Late Thanksgiving Post

I know what I'm thankful for right now: being done with school! I finished up my semester last week and am also enjoying some days off from work. With the craziness of the end of the semester I really slacked off on posting the pictures from our trip to Alabama for Thanksgiving. It was a great weekend of relaxing and enjoying family time around an outstanding (as always) meal.

Cade decided he liked his cereal so much he wanted to wear the box as a hat.

Susie was able to reconnect with a friend from childhood, Brandi, and the rest of her family as they were passing through the area on their way from Michigan to Florida.

I was pretty impressed when I found out they had just driven about 12 hours with four kiddos under the age of six (the youngest two are nine-month-old twins). These four kids were very well mannered, but no matter how good all the kids were, it was pretty tough to get them all to sit still for a group picture. We have multiple shots of kids in various positions and degrees of escape, but this one turned out pretty well all things considered.

Cade in the tupperware palace with the light-up tambourine. Very suave.

VeeVee and Cade outside on the swing. The weather was great over the weekend.

Now that's a handsome family!

Since the semester's finish, I've been able to spend a lot more time with Cade, especially over the last couple days as Susie finishes up her grading and schoolwork. He continues to become more and more of a rough and tumble playmate. He's always throwing something, or running somewhere, or banging one toy with another (if we're lucky he's not banging something breakable around the house). He loves to climb. Just this afternoon I turned away for what seemed like two seconds and when I turned back he was up on a folding chair leaning way over onto a card table. Last night we lost track of him very briefly and the next thing we knew he was almost two flights up the stairs. No fear. He loves being thrown around and hanging and swinging upside-down; we know when he's up for that because he'll come up to us and says "Bat Baby."

Cade's language skills continue to grow and grow as well. It's a lot of fun to actually talk back and forth with him now. In some ways it's almost a little frustrating for all of us at times. Because we can understand so much of what he's saying it can become difficult when he repeats something over and over and we just can't figure out what he's trying to say. I think it's more frustrating now because we used to be able to just pass his talking off as baby talk and not really have to try and decipher it and now we sometimes can't tell if it's just baby ramblings or if there are words in there that we should be picking up. But overall he's getting better at enunciating words and we're getting better at understanding his "dialect" and helping him speak better.

I'm not sure how early is too early to start looking for his two-year molars, but Cade has been early with all his teeth and he's showing signs of teething again. He's not even 18 months old yet, so I'd be surprised if he's getting more, but he's had all his teeth including the first molars for a while now, so I don't know. He's been drooling like a shaken up soda can, he's pulling at his teeth a lot, his nose is running big time, he's got a congestion cough, he's not sleeping well, he doesn't want to eat much, opting instead for lots and lots of milk, and he's working on some pesky diaper rash. These are all things he dealt with when teething with his last molars, so it would appear that he's got some new ones on the way, but if so it's extremely early. We'll see; I got my wisdom teeth all the way in at 14, so maybe it's hereditary.

Other than the teething(?) thing, we really do have a lot to be thankful for, and it's hard to find reasons to complain. We are blessed with a healthy and vibrant son, and he continually finds ways to keep us entertained and on our toes. Thanks for checking in, and we hope the Chrismas season finds you as greatful and thankful as we feel.