This wild man is 2.5 years old! He is always on the go, super silly, and incredibly sweet. He’s still in love with anything that has wheels and will play for hours with his trains.  He loves to throw balls in the house and jump off the furniture, so we’re getting a taste of what it’s like to have a very energetic boy. He still loves to read and will spends the majority of his time in the car reading his Richard Scary books. He also is passionate about having his window down lately. He’s been sleeping in a “big boy bed” in his new airplane room since May and he did great with the transition! He’s only fallen out once and doesn’t seem to have considered the idea of getting out of this bed when he isn’t supposed to. Let’s hope he doesn’t figure that out anytime soon 🙂

This summer I did my best to write down come of the funny things that Cade said. Here’s a sampling –

1. One day while swimming I asked Cade if he’d pooped in the pool. His response was “not yet.”
2. While sticking a train down my shirt he said “Mommy, I put my train in your purse.”
3. While in yellowstone, we made a stop so that Trey could use the restroom. When he got back in the car, Cade said “Good job daddy, where’s your cookie.”
4. “You can’t have my kisses, they’re special to me”
5. “That’s fantastic”
6. “You’re a bad driver, Daddy.”
7. “You’re most welcome.”

There are so many more that I didn’t write down. Other great entertainment is listening to Cade’s nightly prayers. Currently, he names pretty much anything in his room. “Thank you that picture right there, and that picture, and that picture, and my airplane….” He also went through a good stretch of singing happy birthday to Jesus 🙂

Starting in August, Cade started going to school five days a week. While I’ve missed my extra time with him, he is loving school. And he is learning so much every day. Now if he would just learn to poop in the potty 🙂

Cade’s “Oh my gosh that was exhausting” first day of school pic

Here are some recent pictures of our sweet guy!

After bedtime ice cream run

Flash foward to his teenage years

Because one instrument is not enough

Epic water balloon fun at Gigi and G-pa’s house

Beating mom and dad at his first board game 🙂

Oh you know, just bulldozing his rice

His favorite outdoor toy. Naturally.

This week marks the last week of school and we are so excited to start our summer! I’m soaking in the last few days of getting work done before Cade is home full time and I get to enjoy my days hanging out with him. My absolute favorite thing that Cade is doing right now is how he says his prayers at night. He requests to say “Amen”and proceeds to list an array of things that he is thankful for. He always includes at least one friend’s name and it’s the sweetest thing ever. And then every once and a while, he throws in things like “thank you my teeth” “thank you my hotdogs.” Also notable for this stage of life is that Cade has picked up these two phrases: “I don’t like that” and “I don’t want to.” Yikes. Here’s a look at what Cade’s been up to the last few months.

Spending time with friends – We’ve had so many great play dates! This shot is from one of my favorites, because it’s the first time he met Baby Natalie. Cade is truly the sweetest around babies. Two of his best friends (Ryan and Ella) have new baby sisters. Anytime we are going to see one of those friends, Cade immediately asks to hold the baby and states that he needs to wash his hands 🙂 He will smile and say “baby is cute.” Melt.

Working in the garden – Cade LOVES to help in the garden. He’s pretty good about not stepping on the plants and his favorite thing is to look for worms. Of course, we he finds one he wants me to pick it up. I’m not the biggest fan, but he gets so excited that I oblige.

Road trip to Alabama – Cade went to visit his buddies Andrew, Archer, Alden, and Colt back in March. He had a blast playing with buddies and I loved getting to catch up with good friends. At the top of his list was the train at the zoo 🙂

First Easter egg hunt – This was one of those events that I built up in my head and it ended up being hysterical. Cade was not remotely interested. He picked up about two eggs and then wanted to play on the playground. Oh well! On the way home we stopped at Touch a Truck in Decatur, which was awesome! Cade got to sit in lot of his favorite vehicles 🙂

Daniel Tiger Live – Another event that I built up in my head, but this time it was awesome! Cade LOVES Daniel Tiger so Heather (Ryan’s mom) and I made plans to take the boys. The boys were so into it. It was worth every penny watching their sweet faces!

