4th of July Weekend Fun!

July 4th weekend was jam-packed with fun activities: Mason's 2nd Birthday Party, Progress on our Deck, and a 4th of July Cookout on our Friend's Farm. Caed was battling that chest-congestion-cold-thing that has been floating around, but thankfully he was in good enough spirits to enjoy all the fun. Here are some pictures from the weekend:














Funny thing: Beginning last Tuesday, Caed grew so excited about Mason's party that he'd yell in excitement in the backseat of the car saying, "Mason party, Mason party ... hooray!" He was so excited to celebrate with his buddy!















Some friends of ours recently moved out to a farm in Creedmoor and we've had the luxury of enjoying some time out there with them. They have horses, sheep, goats, a cat with a crooked tail, named Bolt, and lots of fun toys and places for Caed to explore.















Caed loved this little playhouse. He would run in and out of it and stand at each window and call out to us.



















He also found this neat little lawn mower that he pushed around all over the place. I think this is a neat shot of him mowing in the shadow of the flag on the 4th of July.

Caed's First Movie-Going Experience

The cinema up at North Hills just began their free summer kids flick series today with the showing of Doogle and we decided to take part.

Up until about a month ago, Caed wouldn't even watch TV for more than a minute at a time, so the thought of taking him to a movie was completely ridiculous. However, within the last month, he's developed a strong liking for his GeoTrax train movie and can sit down on the couch for about 20-minute intervals to enjoy some trains. "Fix track," he says often, and "All board!"

Before we left the house, I stocked my purse with a few granola bars, a bag of Gold Fish, a cup of water and a diet coke for me ... thinking that these snacks would suffice until we returned home for lunch. Well, Caed did make it about 40 minutes into the movie, but that was with the distraction of 2 granola bars, water and several helpings of Gold Fish. He sat enjoyably at several minute intervals and stood in front of me, occasionally trying to get the kid's attention in front of us. He enjoyed verbally identifying all the animals and making the corresponding sounds. (It was a kids' movie specifically designated for kids ... 10am ... so I wasn't concerned about stopping him ... even though the mom to my right gave us a few hard looks.)

Overall, I think it was a positive experience. Heck, the movie was free so there's no better time to get your kid acquainted with the movie-going experience than during times like these. We'll probably try some other movies throughout the season and see how it goes.

Latest Pictures

Caed's first try with playdough. (The figures above were examples that mommy made, but Caed enjoyed making the snake and caterpillar slither around the table.)














Caed playing with his friend Adeline














A quick shot of Caed, Brad and Mason before Brad headed off for work and the boys ventured outside to 'work' in the mud.














Caed's first venture of the season in his turtle pool. What a difference a year makes in his interest in the pool. Last year he just stood on the side splashing or dabbled in the pool for a few minutes. Now, he loves to fill his buckets up and dump them all over himself and water all the plants around the pool. (thanks for the help bud!)

Caed's Getting Big

I just realized yesterday that I'm not very good at taking pictures or keeping track of Caed's milestones any more. He's getting big, fast ... in fact, Brad and I think he's grown and hit some big development milestones just within the past week, so I thought I'd try to take some random footage to share with you.


Other fun things that are not on the video include:

• He runs fast! "Fast," he says, as he moves his arms back and forth by his side.
• He counts to 15 pretty well with some assistance. About a month ago, he seemed to have a fear of walking down the stairs with us ... he always wanted to be carried. So, I decided to make a game of it, and we started to count as we went down the stairs. Can you guess how many stairs we have? If you said, 15, you're right. So now every time we go up and down the stairs, we count to 15 and when we hit that number, Caed exclaims "Woo hoo!" It's hilarious when we say 15 out of that context ... he stills says, "Woo hoo!"
• He uses his spoon and fork pretty well now. He'd rather pick up his banana and Cheerios with his hands, in the milk, during breakfast, but most other meals he does pretty well.
• He loves to be outside. He runs around with his wagon and gardening tools. He collects rocks and transfers them from the ground to the wagon to his car and so forth as he yells ROCK. He's a busy guy. He loves to visit our neighbors and help them garden too!
• Saying "hello" is a fun thing for him. He says hello, as many other folks do on our street, but he has definitely perfected the straight-armed wave that he sees so often from frequent passerbies.
• He LOVES Trader Joe's cinnamon alphabet cookies, and thankfully a love for the actually letters has developed as well. "B" is his favorite letter ... he even points it out on signs, but recently has come to like and recall other letters as well. Pretty impressive for a 20-month-old!
• Just this week, he's figured out how to use his frog puppet and say it's name too. We're trying to be careful how we teach him to enunciate this word because it seems to roll off his tongue as "foc" .... "FFFRRROOGGG" is what we're saying now to try to reinforce the correct pronunciation :).
  

Pictures From Raleigh Easter

Caed showing Mason his spoils (1 egg)



















Brad "helping" Caed climb a tree















What a big boy!

Sharing Shoes & Other Fun Pictures

Caed's usually the one to try on daddy's shoes, but in a rare moment after dinner last week, Brad decided to try Caedmon's shoe on ... so cute! Caed thought it was very funny.

I decided to take Caed to the Museum of Natural Sciences last week to get out of the house and do something fun in the midst of the rain. With Caed's love for birds, he was right at home. While there weren't any real birds there, he still enjoyed pointing and looking at the stuffed ones. What a little enthusiast! The picture below is of Caed in a mock dinosaur footprint. He thought it was so neat to climb up into it and sit (not something he was suppose to do since there was a sign that read, "No climbing," just beside him.) In my mind, he was content and wasn't causing any damage, so it was fine by me :).

The next picture is of Caedmon and his favorite little, red friend -- Elmo. We're not sure how he came to like him so much ... he doesn't even watch TV for more than a minute or two at a time ... maybe it was the Elmo Manners book ... but either way, he's quite a fan. Grandma Helen and Grandpa got him the stuffed animal for Christmas and he's been sleeping with it ever since. One other thing to note about this picture is the excessive drool streaming from Caed's mouth. It seems like he's been teething for over a month now. Three canine teeth are coming in at once, but thankfully the pain hasn't been too terrible and Caed has been a great sport about it!

The last picture was taken after dinner one night when Brad thought it would be cute to have Caed try on his glasses. So cute! We have a similar picture from when he was 7 months old and another from about two weeks old ... my how he's grown!

Kangaroos & Blue Birds

If I haven't told you before now, Caed does quite a good kangaroo "jump" and is quite the bird enthusiast. Brad thinks he'll be the youngest member of the Audubon Society, thanks to GG's instruction. Take a look at the video and you'll see why!



If you're wondering about the kangaroo jump, it all started as we were reading Caed's Sesame Street alphabet book, and I was trying to explain what a kangaroo was. So, I showed him how it jumps and he seemed to think that was pretty fun. Now every time we talk about a kangaroo, he takes a big no-air-leap, thrusts his shoulders back, and laughs ... priceless!















I'll have to capture his hyena impression on video next ... it's great!