Getting Ready!

So not much has been happening here other than the weathers much much colder! I love it! It has given me a reason to break out the mittens and hats. (I'm sad to say I haven't worn a sweater since moving here. Just doesn't feel cold enough.) We are getting ready to have a nice Thanksgiving here at home. It will be the first Thanksgiving with just our family so I'm excited to see how it goes. Especially with my slight changes to the meal plan. (no Turkey and possibly a green "pea" casserole?) But I think Caden's getting ready for Thanksgiving just for the food. I thought I would add a picture of what Caden decided to eat last week while I was cooking and my back was turned away from the refrigerator. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the the raw egg incident that happened this week. Lets just say it was too much of a mess! But I'm sure you get the idea.

FALL IS HERE! YEA!!

So fall is here and we are so filled with candy it is ridiculous! I think it is oozing out of my ears. (Or should I say my kids ears!) We had a great time Trick or Treating! (Thanks so much for the Halloween cards Judy. You can check out the video at the bottom of Christian opening his card. It was kinda funny.) I'm sure you can guess what Caden was. A super cute lion! I made the costume with a chicken outfit from the Goodwill and found brown fluffy fabric and wire at a local fabric store.

I cut the "chicken parts" off and made the lion mane around the hood. I added the ears with fabric and some wire to make them stand up and found a little fleece to match and made a cute removable tail for when he would sit in the stroller. Total cost.... 10.00 instead of 30-40.00. That's a way to save some money! And Christian was his favorite Transformer Bumble Bee! He really thought he was going to save the world that night. It was sooo cute! He felt like a real super hero.

We visited a few houses in our friends neighborhood but left early to head to our churches' Trunk-or Treat due to it being way to scary for Christian. Our friend had a haunted house basically in his yard which made Christian only want to close his eyes and cover his ears. I don't blame him. It was SCARY! but leave it to Caden to not have a care in the world. He ran right up to the door through the life size Jason and headless woman with crazy flashing eyes. I think he could smell the candy from a mile away and you know how he is with food. :)




So off to the Trunk-or Treat which is a big thing out here in the south. It is usually done by churches but tons of people go to these. You park your car or truck and decorate it with any theme you can think of and people hand out the candy. Christian had a wonderful time. I think his favorite was the fire truck he was able to get in and honk the horn.
(We have a fire fighter who also attends our church and has let him come visit the fire house so he thinks he lives in these trucks. Anytime he sees one he yells, "That's where Clark lives!" He is a true hero to him. Especially since Clarks pick-up truck was decorated with a hay stack tunnel you climbed through to go down a slide that was attched to the back of his trailer. Very cool!


We also ran into his friends Jeremiah and Josiah who were Batman and Spider man, so I think at that moment he was in superhero heaven!

AUTISM SPEAKS WALK!

So if you didn't notice Caden has received his first hair cut. (BOO HOO HOO) It was just too long. Longer than Christians hair at this age and I was tired of all the " Oh SHE'S so cute" comments. He did a very good job of staying still. As long as he had food in his hands he was good. We also participated in a walk for Autism held by Autism Speaks. Thank You to all the people who supported our team. We had such a wonderful time. There was so much food and information and fun things for the kids to do that time went by so fast. I think we walked Lowes Motor Speedway 2 times. And I couldn't believe the sweater Grandma Joan made for Christian at 2 fit Caden at 15 months! Amazing how they both are soo different. Like for instance Caden is in love with Thomas. Unlike Christian who literally would run away from the tv crying if Thomas the Tank Engine came on. Don't believe me? Check out this video.
So since Caden loves Thomas so much I made him (and Christian) a blanket out of clearance fabric I found that they use as a mat to play with their trains. They love it! And I do too!:)

Ok I am so behind in writing that my next few posts will more then likely be short and probably a few days/weeks behind. Like this post for instance, it is from our wonderful trip to the Greensboro, NC Children's Museum which we visited on Sept 27th. Ridiculous right? So until I am caught up I am just going to have to do what I gotta do! Back to our trip, it was awesome! We had soooo much fun. Chris was away doing his Model/Acting class so it was a fun day with just me and the boys. Caden loves trains. Thomas is his ultimate best friend right now. As soon as it comes on the TV he is saying Choo choo! (or something that sounds like it) and this museum had the best collection of Thomas and Friends trains that you will ever find. He had a blast! They also played in an indoor sand area. I thought it was great because they had things like Hieroglyphics and fossils hidden under the sand. Christian liked the surfboard the best. As well as the whole front end of an airplane that kids can climb into and explore. Caden enjoyed the slide exit. And my favorite was this room full of balls and things to play with. They ran like wild! I think I put a video so you can also see the red heads mini temper. There was really so much to do that we didn't even tip the iceberg with the amount of fun stored in this building. Both boys didn't even check out the Police car, Fire engine or Race Car, Kitchen, Newsroom, Dentist office, or Doctor office, all with hands on things for them to do. We will have to take another trip. On are way home before naps we were able to hear/see the end of Sen. Obama's visit to downtown Greensboro! What a historical event. We had no idea he was going to be there. We just followed the crowds of people we saw walking around. Christian thought all the big buildings were amazing. I tried to explain how even more amazing the buildings are in New York. He is now so excited to visit this Christmas. He really enjoys big cities. And then it was time for home. What a day! They were beat and so was I! But it was the most fun I have had in a long time with the kids.

Here is what's left of summer!

