almost . . .

4! We spent a good part of our evening making these . . .

for the almost birthday boy to take to school for snack tomorrow. Chocolate cupcakes with blue frosting and the number 4 on each made from good old M&M's per birthday boy's request. To say that Caden is excited about turning four is a huge understatement. He's practically giddy! And we still have to live until and through Saturday's bowling party! :)

alphabet train puzzle

Caden has this alphabet train puzzle that he loves to put together. The cute part of this activity is that he says each letter and then says who that letter is fro, assuming he knows someone whose name begins with that letter.
A is for Adelia
B is for Brock
C is for Caden and Copper
D is for Daddy and Doug and Dina
G is for Grandma
J is for Jace, Jacob, and Jensen
L is for Livesay
M is for Mommy and Melissa
P is for Papa
R is for Ryan (Caden's middle name)
S is for Sarah
T is for Tegan and Tim

It's very fun to watch him engage this way as he's learning his letters. Now if we could only find some friends whose names started with X, Y, Q, and Z, we'd have most of the alphabet covered.

grandma love

They sure love each other bunches and they're very silly together. I love these pictures. These were taken a few weeks ago one evening when Truck Grandma and Papa stopped by. Truck Grandma's hair has grown in quite bit since these photos were taken. Her whole head is covered now which is good with the cold weather here to stay for awhile. I'm glad both sets of Caden's grandparents are around to watch him grow up!

in the news

Caden made his first appearance in the newspaper this weekend. His picture was one of several included in an article about child development birth-age 5. The Kansan came to Newton Community Child Care Center where Caden attends preschool and took photos of children at all different ages. They used Caden's picture for the 3-4 year olds. If you want to read the article go here. If you want to see Caden's picture in the newspaper, go here. In the picture Caden is practicing sign language. His class is learning some basic sign language, Spanish, and German.

And, for those of you who noticed that Caden is wearing his #14 Sam Bradford Sooners jersey in the newspaper photo, yes Daddy is quite proud!! :)

writing

Caden has been working really hard to learn to write his name. It's not the greatest picture, but you can see how he's progressing. He wrote this today. I love the way it fills an entire piece of typing paper. Caden is a very eager learner right now and wants to practice his name every day. Makes his teacher mommy very happy! :)

Awesome!

awesome! Awsome! AWESOME! According to Caden, this word describes everthing lately. He uses prolifically and constantly to describe anything and everything. Awesome.

all by himself

We hear this phrase often from Caden as of late. On this particular morning he got dressed "all by himself". Gina (preschool teacher) would be so proud! She told us at the beginning that Caden was behind in his self-help skills, like getting dressed, putting his shoes on, etc. So we've been working on these skills at home and school. This seems all well and good, right?!?!

Look closely at the photo below . . .

Did you notice something not quite right about his attire? That's right, his shirt is on totally backwards, but boy was he so proud of himself! I just had to take a picture before Daddy helped fix it.