Aunt Heather H's Visit to Indiana

Aunt Heather came to visit at the end of April.  Caedmon and I went to pick her up on Friday from the airport and it was Caedmon's first time in the airport.  They had a lot of fun together.  Denny, Vickie, Brandon, Sandy, and Rick came down the next day (which was Sandy's birthday and Caedmon's half birthday) for a killer cookout.  On Sunday Tanner, Caedmon , and I hung out with Heather for the day.  Then on Monday her 2 sisters, her mom, and her other nephew Noah came to pick her up at our house.  So Noah and Caedmon got to meet each other.  They are about 3 weeks apart.  We had a great visit and hopefully get to go see her in Wilmington soon.

Picking up Aunt Heather at the airport

Auntie is the best

Killer Feast

Apparently Aunt Heather is a bad influence

Or maybe I am too

Rocking Caedmon to sleep

Caedmon meeting Noah in their matching outfits from Aunt Heather

Proud Auntie Heather with her nephews

Good Bye Aunt Heather

Stella is jealous.

Sponge Bob Intro

So we are behind on posts here but for awhile now Caedmon likes the intro to Sponge Bob.  He will stop whatever he is doing when it comes on and look at the TV and smile.  It is hard to hear so turn up your volume.

We are still here

Just wanted to do a quick post to say that I am still here I promise.  I did not abandon blogging, I just been really busy.  One of the reasons I was afraid to be a stay at home mom was I was afraid I would be bored but I am far from being bored.  If anything I got so much going on that I stress myself out.  Lately Caedmon's aunt Heather from North Carolina was here for a visit.  A good friend just got moved into her house in Terre Haute finally so I went there for a couple of days to help her unpack.  We have gone camping, had family pictures taken, and I have an upcoming bachelorette party to attend this Friday.  Oh and played Bingo in Lafayette last Thursday evening with some of the ladies in the family.  And I won $300!!  Some of these things occur on the weekends but planning and packing occur during the week on top of the usual errand running, chores, and going to the YMCA.  And while I enjoy my little trips around the state packing stresses me out.  I hate it with a passion.  I rather do a long drive with a baby than pack.  Just like I would rather jog than walk fast.  I absolutely cannot walk fast.  I have to jog to keep up with fast walkers.  But now I have gone off on a tangent. 

I actually have about 3 or 4 drafts that I started about a month ago and haven't finished yet.  I have no trouble typing out content for my posts.  The delay comes from uploading pictures and videos because it takes more time and I hate doing it.  I wish Tanner would do it for me since he is more techy than I am.  But then that means I would have to tell him which ones to use and I might as well do it myself. 

Sorry if this sounds like a big jumble.  I am a little on edge at the moment because Caedmon has been screaming in his room because he is supposed to be taking a nap.  He needs to learn to take naps in his crib now instead of elsewhere.  So trying the crying out method for a few minutes.  So I need to go in there and calm him down now.  So until next time (hopefully soon)......

Caedmon and Tyson Update

As I said in an early post Caedmon is starting to smile and laugh at Tyson.  One day he had a huge laugh fest at Tyson I don't know why.  Tyson is cute too because every time we come home he has to smell Caedmon in his car seat and make sure he is okay.  And sometimes if Caedmon is upset Tyson gets concerned and goes to Caedmon.  I hope this is the beginning too them being best buds when Caedmon is walking.  Here are some cute pics of the two of them together. 

Happy Birthday Stone and Jenna!

I meant to post these on their birthday.  Happy Birthday to my nephew Stone who turned 14 on Monday and my niece Jenna who turned 10 on Wednesday.

6 Months

At his 6 month appointment Caedmon weighs 17 pounds 13 ounces and is 27 and three quarters long.  He is doing really well.  Caedmon is getting more giggly, smiley, and more mobile.  He scoots himself backwards and rolls around.  He can sit up with support or at least for a little bit on his own and then will fall over.  He has been eating solids now for a little over a month.  When it comes to baby food he will pretty much eat anything.  Caedmon is also starting to look at the dog more and smiles at him.  He will sleep at night from about 8PM to anywhere from 6 to 7AM.  Caedmon is generally a happy baby and mommy and daddy love him so much.

5 Months

Get in my Belly.....

Silly Boy

This post is about some silly things Caedmon has done. First of all he has started rolling around more and being more mobile.  He has been doing the backstroke where he scoots himself backward.  So we are in trouble now. 