So again I am quite behind in posting. Time is going by so fast, but thank goodness for Grandpa V. With out his constant care to make sure this gets done I'm not sure where I would be right now. Thanks Grandpa V. This one's for you! :)
Well Christian and Caden have been enjoying the last bits of summer with some water play at the water table and a dip in the Animal Safari "water park." (I got a great snapshot of Caden's curls.) After that week of fun it has been pretty much a complete wash out. I feel like it has been rainy or at least cloudy for 5 out of the 7 days of the week. So it looks like Fall is on it's way. Even the temperature has not reached above 75 or so it feels. But we have kept ourselves busy. We brought out the bounce house to jump around in and played outside in the rain. The bounce house can be a little scary due to Caden and Christian being so rough but it sure gets out energy. And if you didn't notice from the pictures we had to give Christian a hair cut. Boo hoo hoo. I was very sad but it was something that needed to be done. Unfortunately Christian has eczema, that with long hair spread to his eyes, either from his hands wiping the hair away or something in his hair hitting his eyes. Either way he is much better now. He is sporting a Mohawk, though I think it is almost finished growing out. I thought I would have had video of it but only took video of the first cuts.
Chris and I had the privilege of being able to spend our 6 year anniversary in Beaufort, NC with no kids! Grandma and Grandpa V. came to the house and spent the weekend here with the kids. Sorry I wasn't there to take pictures of the boys so that is all on Grandma. :) As soon as she is willing to give up the pictures I will post them on here for all to see. Until then I guess you will have to settle with pictures from our trip. To sum it up we had a wonderful hotel right across from the water and the boardwalk where all the shops and restaurants are. It was perfect! We took a boat to Shackleford Banks where the water is true blue and there are soooo many different kinds of sea shells. Plus the island has wild horses that roam free and where left from the Spanish War. The most exciting thing we did was spend a day at Fort Macon which was a huge fort the the army used and has now persevered as a museum. It was amazing! You can check out the Cannon fire video if you like. I really enjoyed it! Thanks Mom and Dad!
And last but not least is how totally cute my boys looked in their suits this past weekend. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in a friends wedding and the boys looked so cute! I will get pictures of them at the wedding soon but for now here are the before pictures. (Caden wasn't that cooperative but I got what I could.) Thanks for tuning in. This is Nikki signing out! :)

What a Goof!

So I just realized that I can set this blog to have my readers be anybody instead of sending invites all the time where if you don't have a gmail account you can only log in for 30 days. So I set it to anybody which means if you save the blog address. www.christianandcaden.blogspot.com you can go to it and view it at anytime with out an invite from me. I am more then happy to send emails to those who would like a notice that I have updated something, or I believe you can do an rss feed and you should get updates automatically? (I have no real idea how that works. You would think I would be computer savvy enough but I guess I'm just not.) So on that note I will send one last invite about this update and then will change it to the "anybody." Thanks for your patience as I figure out all this blog stuff. :)

Summer Is Almost Gone

So I decided to tackle the job of painting Christians room and I think it actually turned out pretty good. At least he likes it. We went with Disney's Cars theme. I plan to do Caden's room next which will be Outer space. My goal is to have both boys in the Cars room by Caden's 2nd birthday and then use the Outer Space room as their playroom. We will see how that goes. Each wall is a bright red and orange. (Hard to tell from the pictures) and on one of the walls (the picture to the right with what seems to be a blank spot under a framed picture) we plan to put a tire with chalkboard paint so they can have a chalkboard to draw on. And in the Outer Space room we will use white board paint to make a white board in the shape of a moon. But not until they are a bit older. I'm not so sure dry erase markers come off paint if they miss the "board."

We also just got a grill and have been able to use it a few times before the summer has come to an end. We even had a great time grilling with Grandma Ryker. She came to visit for the weekend and we had a blast! Uncle Mike and his girlfriend were able to come visit with us as well and we decided to go to The Natural Science Center of Greensboro. Of course I forgot my camera so we didn't get any pictures. (Maybe Mary Jo will be so kind and send me some. Hint Hint.) But I did get a picture of how tired Grandma Ryker and Daddy were after a long day. Boy, it sure looks like mother like son. :) Well I think that's it. I do have more pictures but not enough time to write so I will post them all on photobucket if you would like to look at them and when I get another chance I will write a little about those as well. Have a great week!

  So we have been spending a lot of time at City Lake Park. Caden really loves the train. I don't think he is too fond of the Carousel but Christian really wanted to ride it. I tried to get a picture of the 2 of them together, but I think this is the best I could get. :) Christian doesn't like to "say chesse" any more. I can barely get a

 smile out of him.

We have also been spending 

more time outside in the yard and picking the Wild Blackberries. But now we have a Mockingbird who isn't too happy with

 me. He keeps spending alot of tim

e on our playscape and porch just watching me, I know it. He even swooped at me (lifted the back of my shirt!) while I was picking some berries! I don't know what do do about it. Thankfully he has not bothered the kids. So I guess we will leave him alone for now.

 
   

We also have been attending our church picnics  once a month this summer. Our last one was all about "water" so they had a big inflatable  water slide. I didn't think Christian wo

uld go but he sure has become very independent. Especially when there are older kids. All they did was cheer him on and he went right down. Of course after one cheer you can't stop. He wouldn't go down unless the kids cheered, "1-2-3 GO!" EVERY TIME! And they didn't ever time or they didn't think they would get a turn since Christian wouldn't move.