Latest Phases

NOLAN

• Nolan loves writing and creating right now and I'm here for it. Just last week he authored 3 books. He'll come to me with a stack of papers and ask for help stapling them together, then he'll spend hours writing a story. His first one even had a synopsis of the story on the back (how cute is that?!). He also asked me to draw a castle on the front cover and then broke it up into 6 chapters. Justin and I were just talking about how fun it has been to watch him create something and be so incredibly proud of his work.
• He is also very in to the piano right now. He can play the Jurassic Park theme really well and has learned part of the Home Alone theme. His new thing is he likes to see how fast he can play songs and it's so fun to see his fingers fly. He really has a natural talent with it! He will play around with 'new' chords and he'll hear a tune somewhere and try to recreate it on the piano. In fact, once I remember we were coming home from a piano lesson (this was really early on) and he said to me, "mom, I think I figured out the doorbell sound... E...D... (and kind of sung it)." I mean, what 6 year old does that?! Oh, and he also hosted a concert with all of his Christmas songs and charged $1 a piece. I loved it!
• He will avoid taking a bath at all costs because he doesn't like being cold when he gets out. Not gonna lie, he's pretty good at slipping through the cracks too. We'll get C and B into the bath every few days, but it's not uncommon for a week to go by and we realize that somehow Nolan has avoided bathing!
• Lastly, he relates most things to TV shows. For instance, he has an ongoing "show" with episodes (complete with episode titles and everything) that he'll periodically want us to watch. It's usually a fight with his dinosaurs, Star Wars guys, dragons, and Imaginext toys. The only issue is that he wants it to be as long as a regular show so he'll tell us the episode is 22 minutes long and we can't play with him, we have to just sit there and watch. And if we miss a scene or he catches us not watching there is a good chance he'll make us get the fake remote and 'rewind.' Haha, it's pretty adorable though. 

BRANSON

• For a couple of months now if I were asked to paint a picture of Branson it would be of him upside down. This silly boy is always upside down - on the couch watching TV, in his room while listening to scriptures, headstands against the wall. I keep looking for a tumbling class of some sorts for him because he's actually pretty talented. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if all of the sudden he's able to do a headstand without any support! Sometimes we wonder if he's losing brain cells and we should stop him haha.
• Our current Branson is also super sensitive right now. Oey. The slightest thing will elicit this ear piercing scream-whine that makes me want to run away and hide (but you can't hide because you can hear him anywhere in the house!).
• He loves playing in the bath, but hates getting his hair washed.
• Potty. Ohhh potty. We're STILL working on it. That's right, it's been over a year. I feel like we've tried everything. Some days I can be patient, other days I lose it on him (I feel so bad, but UGH it's so frustrating!). I feel like we come up with a new game plan about every 2-3 weeks which usually includes some kind of bribe or threat, but it just doesn't work and he eventually breaks us and we just give up and don't follow through. We've also tried just leaving him alone and not making it a big deal, no bribes, no yelling, no threats. I lasted longer on that one than Justin surprisingly haha. Oh and another funny thing I noticed. For the longest time (I'm talking 6-9 months) as soon as we'd sit down to dinner or get him up on the stool to brush his teeth before bed he'd inevitably have to go. I remember one specific time I pre-empted him and asked him to go potty before we sat down to dinner. He screamed that he did NOT need to go! "Whatever," I said. Then asked him to say the prayer. He starts talking and immediately he's dancing in his chair (this was literally 5 seconds after he insisted he didn't need to go). The craziest thing is that just last night for probably the first time ever I had Branson brush his teeth before watching a show instead of after (so probably an hour before the usual time we brush teeth. And guess what? Like always, he got up on the stool and immediately started the pee dance. I couldn't believe it! It's like Pavlov's dog or something! Also, here's a sampling of just a few of the many places Branson has tried to hide his dirty pullups.
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• The big boys are super into dinosaurs after watching Camp Cretaceous!
  

CADEN

He's walking everywhere now! It's so fun to watch him, especially because it really seems like he's proud of himself and loves his new mode of travel. It's still the wobbly, old men type of walk and I love it 😃

• We really need to teach this kid the art of snuggling. The other boys still come into our bed every morning and snuggle us (my favorite thing EVER), but Caden just comes in the bed and moved around, climbs over us, cries, etc. Oey. I guess it's possible the other two were like this at his age, but I seem to remember them coming in the bed and just drinking their milk. Caden will have nothing to do with it. He doesn't get up ridiculously early, but we're still not ready to get up get up, so finally we just threw the show Cocomelon on the TV and miraculously it kept him still for awhile. So we've been doing it almost every morning for 2 weeks or so and now he totally expects it! In fact, this morning he threw a fit when he thought I wasn't going to turn his show on. I probably shouldn't, but it's pretty darn cute watching him be so into this little show haha.
• He loves bath time. If we leave the boys bathroom door open he will almost always go straight to the tub and start screeching for me. He doesn't like to be in for too long though. About 10 min and he's done. In fact he'll start trying to get out himself by sticking his cute little foot over the side.
  