Dragon’s Love Tacos Family Night – We try and have family night once a week. We typically plan a fun activity that we can all do together and try to be very intentional with each other. Dragon’s love tacos night has been my favorite so far! We read the book, made tacos, and Cade and Trey colored dragon pictures. It was SO FUN!

Strawberry Picking – We went strawberry picking with Preston, Hudson, Stacey, Amy and AJ. And by picking, I mean I chased Cade as he shoved strawberries in his mouth 🙂 Since you aren’t supposed to eat them, I took his shirt off in hopes that it wouldn’t be quite so obvious. It didn’t work.

Trip to Didi and Pop’s complete with his first real tractor ride – Cade LOVES tractors. And he loves to talk about “Uncle Rob and his tractor.” As we were building up to go ride with Uncle Rob, Cade kept saying that he wanted to ride the small tractor. I had a feeling that this meant he was going to be scared…and of course he was. BUT after the first five minutes of saying ” I want to get out” he loved it and couldn’t get enough. The next few days he talked nonstop about “planting beans with Uncle Rob”

Peachtree-Dekalb airshow – Cade got to go to the PDK airshow with Trey, Gigi and G-pa. He had a blast looking at all of the planes and helicopters!

This sweet guy is two years old.

At two, Cade is such a sweet little guy who is always on the go.  To celebrate his 2nd birthday, we told him we were having a train party, so if you ask him how old he is, he says “two” followed promptly by “choo choo.” Here are some things we want to remember about this season of life with this sweet guy.

1. He has some really big feelings about a lot of things and is truly passionate about all forms of transportation 🙂 If it has wheels or wings, he is all about it.
2. He eats anything and everything, but he has decided that the word “snack” means processed carbs. Don’t disappoint by giving him carrot sticks at snack time 🙂
3. After his bath, his new favorite activity is running around naked with his towel on his head yelling “superman!”
4. We’ve recently acquired an interest in the potty and he loves to sit on it. He even knows that if he goes in it he gets chocolate. Recently we were in the store and he saw chocolate. “Cade go pee pee pot pot get choc choc.” Yeah, I guess we will be potty training soon if he can put that together 🙂
5. His language has truly exploded and he’s very good at getting his point across. Most of his choice conversation topics include discussion automobiles, the park, and food. Priorities.
6. His overgeneralization of language is hysterical. He calls the front yard, the front seat. He has an alarm clock that turns green when he can wake up, so all green lights are green clocks 🙂
7. He will pick up objects and say “purple dinosaur” or “blue train,” but if you ask him what color something is, he always says green. Always. I’m thinking green must just be his favorite color.
8. He is very good at referring to himself in 3rd person. Typically a request will start as “I need more …” and will quickly shift to “Cade needs more…” if he isn’t seeing immediate results from his request. He even likes to refer to Trey and I as “Cade’s ma and Cade’s Dad.” Yep, he still calls me Ma.
9. Cade loves ice cream (he is my child after all) and associates Aunt AJ with ice cream even when she’s not around. In Kroger he will spot it and say “ice cream Cade go ice cream AJ.”
10. He loves to facetime with his grandparents and he doesn’t understand why he can’t see people in the phone all the time.
11. He lives to be outside and is getting really good at helping mommy with yard work. I’m taking full advantage of his free labor until I have to start dishing out quarters for full buckets of pine cones 🙂
12. He loves to read and is getting away from board books and into true stories. Currently his favorite books are the pigeon books, curious george, and click clack moo.
13. He still loves to gather his people and is starting to ask for his friends particularly when we are going to the park.
14. The boy loves Waffle House. A few weeks ago, he looked at Trey and I and said “Cade go Waf House.” Trey and I died laughing that his first request to go somewhere (other than outside) was to go to waffle house.
15. He is very interested in babies and will ask to hold them “Cade turn hold baby.” He will hold one and just smile and giggle and say “baby cute.” Too cute. Melts my heart.
16. For two, he really is great at following directions and listening to what we ask him to do. I think he may be a people pleaser like his parents.
17. He’s working on sharing and is pretty good about taking turns; however, he thinks that when he gives someone else a turn, this really means that they hold it for two seconds. He will pass it off and say “Cade’s turn again.” Working on that one.
18. He LOVES school. Sometimes when I ask him about playing with his friends or what he did that day, he will say “Cole” for his teacher, Nicole.
19. We turned his car seat around to face the front a few weeks ago and it’s opened up his world in the car. We spend the entire drive looking for school buses, garbage trucks, cement mixers, and excavators. He will yell when he sees one in excitement.
20. He loves to watch the garbage trucks on Tuesday mornings, often jumping up from breakfast to run to the front door. If you ask him what day of the week the garbage truck comes, he will say Tuesday.
21. He will count if you ask him (not in order, which is funny) and the way he says seven is absolutely adorable.
22. He has started saying “love you” back to us at night. Melt.
23. One night a few weeks ago he wanted to snuggle before bed and he looked at a piece of art in his room that has a sunshine on it and he asked me to sing “sunshine” (you are my sunshine) Double melt.

