Dew Days Parade

Today we went to Farmington's Dew Days parade. This is the first year we took part in any Dew Days activities and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Last year we went to a 4th of July parade and Caden was really scared by most of the noises. Today's went a lot better, though when there was about five straight minutes of fire trucks all making a ton of noises he got pretty nervous. Fortunately that was at the beginning and as the parade went on he was enjoying everything more and more.

It didn't take Caden long to figure out that candy is the best part of a parade. Unfortunately we had large groups of aggressive kids on either side of us so we weren't able to get all that much. Enough to keep Caden busy, though!

Caden decided to follow this float and a few after it because he wanted the balloons.

It finally occurred to him that other kids would run in the street and get candy. So of course he had to join the fun and pretty much wouldn't get out of the street the rest of the parade!

Somebody finally gave Caden an ice pop. He really wanted one!

By the last few floats throwing out candy Caden would excitedly run into the street, but he'd be so picky about which pieces to choose that the other kids grabbed most of it. He was so proud of himself when he was able to save that one special piece he really wanted! Overall it was a good parade and a lot of fun watching Caden enjoy himself!

This whole past week has been a lot of fun for us. So many new things to do...

Last Saturday we went to the Joyful Noise Family Fest. It rained the entire day, but Caden did fantastic. He didn't seem bothered by the wet or the cold at all. He just had a blast hanging out with grandma and grandpa!  He was also thrilled to see his favorite band, Go Fish, perform for the first time.

On Sunday we converted Caden's crib to a toddler bed. The first night was rough. He fell out around midnight and it took hours to get him to fall back to sleep. The second night I peeked in on him in the morning and he was sleeping on the floor against the wall behind his door. Every night since then I'm pretty sure he's fallen out at least once, but he just gets right back on the bed and falls back to sleep. We're hoping to switch to a twin sized bed soon, so we'll have to come up with a plan to keep him from going over the edge on that!

On Tuesday we went to a park with moms club and made father's day presents.

On Wednesday we went strawberry picking. Caden started stuffing the strawberries in his mouth immediately as I picked them. I was worried he wouldn't cooperate, but it actually went really well! We picked seven pounds in about half an hour.

On Thursday we went to Dew Day's first activity, Family Fun Day. It was a free event for children filled with games and prizes. We shared a sno-cone and got some free suckers from a few booths before Caden had had enough and we left. It'll be more fun when he's older and understands the concept of waiting in lines for things!

On Friday we checked out a new park in Rosemount that had a lot of fun play equipment and a bunch of beautiful trails to walk. We met another mom there with her nephew and son, Braydon and Aiden. We had a good laugh over all three boys' names.

It's been a busy week!

The Words Are Coming!

Exciting news - Caden can say some words! I actually hesitate to say that because it doesn't seem like I can really label him as talking when he only says a word when prompted. It seems like he should actually talk on his own free will before it's considered "real." But nonetheless, he can say a few things. I would consider his first word to be "mom" because he's been saying it a few months now, repeating it after us. He can also say "dad" which comes out sounding more like "daaa?" in a high pitched voice. It's incredibly cute. I keep trying to get a video of him, but he won't cooperate. He also likes to say "pop pop pop!" from one of the pages in Dr. Seuss's "Mr. Brown Can Moo" book. And in the last few days he's also started saying "up." He's got all of his animal noises down pat as well. Since he last saw everyone he can now also make a fish "sound," and hiss like a snake. I can't wait for him to actually start calling us mama and dada and saying words on his own. Hopefully it's just around the corner!

On Saturday we went to visit Lexi in Owatonna. We intended on mini-golfing, but it ended up raining so we went to this new Reptile and Amphibian Discovery (RAD) Zoo. Lexi loves snakes, so I thought it might be worth checking out. Everyone really enjoyed it, especially Caden! He loved watching the snakes and turtles that were moving around in their cages. We stayed to watch the show and at the end Caden got to touch his first alligator! He also ran his hands down a boa constrictor. It was definitely an interesting experience!

A few weeks ago we got two videos that I heard were really good with speech development. They're called Baby Babble. Caden's only watched them a few times, but he's mesmerized by them. I think they're working, though, because lately I catch him making a lot of the noises and doing different mouth movements that he's never done before. Even though the videos seem incredibly boring to me, I think they must be working!