• He gets into EVERYTHING. For instance, neither of the other boys ever tried to get into the toilet - we've always closed the lid so I guess they just weren't interested. But Caden goes for it all the time. He likes getting into the trash, unrolling the toilet paper, pulling down all of his dad's ties, getting into every single drawer and cabinet. With the other boys we never put child locks on our cabinets, but with C? Everything is locked up. In fact, we were just thinking the other day that we might need to add a few more locks.
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• He must get this from his big brother, but he loves standing on his head and looking back at you between his legs. 
• Probably one of my favorite things he does right now is how he backs up to get down the stairs. I'm actually really proud and impressed with how quickly he learned to safely go down the stairs, but it's absolutely adorable how he does a 4 point turn to find the edge. He'll back up and hit a corner, then try again. It's seriously so cute.

He's on the Move!!

 Crazy Cutie Caden is on the move! Just about 3 weeks ago he started taking several steps, but it was only if we stood him up and bribed him with a phone a few steps away haha. But since then he hasn't really shown interest in walking except here and there.

Well the last few days he has just taken off!! He'll stand up on his own and walk across the room! He can turn around, turn corners, fall and get back up - it's so fun to watch. The best part is the big smile on his face! He's so proud of himself (as he should be!)

We sure love this boy and we all still get SO excited when he walks a long way. Go Caden!

At Gm and Gp Bailey's house this weekend.

This was Jan 25 when he first took some steps!

Brothers cheering him on!

Phone bribery.

Caden's First Haircut

Caden got his first haircut yesterday. No exclamation point because I'm kind of sad about it. Not as sad as his dad though. He was starting to look a little scraggly on the sides for a while, but Justin wouldn't let me cut it haha. I think he was only ok with it once C passed his first birthday.

It's kind of crazy how all of our boys were born with a lot of hair, yet still didn't get their first haircuts until around a year. Not sure how that computes, but it's interesting to note.

He was SO good in the chair. The only issue was his curiosity about what was going on so he kept wanting to look at her tools. Branson asked the hair stylist to turn on Cocomelon for him.

He looks so BIG and HANDSOME!! Stop growing up! 

Caden Turns ONE

I know it's so cliche, but how is my baby ONE?! It really does seem like yesterday that he was just a little baby. Now look how big he is! I've heard that time flies faster with each baby and I feel like it's true 😥

 Caden's first year on Earth was quite a wild ride, with a global pandemic and political unrest. It's a good thing he came though, because he has been a pure joy for our family and an absolute light in our home. 

We didn't bring him to church for the first 3 months or so and I remember telling people, "ya, we've just waited because we heard flu season is pretty bad this year and don't want to take any chances." HA! Little did we know that soon after his 3 month mark everything would shut down and we wouldn't even be allowed to go to church for the next 6 months. Even now we only have a 40 min sacrament meeting and then we go home. SO different than with the other boys (and I'm not going to lie, it's been kind of nice) - no 3 hour church, no roaming the halls with him, no worry about spit up on Justin's suit (since we had home church during all of his spit up phase!). Probably the saddest part is now many people didn't even get to meet him until he was like 8 months old!

His big brothers love him to pieces (although lately he's been wreaking havoc on their "fights" because he's always getting into their toys).

He is a good sleeper. Although we often wish he'd sleep in an hour more than he does in the morning. For the last several months he would wake up around 6 or 6:30 and you could give him a bottle and he'd go back to sleep. These days we're lucky if he wakes up at 7 and he definitely does not fall back asleep anymore. We've been bringing him into our bed and just hoping he's not too loud or crazy.

He loves phones, especially my phone (probably because I actually give it to him. Hey, it keeps him occupied and quiet! haha) 

He loves sneaking up the stairs when no one is looking (and has since he could get up the stairs which was around 9 months).

He's a fairly good eater, but is pretty opinionated about what he eats and is distrustful of the person feeding him haha. For instance, quite often if you put something in his mouth he'll take it out again, inspect it, then if he decides he wants it he'll eat it, if not it gets tossed on the floor. Also, when he decides he's done, he's done. After that if you try to give him more food he scrunches his nose and sticks it in the air. Also, he hates getting his face wiped after meals.

I haven't checked his teeth in awhile, but I think he has 4 on top and 4 on bottom.

Since he could move himself in his crib he always scooches himself into the corner so his head is right in the corner. It's pretty funny how consistent he is with it.

He loves baths, being outside, climbing on everything, his brothers, remotes, clicking his tongue, "helping" to unload the dishwasher, removing contents from baskets, speed racing in his walker, and eating most of his food from the floor. 

He seems to have an extra special spot in his little heart for Gp Bailey. He is the only one that Caden passes me up for.

I feel like we're still getting to know this cute little boy and can't wait to figure out what makes him tick. One thing we know for sure - we LOVE our Caden Dasil!!

 Nolan was so cute and told me that for Caden's birthday he thought we should let him to do all of the things he loves: climb up the stairs, take a bath, play the piano, etc.

Ya, he was so excited to get in that he toppled in with this clothes on! (Luckily I was right there). Branson did the same thing when he was around the same age, but unlike Branson, Caded didn't just keep playing like nothing happened. Caden seemed to know this wasn't right and cried until I got his clothes off haha.

Time to party!!

Our cute neighbor, Ellie, made his cake and did such a great job! He played with it for a few seconds, but then dove all in. He loved it!

This right here is classic Caden ❤

We were pretty impressed with how naturally opening presents came to Caden. He knew just what to do haha!

This cute little octopus was an impulse purchase. I was literally walking down an isle at Target on my way to the register, saw it and threw it into the cart. Well I'm so glad I did because Caden loved it! It was absolutely adorable how he'd smile really big, reach for it, and snuggle it every time we handed it to him. So cute.

He even drags it up the stairs.