Email to Santa

To: Santa

Subject: Caden & Sadie

Dear Santa,

Please give Merkle his magic back because Jake accidentally touched Merkle. And I've been good so remember - please.

Love,
Caden

P.S. And I want to have for Christmas a drill and a crane please.

P.P.S. And remember everything that we told you, Santa.

Dear Santa,

Please bring me a puppy, a train, a computer and a car. Thank you. I was good! I was a big girl.

Love,
Sadie (and Daddy and Mommy and Max)

Tid Bits

C:

SuperWhy - what will you grow up to be? A janitor

"When I come downstairs in the night, I sleep on the chair.  The problem is at night all my friends [stuffed animals] want to talk to me so I can't sleep and I want to come downstairs with just my guys [two bugs, doggie and polar bear] because only my best pals don't talk to me when I'm trying to sleep."

S:
"No lucky duck"


Sadie head dives into her crib now.

C: Say "umm" so I know you're thinking about it.

I saw the fire work and it was big and round and bright - there's the firetruck and I saw it and I saw the garage - and I was so surprised when it was so loud.

Caden's First Prayer

Tonight while I was lying in bed with Caden, I asked him if he'd like to pray with me. He said yes. So I told him I would talk to God first and then it would be his turn to say whatever he wanted.

Then I said a short prayer thanking God for giving me a loving family, good friends and a warm house and asked him to help me to remember to be thankful for these things because not everyone has them.

This is what Caden said:

Dear God,

Thank you for my dresser to hold my clothes,
Thank you for my door to make it quiet so I don't hear everything,
Thank you for my floor so I can walk to my bed...

Thank you for my bean box.

[What do I say at the end?]

Amen.

July 2012

Well it's been another silent few months here on the blog - but not at home!  Caden and Sadie finished up preschool and toddler group in June.  There was a big carnival at the preschool the last week of school and we all went.  The kids loved the bouncy house and Sadie got to play with her first doll house.  She was instantly in love so we gave her one of her very own yesterday for her birthday.

Unfortunately we missed Sadie's toddler group graduation because the whole family got really sick for about a week and a half.  Immediately following that, I got a herniated disc in my back as I was walking to the car to go out for lunch on Father's Day.  I managed to hobble my way to the restaurant but the rest of the day Casey had to take care of me instead of vice versa :(.  A few weeks later he traded in the BMW for our new Yukon Denali and was very excited about the new car and the deal he got - hopefully that made up for his incomplete Father's Day :). 

Wednesday was the 4th of July and we went to Jack's to watch the fireworks by the lake.  We only made it until about 7:45 but Caden did actually see one firework go off before we left.  He was very impressed by how bright it was and decided he wasn't scared of them anymore.  He was telling us about it very excitedly on the way home when he distracted by a fire station.  Without taking a breath, he immediately segued into his excitement about that, and then returned to the initial subject - all in about 5 seconds.  It went something like, "I saw the firework and it was big and round and bright - there's the firetruck and I saw it and I saw the garage - and I was so surprised when it was so loud".

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Sadie still has her reservations and told us many times, "'cared it".  She tells us this about a lot of loud things.  She doesn't usually seem upset though, just wants to make sure she knows she's scared and then she's fine.

Sunday was Sadie's 2nd birthday and Laura was able to fly into town to help us celebrate with the grandparents.  As per our new family tradition, Casey, Sadie and I had a special outing in the morning while Caden hung out with everyone else.  Before we headed out, Caden and Casey made a special early morning trip to the grocery store for supplies to make the birthday girl blueberry and cinnamon french toast.

Our plan was to hit up the children's museum in Factoria but when we got there it was closed so we went and saw the animals at Kelsey Creek for a while and then returned to the museum. 

Sadie's favorite parts were the building blocks, the semi-truck, the air scarf shooters, the bouncy animals, and the water tables. 

 
We spent the rest of the day playing in the backyard on a bouncy water pad we made out of plastic sheeting and enjoying our freshly bricked patio.

Casey and I were in DC the week before for the ECG conference so I didn't have a lot of time to plan but her lady bug and butterfly party came together pretty well.  She was especially excited about the cake (which is funny because last year she had a cake all to herself and wouldn't touch it.)  This year she polished off her slice in about 2 minutes and then went around the room asking everyone if she could try theirs - hitting the softer targets (i.e. grandmas) first.

That's the big stuff, here are some of the smaller things that exemplify the kids these days:

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S: wipe off hands?

Me: Yeah?

S: Hold on...

Me: Not yet

S: Not yet?

