had sledding, 2 bounce houses, face painting, music and a visit from Santa. We were lame and didn't take Caiden sledding because the lines were long and neither of us felt like getting our butts wet. But he touched the snow...then walked away not very interested. He did go in a bounce house for the first time. Luckily they had one for big kids and one for little kids so Caiden wasn't too beat up when he was in there. He was the youngest kid but I went in too and sat in the corner. He just stood right next to me most of the time but by the end would walk around and "jump". He had a blast.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving is over, we're back home in San Diego...and Christmas is only a few weeks away!!!

We hopped on a 5 hour flight last Tuesday and headed to the east coast to spend the holiday with Marc's family. We got lucky and it wasn't a full flight so Caiden had his own seat! He also managed to take an hour and a half nap which made it even more bearable.

Caiden loves taking the shuttle at the airport

This view never gets old upon take off. Mission Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Our old house was just a block off the Bay, I really miss it. Oh, and we left 76 degrees to walk into snow on Wednesday!

We went over to the Bahrami's again this year, Fery's cousin, on Thanksgiving day. We got there pretty late because we were keeping Caiden on west coast time so his nap that day was from 1-4pm Eastern Time. By the time we got to the house it was 5pm and we ate shortly after. There were probably 50 people there this year and Caiden had a blast. He didn't mind everyone that wanted to get in his face and he hung out just like a normal kid. He also discovered a bowl of Tostito chips (obviously never had them before) and that kept him busy for a good 30 minutes.

Fery, Caiden and the Hostess with 1 of 3 turkeys

The aftermath of the turkey

On Friday Marc's parents watched Caiden while we had a spa day, did some shopping and went to a movie that evening. It was a great, great day! On Saturday we went to some friends, Jill and Farhad's. They have a little boy a week younger then Caiden AND a 2 month old. They had a ton of people over at their house and make having 2 kids look way too easy.

Marc, Caiden, Jake and Farhad

Jake is a BIG lover!

They put on the Baby Signing Time video, it kept them occupied for awhile!

I asked Caiden to smile...I just can't get enough when he does this.

They have this really cool ball pit that all kids gravitate to, we are totally getting one!

Sunday was pretty chill and on Monday we headed home. This flight was fully booked so we had a true lap child. And he only wanted to sleep on me...which meant I had a really sore butt and back an hour into his 2 hour nap. He did surprisingly well, it could definitely have been worse, but man, after that flight I made the comment that I never want take a 5 hour flight with a true lap child...it wasn't fun.

Another great Holiday down. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Friday night dance party

On Friday night after Caiden eats dinner we usually always try to do Friday night dance party. It's usually just Marc and I cranking up the David Guetta and dancing around like crazy fools trying to get Caiden to laugh while he sits in his high chair. Well this week Sara was here and I purchased glow sticks so we broke those out. Caiden loved them. He wanted all of them in his hands all the time. At first he didn't like that we had all the lights turned off and we were waving them around in his face so we had to back off for a bit and hold him. But eventually he got into it and was shaking the glow sticks and dancing around with us.

How old are you?

There are no words...just watch! It took me about a day and a half to teach him this one.

And here it is on YouTube for those that can't see the above video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk7h5sackQI