Surprise! and Goodbyes:(

Pa Pa (Chase's dad) made a surprise visit last week. He has been in China since January so everyone was more than thrilled to see him. Cade especially loved his visit and still cries to go see Pa Pa at least twice a day.

Here's the duo together on the 4th.

Our small fireworks display. Most of the time Cade was distracted with our neighbors much better fireworks so that must tell you something.

Sad day. Pa Pa left to go back to China, and Seth and Cody went with him. Cade's favorite person is Seth so this change will be hard for him. We got to see Cody for a total of 2 1/2 hours. He flew in the night before they left for China. We hadn't seen him since Christmas, but Cade warmed up to him really fast and ran around calling "Tody, Tody, Tody" for the 2 1/2 hours. See you guys at Christmas!

Chase had his 10 year high school reunion a couple of weeks ago (what an old fart). Chase decided that he only wanted to go to the family picnic that afternoon. Sad we didn't get any pictures with his best friend Joel, his wife Desiree, and son Jax, who came in from Louisiana. It's always good to see them. We did, however, seem to only get pictures of Cade (since apparently that is the only thing we take pictures of) jumping around in this big, blow-up, bouncy thing outside.

Cade and Jax.

Our little baby bird. It's really cute when he does this so we kind of do it often.

Creepy Daddy...

Cade's favorite shirt on the planet. Sesame Street is his crack.

Is that a girl? Na, just Cade playing dress up with his friend Sarabeth. She insisted that Cade (or rather "Kristin" is what she called him most of the time) wanted to play dress up and that he wanted to wear this dress. So why not just have fun with it and send pictures to Chase to make him mad? It's what any mother would do.

Dress like a cow for free Chick-Fil-A day? Yes, please! Since we don't own real cow garb, we all put on a bunch of homemade spots, headbands with ears, and an "Eat More Chikin" sign. Madison, Jack, and Kate are sporting their spots. Kate, I don't think it goes there....

Bridgestreet. Just strip him down and make him happy.

He always gives this dog big hugs and kisses and says "Aww".

And then sits on him??

So, Cade's favorite thing to do is help me unload the dishwasher. No lie. If he hears it open or if I say, "Do you want to help me with the dishwasher?", he comes running full speed. (I even have a lock on it to keep him out). He loves putting all the silverware in the drawer, stacking up all the bowls and plates and handing them to me (only had one accident so far), shaking all the water off of the tupperware, and getting distracted playing with everything else.

I hope he becomes this excited about doing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom when he's older because he can have at it!

I think I've learned that my style for this blog is pretty much random pictures with random descriptions. And I'm okay with that.

Alright, already....

It has been 2 months since my last update. Honestly, I've been neglecting blogging because, well, there is just not a whole lot happening lately that I feel is worthy to report. For the most part, things have been pretty uneventful at the Layton household. I'm not really sure if that is a good or a bad thing. Eventful or not, however, Cade is still growing and learning new things every day. So basically this is yet another post of just a whole lot of pictures. It must be apparent by now how obsessed we are with our kid. But how could we not? Just look at this face-

His favorite thing is to be outside. We can't even say that word around him because he will freak out and run to the door. Whenever anyone comes through the front door and shuts it, he freaks out because he wants to go outside. He is 100% boy.

His favorite person in the world right now is Seth. It's always "Se" this and "Se" that. He even cries for Seth.

Out on the Norris's boat. Cade's first time on a boat and he loved it. Didn't get an actual picture of him on the boat though because I was too distracted with Chase jumping in the lake with his IPhone in his pocket! Don't worry, somehow, he managed to fix it:)

We took Cade to feed the ducks one afternoon. He had a blast. When he first started to feed them, he would laugh his head off when they gobbled up his bread.

Cade wanted too badly to get the ducks in the water, so we had to keep him in our grasp. He sure is a quick one.

I love it when I walk into a room and catch Cade doing something cute. This particular day, I came into his room and found him looking at a book. He looked like such a big boy sitting up there all by himself.

Handsome all ready for church.

Always a goofball.

One morning I was out in the family room and I hear Cade in our room saying "shoe" over and over. I go in to see what he's up to and found him in his daddy's shoes. It was adorable.

And again. He thinks it's so funny. And then he tries to walk in them. That's not too funny. For him that is.

I've been watching Jack and Kate whenever my sister has her doctor's appointments. Hooray for her 4th baby! Due at the end of October! This day we made pancakes into cute critters. Don't you just love my retro counter tops? Yeah, don't worry, I don't either.