S: ... Almost

Me: Yeah, almost...  How'd you get so smart?

S: Big Girl

Me: You're a big girl?

S:Yeah!  No Lucky Duck!

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Sadie doesn't often want me to rock her to sleep in her glider anymore, except for when she's extra tired or sick.  She's had a runny nose all week and has been sleeping a ton so she's been asking to be rocked again.  I love it because I don't get to do it much anymore and I'm not sure how much longer she'll let me.  Also, she sings along quietly with all the songs now - which is very sweet.  She also thinkgs the "CD" in the alphabet song is "Sadie" and says "and Caden, and Caden" for the rest of the song.

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Caden was watching a show called Super Why the other day and they asked the viewer what they wanted to be when they grew up.  Without hesitation Caden said a janitor because he likes to sweep.

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Caden:
"When I come downstairs in the night, I sleep on the chair.  The problem is at night all my friends [stuffed animals] want to talk to me so I can't sleep and I want to come downstairs with just my guys [two bugs, doggie and polar bear] because only my best pals don't talk to me when I'm trying to sleep."

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When I hurt my back, Debby was kind enough to take the kids home to Yakima so I could rest it.  When they got back, for some reason Sadie decided she needed to skip everywhere she went for about two days straight.  Also, she perfect a new move so I won't have to lift her into her crib in which she stand on the ottoman, raises herself up by the arms so that her stomach is on the railing, leans over and dives into her crib.  It's hilarious, impressive, and scary to watch all at the same time.
No lucky duck

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Our bedtime routine has recently changed again so that we now, all four, read books together in Caden's bed before one parent takes each kid off to sleep.  Before that, Caden was still asking whoever put him to sleep questions every night.  One night it was my turn and he asked me something in the dark.  After about 10 seconds of silence (while I tried to come up with an answer) he asked why I didn't answer.  When I told him I was working on it, he said, "Say 'umm...ummm...hmmm' and tap your chin so I know you're thinking about it."

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The kids were outside playing tonight and they didn't know I was watching.  Sadie got something in her shoe and sat down in the bark to try to get it out.  Caden sat on his excavator and gave her verbal directions on how to take it off and shake it.  When she couldn't get her shoe back on, they both ran across the patio to the dining set.  She climbed up on a chair, Caden kneeled in front of her and patiently put both of her shoes on for her.  They they returned to playing, never the wiser that I saw any of it happen.

April Showers Bring... May Showers

It's raining cats and dogs here this week - this was the closest I could get to a straight shot of Sadie in her rain coat.  It's a pretty blurry shot but at least the hood hides what is these days her wacky hair.  She's at that odd grow out stage and even putting in what she calls "baby tangles" post bath doesn't seem to do much to tame it.

I've recently been brushing up on my photography and photo editing skills and I can see a definite improvement - especially in the post processing.  Here's what this particular photo looked like straight out of the camera:

Also, this week Casey and Caden have been doing lots of manly work on the backyard, adding new bark and etc.  More photos to come (hopefully)!

Tid Bits - 21 Months & 3 1/2

Caden really likes teaching Sadie things: "Can you say 'bear' Sadie? Say Bear... great job."

His favorite question right now is "And what would they say?"  He asks it for just about any situation imaginable.  For example, I'll tell him he has to hold my hand in the parking lot so he doesn't get hit by a car and he says, "What would you say?", meaning what would I do if he got hit by a car.

Sadie loves to sing.  One of her favorite songs right now is "Dear Prudence" by the Beatles, which we taught her because her stuffed owl's name is Prudence.  We have that, "Life is a Highway" from the Cars soundtrack and another song about cars on a CD in the car and the kids ask for all of them by name.  Car rides have also gotten a lot better know that we've turned Sadie forward facing.

Sadie's also very polite - says "thanks" and "thank you Mama" all the time.  The other day I asked her how we ask for things and expected her to say "please" but instead she came out with "Can I have it, please" in perfect parrot of how Caden says it.

Another of Caden's idiosyncratic idioms right now is "God Lord".  Casey says "good Lord" sometimes when he's joking around with the kids and Caden turned it into God Lord... we can only hope he doesn't say it at his Christian preschool.

We're finally getting some decent weather and the kids love playing outside together either in the sand box, going back and forth collecting and dumping rocks with their play dump truck, or Caden zooming around like crazy on his balance bike and Sadie maneuvering her monster trike.  They literally swim in the sandbox and end up filthy, which wouldn't be a big deal except Sadie is back to hating baths again.  Actually last week she screamed every time she needed to be changed, take a bath, or go to sleep.  Improvements are being made, after screaming on the way in, she played in the bath for 30-40 minutes with Caden last weekend (never did sit fully down in the tub though)... A week and a half later and she LOVES taking baths, asks for one every single afternoon.

