Caden Knows How to Smile for the Camera

While we were in Seattle, Caden started smiling for the camera. Caden gives the biggest smile any time I point a camera at him, push the button to make the red light shine, and say "Smile, Caden." He does his smile instantaneously.

Sometimes, the smiles are very sweet and natural looking. You can see an example of one of those here.
But 99% of the time, I get this.
Caden's camera pose is smiling large enough to show a lot of teeth, squinting his eyes, and cocking his head way back. I don't know why he started doing it but it sure cracks us up when he does it. I think the fact that we laugh makes him want to continue doing it. We hope to get it on video before he stops doing it but we have not had a lot of success yet.

The Baker kids liked Caden's pose so much, they decided to imitate it.
Here are a couple that look a little more natural. Here are a few more examples of him posing like this. I have too many pictures to share them all.

Happy First Birthday Caden & Caroline!

One year ago today, Caden & Caroline were born!! We've been celebrating their birth all week long and we'll post pictures of their party and more in the next few days. For now, we'll leave you with a picture of them then and now. Happy Birthday Caden & Caroline!

Then...Now...

Seattle -- Part 6: Our Kids Learned From Their Cousins

While in Seattle, our kids learned some things from their older cousins.

Caroline learned to eat! She has always been an okay eater at best but she turned into a great eater while in Seattle. She basically tripled how much she eats. We think it was from watching the big kids eat. Caroline loves fruit (pretty much any type we give her) and blueberry waffles. Now that we got home, she has even started liking green beans. And in case you are wondering, Caden is still a horrible eater. He obviously did not pay attention to the Bakers well enough...or he paid attention at the wrong times. :)

Cal loves playing with small cars and trains and would push them all around the house. Back in Texas, Caden started playing with his little red car, just like his big cousin, and would push it all around while crawling. Before watching Cal, Caden would normally play with it in his hands or push it around his body a little.

Stand up!

Caroline stood up on her own today! It was just a few moments, and it appeared to be a buddha like pose, but nontheless, she was standing on her own! Thought her grandparents, aunts and uncles would want to know. We'll post pictures when we catch her in the act!

Seattle -- Part 5: Mostly Pictures of the Family

We started almost every morning with the kids eating breakfast together. Cal was still sleeping when this picture was taken.
Our kids loved exploring the Baker house and playing with their toys.
Caroline loved playing with a Hokey Pokey Elmo. For some reason, Caden was scared of Elmo when he started dancing. Eventually, he warmed up to it and he liked it by the end of the trip.
Here is a picture of the kids exploring the kids chairs.Caroline loved the stairs. The first day we were there, she climbed two thirds the way up. The next day, she easily made it to the top. It is amazing how fast she climbed the stairs. We often put Ella in charge to make sure Caroline didn't head over to the stairs. With Ella watching her, we know we didn't have to worry. Ella paid a lot of attention to Caroline.
Doesn't Caden look good in this Aggie hat. Amy and I bought this for Will years ago and now the Bakers let us take it.Caroline also enjoyed the hat.Here is a picture of Amy and the twins on the trail at Mount Rainier.
Ella and Caroline got along great.
Ella is so good with our kids and couldn't be sweeter to them. Here is a great example. Caroline can be a little rough pinching and pulling faces. However, this did not phase Ella. She let Caroline do whatever she wanted. Amy and I know this can hurt.
Another nice thing Ella did for our kids was read books to them. She would read baby books sounding just like her mom. She made sure both twins saw the pictures and would even point out items mentioned in the book. For example, the book would say "can you find your knees" and Ella would ask them to find their knees and then she would point to them. Sadly, we did not get a picture of this. But here is another girl cousin picture.
Will was also good with the twins but his specialty was definitely Caden. They were buds. We didn't get as many pictures of the boys. The girls enjoyed getting their picture take way more than the guys did.
Cal has definitely warmed up to our kids but not to the level of his older siblings. Like Will, Cal also preferred Caden mainly because Caroline was a girl and Cal doesn't like girls. :) Here is a picture of Cal pushing both twins around at the dock. He was pretty excited to do this.
It was definitely cooler in Seattle than in Austin. Our little girl would be sweating if she wore this in a Texas September.
Caroline was very excited about getting her picture taken.
Caroline and her Aunt Amy. You might notice that Amy is keeping her distance. Caroline had made a huge mess in her diaper just minutes before. :)
The Baker boys hanging out at the locks.
The Baker kids playing outside of Michael's work.
Cal taking a break.
Will has become a tree hunger since he moved to Seattle.
This is at a dock near one of the places we had lunch. Caden loved it there. If I wasn't careful, he might have jumped out of my arms into the water.
We wore the kids out almost everyday. And with all the driving, they got plenty of time to sleep in their car seats.
And I'll wrap it up with a little story.

One night, Amy and I stayed home with the five kids so Michael and Amy could celebrate their anniversary. While they were out, their kids could not have been any better! They played a computer game together giving everyone a chance to interact with it.

When I told them it was time for bed, there was not arguing and they brushed their teeth and headed up stairs. Amy and I tucked them in, filled up Will's water (Will said he was planning to call us back in a little while to fill it up so we just did it right away), and turned on the radio. I was pretty sure the the radio was not set to the correct station but the kids insisted it was. At first, there was only talking and commercials but it eventually moved on to playing some Stone Temple Pilots, Ozzy Osbourne, and then Pink Floyd. Finally, the kids admitted this was not the Christian station they listen to every night and let me change the station.

