WALKING!!

The biggest news is that Jared is now walking! He doesn't crawl anymore, except to play with his favorite toy car, and even that is getting less frequent. Instead of crawling and putting something in his mouth, he now realizes that he can carry a toy in each hand AND one in his mouth while he is walking!

But let me back up, and catch you all up...
Jared started taking some tiny steps on June 16th. It was usually just between the coffee table and the couch. Then on June 23rd, he walked about 4 steps to me (I was holding Cheerios as motivation. ;) He would "walk" around the apartment if you were holding his hands, but he didn't really seem that interested in walking on his own. When we were up in Kersey for the 4th of July weekend, we walked him around a lot. He hated the feel of grass so much, that he picked one foot up off the ground, as if to say "I want to touch this stuff as little as possible!" (My Mom was holding onto his hands.) By the end of the holiday weekend, he would walk through the grass to people, which was a huge improvement. He always stops walking a few steps short, and lunges/falls into you laughing at the end. This was fine until we got home, and he misjudged the distance to the ottoman. He missed the cushion on top, and did a header into the wooden side. He had a scrape that bruised a little above his eyebrow, but 2 days later you can barely see it. Steve and I are just happy that we switched out our wooden coffee table for the ottoman. He likes to hold your hand if we are walking around the apartment - it is so cute!

Jared started clapping around June 18th. It is the cutest thing to see a baby clap! Jared knows that we like to see him clap, so he does it often. He's also figured out that it's a good way to tell us that he likes something (usually food.) He also claps his toys together, usually balls. And he is getting good at rolling a ball back and forth with someone.

Jared also sticks out his tongue now. It makes me laugh every time he does it. He thinks that it's pretty funny too.

Jared still loves flipping through books. Although he has also been known to eat board books if left alone with them long enough.

Jared's hair is getting long, so we'll probably have to trim it soon. We'll wait until after his birthday though - we don't want him to get his picture taken with a bad haircut if we mess up!

Grammy and Pappy got Jared a new Lovey for his birthday, since his is so well-loved. ;) We ordered it off of ebay, and we even matched the part number and everything. We opened the package, and we got the exact same lovey, except it was twice as big. The blanket part is so big that he trips over it when he's holding it! I call it Super Lovey! :) We'll have to put it away until he gets bigger, or he can only have it in the crib.

Jared loves to help with the laundry. The other day, I was emptying out the dryer, and Jared was helping as usual. Then he removed the lint trap (it's inside of our dryer), and held it like he didn't know what to do with it. So he put it back into the main part of the dryer with the clothes! :)

We went up to my parents' house in Kersey for the long holiday weekend. We had a great time - Steve's parents and Aunt Bernie, Aunt Cathy, Uncle Mark, Chris, Aunt Rain, Uncle Paul, and doggie Sage made it up too! (we missed you Aunt Peg and Bloomfield Kambics!) It was definitely cooler up in Northern PA than it was in MD - whew! Jared loved watching the traffic that goes by my parents' house. They live on a fairly busy street, so Jared watched the big semi trucks, logging trucks, tractors pulling trailers full of hay, big dump trucks, etc.
He also like splashing around in his little baby pool. The first day, he just crawled right in and started playing. No one had their cameras ready, since we couldn't believe that he would just crawl right in!
Thankfully, Jared slept through the fireworks that we were setting off in the yard and driveway, about 20 feet from his bedroom window. Maybe next year he can stay up to enjoy the fireworks.
My Mom made Jared two birthday cakes (yum!), and Jared loved getting Happy Birthday sung to him multiple times! He's such a ham! Later, we were watching videos, and Jared was standing in front of the TV, watching himself. :) Jared took some icing off of the cake, but didn't seem to know what to do with it. He eventually put some into his mouth, but he didn't seem to like it too much. I guess that's good - I'm sure he'll love sugary things later in life.
We also went to the super Kersey playground, where Jared got to swing. The adults had a lot of fun too, as Steve documented with the videocamera. :)
On the way home, we stopped buy State College, and saw Lily, Max, Mike, Amy, and Meghan. It was a short trip, but it was great to see everyone and meet Lily. I couldn't believe how small Lily was at 3 weeks! I can't remember Jared being that small, and it was less than a year ago! I guess the sleep deprivation erases memories like that.
Luckily for us, Jared was very good travelling in the car, only getting fussy at the end. That's quite an accomplishment, since the trip took about 6 1/2 hours! I think he will enjoy car trips even more when we can turn his carseat frontways (1 year and 20 pounds), so he can see us. We'll get him a new carseat soon that can face front.

After we got home, we took an adventurous walk with Karin and Ella. We went around the pond near our apartment, then took a rough trail off of that. It got so bad, we eventually had to turn around. That was after we had gone around the downed tree. Good thing Steve was also there to help with the strollers.

Enjoy all of the new pictures that are up. We've had a crazy month, and I'm sure this next one will be the same. I will try to post more often, so you won't get a book next time. And I'm sure that I've forgotten things to mention, so I'll have to add some updates. We hope everyone is having a happy and fun summer! :)