Sadie can count all the way to 4.  (I think she learned it because Caden gives her 5 kisses, and counts them each out, every night and naptime.  He does it in her crib right after we all do Yoga together. The kids favorite part of that is putting their little hands together and saying "Namaste".)  She's also very proud of the fact that she can take off her own sweatshirt, get her own milk out of the fridge, and buckle the straps to her booster seat.

Caden has become really self-sufficient lately too.  He can take his clothes off, put them in the laundry, throw away his pull-up, clear the table, pick out his new clothes and get dressed.  Last weekend he spent ALL DAY Saturday and Sunday outside helping Casey pull up a bunch of trees by the driveway and hauling them to the dump.  He was in charge of hooking the chain to the back of the truck and he took his duties very seriously.

Pigtails!

Part of the fun in raising a little girl - I may be slightly obsessed.

19 Months & 3 1/2

The kids seem to be growing by leaps and bounds these days.  Sadie is regularly saying 3 and 4 word sentences now like "Here you go, Max", actually "Here you go" is pretty much her catch phrase these days.  She kinda runs the first two words together and says it in a a sing-song voice so it's more like "Heeree Go!"  Her vocabulary is also exploding.  She will really mimic any word she hears and there are so many times she surprises me with the words she knows, things like "hanger" and verbs like "sweeping".  And today she even started counting a little.  Earlier in the day she mimicked Caden saying "one, two, three" and tonight when I told her she could hold two balls she said, "two balls... one, two balls".

Also, overnight a few weeks ago Sadie not only decided she could sit still long enough to read a book in your lap, she wanted you to read that same book to her four times in a row!  She love this book we have with a bear talking all about water (calls it the water book) as well as a book about an elephant and a bird called "Bump".  We also read one about duck and goose looking for a pumpkin.  On each page they ask, "Is the pumpkin in the tree/on the log/in the water/etc. ?" and she always yells out "yeah!".

Finally, she's really getting a sense of humor.  On the way home from lunch following Caden's Little Kickers Soccer class last Saturday, Caden said something and Case responded in disbelief with "dude?!".  Sadie piped up with, "dude!" from the backseat.  That made Caden crack up.  Well, she thought it was hysterical making him laugh so she said it again and cracked up herself... which made Caden laugh even harder.  We were all laughing pretty hard all the way home.  And now if you ask her to tell her joke, she'll say "Dude!"  (Reminds us of when Caden used to say "gopher, gopher, gopher").

Both kids are also very loving right now (which is so nice because Caden can throw a 3 year old fit like the best of 'em).  Last time I mentioned I always give Caden 5 hugs and 5 kisses before school - well now he always gives Sadie 5 hugs and kisses before bed.  He also says things like, "Mommy, I love you this much" (arms open wide) out of the blue all the time lately.  "Hug" is one of Sadie's favorite words and she'll ask for them for her babies as often as for herself.

Caden's imagination is really expanding too and he likes to try to get Sadie to partake in lots of role-playing with him.  The other day I overheard him telling her, "I'm the teacher and you're the kid... I have one kid in my class... follow the teacher, hold onto the rope".  He also gets really excited about taking responsibility for something or making a plan.  The other day I was getting him dressed for bed and I tapped his finger with mine and made a "pop" sound.  He got this big smile on his face and said, "OK, for now, from now on, lets make a special plan to do that every nap time and every bedtime."

He's very interested in everything right now and really thinks about what you're saying.  We were looking at a calendar we got from the zoo and I was pointing out the cranes to him.  His eyes got all squinty and he looked at me really hard and asked how there could be machine cranes and bird cranes.  He also said he wanted to be like the Siamang monkeys when I told them about how they sing with their bubble throats.  And he loves getting his Highlights magazine in the mail from Papa J or a picture of a big might machine from Zoocat.

Caden's also becoming more and more of a little social butterfly.  He loves to talk about his buds and give them high fives or hugs at the end of play dates and he gets really excited if you tell him at bedtime that he's going to see one of his friends the next day.  Today at the park he climbed a HUGE rope jungle gym to go down a really big slide and made friends with a 5 year old boy who was also climbing it.  I could only here bits and pieces of their conversation but I caught the boy asking him his name and then saying he like it and Caden asking the boy what his parents' names were.  Then they had a few races to the top before the boy had to go home.

