The Church History Museum

The Church History Museum downtown has a fabulous kids area. The kids loved it so much we went twice and both times we were the only people there. So much free fun! There were activites for kids of all ages, but Caden had three distinct favorites.
First, there was the wall of scripture stories. Each book of scripture had an area, and when you removed the puzzle type pieces a picture of a scripture story was underneath. Caden loved pulling the pieces off and discovering the pictures. You couldn't get them back on as quickly as he could get them all off.

Then there was the reading area - full of little kiddo sized chairs and benches. Caden gleefully climbed on and off the chairs repeatedly, never sitting still long enough for his cousin who was following him around to actually get to sit next to him.

The real winner, though, was the Build a Temple station. There were so many blocks, and all of different shapes and sizes. Notice the huge pile in front of Caden? He would pull a block out, explore it for a minute, gingerly set it on the table in front of him, then grab for another block. He did manage to stack a few eventually.

Hogle Zoo

This past weekend my sister and her two girls came to town to go to the Draper Temple Open House. More posts will come as I get the pictures ready to go.

Caden really enjoyed spending a few days with his cousins and we did something fun every day. On Saturday, we loaded up a lunch and went to the zoo for a few hours. In typical Caden fashion, he would point at the animals and say "oooh!" In this picture he's looking at the zebra.

After we made the rounds with the animals we finished the day at the zoo park. Its a fun park where all the equipment has an animal theme. For example, this slide was an elephant and the kids slid down the trunk. As you can see, Caden still enjoys slides. At first he was a little hesitant to sit up there waiting for me to help push him down, but this time he got brave and scooted himself forward before I got a good hold on him. He breezed down without much help from Momma, squealing with delight the whole way.

Inquisitive little kiddo heard an engine and toddled away from the park area looking for it. He found his noise attached to a small train ride the zoo offers. He was fascinated by the smoke, bells, and people loading on and off. After the train pulled away he went back to the park, but he heard it come back about 5 minutes later and went straight back. I think he enjoyed watching it more than he would have enjoyed riding it.

Starting off early as practice makes perfect

The other morning, we found Caden in the master bathroom where Daddy has been working on remodeling the bathroom. There are some tools in there, and Caden has taken time to study each one and see how it works.

There is one tool in which he's taken quite a liking to, and that is the putty knife. He'll go in there once or twice a day, grab the putty knife, and scrape the shower floor clean, then scrape the wall. He knows that's what daddy uses it for. We finally caught it with a picture.

Not only that, it shows where we're at on the tiling process. If Ryan had more time to work on it, it would go quicker, but since he's been so busy lately, it's just been a touch and go process.

We're getting closer to having a bathroom again. Won't that be nice.

What's that funny noise!

So we were sitting in bed the other morning, and heard some funny sound outside. We sat there and wondered what it was, then Ryan realized that it was probably a hot air balloon. Around our parts, they seem to be going by quite a bit in the winter time.

This particular day, there was one that came back behind our neighbor's house, then changed directions and went down the street behind us at about 10 - 15 feet off the ground. It ended up landing in the park behind us, stayed a few minutes, then took off again.

Once Caden saw it, he just watched in awe since it's something new to him. He wanted Daddy to pick him up and follow it from window to window so he could see it. Daddy went out on the back deck with Caden and took the following picture.

A New Liking to TV

So kiddo has grown fond of TV over the last few weeks, and his new thing after breakfast is to go watch a program or two. His attention span still isn't there enough to last a whole program watching, but he'll watch (and dance if there's music), go do something else for a few minutes, then go back and watch some more. It's cute to see him dance to the music. It's funny to see him start to gain more interest in the world around him as he grows.

Check out how intense he's focused on his new "lighted box called TV".

Is it.........Hair?

Daddy decided to see what it would look like if kiddo had hair. He gave him a mullett and a belly. Kind of scary if you ask me! It almost looks like a cover to some sort of movie. It would probably have to be labeled " Attack of the little man baby" or something similar.

Well, at least you know what he'd look like. Until then, he's our cute bald little man.

Ryan's B-Day

So Ryan decided to take his B-Day off and get some things done around the house. Little did he know that we got a notice the day before stating we needed to hook up to our pressurized irrigation before Friday or we'd be fined $250. Instead of doing things around the house, he grabbed a shovel and started digging. The picture shows it in all it's glory. A big hole in our front yard.

He got it dug, worked out the plumbing, got it inspected by the city, and called it quits at about 4:00 p.m. with the hole half filled back in. All this was just in time to run to a cub scout Blue & Gold banquet in which he was in charge of dragging our BBQ down to the church and cooking over 150 hot dogs, then getting awards out. Caden found the chips down there and ate plate after plate with a grin on his face the whole time.

Once this was all done, we came back to the house and watched a movie to wind down for the night. We put Caden to bed and for half the movie, even though it was way way past Caden's bed time, we heard him chatting to himself as if he was happily recounting his day of unlimited chips to himself.

Enough is Enough

I put a child lock on our trash can this morning. Caden got so frustrated when he couldn't throw away his sippy cup. It was great! Here's to the peace of mind of not having to search through the trash 5 times a day just to ensure it contains only trash.

Our Budding Reader

Caden really enjoys books. Periodically he will pull one or two out and bring them to me to read to him. Its so cute that no matter what I'm doing I always stop and read to him. Today was one such day. We were running out the door to deliver meals on wheels, in a rush, and up walks Caden with a book. I figured being just another minute late couldn't hurt anything so we sat down and started reading. About 3 pages into the book he turned the page, saw a basketball, and exclaimed 'Ball!" He then proceded to point to the rest of the pictures on the page and tell me quite the story about that ball. Once he finished he closed the book and climbed off my lap, quite pleased with himself.