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Awesome Weekend

This past weekend my best friend Summer and her husband Reid flew out from Minnesota to visit us here in WA. This was hands down one of the best weekends we've had in a long time! :) Our weekend was spent doing touristy things: visiting the Market & and touring Seattle's underground, patronizing local establishments: wineries, a brewery and some Chicago-style pizza at Delfino's, and some mad competition playing card games and on the Wii playing Raymond's Raving Rabbids, tennis and bowling. I don't think I've laughed so hard or had as much fun in a loooooong time! One of the highlights of their visit was watching Reid and Caiden bond. I swear, Reid became Caiden's new best friend! I seriously think he was crabby on Sunday because he missed Reid and Summer!

The photos below do a great job capturing the fun we had. :) (Here is the link to the rest of the photos.)

Caiden, Reid & Summer

The girls & Caiden at Columbia Winery

Happy baby in his new big boy car seat

The gang at Delfino's

At Pike Place Market

Summer winding up for her swing!

Go, Reid, Go!!!

Lisa is racing her rabbid around the bases

Mean Summer "drinking her bourbon" is gonna tell you a thing or two!

Brian's got a taste of the bitters

Fall in Woodinville

One of my favorite times of the year is October in the Seattle area. The trees out here start changing colors around beginning to mid-month, and the leaves are just so beautiful! We're especially lucky that our neighborhood was landscaped with trees that put on quite the colorful show.

Pumpkins!

This weekend our monthly social PEPS outing was to visit the South 47 farm here in Woodinville. Four families were able to make it out and we totally lucked out on a nice sunny day! Here's a few photos of the babies chillin' in the pumpkins. More photos are linked here.

Gavin, Caiden, Sebastian & Adi

Caiden, Sebastian & Adi

All four boys looking every which way

Mmmm....hay!

Nikolai Finds a Home

Homeless and/or abused animals never fail to tug my heart strings. If I could adopt them all, I would, but then B would have a conniption fit and that wouldn't be good at all. Anywho, in the past I've satisfied this desire to save them all by adopting the kitties we do have, volunteering at the shelter and making regular donations to the ASPCA. It makes me so angry to think of people abandoning or harming these innocent animals for whatever stupid reasons they think they have. BUT, when I read stories like this one from blogger Sars at TomatoNation.com, my faith in the good of humanity is temporarily renewed, and I find myself nearly moved to tears by the generosity of the readers of her blog. (Make sure you read the comments in the linked entry above to understand where I'm coming from.)

Long story short, Sars came across an elderly kitty that some idiot had the audacity to abandon in a carrier on the streets of Sars's neighborhood. She took him to the vet, got him checked out and is currently fostering him in her home along with her two resident cats. She wrote about her experience and asked if any of her readers were willing to take him in. Turns out there is a reader in Chicago who wants him, but Sars is in NYC. Would you believe her readers are banding together to form a kitty railroad to get this cat to his soon-to-be new owner in Chicago? AND people are chipping in gas money, kitty litter, vet money, cat food, toys and more to help the new owner get started in her relationship with this cat!

I think this kind of generosity is simply awe inspiring. And by the way, her readers have raised over $75,000 in the last 20 days to help teachers supply their classrooms/projects. Over 10,000 students have been reached thanks to donations. That's just....amazing.

So please, those of you with pets, go give them a hug or a scritch or a couple of treats. Make sure they know they're loved. :)

Clean Bill of Health!

Caiden had his follow up doctor appt this morning, and I'm happy to report that he is back to gaining weight at the perfect pace and his ear infection is totally cleared up. YAY!!

In other news, this is my first day going into the office and leaving Caiden with our new sitter. She came by on Friday for a dry run, and everything seemed to go pretty well altho Caiden is starting to exhibit stranger/separation anxiety. I hope today goes well for him. The upside is that I'll only be gone for a few hours. :)

Anniversary Weekend

Wow - I can't believe it's been 5 years already! Well, by the time I've finally gotten around to this entry, it's been a little longer than 5 years now! They sure have gone by fast! Looking back, we've done quite a lot during that time. :)

• Married October 10th, 2003
• Bought and moved into our first (town) home in November of that year
• Changed jobs 5 times between the 2 of us
• Traveled to Canada, Mexico, England, the Southern Caribbean, and several states
  
• Moved to WA
• Bought another (town) home
• Became parents to an awesome little boy

And those are just the big things! It's amazing to think about how many things we've done and seen in what seems like such a short amount of time!

So each year, we like to celebrate our anniversary by going somewhere. Some years it's a big trip, other years we take smaller road trips. This year, we knew it'd be a little more difficult to do a "big" trip, so we opted for a road trip. Well, ever since we've been out here I've been wanting to visit the much lauded San Juan Islands. We decided this would be a perfect little mini-vacation to commemorate our first 5 years together! We settled on Orcas Island as our destination and made arrangements to stay at the Outlook Inn.

It was a lovely trip and just perfect for the 3 of us to enjoy. We got to enjoy our room, walk the town, and see some amazing panoramic views of the surrounding mountains/islands when we went to Moran State Park and drove up to the top of Mt. Constitution.

The breaks in the trees during our +2,000 foot ascent giving us glimpses of the water and mountains were simply breathtaking! In this picture, you can see the Olympic mountain range behind Brian and Caiden.

Once we got up to the observation tower it was getting close to sunset, but the sky was still clear enough that we could actually see Mt. Rainier! We also saw Mt. Baker, other islands in the San Juans, Anacortes, Bellingham, and Victoria, B.C.

