Weekend O' Fun

We got a surprise last Sunday night when Kylee's sister and her husband told us they were coming this weekend to stay with us. We were SO excited! Here is what we did while they were here:

We went to Elitch Gardens all day on Friday. Caden had gotten a free ticket from the summer reading program at the local library, so we had to take advantage. He LOVED it!! We had a blast going on all the water rides and all the little kid rides. My sister even volunteered to watch Caden for awhile so Russ and I could go on some of the big roller coasters. It was such a fun day! Caden had been excited for a really long time, and he couldn't get enough of all the rides.

One of our favorite rides of the day. Kylee and Caden took a back seat on this ride


Surprisingly, they even let Russ on this one with Caden. Leg room was a premium on this one!

Caden and Kylee enjoying life on one of his favorite rides.

Definitely going to have to come back again soon :)

Enjoying the view from the top of the Ferris Wheel of Kylee... we mean, Denver :)

We were also able to celebrate Caden's birthday! He is now a big 4 year old. He has been excited for months about his birthday, so it was fun that it finally came. We went swimming as a family in our neighborhood pool and had a BBQ with my sister and her husband, as well as Russ' parents and younger brother. After dinner, we had a Cars cake, opened presents and then went to watch the fireworks. Caden was happy all day and we just feel so blessed that he is in our family. Here are some things that we just LOVE about our little boy:

• He is very caring and will be a great big brother some day. He pretends that his stuffed animals are babies and he takes really good care of them.
• He has a really contagious giggle and a really cute laugh.
• He gets really excited about things and makes our lives so much richer and fuller.
• He LOVES swimming, playing sports, going to the park, reading books, playing with cars, playing games, etc.
• He loves breakfast and will eat anywhere from 2-5 bowls of cereal every morning.
• He is very well behaved and obedient (most of the time).
• He gives the best hugs and kisses.
• He is a great eater even while we are having a picnic with friends, and he always says he "eats like a missionary" if he finishes everything on his plate.
• He loves BYU football....clearly he learned this from both his Mom and Dad! :)
• He loves to be tickled, which is great because we love to tickle him!
  
• He is learning so much and can focus on one thing for a long time.
• He LOVES to talk and he will talk to everyone we see (in the grocery store, in the library, at the pool, running on the side of the road, etc).
• He gives lots of compliments. He is constantly telling us that he likes our hair, our shirt, our food, etc.
• He LOVES the movie CARS and he's pretty much read every possible book in the library about the movie. He can name even the random cars that aren't even mentioned in the movie (Nitroade, Leakless, Easy Idle, etc.)
  
• He is excited to adopt and frequently talks about it or tells other people about it.
  

Did we mentioned he likes the movie CARS? :)

After so many birthdays of friends and family in June, it was finally Caden's turn.

Kickboard for the pool. He'll get plenty of use out of that. He was so happy to have his aunt and uncle there to celebrate as well.

Cars and a baseball mitt. Life doesn't get any better than this.

Busy at work opening presents.

Now its time to play with them all! Russ' mom showing him how to use some of the new trucks.