We took our annual trip to St. Simons Island with my family between Christmas and New Years and had a fabulous time! Each year my amazing grand parents rent a house for the whole family and we spend several days just being together. We had lots of great time with family and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The whole crew included great-grandparents Leeman and Suzy (pictured above), grandparents Didi and Pop, great-uncle Mike, great-aunt Shelia, cousins (of some step/removed/or something like that) Becca and Ryan as well as Becca’s husband Adam, Aunt AJ, and Uncle Rob. We had a full house which made for a great time.

We had to walk less than 50 yards to get to the beach. Probably my favorite picture  in a long time. Aunt AJ and Cade off into the sunset!

Sword fighting with Uncle Rob

Some of the crew

On the pier with Aunt AJ after going for a run

He really isn’t bothered by sand at all

And he really thought that others should share his love for wet sand.

Sand kisses for Didi

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but Cade is way off in the distance chasing birds. He didn’t like going in the water so this was like our very own fenced in playground 🙂

Walking on the beach with Great-Aunt Shelia and Great-Uncle Mike. Cade LOVED Aunt Shelia and had the best time playing with her!

Convincing Leeman to open a bottle of water for him. He’s so hard to say no to….He was soaked 🙂

We walked downtown to a cute little cafe for breakfast one morning

The park down the road had very fun trees with low branches that were perfect for sitting

Jumping in the water

Eating fancy seafood in style 🙂

Oh my goodness. Christmas as a parent is so much fun! I really don’t think that we could have asked for a better day with Cade! It was so fun just to be together and intentionally spend time as a family. Here’s what our Christmas looked like –

We spent Christmas Eve morning with AJ and Amy. They made yummy brunch and we opened presents together. Since it was 70 degrees and raining like a monsoon outside, Cade sported some of his red summer wear 🙂

He promptly threw the clothing items on the floor and went for another present 🙂

Christmas Eve night, we went to Resonate for church. Trey played in the band and Cade was very enthusiastic about cheering for him after every song 🙂

Afterwards, we went to Waffle House for dinner. Cade REALLY loves Waffle House.

Christmas morning was SO FUN! We opened presents, ate breakfast, and played in the rain puddles. Here’s a video of Cade coming downstairs to find some new fun goodies.

Reading a new book with mommy

Coloring with new crayons with daddy

Cade’s airplane swing from Aunt AJ. One of these days she’s going to make something that she can’t top!

One of the highlights of the day – running through giant puddles in 70 degree weather. SO FUN!

The intense look of concentration. He was surprisingly into opening presents 🙂

Maybe my favorite picture from the day. “hello?”

Playing with his t-ball set from Aunt Lyndsey

We couldn’t have asked for a better day!

To say that the Christmas season has been fun with Cade this year might be an understatement. We have had a blast!  As it’s Christmas Eve Eve, here’s a little recap of what we’ve been up to.

