July

Wow, it's really been almost a month since I posted last. July was a fairly busy month for us. We had a little travel, I finished up my summer class, Susie is still teaching and taking summer classes, and we've just been generally busy. But that's no excuse for this long layoff. I apologize, but hopefully you'll forgive me when you see the smorgasbord of pictures and videos I have for you.

Cade is still not walking across the room, but he's starting to stand very well on his own, and he's doing a good job of walking a step or two towards something he wants. But in the end I think he just feels more comfortable with crawling and knows he can crawl faster than he can walk. So usually he'll take about a half a step or two and then plop down and crawl wherever he wants to go. Eventually I think it'll click in his head and he'll just start to prefer a walk to a crawl.

One week in July I traveled to our plant near Indianapolis so Susie, Cade, and Chili took the opportunity to head off to Alabama. I know Susie's family appreciated having them around, and Susie appreciated the chance to get some extra work done while spending time with her family. I went down that following weekend and we all had a great time.

Here's Cade just chillin' at VeeVee and Granddaddy's.

Cade loved to eat the fresh-picked blackberries and blueberries. We have a place near Owensboro where Susie has picked blueberries many times this summer. She also got to pick some in Alabama. I don't know if it has to do with the soil or the climate or what, but the blueberries here in Kentucky have to be some of the sweetest, best-tasting blueberries I've ever had. Cade loves them too. Overall he's turned into a fruit eating machine. Despite his rocky start with bananas (detailed in this post), I think they've turned into his favorite fruit to eat. He can almost say "banana," but the "n's" come out more like "d's."

Susie has also been firing the bread machine up quite a bit this summer. She's becoming a master with that thing. She's made many different kinds of wheat breads, but I've really been digging the sourdough loaves she's been cooking lately. Cade loves it too. He gets all excited when you plop momma's bread down in front of him.

Tell me you've seen a baby more talented than this:

Cade love frozen grapes. We cut them in half so they're less of a choking hazard, and they disappear faster than back copies of Michael Jackson CD's. Here are a couple pictures of his latest trick. He's been stacking them into pyramid and then applauding himself.

Just kidding. We built the pyramid of grapes for him. :) But he did enjoy watching us work. Just imagine how impressed you'd be if he really DID build it himself.

I think one of the more fun things lately has been watching his tiny vocabulary grow little by little. He's been saying "mama" and "dada" and "ug" for a while now, but more recently he's starting to expand his repertoire. Here are a few videos showing off three of his newer words. NOTE: To be considered for these videos, the word has to be repeated intentionally. He's starting to be more consistent in referring to specific objects with different sounds. Sometimes the sound is unintelligible, like when he refers to a light or a fan as "dah." It's consistent, but not a real word. Here are a couple real words he's learned.

You can imagine my pride when one of his first words is (this is his newest word he's learned):

He can also say "ball." He doesn't quite have the "l" sound down pat, so sometimes it sounds more like "baw," but he definitely knows what a "baw" is. He still loves to play with his Rockies bat and baw. (He speaks quietly in this video.)

And this is a fun one he's perfected over the last few weeks.

One of the reasons I've personally been busier lately is because I'm training for a half marathon in October. My buddy Jared and I will be running it together and we've been doing a lot of our longer runs on the weekends together. I've never been a super enthusiastic runner, but since Susie and I quit our gym at the start of the year (it had turned into a dump), I wanted to find a way to exercise for free. Running is free, so I slowly worked at increasing my mileage and Jared finally talked me into the half marathon.

Susie ran cross country in college, so I think she was a little jealous of me running while she was still in the nursing stage of baby-rearing. She had been getting back in shape by doing pilates and step classes, but hadn't been running. Well, when we were in Alabama she said she wanted to run with me on my long run that Saturday. So she dusted off her running shoes and did 7.5 miles with me like it was no big thing. I tell you, I'm more impressed with her all the time.

A few Saturdays ago I ran my first 10K. It was a night run, which was good because it was cooler than running during the day. I was so excited to see Susie, Cade, and Chili standing at the 4-mile marker. I still can't say I really like running, but it's been a great way to stay in shape, and it's growing on me. We're looking for a used running stroller so we can go as a family, so if you know of anyone trying to get rid of one let us know!

Thanks for being patient this month. I'll do my best to post more frequently as we head towards fall!