Caiden and Mom staying warm.

Views pointing towards Canada, ay

Mt. Baker

Glimpses of Bellingham and Anacortes

Definitely an amazing weekend! We look forward to visiting the San Juan Islands again!! Here's a link to the rest of our photos from the weekend.

Tiny Little Super Dude!

Caiden is wearing his shades and new hat as we waited for the ferry to whisk us away from our relaxing weekend on Orcas Island. Caiden was the talk of the ferry waiting line as we strolled around killing time. I don't think there was one person he didn't elicit a grin from when they spotted our little super dude! The funniest moment was when we walked by this group of 20-something guys and even they stopped us to high five and compliment our boy. :D

Big Ronnie Eats Chocolate for the 1st Time!

This is the first "video response" to Caiden's video of his first time eating rice cereal. Pa Blume, my best friend Summer's dad, has his "first" experience eating chocolate syrup. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face!! Enjoy!!

Bummer Day

Caiden had his 6 month check up today. Caiden behaved pretty well and from here on out all check-ups will be done in mine or B's lap. Apparently around this age, babies start to freak out about strangers poking and prodding at them and handle it better when safely nestled in mom or dad's lap. Caiden has gained an inch and a half since his last visit in August. He is now 28.5 inches long! He's also on track for all of his developmentals - sitting up, tracking things with both eyes, focusing with both eyes, transferring items from hand to hand, etc. But with good news, there is sometimes not so good news. We got hit with a triple whammy. :(

1. Poor little guy has an ear infection. The right ear is inflamed and the left ear ranks a 9 out of 10 on the doc's severity scale. :( Curiously enough, he's given us barely any indication that his ear is not at 100%. Key indicators include fever and waking up in the night crying. He's been waking a little more frequently in the overnight hours, but nothing more than a few peeps or happily gurgling to himself. I had an inkling a couple of weeks ago that he might have an ear infection - he was pulling on his ear a lot and woke up crying two nights in a row about an hour after going to bed. But by night 3 the behavior ceased, so I thought nothing more of it. The good news is we've got him started on an antibiotic and hopefully things will have cleared up by his next visit in 2 weeks.
2. He has actually lost weight. At this age, babies are usually gaining weight at the rate of 1-2 pounds per month. And he's not crawling yet, so there is no extra burning of calories going on. Weight loss at this age is not a good thing, so we're under orders to up his calorie intake. I suspect that the weight loss has partly to do with having been in day care last month and needing more milk than I was leaving for him. But I was having trouble with my milk supply and could barely sustain the 15 oz I was pumping for him each day. He always finished his bottles at the daycare which likely means he could've been taking in more milk. So I'm squeezing in extra feedings (and hoping my milk supply picks back up) and we're definitely getting him going on solids in an effort to beef up those calories. Doc wants to see at least one pound gain in the next two weeks.
3. After MONTHS of deliberation, we finally decided on which vaccine we were comfortable starting him on. We decided on Hib because it has the least amount of non-organic ingredients in it, Hib can cause some serious infections and wide-scale immunizations over the last several years have driven the numbers of cases down so we felt we should contribute the the "herd immunity" this vaccine can provide. Well, wouldn't you know it Hib is experiencing a nationwide shortage and won't be available until January. However, we could give him a shot that included DTaP, Polio and Hib. Uh...no thank you. We're barely ready to give him one vaccine, much less a shot that includes FIVE.

So this really wasn't the best of visits, but all things considered it wasn't all that bad. In the meantime, here is a cute video of Caiden's first efforts at eating solid foods - 1 Tbsp of rice cereal dissolved in 4 Tbsp of water.

I Have a 6 Month Old? WHOA!

Caiden is 6 months old today! Where has the time gone?! I remember going to my parent/baby classes when Caiden was only a few weeks old and seeing the moms and babies leaving from the earlier "older baby" classes. Those babies looked so much bigger, more alert and more active than my little guy, and it felt like it would be eons before he'd be big like them. Man, those eons just flew on by. :P

I also feel like Caiden is "suddenly" doing all sorts of new things.

• He is sitting up on his own for longer and longer periods of time.
• He is reaching for things with both hands and really studies items when he has them in his grasp.
  
• He is fascinated with items I am using/holding and immediately reaches for them even when I try and distract him with his own toys.
• When I sit him at a table on my lap, I have to move all sorts of stuff out of the way now cuz he tries to grab whatever he can reach!
• He is rolling from his tummy to his back and prefers to sleep on his side.
• He turns his head towards the sound of my voice and when he hears his name.
• He smiles when he sees me or B.
• He blows raspberries all over the place. Still need to get that on video!
  
• He's making all sorts of new vocalizations. I know when he is starting to get tired or frustrated cuz he starts saying "bah bah bah" in a more frenzied and louder voice.
• He can amuse himself for long periods of time playing in his exersaucer or on his playmat on the floor. He will just play with the toys on those items for ages until he gets tired or bored.
• He can sit in his "big kid" stroller now.

I'm sure there are loads more things I'm forgetting about, but those are some of the things he has been doing these last few weeks that really stand out in my memory. :)

I absolutely adore being home with him full time now. No more feelings of dread about returning to work looming over my head. Every day this week I've been so grateful that I can stay home with him. This is one of the best decisions we have ever made. :)

Happy 6 month birthday Tiny Little Super Guy!!