Easter Weekend Fun

We spent this past weekend with my parents and niece Bailey celebrating the Easter holiday! We haven't seen my parents in almost 2 months so they were very anxious to see Cade! They got here late Friday afternoon and we were outside in the front yard waiting for them.




Gregg had cheeseburgers and tator tots ready and waiting for everyone. After eating we all went outside to watch Bailey ride her bike and then went for a walk down to the park.

Bailey and Cade in their helmets

Mom and Bailey getting ready to head to the park

Dad and Gregg playing on the see-saw with Bailey

(I think they had more fun then even Bailey did!)

Gregg had to work Saturday and Bailey went to spend most of the day with her other Great-Grandmother. Mom, Dad, Cade and I spent the day just hanging out and running a few errands to get ready for Easter.

Cade woke up early Sunday morning so he and I had some quite time to share before everyone else was around. I read him the story of Jesus' death and Resurrection from a Children's Bible that my grandparents gave to me when I was a baby. The rest of the family woke up Sunday morning to gifts on the front porch from the Easter Bunny! That Easter Bunny was extra good to the kiddos in our house this year!

Cade and Bailey's Easter goodies on the front porch

Baby boy with all his goodies!

Playing with all his new toys!

Sweet boy smiling for his Easter pictures

Cade wore the same Easter outfit that my little brother Seth wore on his first Easter! It was a light blue color with a cute little chick on it and 2 balloons. (Comparing sizes of my brother and Cade- Seth was born in March 1982 and wore this is in late April of that year and Cade was able to wear the same thing even though he was born in November!)

Bailey and Cade smiling for a picture

We decided to do a shrimp and crawfish boil for lunch Easter Sunday! Gregg has been wanting my Dad to teach him the secrets of a shrimp boil for a while now so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity and also a nice change from the traditional Easter lunch.

Cade hanging out with Grinna while we were cooking

Purging the crawfish

Cade watching Grumps drain the water on the crawfish

I just LOVE these two boys!!! (My favorite picture of the day!)

YUMMY YUMMINESS!!!

Cade's first crawfish experience!

Bailey made these BEAUTIFUL Easter cupcakes for everyone!

After we all ate, and ate, and ate some more we decided it would be fun to have a little Easter egg hunt for Bailey! We hid 48 eggs around our house and our neighbors house for B to hunt.

Bailey getting ready to hunt for eggs!

hunting for those eggs

(we only found 47 eggs Sunday night and are still looking for that last one!)

We had such a fun Easter Sunday celebrating with our family! I look forward to continuing to teach Cade the story of Jesus Christ and the Easter miracle!

My parents had to head back to Lubbock Monday morning. We were so sad to see them go and cannot wait to we get to see them again next month.

My Mom is always making new personalized things for Cade. She made this onsie for him from a tie that my grandfathers. Cade wore it for everyone Monday before they left town. As a joke I brought him downstairs in his denim shorts and cowboy boots which got a good laugh out of everyone!

Hitting the road

Gregg and I have both finally started working out again. (Truth be told Gregg has really started and I am just getting started!) A couple of weeks ago one of my co-workers husbands had a massive heart attach and passed away. He was 38 years old and healthy and left a wife and 2 young children behind. This combined with the fact that the #'s on my scale still read higher than what I would like and Cade is almost 6 months old have prompted me to take action. We have been walking around the neighborhoods every evening for a couple of weeks now and then Gregg and Cade have been going jogging every day that they are together. We have both started the Couch to 5K workout on days that we are home.

After we did the March of Dimes walk we decided that we needed a jogging stroller if we were going to be serious about jogging/ walking every day. We did a lot of research on different strollers but really didn't want to invest a lot in a jogging stroller since we have 2 other strollers and will need to purchase a double stroller sooner or later. So, Gregg started looking on Craig's List and we found a great stroller at a good price that was just down the road from where we live.

Cade loves the stroller and enjoys going for long rides in it! We have loved how much smoother it is to control on the uneven sidewalks and streets. All in all I think this is a win win for everyone and we look forward to slowly hitting the road again in pursuit of a more healthy family!!!

March Of Dimes Walk

Yesterday was the March of Dimes Walk in Dallas at White Rock Lake. Parkland has a big March of Dime program in the NNICU to support the families of our premature and sick babies. This is my 3rd year to participate in this walk but the first time for Gregg (and obviously Cade) to come along with me!

Cade's first train ride!

Getting ready to start the walk

Riding in style!

Thanks for all the support!!!

