House Progress...

The framing work continued throughout the week and everything looks great! We are having so much fun building this house! We've enjoyed every stage of it so far, from the picking out a floor plan, to picking out colors, and now to see it all start to come together (with our personal little touches in how we rearranged the plan and such) it is just such a cool feeling! Here are the pictures from this week...

Coloring..

I found this little easel and chair on Craigslist for $8! Caden goes through phases of liking it (which is why I'm glad I didn't pay $60 for it new, lol). I loved these pictures for some reason. In the second one he pointed to his picture, looked at me and said "Airplane"- one of his favorite things to draw these days.... He draws the same exact motion every time he draws an "airplane" although it looks nothing like an airplane (I mean he's only 2)... maybe a boomerang though... :D They grow up too fast!

Obnoxious Veggies

My Dad is a great gardner. As you can see from these pictures he likes to grow things to obnoxiously large sizes. This is a tomato and a zuchinni (which isn't even the biggest one of the year)...

Let the construction begin!

On July 24th they started framing the first floor of our house!

Here are some various pictures we took that day:

Flip Flop

One of Caden's recent accomplishments is learning how to do a foward roll. Here is a littel video of it:

Our House: Weeks 1 and 2

A lot has been happening with our house the last few weeks. They broke ground on July 9th and it's been a pretty steady flow of progress ever since. Here's what's been going on:

This is our lot when we first picked it out, back in May.

July 9th... Clearing the land...

July 10- Dug and poured footing

Close up of the footing

July 13- Delivered Blocks for foundation

July 14- Laid Blocks for foundation

July 15- Set up plubming

July 20- Poured Gravel

July 23- Poured Foundation

And I appologize for the crazy coloring in all the pictures.... it's because I visit at different times of the day each day and depending on the sun the pictures vary greatly in color/clarity...

Jump Jump

I walked outside yesterday to find the Grandaddy had taught Caden now to jump over the bar at the bottom of the swing. I think Caden has pretty good "ups" for a little man. Later that same afternoon Caden started jumping off the picnic table (the picture above). I know all the men in the family are hoping for an athlete and so far Caden has lived up to those expectations.

A Kid at Heart

John is an amazing dad, I know I've said that before. One of the reasons he is such a great dad is how he plays and interacts with Caden. He has energy that I do not have! I think one of the reasons he enjoys being a dad so much is because he gets to be a kid again, and play with toys and do silly things, and have an excuse for it! If the blocks are out, Caden is interested and plays with them, but they are really being enjoyed most by Daddy. Same with most of Caden's toys. And if I'm going to tell the whole truth, there are many nights after Caden goes to bed that John stays up to create an elaborate train track.... for Caden to discover and enjoy in the morning, of course (wink, wink). Here is a scene I stumbled across the other night when I walked outside to announce that dinner was ready:

Wordless Wednesday: Roomtime Destruction

Grandaddy's Garden

G-Daddy

There's nothing sweeter than seeing my son enjoy his grandparents. Watching this never gets old to me, and I love how serious and focused Caden is (with the "earphones" pushing his chubby cheeks in). :)

Determined

Do you see that line of cars..... Just in case you were wondering my son tried them all out. Yes, that's right every single one of them. He climbed in, closed the door, checked that the steering wheel worked, and then moved on to the next car...

More videos...

These are boring unless you're a Mama! :) The first one is long, and it's basically just Caden playing with his trains and talking to me... in the end he goes on counting (he can count to 13 now, but here he only displays his skills to 11)...




The second video is Caden singing Twinkle Twinkle... it's funny because sometimes it's more clear and precise than others... and OF COURSE my camera ran out of memory (thanks to the long 1st video above) and I went madly through the camera deleting things while he sang and sang (clearly of course) and by the time I turned it back on to record this clip he was all but done, but I caught the tail end of it (not as clearly as he'd been singing earlier)... anyway, it makes my heart melt and I thought Grammy up in Ohio would melt at it, too... Enjoy Grammy (and all the rest of my readers interested in watching). :D

The Stair Master

Caden has been doing this for quite some time. I think it was around 3 months ago I posted about how Caden has been walking up and down step on his own (without holding on to anything). The kid loves a challenge! I thought that I'd grab some video of it, although it's nothing exciting, I think he does really well for a 24 month old going up and down the stairs. :) I hated it at first, but after a few months of trying to run across the yard to grab him everytime he went up or down was too exhausting...

My Little Swimmer

Caden has had a blast visiting the pool this summer. Last summer he didn't really care about it one way or the other... I mean he had fun, but wasn't just crazy in love with it. This year he adores the pool! He asks for it all the time and he has no fear whatsoever! He started swim lessons a few weeks ago and he does well in those (kicking, learning to float, etc). One of the things they are teaching in class is to only jump in when mom and dad tell you to (on the count of three). Caden loves jumping in and doesn't really care for the waiting part... SO glad I don't have a pool in my yard with him around.

Here are some pics of him swimming and a few of him jumping in as fearless as can be! And there are also a few pictures of a new swimmie thing my mom heard rave reviews on so we got it for him and I actually quite like it (and so does Caden). He enjoys that extra bit of freedom he gets in the water when he has it on and can float/kick/swim around without us holding on to him.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

almost because I did use words, and almost because it's not quite still Wednesday... :D

Caden's first time playing in the rain...