Cake, Ice Cream & a Lil' Puddin'

The Birthday Boy!!!

Cayden's birthday party was a huge success, in my non-biased opinion.  :)

Remember the qualifications... 1- no one goes to the ER, 2- no one dies and 3- (optional) the majority of people have a good time.

Cayden acted VERY strange the majority of the party.  He sat in his new chair from Gigi and Pop and stared at the people covering his backyard.  Can we cay antisocial?  It was really out of the ordinary for Cayden.  He seemed to pep up once everyone left.  I guess he was in shock just a little.

The big hit...  no, it wasn't the ant-infested pinata this year!!  :)  It was Puddin'!  He was the best clown ever!  To top it off, he is a strong christian.  It was a win-win for all parties involved.  I think he made at least half a dozen pink elephants for Ansley.  Cayden's favorite was Elmo.  Balloons were popping all around us, but the kids were having a blast.  Check- success!

I was super paranoid about having my house destroyed, but it wasn't!  Everyone stayed outside the whole time, so I was extremely excited about that!  There are WAY too many pictures to post all of them.  Here are more than you would ever want to see!

This is anti-social Cayden...  Who?!!?  Weird!!!

Puddin' captivated everyone

Emily, Amanda, Nana & Jeremy

Aunt Linda, Stephanie, Brett & Uncle Ed

Trey & Laura

The Girls

Ashley, Christy, Mandy & Aren

(babies- Caleb & Avery)

The Guys (minus James)

Matt, Logan, Matt

Pap pulling the wagon...hilarious

 He told Weston, "boy- you weigh a ton!"

Gigi & Brinley

Papa getting his boy

Puddin' making the umpteenth pink elephant!!

Ansley checking out the creation

I love this picture.

You can see her eye peeking through!

Mama's Girl

Aunt Amanda & Brinley

Happy Birthday Cayden!

Cousins

Grands and Great Grandparent

Matt's parents

Swing buddy!

Cody basically slept through the whole party!! :)

...trying to get a cousin picture!

We weren't too successful, but everyone was in it!

The boy LOVES bubbles!

Jump HIGH Cayden, get up off of your feet!

I love that this wears him out on a daily basis!! :)

A HUGE 'Thank You' to all of our friends and family who made a special effort to be at Cayden's party.  We missed several of our friends and family who could not be with us, but you were in our hearts.  Cayden is blessed beyond measures to be surrounded by such wonderful people. Happy Birthday Son!

Happy Birthday Cayden!

He's Two!!!

I've been having a pity party since Cayden has been inching closer to the 24 month mark.  I like to refer to him as X months old.  That's over now.  No one wants to hear that you have a 25 or a 26-month old.  "He's Two!"  That's what I have to say now.  Yesterday we could laugh and say that this weekend was a disaster, but he's only ONE!! Today, that is no longer true.  He's two.  Boy- Did we come raging into the two's quickly!  With the sharpie incident behind us, MAYBE the worst is over.  HA!!!  I'm not that naive!  The party has just begun.

Cayden has brought so much JOY to our lives.  He captivates us with his contagious smile and his laughter. He is so much fun to watch.  We find ourselves getting fulfilled just from watching him walk, run, jump, dance and sing.  He is so full of life.  What a blessing!  Every minute of every day Cayden is DOING something.  He's even hilarious to watch sleep.  He is still in the crib, but only sleeps on his pillow. Picture this- Cayden has this huge space, but he crams himself into the corners of his crib on his pillow.  Often there is a leg sticking out of the slats.  Why does he do that?  Because he's Cayden. 
When music turns on, Cayden stops momentarily and slowly starts shaking his booty.  It's only seconds before his whole body is into it, and he either has a huge smile on his face or he is trying to hide one.

Things Cayden loves: His Tractor, Weed eater, Lawnmower, Morning Coffee with Mama ("ka-see"), Kissing Brinley in the morning ("Hi Bin-lee"), Water ("Wa-wa"), Calling people on the phone ("Mama fone")  I could go on and on. Sometimes he says the most hilarious things.  I should write them down, but I never seem to be around a pen when he says them.  Today he was answering the phone when it rang and saying,"my birt-day, I two!"  By the end of the evening, he had received several phone calls, and when my dad called, Cayden started singing the happy birthday song to my dad!  The boy is a quick learner...sometimes!  Tomorrow he is going to wake up and have NO idea why the birthday celebration had to end!  I guess he'll get a second go-around this Saturday. 