He absolutely loves his bouncer thingy.  Here is a video of him in his bouncer.  He doesn't necessarily jump up and down but he likes to go forward in it.

And speaking of going forward in it, more recently he has really gotten into bouncing so hard that in this pic you will see I had to put DVD cases on the back of the thing because he was lifting the back of it off of the floor.  

One time I heard him whining in his crib after waking up from a nap that I found him like this.  LOL!!

Hungry Hungry Hippo

Within the last couple of weeks we have started feeding Caedmon baby food.  We started out by having him eat rice cereal and oatmeal cereal but he really doesn't seem to like the cereals.  And they don't really agree with him because every time we gave him cereal then he would have trouble sleeping.  So we decided to quit the cereals and introduce him to baby foods.  So far we have introduced Caedmon to green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, bananas, and carrots and is eating them all like a champ.  He is definitely a Hatke.  And tonight he had squash for the first time and as usual downed it in no time.  He is so funny when he eats because when he sees a spoonful of food or a bottle he gets really excited and opens his mouth real wide.

The Day of Firsts

Easter day it seemed like a day of firsts.  Or at least I just wanted to call this post something other than Caedmon's first (fill in the blank).  So of course it was Caedmon's first Easter.  We went to Lafayette for the day to great grandma's house and grandma and grandpa Hatke's house.  For Easter they gave him a swing.  Below is a video of him in the swing for the first time.

The other firsts are we found him in his crib on his stomach that morning.  He had rolled from his back to his stomach for the first time.  And he wore shoes for the first time.

Here are some other pictures from Easter.

 Also the previous weekend we attended an Easter "Begg" Hunt for Tyson.  It is an Easter egg hunt for dogs.  And all of the eggs have dog treats in them and a coupon to this dog bakery in town.  It is pretty comical seeing all these dogs there looking for eggs.  Tyson actually finds a couple but mainly we find them for him.  Some dogs actually find the eggs and then paw at them getting the treats out right away.

St. Patty's Day Weekend

I want to start off by saying that I love St. Patrick's Day and I don't know why.  Maybe because it is an excuse to drink I don't know.  Ha!  I will say that I have some traditions with the day.  First is to go downtown and go for a walk on the canal because they dye it green.  Although this year I didn't make it down there because it was too cold for Caedmon and because we had to go pick up Caedmon from his grandparents house.  More on that in a bit.

The other tradition is to go get a shamrock shake from McDonald's.  I have always loved the shamrocks shakes and remember getting them with my parents when I lived at home back in the day.  Well now the shakes have become an inside joke with Caedmon's uncle Brandon and I.  It was a couple years ago when Brandon was staying at our house for the weekend.  Somehow in conversation Brandon mentioned he never had one before.  So of course we all must go get one.  Well we started out by going to the nearest McDonald's down the street and of course they were out.  Then if memory serves we went to 2 more McDonald's on our way to Plainfield to hang out with friends.  And one was out and another the shake machine was broken.  So we get all the way to a McDonald's in Plainfield to finally enjoy our shamrock shake.  And Brandon takes his first sip and is like, "are you kidding me?  We drove all around to get this?  They have this at Steak N' Shake?"  So now every St. Patty's Day if I am with Brandon we have to get shamrock shakes together in memory of driving around looking for the shake.  All of a sudden this reminds me of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle to get sliders.  How about Kim and Brandon go to McDonald's to get Shamrock shakes?  

So this year I had the pleasure of getting a shamrock shake with Brandon again.  In fact he drove us in his new car that he just got that same week.  Well we lucked out and the first McDonald's we went to had the shakes but they forgot to give us straws.  Ha!  

The shakes!

I guess I have a couple more traditions to add.  Tyson wears a green bandana on the day every year.  And have to have this green shot that Tanner came up with one year.  I am calling it the St. Patrick's Day shot.  It is made out of vodka, blue curacao, and orange juice.

Tyson laying in the camper while we hung out in the garage

Can you tell I am excited about the St. Pat's Day shot?

Okay so now about why we had to pick up Caedmon from his grandparents house.  Tanner and I dropped him off at grandma and grandpa Hatke's on Saturday and Caedmon spent the weekend with them including spending the night.  And we picked him up on Sunday.  So Tanner and I got to have a night together without Caedmon.  We have both have had nights without Caedmon but never together at the same time.  So we were going to go out to this German bar/restaurant with friends but instead just had a bunch of friends over at our house.  We had a really good time.  To make a long story short since this was the first night out together and with friends, lets just say I had one too many of those green shots.  Ha!