Picking our Christmas tree

Learning that Christmas ornaments are VERY fun to take off of the tree 🙂

CHOA Christmas parade with these fun friends!

Downtown Tucker Christmas celebration complete with Cade’s first hot cocoa and Santa experience. Santa rode in on an old fire truck so naturally Cade only wanted to see the truck 🙂

Reindeer pancakes – Cade was well into eating his by the time we thought to take a picture!

Cade’s second annual cookie decorating with Oma

Christmas music with life group

Making (I mean eating) gingerbread houses with buddies at Aunt AJ and Amy’s house

Epic light display viewing at a house off of LaVista

I think he enjoyed himself 🙂

Atlanta Botanical Garden Lights with AJ and Amy

The progression of Santa pictures. Conversation beforehand went something like this –  Me – “Cade what does Santa say?” Cade – “ho ho ho” Me – “Cade, do you want to see Santa?” Cade – “No, no, no, no.”

Pre-Santa

Not a fan. Gigi couldn’t even make it better. Sorry buddy.

The pink pig “choo choo” was a complete win after Santa torture 🙂

More Christmas cookie fun with buddies! I think he’s had his fair share of cookies for the season 🙂 More Christmas fun to come!

Capturing little mans love of life in this pic. And yes, he has a Star Wars shirt on.

And yes, that’s a pine cone grabber in his hand, also known as one of his favorite outdoor toys.

I’ve officially reached the point where I simply answer the “How old is he” question with “He’ll be two in March.” Keeping up with a kid’s age in months is funny. But I get it. They change SO much from month to month! Lately I haven’t been as good about writing about life with Cade, so here I am with a 21 month post to remember some of the funny stuff that the little man is doing.

1. His crazy growing vocabulary. It’s to the point where I can’t list all of the things that he can say anymore. There are of course some noteworthy phrases: His favorite thing to do is put “Ohhhh” in front of things. And his favorite “command” is to tell people to sit. You can imagine what “Ohhhh sit” sounds like coming from a toddler. Yeah, we laugh about it…and then he does it more.
2. He is coming more and more into his personality and it is becoming very clear that he is an extrovert like his daddy. He LOVES to gather his people and take role when he thinks someone may be missing. A typical venture into the car when say AJ and Amy are around would go like this. “Mom? Dad? AJ? Amy?” Of course each person must answer after their name is called. Typically after naming the people he will also venture into the names of all the four-legged canines. And of course, putting Ohhhhh before each name.
3. We broke down and introduced bubbles during bath time and he is completely obsessed. We are talking we talk about the upcoming bubble bath all day. When discussing said bubbles, he makes a noise similar to the pilsbury dough boy noise out of pure excitement.
4. We went through a week long phase of insisting on only wearing truck pajamas to bed. And while I pride myself on being a behaviorist at heart, some things are simply not worth the battle. It’s a good thing that 75% of his pajamas already had trucks on them. He is also very reluctant to take said pajamas off in the morning. This typically ends by convincing him that his very cool robot shirt needs to be worn.
5. Oh the terrible twos are in full swing some days. In realizing that Cade was in charge a bit more than he should be, I decided to “get tough.” His response? He took of his socks, ran to the bathroom, and put them in the toilet. Then he just looked at me as if to say “how do you like that?” God makes toddlers cute for a reason 🙂
6. The Christmas tree lights must be on at all times. No excuses.
7. He currently calls me Ma. Not mom, not mama, just ma. Maybe he’s connecting with my farm roots.
8. He is completely obsessed with all things transportation. Trucks, trains, airplanes. If it moves, he is in love. This includes watching the trash men on Tuesday mornings.
9. He thinks “peasssss” is an excellent way to get anything that he wants.
10. In an attempt to avoid going to bed, he often requests to “guggle” (snuggle). How can I say no to that? So I embrace sweet snuggles that typically end with him naming all of the body parts on my face as he simultaneously sticks his fingers in my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
11. His love for outside is fierce. New outdoor activities include looking for birds and chasing squirrels. When he hears one of said animals, he will point to his ear, make the most ridiculously adorable face, and follow up with “ohhhhh bird”
12. Eating is a favorite activity and he can put down some food. He often walks around saying “Eat eat.”  Last week he ate somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 pancakes and was still asking for more.
13. I hope that his love for reading stays forever. The boy would sit and read all day. “Read ma read ma. Read again ma.” All day long. His top books right now are – Little Blue Truck, Buzz buzz baby, chugga chugga choo choo, and Goodnight Gorilla.
14. On another note of things that I hope stay forever – his love for hygiene activities. While he is EXTREMELY messy, Cade LOVES to take baths, brush his teeth, comb his hair, and put on lotion. I may or may not keep a toothbrush handy for times in which I need him to be occupied 🙂
15. We love him so much that I think our hearts could just explode. He’s funny, super silly, snuggly, sweet and a tad bit naughty at times. He’s perfect.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week filled with lots of family time. Trey and Cade were home from school all week so we got lots of great time together. On Saturday, we had family day and took Cade to a local jump house. I’ve taken him once before and he has a BLAST! For $5 it’s pretty great entertainment.

