He’s one!!!

Family and friends gathered to help us celebrate Caeden’s first birthday.  He was a little overwhelmed by the crowd at the beginning, but warmed up.  He was having none of the birthday cake, though – ate a spoonful of homemade cream cheese frosting and decided he was done!  Batman Brody and Nathan had fun blowing out the candles for him, though!  Favorite pic of the day is the bottom right – after everyone left he crawled over to the door and just sat there watching for a while… like “Where did everyone go?”  =)  We can’t believe he’s been here for a year.  It seems like a lifetime, but it also seems like just yesterday.  (And rather ironic that I’m writing this post exactly one year later when he’s really turning two?  What can I say – I’m determined to catch up!)

October 2009

Oh goodness – he’s almost one!  Our little monkey (Halloween costume, of course) is comfortable pulling up to stand and will cruise along the furniture.  His gross motor continues to be a bit delayed, but the pediatrician is attributing it to his small stature and low muscle tone.  We just keep hoping for a bit growth spurt!  Waving is the new trick – usually with his hand near his mouth.  Silly guy…

September found us back at Carter Mountain Orchard for the second annual face-in-the-apple shot.  This will be a tradition for many years to come!  We continued to find lots of uses for our waterproof fold-into-a-bag picnic blanket at Brody’s 3rd birthday, Friday’s After 5, and a birthday picnic at Barboursville Vineyard (another tradition for years to come!).  Getting back into the school routine was tough.  Summer was awfully nice, but reality is okay too.

August 2009

In August, we took a vacation to Williamsburg with Kelly and Toni – visiting Busch Gardens with Maria/Nathan and Colonial Williamsburg.  It was fun, but really hot!  We got ready to go back to school (Caeden was really enjoying his time off with both parents, and we were too!)  New favorite toy above is the rattle with bell inside – he likes to “almost” hit himself in the head with it, squinching his face up and giggling!  Quite adorable…

July 2009

In July, we said good-bye to Grandma Lucia.  We enjoyed visits from AuntE and Uncle Russell, as well as from Aunt Laurence and Marina!  We moved into our new house (Caeden wasn’t so helpful with this part) and painted the first (and only, thus far!) room.  Caeden’s room, thanks to AuntE is fancy with blue, green, and ivory stripes!  We’ll miss the Keswick house, especially the glass door with the bells…  Caeden’s STILL teething, and his newfound joy is chewing on people.  He avoids fingers, though, and heads straight for your forehead, cheek, chin, or whatever else he can figure out how to get into his mouth.  Weirdo!

June 2009

In June, Caeden enjoyed new foods, particularly bananas and avocados.  He started to show more of an interest in books, as well as the outdoors.  He was officially sitting up unassisted, but not quite independently crawling yet.  His eyes are as blue as ever and he’s starting to not hate baths quite as much!  We were getting ready to sign a contract on a house!  Move-in day set for late July!

….and we’re back!

Well I certainly failed at that whole blogging thing, huh?  (I’m not surprised – I have so many started-yet-unfinished journals it’s not even funny.)  What I ~have~ been good at, thankfully, is taking pictures, uploading them to the computer, and keeping them in dated folders.  SO, we’re going to fast-forward through the last… um… 14 months to catch up?  Really, that’s why I haven’t posted since last June.  It’s not that I didn’t think about posting, or want to post.  It’s just that as each month passed, the posting would take longer and longer and I just didn’t think I could do those months justice in a short amount of time.  At this point, anything’s better than nothing, right?  Also, I just discovered Google’s Picasa – WHOA.  So much fun to tag people in photos (think facebook, only all your photos, and searchable!), make nifty collages, slideshows, and movies, and just generally have fun with pictures!  There’s editing software included too… and it’s free!   And it’s google!  So it has to be good!  Therefore, each post will have a collage of pictures to inspire me (or rather, remind me of what happened in that month!)  Here we go…

P.S. Welcome back.  Thanks for forgiving me for sucking at this 🙂

New house!

We’ve been house-hunting for a while on the down-low… (mostly online), and recently met up with a realtor (who is awesome!), mortgage guru (also great), and started hunting for real.  We visited exactly 8 houses before this one, and then asked Jim to set us up with a visit to this one.  We came up with an offer that night, countered the next, and had a contract within 48 hours of our first visit!  We’re so thrilled with the house, location/commutes, and even had a glowing report from the inspector yesterday.  Keep your fingers crossed that closing (scheduled for 7/23) goes well!  What an overwhelming yet exhilarating process… this first-time-home-buyers thing!

Monthly Update

Caeden is seven months old!  (Well, by now, almost 7 1/2, but we’re going to back-track to the beginning of June…)

The new surprises keep coming!

Gross motor:
-Push-ups are mastered, and he can hold the position for a long time!
-Sitting up assisted is easy, unassisted lasts a bit until he reaches and falls!
-Rolling over is now a breeze, in all directions
-Grabbing the feet is the newest game – easier to do on the changing table without a diaper to get in the way, though!
-If he is on his tummy with his feet pressed up against something (like my hand…), he can lunge forward. He hasn’t figured out how to press off the floor yet, though.

Fine motor:
-Very focused on his hands and fingers and how they can open, close, and grab things
-Transfers from hand to hand, and can now direct things accurately into his mouth using one or both hands
(My favorite trick is that he has a pacifier in his mouth, pulls it out as he begins to cough, and then puts it back in after he finishes coughing!)

Language: (We have a language category!!!)
-All vowel sounds
-Some initial consonants (b,d,p,m,t) and even some endings (b,d,p)
-Long babbling strands express delight, but groans/grunts/hums/sings himself to sleep

Cognitive:
-Mimics expressions
-Smiles/laughs/giggles when we’re being silly
-Beginning understanding of object permanence… after the dog leaves the room, he’ll watch the door until the dog comes back (sometimes for almost 30 seconds)

Socio-emotional:
-Stranger anxiety continues… sometimes now at daycare drop off (after I leave, he turns his attention to the window until he sees me there)
-More content to be held by others as long as Sean or I are within eyesight

Monkey shot:

Mother’s Day

Sean surprised me with sweet potato pancakes for brunch, complete with flowers on the table and homemade vanilla pecan honey butter.  Yum!  We headed out to Crozet to join Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop Lucia and Auntie Cait at the Crozet Arts and Crafts festival.  It was nice to visit quickly with Ms. Peggy, then we wandered through the tents, ate lunch, and bought kettle corn!  Fun purchases included wooden toys for Caeden, including a rattle with a bell that he LOVES to shake.  It’s a bit heavy, and makes a lovely sound when he smacks himself in the face with it, but he doesn’t seem to mind.  We also special-ordered a dragon pull-toy from Bob the Craftsman – can’t wait to see it!  Sean bought himself a raider-ish brown leather hat, which proved to look as good on Caeden as it did on Daddy!  Enjoy the pics – several courtesy of Auntie Cait! =)