 

Caedmon's First Mini Vacation: St. Louis

From the previous post I mentioned that Tanner got a new job and he started it this week.  Well when he put his 2 weeks notice in, the next day they told him that day was his last day.  So I guess he got lucky since he got to have 10 days off with pay.  So we decided to take a mini trip to St. Louis for a couple of days.  It was both Caedmon and I first time there.  Yes believe it or not Caedmon made it there at 4 months old and me at age 32.  Ha!  Caedmon is definitely going to be more of the traveler at his age than his mom was as a child.

The trip ended up being a success.  I could not believe how well Caedmon did in the car and while there.  We left at lunch time on Monday.  He had a cold and we wanted to make sure he didn't have another ear infection again so we took him into the doctor Monday morning.  He was fine and so off we went.  It is about a 4 hour drive plus a stop to feed and change Caedmon.  We got to our hotel and just hung out there that evening and ordered pizza.  Our room was a junior suite and I want that as my master bedroom at home with just a couple minor changes.  Ha!

On Tuesday we went to the Anheuser-Busch brewery.  We were going to do the tour but was told that 30 minutes of the tour was outside and it was really windy so we decided not to do the tour.  Instead we walked around the little museum and gift shop they had inside.  Then went to get a bite to eat at a microbrewery, Schlafly Tap House.  Tanner ordered frog legs.  Gross.  Then back to the hotel for the rest of the day.  We were going to attempt to have Caedmon check out the pool at the hotel but decided against that too since we figured the water would be too cold for him and he probably wouldn't like it.  Instead we put him in the jacuzzi tub in the room.  We put some bath toys in there and he seemed to love it.  In fact I think it relaxed him that he went to sleep no problem that night. 

Frog Legs

Driving around St. Louis

After checking out on Wednesday, we went to the Arch.  We just wanted to walk around it to take pictures and see the little museum inside.  We didn't go up in it since we had Caedmon.  We will do that another time.  Then we planned to go to the children's museum (I guess they do have a section for age 2 and under there) but decided against that as well because Caedmon hadn't taken a nap yet and we didn't want to pay and then get inside and he be cranky the whole time.  So we hit the road to head back home.  Caedmon again slept almost the whole way home.  We will definitely be back again when it is warmer out.  We want to go to the zoo there too.  And Sandy and Rick are Cardinals fans and will eventually take Caedmon to a game.

I also want to mention that this trip was Caedmon's first time being in a stroller where he could actually see everything.  Every time he was either in his carseat attached to the stroller or in the jogging stroller with the top down blocking the wind.  He seemed to love being pushed around and being able to see everything too.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I cannot believe all of the major changes that have occurred in under 5 short months.  First, Caedmon being born and all of that adjustment.  Then making the decision to quit work and be a stay at home mom.  Then Tanner is now changing jobs (or more like same job just different company).  He will be starting his new job on March 18th.  These changes are good but it is just all weird and still trying to get used to it all.  Lastly we recently found out our good friends Becky and Jon sold their house and are moving to West Terre Haute.  I am going to miss having them close by.  But Caedmon and I will probably be at their house a lot over the summer because they have a pool.  I am jealous and sad but so happy for them. 

Love these guys

Becky and Jon's new house

Where I will be spending most of my summer.  ;-)

Speaking of summer, it is filling up fast.  I got 2 weddings to attend in June (one of them I am in).  We are also planning a trip to Wilmington, NC via airplane to see Heather.  And then of course visits to Becky and as well as my mother-in-laws house because she has a pool too.  Also we might attempt a camp trip or 2 as well.  And who knows what else might come up.  So we are going to be pretty busy.

So if anyone is wondering how it is going being a stay at home mom, it is going well and we are keeping busy.  I was worried I might be bored but things have been amazingly busy.  And once Tanner starts his new job I might be getting a YMCA membership as well.  They have childcare while I work out.  That will also give me a little break from the boy.  So all is well with the Hatke's and stay tuned for our summer adventures. 

4 Month Check-Up

Caedmon is now 4 months old and he had his 4 month check up last Monday.  He weighs 15.6 pounds and is 26.5 inches long.  He is healthy and doing well.

Comparison of newborn to 4 months old

The stud muffins