We also stripped them all down and let them loose outside to play in the sprinkler. Extremely entertaining and quite hilarious.

Cade had his first day of nursery on Sunday! My little boy is growing up way too fast!! Here he is with his nursery teacher, Sister Callahan, who is WONDERFUL.

My little Russian.

For those of you who don't get a chance to hear a little one jabber non stop all day long, you are sure missing out. One of the things I really love about the toddler stage is how Cade is learning to talk. He does say a lot of actual words, but for the most part, he says a whole lot-a-nothin. It's so cute to see him try to communicate. Here is a little video of him jabbering his head off. That's always the best.

Family Pics and Easter

Family pictures at last! I was so excited about a month ago when our friend Mike (who is a wonderful photographer) came back to Sweet Home Alabama and offered us some family pictures. Cade was now 15 months old, and we had yet to get any family pictures taken so you can imagine how ecstatic I was. I am so glad to have these pictures. I have already posted these on facebook and never know the rule of putting the same stuff on the blog and facebook so if you've already seen them, here are a few of our favorites again.





We had a wonderful Easter this year. I love the joy that kids bring to holidays. We decided to hide about 50 plastic eggs in the backyard for Cade to find. Since he can't really eat candy yet (nor do I really want him to), we filled his eggs with his usual favs of goldfish and teddy grahams. We had a few that did have some chocolate candies and some with some real fruit kind of snacks/candy. Then there were some big ones that had Sesame Street figurines inside. Cade had a blast.

Had to take a quick stop for a go on the slide.

His Elmo Easter basket filled with little toys and books.

The Easter Bunny brought all the good toys to Nonni's house this year. Cade got a 4-wheeler, a lawn mower, and a big stuffed bunny. How kind you are Easter Bunny:) I always wanted one of these battery powered plastic things when I was a kid and never, ever did my parents give in. Now my kid isn't even 16 months and he's got one of his own. I guess you are entitled to these things when you are the cutest little boy around or when you have good grandparents.

Even makes a Vroom sound.

We played with this bubble machine for a long time.

And, still, outside playing. Pretty much the best day of Cade's life. He is obsessed with being outside.

Daddy forced him to wear his other Easter basket on his head because he looked like Mushroom Head (Mario Brothers anyone?)

Mr. Personality loves to make silly faces. He always gets me rolling.

Crazy.

Only 16 months and already likes to kiss the ladies, especially his cousin Kate. He is relentless when she is around, constantly going for those big smack-aroos. Kate informed her mom that Cade gave her LOTS of kisses while she was gone.

Finally- Videos!

We finally got the software to upload videos! So now if you already didn't get enough Cade overload, you're going to get real annoyed with me. There's nothing like capturing real life moments. Nothing excited has really happened lately for us that is really post worthy. It is going on 3 months now that I have been without a car so Cade and I have been going stir crazy being couped up in the house most of the time. However, it seems like we have been enjoying each other more and more and are creating a pretty tight bond.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how quickly Cade has changed over the past year. With all the lamenting, of course I resulted in melting all over the videos we have of him. I just can't help it. Here are a couple of videos to show you a little bit of that drastic transformation. The first is when he was about a week old. Do not pay attention to me. That was a very hard time and I was still sporting all the extra weight. But his little tiny body is the cutest thing in the world.

(If you are wondering why my little baby is clotheless it is because when I was still trying to nurse, the doctor told me to undress him to feed to try to keep him from falling asleep. I'm not that cruel just for the fun of it.)

This is a video of Cade now. He is so big. I love how he is trying to communicate more every day and how he actually understands a lot of what I say to him.

Here are some random pictures of him the past month:

He loves toothbrushes. Maybe that will mean good oral hygene in his future.

Poor thing still has no hair so we were trying to spike up the few strands that are there.

Cousin Madi's glasses. I think he is actually pitching a fit in this one.


Cousins Jack and Kate celebrated their birthdays together last Saturday. They are 1 year and 1 week apart. Of course, Kim made an awesome cake. So since she only updates her blog like once a year, I'll show it off for her.

Jack wanted an Alabama cake. This is Jack's side.

And this is Kate's.

Jack and Kate.

Having the time of his life playing with a computer at Staples. We never let him play with ours and he gets so mad.

As of the past week, Cade's favorite word is "no". I hate it. He tells me no for everything. Can't blame him for learning it so quickly though. With all of his mischeviousness, he sure hears it a lot.

Things are pretty uneventful for us now. Hopefully, things will warm up soon, and we will have some good things to post about next time.