Kayla and Caden

Wow! Where has this last month gone? One month ago I was still pregnant and hoping I could make it a few more days before I went into labor. Now here we are... trying to adjust to life with two kids. I'm not going to lie... having two kids is an adjustment. But I would not trade this life for anything. Here's a few highlights from April

Kayla is going to hate me for these one day, but she is just too cute to not post pictures like this. Makayla loves her baths. We start filling up the tub then get her undressed. As soon as we put her down she's running to the bathroom and ready to hop in.

This little girl has grown up so much in the last month. She is turning into a little girl and has such a cute personality. One of her favorite things is to play on the stairs. She gets all her toys and sets them up. I call it organizing. After she sets up her toys on the stairs she will move them to the couch, then the drawer, then the rug... over and over again. She must think that is what we do all day is move things from one place to the other.

I just don't know what to do with Kayla's hair. It is in an awkward phase right now. There is nothing in the front, and it is getting too long in the back. If Makayla would keep her hair in piggies all day, it might look okay, but she pulls them out after a few minutes.

Hopefully her hair will start getting a little longer so I can do some fun things with it.

Who has two thumbs and loves salad? This girl! She really does take after her dad in every way.

We got a swing set last year and decided Makayla was old enough to play on it even though it said it was for kids 3 and older. But we feel like our child is really advanced for her age... the doctor even said she had great motor skills (inside joke... we do think Makayla is smart, but every parent thinks that about their kids, right?) Makayla helped Daddy set up the swing set. Every time he would hammer something in, she would grab another tool and hit the wood.

Most of the time she ate dirt.

Or climbed.

Tyler was so patient with her. I'm sure he could have been done faster without his "helper" but he wanted Makayla to help with her swing set.

So after two weeks, here is the swing set! Pretty cute, huh?

Not only is Makayla a good helper to Daddy, she also helps me around the house. She was helping me with the dishes the other day.

Although she doesn't do it that often anymore, we sure love it when Makayla will snuggle with us.

The other day she came out of the pantry holding this... She's a little too young for soda, but don't tell Makayla that. She threw a little fit when I tried to take it away.

Ever since Caden was born, Makayla has really been a Daddy's girl. Here they are dancing.

Here are some other things about our little Missy:

• She is getting two more teeth. That makes 6 total and counting.
• Makayla loves to dance. When she hears music she starts going in circles and waving her arms.
• She understands us and is starting to talk. Some of her words are Da-da, uh-oh, and "was tha". She can also understand little commands, like "waive bye-bye" and "give kiss". She makes cute little sound effects too. When she eats she goes, "Mmmmm" with every bite, and when she gives kisses, she goes, "Mmm-ahh".
• Makayla has been a little jealous of Caden, but only when I'm feeding him. Most of the time she is a really good helper. The other day Caden was crying and she went and got his blankie for him. Another time he was crying and she was holding a tube of toothpaste. She tried to give him the toothpaste and when he didn't grab it, she made him hold it.
• She is not shy at all. She loves it when there are little kids she can play with or when people come over to visit. Makayla loves to show off and will pause to make sure you are watching her.
• She has learned how to climb things: the stairs, her toys, her high chair just to name a few.
• Makayla loves to watch Sesame Street... especially Elmo's world.

As far as this little man goes, he is doing so good at almost one month old. He sleeps almost all day long. So here's a few pictures of our little man sleeping.

Why is it bad to have an older sister? You have to use all of her pink hand-me-downs like the bouncer. Luckily he doesn't mind... yet. Maybe when he gets older.

Caden can sleep anywhere... even with Grandpa.

But his favorite thing is to hang out with Daddy. I love my boys!!

We have taken pictures of Caden doing other things besides sleeping. Here's his first bath at home.

I don't think he loved it judging from this picture.

But he was better once he got all wrapped up.

The thing I love the most about Caden is his hair. I love to style it in a Mohawk. Caden's cousins even named him "Mini Mohawk Man"... pretty fitting.

Caden got upgraded to the big tub. Here's his second bath at home in the big tub.

He did have to share with Makayla. I think Makayla was more annoyed that he took up half of her playing space.

So far Caden is a really good baby. He doesn't cry that often and is content as long as he has his binkie. He sleeps pretty good during the night and maybe gets up once or twice a night. Even though it is really hard to get up at 3 am, I love being able to spend time alone with my buddy. I love it when he looks up at me with his wide eyes, or when he drifts off to sleep in my arms. We couldn't ask for a better baby!