My Mom made Cade a t-shirt with the same logo as our Parkland shirts

hanging out with Sara and McKensley after the race!

flirting with the pretty girl

Gregg, me, Cade, McKensley, Sara, and Ryan

There was a really great turnout for the walk and lots of $$$ raised to support March of Dimes research and programs that help Mom's have full term pregnancies and babies begin healthy lives. Parkland also hosted a NNICU Graduate Reunion after the walk so it was great to get to see so many of our previous babies and their families! Thanks to everyone who supports the March of Dimes. I will continue to walk in hopes that one day all babies will be born healthy!

Wrap Buddies Party

Friday morning we went to 360 Wraps for the Wrap Buddies Party in order to get Cade's DOC band wrapped! We went to 360 Wraps for them to measure his band and pick out the design a couple of weeks ago. They made a new fire department design for us and so we have been really excited to see what it would look like!

The party was a lot of fun! There were about 10 families that were all there to get their bands wrapped. We each brought breakfast food to enjoy and then got to talk and share our stories. Cade was the youngest baby there. It was so much fun to see how they wrapped the bands and to get to hear the story of how 360 Wraps got started wrapping DOC bands for families!

Playing on the carpet while the bands were being wrapped

This little girl was all about playing with Cade while her little brother got his band wrapped!

Being silly and flirting with the little girl!

The super cute design for Cade's band!!!

close-up of the firetruck

Getting started wrapping Cade's band Tiffany putting the final touches on the wrap

All done!

Proud Momma!

We had such a great time on Friday and LOVE how Cade's band turned out!

Pictures of Cade in the bluebonnets!

Cade and I went out to a patch of bluebonnets this afternoon to take a few pictures! We are trying to get a good picture of him in his band to send in for the 2012 DOC Band Babies Calender contest! I of course think that he is just the cutest baby ever and deserves to be a featured month!!!

I have to say that I am pretty impressed with my photography skills in these next 2 pictures since I was able to focus on the bluebonnet!

5 Months Old

5 months! Has it really been 5 months already??? Things are changing and Cade is growing oh so fast it seems unreal! Every day truly gets better than the last and we feel so blessed to be the ones chosen to raise this precious boy!

Here are a few things about Cade from this month:

- He got his DOC band this last month and has taken everything in stride and adjusted to wearing the band without any difficulty.

- He is still so laid back, easy going, and has the sweetest disposition. He smiles and babbles all the time and has started making different noises in order to get attention.

- He likes music and will move his arms and legs around and babble whenever this is singing. - His fine motor skills are improving so much and he is getting a lot better at grabbing things such as our nose or lips, handfuls of my hair, my necklaces, and his toys too! Anything that he does grab he then tries to put in his mouth.

- He is constantly sucking on his fingers and has started to gag himself by sticking them too far down his throat.

- He is able to take his paci from his mouth and then put it back in and is able to hold his bottle on his own when propped up.

- He is constantly drooling and acts like he is teething but we don't see or feel any teeth yet.

- He has found his toes and loves to grab them and hold on dearly any chance he gets!

- He is sitting up on his own and gets real angry when we try to lay him down and it isn't his idea!

- He can roll tummy to back and back to tummy and will roll from one side of the room to the other and then uses his little feet to scoot around and change directions and will be off rolling again!

- He is starting to work his legs and trying to pull his knees up under him while on his belly. Occasionally he is successful and will start rocking or put his little butt up in the air and scoot.

- He is back to eating every 3 hours during the day and still every 7-9 hours at night. I am still breastfeeding and we are feeding exclusively breastmilk at this time.

- He is starting to get very interested in our food and watching us eat and will even reach out and try to get something that we are trying to eat.

- He is wearing size 1-2 diapers and size 3 month or 3-6 month clothes.

- He takes 3 naps during the day and will sleep for 1-2 hours during the naps.

- He still loves to be swaddled, cuddled, and rocked before going to sleep. (This just happens to be one of my favorite things also!)

We love you so much sweet boy and look forward to watching you grow and change even more over this next month!

And here are a few out takes from our photo shoot!

He was loving the elephant puppet that I was using to make him smile

yummy fingers!

always on the move

I wanted to get a few pictures of him in his bed but he was pretty much over the whole thing by this point and wouldn't look at me anymore!

PS- Sorry for the cray spacing in this post! It doesn't look like this until I publish and then there are all kinds of random spaces!

Picnic it the Park

wearing our baseball uniform to cheer on the Rangers!

The weather here was beautiful today so we decided to go to the park for a picnic. Gregg was off work and I didn't have to go in till 3pm today so it was the perfect opportunity! Aside from things blowing off the trees we had a really great time and Cade seemed to enjoy the change in scenery. Hopefully we can make this a routine occurrence over the next few weeks before it gets miserably hot!