Ducks at Grandma's

"When we went to Grandma's house, she took us to feed bread to the ducks in Milton! I had such a great time, because you know I can speak their language, 'gak gak!'"

" Grandma showing me the ropes."
"Swinging back to get a good throw."

"Mama wouldn't let me get close to them. She kept saying something about dirty."

"Here's a shot from my point of view."

"OK, I didn't get why we kept throwing perfectly good pieces of bread to the ducks. So every once in awhile I slipped a few in my mouth...I guess Mama caught me."

"I didn't eat any bread, honest."

Helping at Grandma's

The weekend before last (Aug. 21-24), Caden and I went to my mom's. the main reason we went was to go to a picnic with friends from Bloom U, but can you believe I forgot my camera? I'll have to borrow some from other people. Anyhow, Caden was a big help at Grandma's with feeding Lexi and Griffen along with picking up a watermelon and carrying around a gourd.

I'm not sure why these are turned sideways, but as you can see, Lexi was patiently waiting.

Look at the strain on this face!

What do you mean a gourd is not a toy?

Milk Toast

We are finally done with painting this summer. Good timing too since J's first day back to school is today. Caden and I went to my mom's this last weekend (we had a picnic to go to) while Jason helped move his brother, Brooks, into his new house. So, while we were gone, Jason finished up the painting. It was really nice coming home to a completely painted downstairs (and not having to do any part of it :). He did a great job.

This is the wall right inside the front door...we decided to go with the color of the kitchen just to add some color to the entryway.

Jason is resting...he had a long weekend!

This is the hallway that leads frm the entryway into the kitchen.

Sunglasses

Here Caden, put your sunglasses on.

Umm...close...

Animal Sounds

It seems like Caden knows the animal sounds to sheep, cows, and elephants along with his beloved dogs and ducks. He's been making the sounds on a pretty consistent basis if we show him a toy animal or if we just ask him.

His new favorite word is, "uh-oh" when ever he drops anything. He did it constantly in church this past Sunday when he dropped crayons.

He is also very good at pointing to almost all facial features and almost all the other body parts.

Anma and Aeee

My mom and sister came to visit on Aug. 14 for the weekend. That weekend is when Caden started saying Erin's name as "Aeee." Then just once he said "Anma" which of course means Grandma...we haven't heard it since though. They brought a special treat with them...this nice little pool that Caden refused to get in to. Think it's because he's fully dressed, hat and all??

This is as close as we could get to having him get in the pool .

Aunt Aeee did a nice job of reading to him a few times. He sure does love Aunt Aeee!

Showing Grandma and Aunt Erin how his fridge toys work.

Jason and I played a friendly little game of quoits one evening. (Mine is the red one that's completely out of the box.) This set was an anniversary gift from my mom.

Jo-Jo

This is Jo-Jo, Caden's first pet.

We actually knew what his name was before we even got him, and this is why:

The other week, we had to "fish sit" for my brother-in-law, Brooks. Brooks' fish is Mojo which happens to be 2 sounds that Caden can say. So, when we gave Mojo back, Caden kept asking about him and pointing to where we kept him on the TV. We couldn't have 2 Mojos, so we went with Jo-Jo.

CADEN = DANCE

Jason figured out the other day that if you switch the letters around in Caden's name, you get "dance." That explains a lot :)

The Story Garden

When we finished walking through the zoo...we ventured over to the Discovery Center that's in the same area as the zoo. We were getting pretty tired, so we actually didn't go in the building. Outside though, they had "The Story Garden" that you could walk through for free. I think that was my favorite part of the trip!

The general point of the garden is to stop at different mailboxes and read the stories, but we didn't take the time to do that.
This was the first little house they had that you could walk into. They even had books in there to read...

and a little table to sit at.

This picutre explains the picture at the top of the blog.

Jason walked through a tunnel with Caden. I guess it was more Caden's size :)

This was the other little house, actually the 3 bears' house (a little less girly).

They had the neatest paintings on the inside walls of the cabin. All in all, it was just a really nice place to go to.

The Binghamton Zoo

Last Wednesday, we decided to journey north to the Binghamton Zoo in NY. We all had a great time. It was really nice weather, not too hot. The zoo itself isn't very big, but still a nice place to go.

We packed a picnic lunch and ate on a bench. Caden sat still on my lap the whole time; he's such a good boy.




I used my zoom to the max to get this picture. It was hard to tell if I actually had the wolf or not. Surprisingly, it turned out.

Caden was so good the whole time. He just sat, looked around, and didn't fuss once.

I tried to get the tiger and Caden in the same shot...tried is the key word.

Caden was able to stretch his legs a few times like through the aviary section.

Mr. Independent

This was taken at the beginning. We stopped and looked at the ducks first. Jason was "quacking" so that Caden knew what to try to "say." Caden just gave him the cutest smile, kinda like he's thinking Daddy's a little goofy.

Then, we stopped at the ducks again at the end of the trip, and I think they were Caden's favorite. As soon as he saw them, he started yelling, "Gak, gak" to the ducks. I was going to get it on video, but I didn't move quick enough.