Seattle -- Part 4: Going Out By Ourselves

One day, Michael and Amy watched Caden and Caroline so Amy and I could go on a tour of Boeing. The tour was very impressive. Sadly, cameras were not allowed on the tour so we did not get any pictures during the tour. While at Boeing, we saw the assembly lines that were building the 747, 777, and the brand new 787. The building where this takes place is massive and is the largest enclosed building on the planet (by cubic feet).

Here is a picture from more than a mile away of the building we toured. It is way bigger than it looks here.
Here are some of the interesting stats we learned while on the tour:

• Disney Land (not World) could fit inside the building and there would still be enough room for around multiple acres of parking.
  
• 3.3 billion cans of soda could fit into the building.
• Each wing of the 747 (the largest plane Boeing makes) is about 6,000 square feet. Compare that to the square footage in your house.

After the tour, we checked our their museum. I would have liked to stay longer but we needed to get back to our kids. On the other hand, Amy saw all she wanted in like twenty seconds.
On our last full day in Seattle, the four of us went out on her own. For lunch, we ate at XXX Root Beer.
This was an interesting place. There were car related antiques everywhere! I decided to order a chicken fried steak burger. I expected it to look chicken fried steak with gravy served on a bun as if it were a burger. Well, I was right about that but wrong on the scale. It never crossed my mind that it would be as large as it was. This thing was gigantic. It was so big, I didn't even know I had fries on my plate until I picked the thing up. :)
And of course, I ordered one of their famous root beers. This is me with the small version.
Here is a nice picture of Amy and Caden at XXX. As you can see here, Caden loves playing with straws.After taking our kids to a place called XXX, Amy and I decided to continue our inappropriate kids day by going on a tour of the Red Hook Brewery. This was not as good as the Jack Daniel's tour in Tennessee but it was still interesting. We learned a lot. The best part was the bottling process. The machine was mesmerizing.
We also checked out Snoqualmie Falls. They were pretty cool but it was foggy and rainy so we couldn't truly appreciate them. Amazingly, they are actually 100 feet taller than Niagara Falls. They don't seem that tall, probably because you can get so close to Niagara Falls but were unable to do so here.

Seattle -- Part 3: Sightseeing with the Bakers

We went to a lot of places with the Bakers. They had been to many of these places multiple times before but they kind enough to visit them again with us.

Of course we had to visit Pike's Market. We enjoyed walking around checking stuff out. The twins loved it when we carried them around so they could get a good view of everything. They had been separate most of he time we were there so, as you can see, they were very excited to be reunited in my arms.
The Baker kids were very excited to show us the famous bubble gum wall. Cal is getting ready to made an addition and Amy B was waiting off camera to clean the kids up. :)
The Bakers took us to a couple fish and chips place to get some fresh fried fish. I thought both places were really good but if I had to choose, I'd say Spud was a little better.My wife, who will not put anything from the ocean into her mouth, was worried about finding something to eat at these fish places. When we went to Ivar's, Amy got a burger at the place next door. After doing so, Will had a conversation with Amy and she decided to try the fish if we went to a second fish place! We decided to make that happen and visit Spud. Well, when it came down to it, Amy chickened out and got chicken instead (get it?). Here she is "trying a bite" of my fish but I saw the fish before and after her "bite." Amy only got a bite of the fried and none of the fish. The closest she got to trying fish was when Ella made Amy laugh and Will tried to shove some into Amy's mouth. It was a great plan but not quite executed.
For the rest of the week, Ella and Will talked about how they were going to trick Amy into eating fish. Well, they actually spoke about this in code but I think the only people fooled by their code were Caden and Caroline.

Another place we visited was the Chittenden Locks between the Pacific and Lake Washington. The locks were pretty cool, especially considering there are no pumps to transfer the water between sections...just gravity.


Caden loved watching all of this stuff and I carried him around most of the time. Any time I pointed at something, he would intently look at it and say "daaaa" as if he were saying "wowww".
Another thing we saw by the locks was the fish ladder. This is where salmon can bypass the locks and start their swim upstream. One fish swam right up to the window when I was looking through it with Caroline. Caroline was very excited to see the fish.
I think the thing the Baker kids were most excited about taking us to was Top Pot Doughnuts. Amy and I had seen it on the Food Network so we were excited about trying it. The Baker kids insisted that everyone have a maple bar. (This from the kids that only ate sprinkle donuts in Texas.)
Here is a pic of the Baker kids and Amy enjoying maple bars.
Here is a closeup of Will enjoying his maple bar. Caroline also enjoyed Will's maple bar. You can see some maple frosting on Caroline's hand in the lower left of this picture. Will let his donut get a little too close to Caroline and she stuck her fingers in the frosting and had a little taste. I think this was her first taste, albeit a small one, of sweets.
While in Seattle, we saw so many things and visited so many places we don't have in Texas. Here are a few more of the places we ate at whether it be a snack or in Trader Joe's case, some groceries. As you can see by these pictures, we ate pretty healthy all week--we had pizza twice, burgers a few times, and stopped at a couple different chocolate candy stores.
And in case you are wondering, we didn't eat out for every meal. Amy Baker made several good home cooked meals. She is big into the pioneer woman.