not just for babies...

Making a Fort

Tonight after dinner, I was cleaning up a bit in the kitchen while Ryan played in the living room (Mason was also in there, holding Kaeden). When I stepped in to see what they were doing, Ryan enthusiastically shared with me:

"I'm making a fort with... (long silence, looks around) ...

...nobody."

Welcome to life with a sibling, sweet boy!

Firsts

Not surprisingly, it's been a week full of "firsts" for baby Kaeden. Here's documentation of a few...


First tummy time (11/6):

working hard to lift up my head

First trip to Babies R Us (and first time being pushed by Ryan in the stroller, 11/7):

First walk (11/8):

slept through it

First ride on the train at the museum (11/9):

slept through it, too

First real bath (11/12):

liked it WAY better than the sponge bath; Ryan was quite excited to participate, quick to tell Kaeden "it's okay, baby Kaeden" when he started to fuss, & thought that Kaeden deserved a "big treat" since he did not scream or cry in the bath (something we've been working on with Ryan for over a year now)

One week Portraits

Okay, so I cheated a bit - he's only 6 days old in these pictures, but I wanted to get them while I could when Ryan was at school on Monday morning.

Anyway, as many of you know, I love taking photos of babies and little kids. I have no technical expertise, but it's a hobby that I enjoy nonetheless - and thankfully, my camera is nice enough that the photos tend to turn out pretty decently anyway.

Kaeden's awake time is limited these days, and by the time I got organized and ready to shoot, he was getting kind of cranky. But I did get some sweet sleepy ones. Here are my favorites:

Big Brother

We've been home from the hospital for a week now, and we are starting to get settled back into some semblance of a routine. With grandparents gone and Daddy back at work some of the time, it's time to answer the big question: So... how is big brother Ryan doing with all of this change?

Overall, he is doing quite well. We've definitely seen some behavioral changes - he is more mischievous and a lot slower to listen to our requests than our pre-baby compliant little boy. On the other hand, he is clearly enjoying his baby brother, at least some of the time (the rest of the time, he pretty much just ignores his existence). He wants to help us carry him various places and every day, he asks more and more to hug & kiss & hold Kaeden. In the check-out line at Babies R Us on Sunday, he spontaneously started stroking Kaeden's head, looking at him lovingly. He really is a sweet boy. We also had a little photo shoot on Sunday afternoon to try to capture some photos of our new family. We made a big deal out of Ryan getting to take pictures with Kaeden and printing them out for him to show his friends at preschool on Monday. He was thrilled. So, in case you've been wondering if Ryan likes his baby brother, I'll let you see for yourself:

this moment

Proof that Ryan does like his baby brother some of the time :)

... and an extra little Kaeden fix:

Introducing Kaeden (aka the hospital stay)

Our sweet baby boy was born on Nov. 2 at 3:33 am; 7 lb 2 oz; 21 inches long

less than 30 mins old

meeting his Daddy

proud parents, happy as could be!

dressed in his first outfit

our first family of 4 photo - Ryan wasn't too interested!

my wonderful friend, Janise

content in Daddy's arms

snuggle time with Mommy

cousins (only 6 weeks apart) meet!

Ryan's home video

About a month ago, Ryan decided that he wanted to make a video of himself (for the sole purpose, of course, of being able to watch it afterward). Anyway, I keep forgetting to share it, but here we go! As you can tell, he wasn't so great at coming up with his own things to do, so we did a lot of prompting... but he certainly kept us entertained!

Pumpkin Patch

Going to the pumpkin patch was one of my absolute favorite things that we did with Ryan last year, so I knew that we would have to find a time to go again this year. We planned to go last weekend, but there was something about going to a pumpkin patch in 85 degree weather that just didn't quite seem right. So, we held off until today. The weather was perfect - cool & sunny... an unbeatable fall day!

As you'll see, there was a lot to do and many, many pictures to take :-)

Ryan was hesitant about the corn pit at first, but liked it when Daddy buried his legs!


Can you believe how much he has grown in one year? This one was from last year's visit:


Cotton picking was something new to Ryan:


Of course, we had to take a hay ride - Ryan was pretty stone-faced the whole time, just taking everything in, but he said afterward that he liked it.


And seeing it from the outside was just as exciting:


Time to pick out our pumpkins... Ryan did a great job helping Mommy & Daddy, and he picked out his very own little one - just the right size for him!



In between activities, there was plenty of frolicking to be done:



We even ran into Ryan's friend Landon while we were there, and they spent quite a bit of time just running together. Ryan told me later that this was his favorite part of the morning! He loves his friends :-)


And of course, we needed some more "formal" pictures of our beautiful fall morning:



(compare to last year):





nearly 38 weeks pregnant... come on out anytime, baby!

Days like this...

I feel so blessed to spend my days with my sweet Ryan and get to share in his excitement over the little things... a tiny toad in our yard that jumped "way way high" out of Mommy's hands, a pea that fell down his shirt during lunch & tickled him to hysterics, a fire truck along the road on our way to the store... I love this boy!