ShannonMartin.com » Family

It was a very busy year, packed with a lot of firsts and new adventures. We’re looking forward to a great 2009 and wish all of our friends and family a very Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Eric — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:27:29 +0000

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, although it was a bit unusual. Since Cooper and Caden were both sick, it was the first time that we didn’t travel anywhere on Christmas Day. We missed spending time with extended family, but it was nice not having to drive on Christmas and the boys enjoyed playing with their new toys all day.

Cooper was soooooo excited for Christmas this year – he had a very hard time going to sleep Christmas Eve and was up at 4am Christmas morning. Despite all of our talks about waiting for the entire family, he snuck out to see if Santa had come and then ran into our room announcing that he had!

It was fun watching how they each opened their gifts. Cooper would open one and then play with it for a while before opening the next. Caden tore open each one and then played with them all afterwards. It is fun to see their personalities come out in different situations.

Here is a video of Cooper and Caden getting their “first look”:

The rest of the Christmas videos are on YouTube.

Our gallery is now up to date with everything that happened in December:

Trip to Novato and Petaluma for Noah’s 1st Birthday
Trip to The Flower Farm to pick out a Christmas tree and visit with Santa
Gingerbread houses, Christmas goodies and decorating our Christmas tree
A visit from Grandpa Ron, Grandma Lisa and Cousin Kiana!
The Frenches Christmas Party
Christmas Day

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

PS – Congratulations to Molly and Steve on their engagement!

Fairytale Town

Eric — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:56:53 +0000

Pictures for the first part of November are posted (finally)!

They include a trip with Grandma (Lisa) and Grandpa (Ron) to Fairlytale Town in Sacramento. Growing up in Sacramento, I went there quite often as a kid, so it is always fun to go back.

More November and December pictures coming soon!

Halloween

Eric — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:02:51 +0000

Pumpkin Patch: On Oct 26th, we took our 4th annual trip to Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland. In the 4 years that we’ve been going, Bishop’s has turned into quite the attraction. Our trick is to go early on a Sunday, which gives us a couple hours before the masses arrive. [Pictures]

Pumpkin Carving: The boys carved their own pumpkins this year. Caden just hacked away and was very proud of his work. Cooper on the other hand got frustrated and wanted us to help him. It’s fun to see their different personalities at work I carved the WordPress logo (the software that runs this blog) into a pumpkin and it ended up receiving a lot of attention from the WordPress community. [Pictures]

Halloween: Shannon made some awesome super hero costumes for the boys; they were Super Cooper and Super Caden! Despite raining all day, the rain subsided just long enough for us to get our trick-or-treating in. [Pictures]

October News

Eric — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:08:29 +0000

Caden’s “broken” leg update: so, it turns out that his buckle fracture was a relatively minor hairline fracture and he didn’t even need a cast, nor did it prevent him from walking for 4-6 weeks. He stayed in a split and actually had it taken off last Monday (10/13). He is still walking with a limp and the doctor said it would probably take 10 days or so for him to get back to “normal”.

Other news: the day after Caden had his splint taken off, Cooper woke up in the middle of the night with a 104 degree temperature. Then, the next day, he had a really bad cough – turns out he has croup. In recent days, Caden has had a high temperature as well, but no sign of a cough…yet!

Photos: I finished adding all of our photos from September and started adding photos for October.

Happy 3rd Birthday Caden!

Eric — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 06:18:22 +0000

Yesterday, Friday 19th, was Caden’s 3rd Birthday! It’s hard to believe that he’s already 3 years old. September has been a very big month for both of the boys, but especially for Caden.

Sept 3rd was the boys first day of preschool, Cooper’s second year and Caden’s first! What a milestone! The boys go three days a week, so Shannon has two days each week to enjoy a couple hours of quiet

Here’s the traditional first day of school pictures from the last two years:

Then on the 13th, we had the friends and family over to celebrate Caden’s birthday. Shannon made an awesome snake cake and the party was a blast. Here are a couple pictures from the party:

Then, on his birthday, we had a small family party. We had Caden’s favorite, In-n-Out and even put a candle in his cheeseburger! Caden got so many great gifts, but one of my favorites was a big-wheel – it brought back a lot of childhood memories.

Which brings up to today…after all of the excitement that September has brought Caden, today was a tough day. This morning, we took the boys to a nearby park. I had planned on reading the newspaper while the boys played, but decided to join them on the playground. I took Caden down one of the big slides, which he was apprehensive about, but I convinced him to do it. The ride down was a little rough and both of Caden’s Crocs were torn off on the way down. Regardless, he climbed right back up to the top of the three-story slide and begged me to take him again.

Going against my intuition, I conceded to a second trip. Despite my best efforts to keep him safe, on the way down Caden’s leg got jammed somehow and I heard a pop/snap sound as we went around one of the turns. I immediately knew something was wrong and told Shannon that we needed to go to the hospital.

