Nemo found us

Well the weatherman was right- we got a lot of snow! Blizzard Nemo started Friday- Dan and I worked from home and daycare closed at noon. Which is good, since driving was banned starting at 4!

When we woke up Saturday, we had a lot of snow on the ground. I'm not sure exactly how much, but over 18 inches. We waited until Dan cleared a little snow from the driveway before we headed out. Caiden kept an eye on the snow blowing.

We spent a while outside, both before and after nap. We played in the snow, took Caiden out in the sled down the street (driving ban was in effect until late afternoon), went sledding in the yard, went for a snow shoe adventure in the back woods, and of course ran one of Dan's RC cars. A fun day! Ready for another one tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a little warmer- today was pretty windy and cold.

Winter update

Here are the happenings around here.

Caiden's vocabulary has gotten significantly better over the past month. Well, it's been steadily improving over the last few months, but it recently struck us how much better he is. He's gone from 2-3 word sentences to more complete ones. But despite his increased ability to express his needs/wants, he seems to forget all verbal skills when he hits meltdown mode.

Speaking of meltdowns, this made Dan and I laugh pretty hard: http://jasongood.net/365/2012/12/46-reasons-why-my-three-year-old-might-be-freaking-out/

Caiden is super curious and is always asking questions. Who's that? What's that? What's in it? Where is xyz?  What's that for? He hasn't gotten too big into asking "why" just yet, but I'm sure we'll get there soon.

A slightly questionable thing Caiden is into are bad guys. He always seems to enjoy the villain characters in the movies he sees/books he reads. His favorite Toy Story scenes? The ones with evil emperor Zurg in them. His favorite monster from Monsters Inc? Sneaky Randall. The most discussed character from Finding Nemo? Bruce the Shark. His favorite song? One where an alligator eats a monkey.

In January we went to a party at Caiden's old daycare. I don't think he remembered a thing from his time there, but he had fun exploring the whole building. He had no interest whatsoever in the organized activities though. It was nice at least for me to see his old teachers and friends.

Caiden and I had a serious cold this month. This is how you know Caiden isn't feeling well:

Finally, we had a sleepover visit from Ian and family last weekend. It was great fun! Caiden and Ian played SO well together. I was very impressed. It was funny to hear them talking together in the other room. Lots of "Right Caiden?" from Ian and "YEAH!" from Caiden. It was the easiest parenting experience I've had at home in a long time. Caiden was completely entertained. The adults could spend some quality time catching up.

Dave Mak came too and brought some great books for the kiddos. They are counting books with lots of animals. Big hit with both of them. They wanted to read them over and over. Caiden can recite numbers up to twenty, but he's not so good with actually counting things. He would count 9 boats and Ian would gently correct him: "it's 5".

Caiden also loved spending time with Jane the puppy!

Next up... blizzard Nemo!

Cheeky Monkey

Caiden has never been big into singing songs or listening to music, but he came home on Friday singing a song over and over again. I love hearing him sing!

It's not one I am familiar with, so I looked it up. The lyrics are some variation of this::
5 little monkeys swinging in a tree
Teasing Mr Alligator "Can't catch me!"
Along came Mr Alligator quiet as can be
And SNAPS that monkey right out of the tree