18 Months Old

Today we celebrate Caden's 18 month birthday! It's hard to believe he has already hit this milestone. The time has passed so quickly. It's amazing to think about how much he has grown and learned in these first 18 months of his life. We are so proud of him!

Unfortunately we did not have the best of days. For whatever reason Caden is still waking up every few nights. Last night he was up four times in a two hour period. I expected that he would be wiped out by nap time today, but as like most days when I'm desperate for him to nap, he wanted nothing to do with sleeping. We had a busy morning of errand running and then had a lunch of beef sticks and crackers in the park. By afternoon we were both at our limit of patience and happiness. These crabby days are never fun.

We did get a nice surprise in the mail today, however - Easter presents from Grandma and Grandpa Noe. We decided we didn't want to wait that long so tore into the box as soon as Greg got home. Caden immediately went for the chocolate. He has quite the sweet tooth!

Caden loved his new pizza and ice cream cone food sets. He had even more fun unwrapping the tissue paper. He is definitely an expert present opener by now.

We ended our day by having a celebratory half birthday dinner of pizza and cupcakes. Caden ate his whole slice and asked for more - too bad we didn't think he'd eat that much and already finished off the pizza. So we just moved him on to the cupcake and he ate the top half - fingertip by fingertip. :)

I realize I haven't written in almost a week, but nothing very exciting has happened. We're still trying to get outside as often as possible because Caden loves it so much. It's fun to see him in the parks because he's getting more and more brave about climbing the structures and going down the slides by himself.

Almost every afternoon we spend at least an hour at Crea's playing with the daycare kids. Caden has gotten to the point where when I open the door to let him out he immediately heads to their house! He's still incredibly reserved and shy when we're there, but I'm starting to see him loosen up the tiniest bit. He likes to watch the other kids and today he even tried kicking the balls to them. I'm really hoping these afternoon visits will help him socially in the long run.

We spent last Saturday with Lexi and Caden participated in his first egg pecking contest. He slept through the dying, but had no hesitation when it came to banging eggs together! He of course had to throw a few across the kitchen as well.

Well, the last 18 months have been a wonderful whirlwind of excitement and fun. I can't wait to see what will come next!