Cayden,
I couldn't be a happier mama! Tonight, like every night, your dad was praying over you and Brinley before bed.  Since you were busy sucking down your "wa-wa," I thought I would repeat that simple prayer over you in writing.  One day you'll appreciate it.

Father God, Thank you for giving us Cayden.  Thank you for the blessing that he is to our lives and the joy that he brings us.  Help us to be the best parents for Cayden that we can possibly be.  Help us to raise him to be a Godly man, to seek your will for his life and to train him in the way that he should go. We pray that Cayden will bring you honor and joy throughout his lifetime.  We love our children and you so much Lord, and we thank you for continually blessing our lives.

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy!

Uncle Mack called during dinner. He's a pro on the phone!

One day Buddy, we'll let you pay...but not on your birthday!

The Cochran's came by for a quick ice cream celebration. 

Cayden had been telling everyone that he was going to eat ice cream for his birthday!

Miss Anna!  Look at those eyes!

The Boys

Wow- What a mess!

The tractor goes everywhere!

Good Night, sweet two-year-old!

Here's the invitation.  Leslie Ann (Senojal Designs) did such a great job!

I erased the 'private' info!  :)

3 Words

Matt called me Monday morning at 6:30 and said three words that I hoped I would never hear, "We've been robbed." I flew out of bed and immediately began grabbing the kids and putting them in the double stroller.  We took the elevator down to the first floor and there was Matt, sitting on a bench, bent over with his face in his hands in the hotel lobby. 

We had traveled with him to Houston for business.  He had planned to get up early and beat all of the traffic in order to see his first customer on the other side of the city.  God had other plans.  Matt grabbed a banana and a bottle of water before heading out to the Tahoe.  He noticed one of our maps on the ground and thought that was strange, but went ahead and got into the car.  When he opened the door, he noticed the console open and everything thrown around the vehicle.  They took everything they could get their hands on.  Both of our Garmins were gone and several other things (including his customer's credit card information).  BUMMER!!  We immediately called our neighbor at home and woke her up!  She went to our house and checked for Matt's wallet. Thankfully, he had accidentally left it at home!  What a relief! (And what a great neighbor!!) We still had a major clean up job and a logistical nightmare to deal with.  What were they after?  We have no idea.  We had almost everything in the hotel room with us (including our car seats- thank the Lord!)Beth was planning to pick me up and take the kids that morning, so I had everything with me.  Matt put everything he needed out of sight- in the console. 

After the police left, we packed everything up and headed to Target to make our replacement purchases.  Matt took me to the Houstons' NEW house in Memorial, and we both jumped on the phone THINKING that we were doing damage control.  I was on the phone with the insurance adjuster and Matt was telling people to cancel their credit cards when ALL of a sudden, I heard Cayden getting a MAJOR spanking!!!  I jumped up to run to his rescue (thinking that Matt was taking his frustration out on Cayden).  Matt just said, "LOOK!"  Immediately I turned from wanting to fuss at Matt for being too harsh to almost spanking Cayden again, myself!  Talk about damage control... Cayden had found a black sharpie and wrote on their white columns in front of their house. (They literally just moved into this house!)  I immediately grabbed him and took him inside.  I looked under their sink and prayed to find a "magic eraser," but I came up empty handed.  I sat him down by their fire place and noticed that their toys had black sharpie on them as well.  Could he have?  Would he have??  "Cayden, did you write on Daniel's new toys with that marker?"  Cayden looked at them and said, "uh hu!"  AAAGGGHHH!!!  Daniel had a birthday party on Saturday, and Cayden had just defaced his brand new property!

Beth was a super trooper about all of the things that happened throughout the day.  She actually did have a magic eraser in her laundry room and you will be glad to know... it actually DOES get permanent sharpie markers out!  It is amazing.  I scrubbed, scrubbed and scrubbed some more.  There is little evidence that Cayden left his mark, literally!  I wanted to take pictures of all of this, but I was WAY too embarrassed.  Beth was still sweet enough to take me to Harwin and let me de-stress while I shopped a little.  We headed back to her house to put the kids to bed and Courtney stopped by for a visit.  It was great seeing her and Hunter.  I wish we could have visited longer.  My camera died, so Beth is going to email pics later. 

