Caden is 4.5!

It's been a while since I've done an update on my sweet son. Caden turned 4.5 years old right before Christmas and I have been wanting to do a post about him.

 

God truly blessed our family when he gave us Caden. He is one of the sweetest and most selfless kids I know. He's very grateful, loving, and kind. I also think he's one of the most friendly kids. Everywhere we go, I mean everywhere, he's saying hi to people and waving and making friends. On the occasion we go to a restaurant with a playground he is quick to make friends with pretty much every kid in there. He doesn't seem to have a shy bone in his body. I love this about him, but honestly he wears me out. :) He is a true extrovert and has more energy in an hour than I do in a week. Of course I'm about 9 months pregnant so it's not hard to have more energy than me.



Talking to the pretend George because the "real" George is on TV

I've really enjoyed having him home this year and homeschooling him for pre-K. He's learning so much and has always been really smart. He tends to take after his dad in a lot of ways. :) I also just love having him home and watching him learn and getting to know his friends better. Several weeks ago he read his first stage one book. I was so proud of him! He started memorizing books at 2 and so it was hard to know when he was truly reading and I stopped really teaching him. Then I decided to let him play a few sight word games on my phone, then put the app on the Kindle and he loved the games. He picked up the words very quickly. I test him from time to time by writing a word on a piece of paper and having him read it to me. He's been able to sound out words for a while so I knew he can sound out most consonant vowel consonant words. He's also been asking what different words are and how to spell certain words for a few months. So the time came when I gave him a new book at night to read. I asked him if he wanted to read a book to me. He said yes and he got about 85% right. I was so proud! He was too! He read it a few nights in a row to me and got better every night. I never thought I'd have a child reading at 4 but he's doing super. He's always been a letters and words person. He goes back and forth counting in English, German, and Spanish. He also has his own made-up language he calls Chex. He memorized the first 10 numbers in his own language and will count in it sometimes. He also loves counting things and wrote the number 100 on a piece of paper the other day and showed us telling us that he wrote 100 on the page. The other thing he has been wanting to do lately is change his name's spelling to Kaden, instead of Caden. This morning at church he wrote his name on the attendence card and wrote "Kaden." He will argue when you tell him his name starts with a C not a K. I never knew a 4-year old to be so passionate about the spelling of his name. He's also starting to really like writing and drawing pictures. This is something I thought he'd never enjoy doing.

 

Here are some of Caden's favorites:

He didn't want to put the Christmas tree up
so he protested by getting in the box!

 

Color: Blue but he also loves green and brown



Food: Breakfast - Chocolate chip whole wheat pancakes with maple syrup; Lunch or Dinner - Cheeseburger (which he doesn't get often), and oddly he doesn't like french fries but he loves bubble gum (not really a food)

 

Friends: His best friend at the moment is Jacob, that's who he talks about the most. He goes to church with us and they went to preschool together last year. His other favorite friends are Jacob's siblings (Nicholas and Maya), Zachary, Andrew, Olivia, Neil, Gabbi, Shelby, and Kayman. Of course if you are around, you may quickly become his best friend. :)

 

Songs: He loves making up his own songs the most and making music. However, he does like church songs and Christmas songs a lot.

 

Books: Currently his favorite book is a Curious George book about making pancakes and Why Boys and Girls are Different. I think partly because he's about to get a sister.

 

TV Shows: Curious George and Calliou

 

Activities: Building, writing, painting, driving his car, riding his scooter, and playing with friends

 

Places: Church, he talks about wanting to go to church all the time. He also loves going to the park and playing with friends, having people over, and going to his grandparents' house.

 

Things/Shapes: His favorite shape is still a circle. After Halloween he took his Halloween bag and went around the house collecting anything he saw that was a circle. He kept his collection for a while and it was challenging to put away some of the Halloween decorations because he had so much fun with his bag of circles that stayed in his circle (pumpkin) bag.

 

Showing me a silly face!

Caden is truly a gift from God and again we are so blessed that God placed him in our family. While he's a work-out, for example, he would rather run than walk somewhere, and is very fast, he doesn't mean to hurt anything. He loves sports and is playing basketball starting in January, he's so excited. He loves to do things for himself and by himself. He likes helping me cook in the kitchen and loves learning new things. He also likes to help me clean! He can also cause quite the mess and quickly cause a mess if I'm not watching. He's such a great helper and has a wonderful sense of humor. The other day he came to sit on my lap, which is hard because of my growing belly. Once he sat down he said, "oh wait, I better not lean on your belly or your water will break." He promptly got down. How did he know about water breaking? I'm amazed with everything he knows and comes up with.

 

Tonight at dinner he wanted a boiled egg. He loves boiled eggs too. We asked him if he was going to eat it. He said, "no, this egg is my friend. I don't eat my friends." Then he told us his egg's name. He's cracks us up. Caden, we love being your parents! Love, Mom and Dad