Finally, Caden and Sadie are big time buds right now.  Today at lunch Caden said, "I love my little sister.  She's my favorite in the whole world".  They play and laugh together a lot and even resolve some of their conflicts on their own (not all, but some).  Sadie's generally pretty happy to share and follow Caden's lead (not always, but generally).  One of their favorite games, which Sadie invented, is "night-night" where they basically lay down, often next to each other, I tuck them in and they pretend to sleep.  They'll stay there for remarkably long stretches of time (5 - 15 minutes). 

The other day they asked me to play with them in Caden's Bed.  We all snuggled in a Caden popped up and turned off the light - guess who fell asleep.  When I woke up 20 minutes later, I found them quietly building a road together out of wooden blocks in Sadie's room. (Now, how do I get them to do that everyday?)

Sleep Wanderer

We were able to take advantage of the snow a few more times before it all melted.  It takes the kids (and me) forever to get ready to go play but they seemed to enjoy it once we were out there.  Caden loved digging with the excavator he got for Christmas from his aunts.  He also kept mentioning how quiet it was.

Along with being quite the digger, Caden has also become quite the sleep wanderer - which is funny because he was always such a great sleeper as an older baby and younger toddler.  Now we never know where we're going to find him.  Most mornings he'll come downstairs around 6:00 and crawl into bed with us where he'll sleep silently until 8:00 or so.

But sometimes his clock gets off - a few days ago he came down at 2:45am.  It's also not uncommon for us to wake up in the morning to find him asleep in the leather chair in the living room or even face down on the floor in front of our door.  Last weekend we found him dead asleep at the top of the stairs after he, apparently, crept out to play during his nap. 

Sadie, on the other hand, is sleeping like crazy right now - taking 4 hour naps to help get over her cold.  Her going-to-bed routine with me consists of her running around her room and playing hide-and-seek in her closet while I read a book out loud or sing her a song (she can't sit still long enough to sit in my lap for this).  Then she turns on her heater (and her humidifier right now 'cause she's sick), I hold her and sing...she lays down in my arms and I sing... she lays down in her crib while I bounce her mattress and sing.  And each time a song ends, she asks, "one more" until I eventually leave.  Occasionally she says "bye-bye" or "night-night" but usually she gets really upset for about 3 minutes and then goes to sleep.

Caden's routine has also changed in that it now ends with whom ever is putting him to bed lying with him for a few minutes.  I'm not sure how this happened but I'm guessing it started with Caden saying something like "Now, from now on (he says that a lot) I want you to sleep with me".  Neither Case or I mind - it's a sweet few minutes to spend cuddling with him.  Plus we have these new bedtime routine charts that have sped up the process of actually getting to bed quite a bit.

Tonight he explained to me he likes it because he gets lonely sleeping alone.  I gave him 5 hugs and 5 kisses to keep him from getting lonely like we do when I drop him off at preschool and he said that made him happy.  He said it made doggie happy too.  There's a lot of talk about doggie and his feelings going on these days.

"Yep!" and "Yes"

New year, new rules for the 'ol family blog.  As you can see, I pretty much failed miserably at keeping this thing up to date last year.  The problem was the photos.  It took too much time to shoot them, edit them, and upload them - so I never did.

This year I have a new strategy.  Once or twice a week I'm going to try to remember to get on here and give a brief glimpse into what's going on over at the Morgans.  I'll still be taking photos and one day I may even have the time to upload them and match them up to what I've written but for now I just want to write down the little things, before I forget them!

Oddly enough, Caden and Sadie are both doing something kinda cute right now when answering in the affirmative.  For a long time they both used to answer "yeah" but in the last few days Caden has taken to saying a very crisp and enunciated "yes" (emphasis on the "s").  It sounds very grown up - especially in contrast to the "nah" he still uses for the negative.

Sadie, on the other hand answers "yep" but always in a hushed, under her breath whisper.  It's pretty hilarious when she's happily screaming (she does that a lot) or not-so-happily screaming and you ask her a question.  She'll instantly drop her voice several decibels and whisper "yeap!".  It's hard to describe, but it sounds A LOT like that kid on The Middle.

It's snowing buckets for the 3rd straight day here.  It's absolutely beautiful and we all went sledding at the Jr. High on Sunday.  But everyone is either getting over or just starting to get sick and we're going on week three of being stuck at home with no activities due to holidays, weather, a TB scare at toddler group and sickness - Lord help us!

The only thing that's kept us sane is the kids' new found love of washing things in the sink.  It makes a mess and I cringe to think of our upcoming water bill but it occupies them for unheard of amounts of time.