Soccer star

We got some great photos during an evening soccer session on the vineyard!

It's all fun and games until someone else kicks the ball. Must be getting close to bedtime!

Chatham

We left the Vineyard early on a Monday morning, and Caiden and I headed for a quick stop in Chatham. My grandmother and Aunt Joan were spending some time there, and we got in a great visit. Caiden loved loved loved playing with the dogs Ben and Colby. They kept Caiden entertained so I could catch up with Grandma and Aunt Joan. He talked about "Ben!!" for days (Colby is a little too hard for him to say, I guess).

We got in a short trip to town too. Can't go to Chatham and not go to the Candy Manor. I let him run wild around the bandstand for a little bit before getting in the car again.

It was a fun visit but too short!

Vineyard trip

We spent some time with Dan's parents on the Vineyard this month! In the days leading up to the trip we talked a lot about how we'd be seeing Grammy and Grandpa Hank. In response, Caiden always said "Fwy pwane." Caiden expects Grandpa Hank to entertain him with RC toys. He was not disappointed!

We stayed in a great house a short walk from the beach. It was a very private road and Caiden loved going for walks.

Lunch on the porch!

One of a couple trips into town

Goofing around outside

Breakfast with Grandpa!

Apparently Caiden is not a huge fan of beaches! He did fine at Nara park this summer, so maybe it's something about the big ocean. Even with someone carrying him he didn't want to go near the water. He did enjoy talking about the "big waves" afterwards though.

Intrigued by the outdoor shower. What is Dad doing in that funny box?

It was a great trip!

Apple picking 1

Wow am I behind on blogging! Stay tuned for a few posts over the next few days. They may not be sequential, but that's okay.

First up, Caiden and I went apple picking labor day weekend. We headed to Shelburne Farms, which is very close to our house and has fun things like a haystack maze/climbing pile, animals, and a riding toy area.

Caiden loved seeing the horses and tractors, and pretty much walked around the orchard exclaiming "apple!" every time he passed one on the ground. He had fun helping me put all the apples in the bag too.

We spent a lot of time playing in the tractor!

Language explosion

The past few weeks have been a language explosion for Caiden. Every day he is saying new words, although sometimes it takes a while to figure out what he is saying.

The most frequent words we hear have to do with flying things. Pane(plane), Fwy (fly), barn (he loves when dan flies a plane through the barn in the flight simulator), and copcah (helicopter). Of course we still hear "no" a lot. Usually with quite a bit of anguish behind it.

I'm not sure if yellow is just his favorite color or he is just colorblind, but if you ask him what color something is he always answers "lellow". He also loves talking about his best friend Ryder. It took us a really long time to figure this one out, it sounds like "rahrrahr". Speaking of Ryder, these two are hilarious together. It's amazing that kids so young can have best friends (what exactly draws two together at this age?), but they are inseparable at daycare. They start laughing hysterically when they see each other in the morning.

Back to speaking. He occasionally strings one or two words together. One day when I took his pacifier away he said "no momma bimi!" Translated that means mom, don't take my binkie.

Caiden likes to practice counting. He even does it on his own- he will line his bath toys up on the edge of the tub, counting as he puts them up there. However he does not count accurately. Sometimes everything is "wuh" (one). Other times he gets to two and starts over again ("wuh, too, wuh, too, wuh, too"). Other times he starts at "fee" (three).

He also gets very hung up on events. A few weeks ago, Dan got a ball stuck in a tree outside. They eventually got it down with a lacrosse stick. I can't tell you how many times we talked about it. It would go like this:
Caiden, pointing outside towards the tree in question: "uh oh! uh oh! ball!"
Me: "what happened? Did a ball get stuck?
Caiden: "tuk!" (stuck)
Me: "how did we get it out?"
Caiden: "tik!!"  (stick)

Caiden meets Heritage

Caiden and I spent Sunday afternoon at a Heritage reunion. Heritage is a pool in Concord where my sisters and I spent many summers growing up. We spent our days there doing swim lessons, swim team, tennis lessons, and eventually life guarding and coaching. Lots of good memories, and I was glad to have the opportunity to introduce Caiden to the pool. We didn't get to mingle too much (Caiden makes that hard!), but we had fun visiting with Aunt Elizabeth and splashing around in the baby pool.

His favorite thing there was the water fountain

But we had fun in the pool too.

Moss tries his signature "pull my finger" move on Caiden. Caiden did not fall for it.

Thanks Elizabeth for the photos!

Bolton Fair

We made a trip to the Bolton Fair this weekend. What a great kid destination. They had all kinds of things. Farm animals, including plenty of petting opportunities, a tiger show, farm equipment, lumberjack show, fire trucks, monster truck stuff, racing, dog shows, regular carnival rides, the list goes on. Next year we'll have to time our visit a little better- we missed the dog show which I think Caiden would have loved.

Watching tractor racing

Off to pet some sheep

 Driving my tractor down a bumpy road

Taking a shady ice cream break

More farm equipment

Petting baby goats. Caiden even got a chance to feed him.