An hour or so went by before I heard from Matt.  I was on the phone, so I let it go to voicemail.  Little did I know, he was calling to get her address before his phone died!!  She barely spit out the address before his phone hung up on them.  I called Matt's boss to let him know that Matt's phone was dead and he was laughing hysterically because Matt was on the other line calling his boss (1-800 number) on a pay phone!  Poor Matt!!  It was a rough day.  He was going to stop and buy a phone charger, but realized he didn't have a wallet!  He was calling his boss to get him to call me!  How funny is that?  Again- rough day!

Funny note: Beth commented on Brinley's stained clothes and Cayden's hair smelling like vanilla coffee.  It turns out that throughout the morning's hustle and bustle, I spilled most of my coffee on the kids.  It was in the stroller's cup holder.  It is hard to get the stroller through doors.  I usually bump them a few times before I actually make it through.  One time, Cayden was complaining about his eyes and we looked down and there was coffee dripping off of his eye lids.  Matt and I laughed because we figured it was par for the course.  I had no idea I had actually drenched my kids in my coffee.  Cayden's hair was sticky until he washed it last night before bed, but like Beth said, it smelled really good- like vanilla coffee!  Good thing it had been there for a long time and wasn't hot! Oh What Fun!

We drove back to San Antonio looking like we were getting away in a stolen vehicle.  As we pulled in the garage, the bottom fell out of the sky & it poured rain.  Thank You LORD!

You never know why certain things happen in life.  Who knows- Maybe something horrible would have happened to Matt if he had left at 6:30 as planned.  We'll never know.  It's just stuff, it's just money, it's just material possessions.  We're considering ourselves blessed. 

Cayden the Klepto

We haven't had him officially diagnosed, but Cayden has become somewhat of a kleptomaniac!  Seriously, I can't even begin to name all of the things he has "found" in his pocket.  Most recently (and to only name a few), it was a tiny hot dog from the church nursery, a snickers bar from the giant M&M at Walgreens, keys, and his favorite, Papa's iPhone.

When we were in San Diego, we were strolling down the car aisles looking for a car that we liked.  Cayden had fallen out of the stroller several times, and we finally let him run along side of us.  We didn't pay much attention because we were so focused looking in windows and picking the "perfect" car!  (HA- is there such a thing with rental cars?!?) There weren't any cars driving around, so we figured it was safe right?!?  Wrong!!
We finally picked a car and started loading our luggage into the trunk and getting the car seats strapped in.  Matt was strapping Cayden into his car seat in the car, and he kept telling Matt about the keys.  Cayden loves keys, and we have started ignoring him when he refers to them because he does it all the time!  It wasn't long before Matt checked his pockets and found not one, not two, but THREE sets of car keys.  Which cars did they belong to?  We had NO idea, but we spent the next few minutes going car by car.  Who was the genius who decided to put all of the car keys sicking out of the driver's side door? 
It was simple after that.  We just had to walk down the row and look for the cars that were missing the keys from the door.  Then, it was a process of elimination.  We finally got the keys back to their rightful owners and made it out of there.  UGH!  That Boy!

This week it was no different.  I was in DSW looking for shoes.  I couldn't fit my stroller down the aisle, so I parked it for SECONDS as I ran down the aisle looking for a particular shoe.  I couldn't find it, so I returned to the kids and started making my way out of the store.  Cayden kept saying, "my shoe" over and over.  Once again, I dismissed it because Cayden loves shoes.  I said, "I know... there are lots of shoes in here!"  And then I looked down!  He had grabbed a woman's shoe off of the display unit and put it on his foot!  I had to laugh, and then grab my camera.  It was truly amazing and hilarious.

After I collected myself and returned the shoe, we met Matt's parents at Chick-fil-A for a short visit.  They were passing through San Antonio with the Andersons. I don't know how I managed to not get a picture of Jan & Weldon, but they were definitely there!  It was fun seeing all of them during the middle of the week.  We gave Jean part of her Mother's Day present since we THOUGHT we wouldn't see her!  (More on that later!!)