Pictures and Videos

I decided that we've not been using our camera enough lately. It takes pretty good videos, and we really don't have any excuse not to preserve as many images of our kid as possible. Don't get me wrong; we have hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures and short videos of Cade, but we've been lax lately. So here are some more pictures and videos for you out-of-town family and friends who don't get to see him on a regular basis.

In the last few days Cade's figured out how to spread what he's eating into his hair. It's pretty funny, as long as it's easy to clean up. I guess he just wants to make sure we remember to wash his hair every night. One food he's really taken to is avocados. Susie and I eat them a lot, so we pass Cade a few pieces to chew on pretty frequently. They're great: they're soft, easy to chew, have a great mellow flavor, and as a bonus they have wonderful oils for your hair. Last night Cade really seemed to latch onto that last advantage of an avocado. We went to take a couple bites of our dinner and looked over to see a baby covered with avocado and the rest of his meal (avocado makes a great paste as well). It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but he'd spread it all up in his hair, which is why it's standing up. You can tell he was enjoying it.

Another thing he does that cracks me up is constantly find a way to put his feet up. When he's eating he always has his feet up on the underside of his tray like he's just chillaxin'.

Today was a great day. Cade and Susie are going back up to Bloomington this week so Cade and I got a lot of daddy/son play time today. He's developing preferences between some of his toys, and he really likes these interconnecting blocks. I think I had some of these when I was a little kid. When you make it wiggle around like a snake he laughs uncontrollably.

He's still not crawling up on his hands and knees, but he's definitely moving around better and better all the time. He still does the armyman crawl along his belly. A game he's recently started playing with me is crawling away from me and checking to see if I'm coming after him. He'll crawl a few feet and then roll over on his back and look at me and grin. If I start asking him where he's going he starts squealing and crawling faster. Eventually he'll get somewhere where I need to get him and he'll just collapse in giggles when I catch up to him. (I like that game too.)

Check out the stylin' cargo shorts with frayed hems. He wasn't supposed to wear them this morning. Susie had him all dressed up in a smooth plaid pair of overalls. I think he didn't wanted to wear them because he dropped a bomb I would have been proud of in that little diaper. It may have been his biggest turd to date. It got everywhere. That diaper definitely required a 2-person crew to clean up (not counting Cade). So we tag teamed it and cleaned him, his clothes, the changing pad, and the exersaucer up.

Here's a video of Cade showing off his pipes. He loves to sing and if we break out the guitar, the piano, or even just play music from the iPod, he'll start singing along.

In this video Cade's doing his best Chewbacca impression. Very good if you ask me (but I'm his dad).

I guess it was about a month ago Cade started doing this little chuckle, or chortle, if you will. It's kind of a half cough, half laugh. The faces he makes while doing this reminds me of expressions Darrell Hammond might make in an SNL skit. He follows the chortle up with a dead on impression of a squeaky screen door and a reprise of the Chewy bit.

The grand finale video of this post (and possibly the funniest on this blog so far). You will soon be rewarded for reading all the way down to here. I hate to give away any of the plot line on this one, but listen closely at the 13 second mark. He's already figured out how to strategically place a cough. I'm so proud I'm tearing up.

As you can see in the pictures and videos, we've been incredibly blessed with a super happy baby. He is so much fun to be with and take care of. It's hard to believe he's over ten months old. It doesn't feel like that long since I was driving Susie to the hospital. Everyone I talk to tells me to savor every bit since it will continue to fly by. So that's what we're trying to do. Hopefully all of you enjoy looking in on us as Cade grows and grows. I've said it before, but thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers for us and Cade.