Kenton got some new clothes over the weekend (10 for $10 sale at the baby consignment store!) and we couldn't resist putting this little hoodie sweatshirt on him. Amazingly, he didn't try to pull it off his head, but instead really hammed for the camera.

I've been so busy with work this week, I haven't taken a single picture of Kenton! I'll have to get my camera out tomorrow and make up for lost time. Here's a cute one of him at Chuck E. Cheese last weekend. This was in the toddler area and he was really having a lot of fun spinning the wheel and watching it. Of course, he had to look up at me when I got the camera out!

I've been looking through old pictures of Kenton, and I can't believe it's been almost a year. It's been a wild ride! I have no idea what we did before him--we can't even remember anymore.

Yesterday we had rain showers on and off all day. We didn't get much rain, but it was enough that we couldn't really get outside and do anything. By the time Kenton woke up from his afternoon nap around 5:00, we were all restless and ready to get out of the house. We decided to go to Tallahassee and let Kenton experience Chuck E. Cheese.

He liked a couple of the toddler rides, but mostly he enjoyed watching all of the kids who were running around the place. He also liked the pizza--he ate a piece and half by himself. We stayed for an hour and 45 minutes and he didn't fuss once. That's a world record for our boy. We'll have to go back again while he's still young enough to enjoy watching everything instead of begging for money for the games and rides!

Kenton enjoys lots of foods, but watermelon is definitely his favorite right now. I don't know how well you can tell in the picture, but he has about three pieces crammed in his mouth here. He was sticky from head to toe when he finished eating, but he sure enjoyed it.

Kenton is on his way to being a toddler--not a little baby anymore. Tonight he walked around the living room holding onto his push toy. It was the first time he'd done more than stand while holding it. There were a few falls at first, but he was cruising pretty well after a couple of minutes. He was so proud of himself, too. Every few minutes he'd stop and let out a big happy squeal and smile at us. He's so cute!

He's also a big ham. Already he cheeses for the camera. When he realizes I have it out he usually stops what he's doing and starts grinning for me. There's nothing wrong with pictures of the smiling boy, but sometimes I want to get a picture of him doing something instead of just grinning at me. He was focused on walking tonight, though. I got to snap several pictures of him strutting his stuff.

Here's a picture of Kenton sitting in our dining room (which is currently serving as headquarters for project bathroom renovation). He's chewing on a mirror from one of his old toys which has become his favorite thing to play with lately. I love his wild hair in this picture. Much like mine, it's very fine and has just enough curl to make it stick up in all kinds of weird ways. Edward wants to give him a haircut, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet. Maybe after his birthday...

Hamming for the camera while playing his "piano"

We took lots of pictures today. Here are a few of the cutest--Kenton playing with his dad, sitting on the couch with me and Ferd, and one I just snapped when I went in his room to check on him after he's been asleep for about an hour. It's dark, since I was trying not to wake him, but I think you can see how his legs are through the crib rails up to his knees. He was sleeping like that! Edward picked him up and turned him around without him waking up at all. Once the boy's asleep, he's out!

We're trying to let our big boy feed himself more. He had a good time working on his eating skills with some pudding the other day. There was pudding all over his face, in his hair, and plenty hit the floor, too. Lucy was happy about that. She's real good to clean the floor around the high chair for us.

Tonight he was having some cheerios and thought it was really funny to feed them to his mommy and daddy. At first he was feeding us, but then he decided it was more fun to pick up a cheerio, stick it in our mouth, but not let go. Then he'd pull his hand back and laugh. He's quite the little joker.

Kenton was playing peek-a-boo with his daddy this afternoon. He'd poke his head through the curtain and just giggle! How's that for cute?

He just gets more "big boy" by the day. He's so curious and active, and he's getting so tall and long-legged. Our baby isn't a baby anymore--he's turning into a toddler!

Kenton found the dog's water dish today. He was having a real good time splashing in it until we realized what he was doing and put a stop to it--or at least tried to. We told him no, cleaned up the mess, dried him off and sat him on the other side of the kitchen. And he immediately started back toward the water dish. We repeated this four or five times before we gave up and Edward decided to take Kenton and Lucy for a walk. I guess this is the next phase of our life--saying no and trying to figure out how to keep him out of stuff.

Kenton's also starting to display the "I can do it myself" toddler attitude. He may not be able to say the words, but we get the message loud and clear. In the last couple of days, he doesn't want us to spoon-feed him anything; he screams and either tries to grab the spoon and control it himself, or just smacks it away. However, anything he can pick up and feed to himself is great. I guess it's about time for us to let him start learning to use the spoon himself, too, but boy is that going to be a mess!

We swore we weren't going to be the kind of parents who talk about their child incessantly to anyone who will listen and go on and on about every little thing he does and how cute/wonderful/amazing it is. Boy were we wrong! That's exactly the kind of parents we are. He's the most wonderful thing we've ever known and we just can't get enough of him. We figure there are worse things than talking about your kid too much. But we would like to apologize to all our friends who had kids before we did for the times we rolled our eyes and wished you'd talk about something other than your kids. We get it now. :-)

It was another big day in the world of Kenton. At lunch today he tasted watermelon for the first time and LOVED it! I got a big slice thinking I'd cut up a few bites for him and eat the rest myself, but he wound up finishing the whole thing. He was eating it as fast as I could cut it up and set it in front of him. Of course, he was a sticky mess when he was finished but we just took a wet wipe to him.

He finally realized he could crawl today. For a while now he's been crawling a couple of feet at a time to get to the dog or something else he's really interested in. The lightbulb finally went on today and he's been motoring all over the house. Now we've got to figure out how to keep him in one place when we need to.

And, in the other big news today, he fell face first onto one of his toys this afternoon when he was pulling himself up to stand. It happened just as I was coming in the door from work. I heard him start screaming as I came up the walk and I came in to see Edward holding him with his nose bleeding and a big red spot on his head. Of course, we panicked at the sight of blood and called the after-hours nurse, who assured us this wasn't anything to get too upset about. It stopped bleeding in a minute or two and he was fine the rest of the evening. He got over it a lot more quickly than mom & dad did!

Welcome to Kenton's new website! Blogger is a lot easier to use than the other site we've been using, there's no limit on the number of pictures you can post, and there are no ads, so we decided to make the switch.

Kenton is having a great 4th of July so far. He got his first taste of ice cream at lunch today. We went to Arby's and Edward ordered a creamsicle milkshake. Baby boy loved it and threw a little fit when we decided he couldn't have any more. Looks like he's going to have his daddy's sweet tooth!

Here's a picture of our cutie pie from a couple of days ago. Check out all the teeth!