If you know Trey, you know why this series of pictures is funny.

On Sunday, we celebrated with close friends at our annual Thanksgiving Feast. We ended the night with a fire pit at Aunt AJ’s.

All bundled up for yard work with mommy and daddy. This picture reminds me of the kid from The Christmas Story who can’t put his arms down 🙂

And all that yard work is just very tiring 🙂

Cade’s newest obsession is this train book. Really, it’s a pamphlet that came inside a train set. He “reads” it ALL THE TIME. And it’s ridiculously cute.

On Wednesday we headed to Didi and Pop’s house to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with my side of the family.

Swinging with Nana

Blowing bubbles with Didi

Now this is a picture of a good grandma – one that will ride in your wagon with you.

And then the dog gets in the wagon too 🙂

The biggest hit of Didi and Pop’s house by far is Pop’s tractor. Cade LOVED it. So much so that we had some serious meltdowns when tractor time was over.

Precious 🙂

Thanksgiving picture with Uncle Rob.

Before we left on Friday, we took Cade out to the Camden airport to look for planes. We saw a few parked and got to watch a helicopter take off!

Halloween at the Boden house is one of our (well mine at least) favorite times! I love all the fun that Halloween brings including carving pumpkins. Last year we weren’t home for Halloween so this was essentially Cade’s first time with all of the fun festivities. Tuesday night we had family night. We carved our pumpkin (Cade wanted nothing to do with it), painted a pumpkin (Cade was all about it), and had pumpkin pie.

Checking out the inside of the pumpkin. Not a fan 🙂

The painting begins – and started so very clean 🙂

Cade has just started smiling for the camera which is so incredible cute 🙂

Post bath #1 of the evening and finally deciding that the face on the pumpkin is actually quite cool.

First taste of pumpkin pie – He certainly enjoyed it!

Daddy made class snack for Cade’s haloween party – spider oreos. Dad of the year!

On Haloween we had buddies Preston, Hudson, and Ella over to go trick or treating. Aunt AJ and Amy joined us as well. We started in our neighborhood and then ended up in Decatur to check out some cool house decorations. Cade went as Clark Kent in the most adorable little outfit. He even left his glasses on for most of the adventure. Cade’s outfit is compliments of Oma 🙂

Check out that cutie

Cade rode in a wagon with Ella and was very excited about riding. At first he just wanted to ride, but he quickly figured out that getting out of the wagon was very fun.

He got very good at taking a piece of candy and putting it in his bucket. By the end of the night he was saying “can can!” Even though I’m pretty sure he still didn’t know what candy was.

And then he got his first piece….To which he proceeded to say “more can more can” over and over 🙂

Cade was SUPER excited about the decorations at one house

Today’s trip to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard with amazing friends! We love fall and all the things that come with it!