We raced to the emergency room with Shannon sitting next to Caden trying to console him during the (what seemed like forever) drive to the hospital. After two rounds of x-rays, we got the bad news – he has a buckle fracture on his left tibia, right below his knee. Because the break/fracture is on a weight bearing bone, the doctor said that he needs to stay off of his feet for 4-6 weeks!

He just turned 3, started school, got a new big-wheel and now is being told that he can’t walk, run or ride for the next 4-6 weeks!!! He’s in a splint right now and will most likely be getting a cast on Tuesday. A big thanks to the Frenches for watching Cooper during the 4 hours we spent in the emergency room and for lending us the wagon that will now be Caden’s main living space for the next month or so. Cooper has been such a loving and concerned big brother – but I think all the attention on Caden is tough for him.

The gallery has been updated with August and September pictures. Here are a couple of Caden with his “owie”.

So, wish us luck over the next few weeks and pray for sleep and quick healing for Caden. I know it is going to be so tough to keep him off of his feet!

Labor Day Weekend 2008

Eric — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:23:28 +0000

There were two big events this last Labor Day weekend and they were both scheduled on Sunday. The neighborhood were Shannon grew up was throwing a 50th Anniversary party and the Minnesota Twins were in town playing the Oakland A’s. Since there were two events planned for Sunday, Shannon and I decided to split up and each take one of the kids.

Last year, I took Cooper to visit a Twins / A’s game with Grandpa (my Dad). Although Cooper isn’t quite old enough to really “get” baseball, I thought it would be great to try and catch a Twins / A’s game every year as a tradition.

This year Cooper did great and we left around the 7th inning with the Twins winning 8-1! He was very tired and passed out just minutes after we left and slept the entire way home. Here are pictures from our last two trips:

While we were at the Twins game, Shannon took Caden to Novato for the anniversary party. They had a great time and got to visit with all of the people who have lived on the street over the years.

It’s weird when we split up like that and take the kids different places, but everything worked out. The kids were completely thrown off by our adventures and it took them a week or so to get back on schedule…but what else is new

Monterey Family Vacation 2008

Eric — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:57:35 +0000

We recently returned from a 5-day family vacation in the Monterey, CA area. We stayed in a beautiful 1 bedroom cottage, the Quails Nest, in Carmel-By-The-Sea, just blocks away from the beach. Click on the pictures below to view the images for that day.

Day 1

We left our house around 11am and arrived at the Quails Nest around 3:30pm. After unloading the car and familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings, we took the boys for their first beach experience! The waves were perfect and we all had a blast. Plus, I got to try out my new Nikon D40 camera!

Day 2

After a horrible night sleep for the entire family, we headed off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. On our way, we decided to take a scenic tour on the 17 Mile Drive.

The aquarium was nice…they’ve added a new building and a lot of new exhibits since we (Shannon and I) were last there. It was kind of a tough day with the family being so exhausted, but all-in-all, we had a good time. The sounds of screaming parents and other kids having melt-downs helped make our situation seem more normal. To avoid another night of poor sleep, we went to bed with the kids…at 7:30pm.

Day 3

Thankfully we got a good night of sleep…and we needed it too. We spent the entire day at the Gilroy Gardens (formerly the Bonfante Gardens) with Roger (Grandpa), Gail (Grandmama), Nina, J.P. and Kain. If you have kids and are looking for a beautiful, fun place…I strongly suggest trying it out. The food is expensive and not very good (just ask J.P. and Nina), so we brought our own food and ate outside the park.

Day 4

The first part of the day was spent hiking around Point Lobos. Deemed “The Greatest Meeting of Land and Water in The World”…it certainly was beautiful. Besides having to wait around forever to get one of the few parking spots…it was one of my highlights of the trip.

At the end of the day, we took the boys to the beach again, this time to the one at the end of Ocean Ave in Carmel-By-The-Sea. The beach was very crowded and the waves were too strong for the boys. We tried to play in the water…but after one too many times of having Caden almost swept out to sea…we called it a day.

Day 5

Our last day…one last drive down Scenic Rd in Carmel-By-The-Sea before heading up to Monterey to take the boys to the Dennis the Menace Playground. At the playground, Cooper went straight to the train engine, took control as the engineer and was shouting out “Allllllllll abooooaaaard”. It was a nice ending to a great family trip…and we were back home in Rocklin by 4:30pm!

New pictures…finally!!!

Eric — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:26:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any pictures, but we’ve been a little busy =)

Caden is now 6 months old and has been smiling and “talking”. He rolled over last week, but hasn’t done it since.

Cooper is now 22 months old and he’s still not sure about sharing his attention with Caden. He’s starting to put multiple words together in a sentence and tries to mimic everything we say…including “Oh Crap” (courtesy of Shannon)!

We started Caden on solids and he’s not too sure about it. So far he has had rice cereal and oatmeal.

Well, I’ll try to keep the pictures updated more often…

Resemblance

Eric — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:25:00 +0000

It has been interesting to see the resemblances of Cooper and Caden to Shannon and myself. Cooper has more of the Williams/Foster characteristics and Caden is a spitting image of me.