And how are me and Tyler doing? Well, we are adjusting to life with two kids. We have turned into those parents who go out to dinner to Arctic Cirlce on a Friday night because it is kid friendly, we go to bed every night at 9:00, and we spend our day chasing after Kayla and going in cirlces cleaning up messes.

But we also get to spend every day with our two adorable kids reading books, playing on the swing set, and laughing at the cute things they do.  

 And we do this a lot.. change diapers. We have tried to keep track of how many diapers we go through a day, but we lose count every time. I do know the other day I was up to 9 diapers before noon. This is the pile of diapers after one night.

But you know what? We love it! We have the best life with our family of four and feel so lucky!

Stats

We took these two cuties to the doctor for their checkups. Here's the stats on our cute kids.

At two weeks Caden weighs 9 pounds 14 ounces and is 21.6 inches long.

At 15 months, Makayla weighs 24.5 pounds (85%) and is 32.5 inches long (97%).

Caden's Newborn Pictures

We had this handsome little man's newborn pictures taken. They all turned out so cute! He was bound and determined not to miss out on any of the action and decided to stay awake for the majority of the pictures.  Doesn't he just melt your heart?

I love his little finger in this picture.

And his tiny little toes!

It looks like he is adjusting his own tie in this picture

 The pictures in the Tonka truck are probably my favorite!

 We're hoping our little man likes sports

 About this time in the pictures Caden decided to fall asleep.

 Chillin in the hammock... what a life!

We just can't get enough of our little fella!

Easter with the Kiddos

Happy Easter!

I couldn't help but dress Caden up like a bunny for Easter this year! Doesn't he look so cute?

We had the best Easter with our kiddos this year. We started out on Saturday night by setting out the kids' Easter baskets. Caden was screaming and Kayla just doesn't know what to think about all the noise from her brother yet. We all went to bed that night hoping the Easter Bunny would bring us some surprises.

Early on Sunday morning, Kayla woke us all up and we started to look for our baskets. We looked in the pantry first because that is one of Makayla's favorite places to hang out.

Sure enough the Easter bunny hid Caden's basket in there.

Kayla was so sweet to show Caden his book, towel, and wash cloths

Of course she stole it from him a few minutes later. We're still working on the sharing thing...Good thing Caden didn't mind.

Then we had to search for Kayla's basket. The Easter Bunny was a little more tricky with her's. We looked in the closets, and in the bathtub, and under the piano

Finally we checked downstairs and her basket was hidden under the table.

Makayla got her own book, sandals, and sippy cups.

Then Daddy made us all chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Kayla loved them as you can tell from the chocolate all over her mouth!

Caden just chilled in his seat all wrapped up like an Eskimo.

Later we got ready to go to our family parties. Caden has so much hair that we had to style it in a cute Mohawk.

Here's our cute Missy Kayla in her Easter outfit.

We spent Easter day at Grandma and Grandpa's Evans' this year. They started out with the Easter egg hunt. Makayla LOVED it! She didn't know what to do at first, but then she started putting random stuff in her basket. Her favorite was to pick up all the eggs and smash them together.

 Little Mister got spoiled because everyone took a turn holding him.

 Our cute family of 4

 And some of the other lurps that we like to call family!

After the Easter egg hunt we had a yummy dinner and then sat around and talked.

A few hours later we stopped by my family party. We switch off holidays now, so my family had already done their dinner and Easter egg hunt. My Grandma Draper and Karen were at the party and they got to see and hold Caden.

 My cute Grandma is 84 now and has 42 great grand children! That's quite the accomplishment!

The weather was perfect and we got to spend time outside. Kayla loved playing on the swing and chasing her cousins around.

 My family did something fun this year. Meg had all these confetti Easter eggs so we had a egg fight between the adults and kids. Good thing we did it outside because there was confetti all over!!

 Makayla didn't know what was going on so she just hung out in the middle of all the chaos.

 But she did get confetti all over her hair!

Of course it wouldn't be a Thomas party if we didn't have kids crying. Thanks to Ryan and Darren I think they successfully made 3 of the 8 kids cry during the fight.

We truly had the best Easter this year celebrating with our families and cute kids!