Birthday Wishes

Happy birthday to my sweet baby! She's four today, you know. And I just can't believe how fast the time has flown by. Cadence is sweet, spunky, talkative, creative, and funny. She loves to perform, pretend, and learn. If she can find a willing reader, she will sit and listen to books for hours. This is the only pause in her movement on any given day.

So far today has gone something like this....

X Jump on the bed for thirty minutes, with intermittent pauses to 'fall' on Mommy for snuggles

X Help make scrambled eggs for breakfast, sitting on the counter and adding lots of salt and pepper

X Drink chocolate milk from a boot shaped cup, with a twisty straw

X Recieve several happy birthday phone calls

X Listen with delight as Daddy's band plays "Happy Birthday" over the phone

X Pretend to be a polar bear cub, abandoned in the Arctic with no mother or father

X Be fed bites of turkey for lunch, while driving tricycle around kitchen pretending to go to Sonic

X Make cupcakes

X Play upstairs unsupervised (I tried to be good in the closet, Mother, but instead I pulled everything out)

X Skip nap in favor of quiet time

Coming up soon on our agenda:

____ Switch car seat for big girl high-back booster seat, and let James have old car seat

____ Ice cupcakes

____ Bacon and pancakes for supper

____ Open gifts sitting on the table

____ Eat cupcakes

____ "Tell Daddy I am four!!!!!!!!!!!"

A Wee Bit of News

We have a wee bit of news again - we're going to have another baby!

 

FAQ's:

Due August 5th, 2013

Cadence will be 4.5, James will be 23 months.

We will call him/her Walnut until we found out a gender and can name the baby for real.

I have not been sick yet, which is an improvement over James' pregnancy, and we are praying this continues!

 

After we took the announcement picture (which was part of how we told Tony, so obviously he couldn't be in the picture!), we went ahead and took a few more just for fun! 

(He saw an airplane)

4 Weeks :)

National Weather Service Center {I Blogged!}

Tuesday we went to the National Weather Service Center in Norman, OK. I was planning to not tell Cadence, our little weather addict, about it unti it was time to leave, but it somehow escaped Monday night. Yikes. It took her an hour to fall asleep, then she was up 2 1/2 hours in the night because she was too excited to sleep.

 

We went with a big group of family, and took Will, Karlea, and Rylea with us. The kids all did a great job being quiet and keeping with the group. Cadence loved it. She paid rapt attention to the tour guide (except for the long, "What did he mean, Mommy?" whispered conversations we kept having).

 

Afterward we asked everyone in our van what their favorite part was. Cadence said, "The elevators!!!!! No, wait, wait, wait, EVERYTHING!"

 

So here is your guided tour - The weather trucks and our tour guide. Cadence told me last night when she is big enough to drive, this is the kind of truck she wants. Our tour guide was very nice and even answered Cadence's questions, which she loved.

 

 

The group - I think I got everyone in the picture - ish. 

The observation room - the 360 view was totally not as cool and the super speedy fast, glass sided elevators we took to get there *eyeroll*.

 



Karlea - 

Jake and Will (who mostly hung out with Uncle Dwight, so I didn't get very many pictures of them) - 

Checking our some posters... Cadence is hiding between some of the big kids - 

The forecasting center, where Cadence wanted me to explain what every single color on every single moniter meant, which satellites they were recieving images from ("From the ones on the trucks we just saw, or the ones flying around in orbit in the atmosphere Mommy?"), and whether or not we would get to see a storm while we were there. Good thing the tour guide was right there to tell us what all the colors meant - I'm pretty clueless about such things!

Abby, Cadence, and Rylea "Squishing Heads" - 

This was Will's favorite part. You can't really see him because the glass is reflecting on his face, but they are looking at a model of the building we toured. 

Holding up the world / doing a gymnastics pose - (You can't see it, but her right foot is all bent back and she's grinning like crazy!)

The girls working together to hold up the world - they loved this part, the globe was really neat, it had realtime weather being projected all over it, and gave the appearance of rotating. 

And... that's all the pictures I have to share. We also got to see the truck bay, which was neat, and some radar camera shells that had been blasted by lightning and hail - which was Karlea's favorite part. 

Cute Things

I thought I would just share some random cuteness from our kiddos, since it's been a while :)

The first is from Cadence's journal yesterday -

"Mommy, what is S-A-L-V-A-T-I-O-N?"  (It's in one of their kids songs at church)

"Salvation."

"What's salvation?"

"Its when you ask Jesus to come into your heart."

*pause*

"No, no, no, Mommy, salvation is when there isn't any food, and you get really, really hungry and die."

 

 

The second is that, for the very first time ever, someone in our family has a lovey. His name is Raffi (as in Giraffe, not like the singer), he's very soft and snuggly, and he is greatly loved.

 

My J buddy snuggles him while he's sleeping, and brings him out of the crib with him to hold him up against his cheek while he drinks milk in the mornings. The other day I found them just lying on the floor together, while J played with his tag. So cute!

 

 

James' {First} First Birthday Party!

I know, I know - "Wasn't that like, two months ago?" Yeah, well, we've been busy! And sick! And out of town! And learning to walk, and giving hair cuts, and teaching Cadence phonics, and... Ok, fine, enough excuses. I thought about just not doing them, but decided they were important :)

 

So here's the deal. Our kids pretty much get three first birthday parties. One on the day of their birthday with just one gift and just us. One for our relatives here. And one for our relatives in Tulsa. This was the day of his actual birthday. He was pretty excited to be getting so much attention!

 

Birthday breakfast:

 

 

 Cadence decorated the (gluten free) cake:

 

James supervised:

 

And ate crackers. Don't you just love his big blue eyes?

 

Heeheee, I love the look on his face when we were trying to get him to blow out his candle!

 

"Yay for James!" "Hey wait.... my cool flame just disappeared!"

Opening his very first ever birthday present:

 

Ok, this birthday stuff is pretty cool!

 

First cake - he never did really make a huge mess everywhere. That's my boy!

My New Evil Secret Weapon Teaching Tool

There is only one thing I really want Cadence to learn - her phone number. There is only one thing Cadence really does not want to learn - her phone number.

First, I thought, "Hey, she loves dinosaurs, I'll put it on her favorite kind and hang it in the play room." This motivated her for all of, oh, ten seconds. She thought it was really awesome the brachiosaurus' were biting each others tails. She also thought it was fun for me to scramble them up and call out the numbers for her to grab and put in order before I hung them up. But, it didn't really seem to help her actually remember her phone number.

Then today I had a brilliant moment. She wanted to go outside and play, but the back door was locked. On a whim - "Cadence, the door is locked, and only saying your phone number will unlock it!!! Oh no, quick, say your phone number as the secret code to unlock the back door!"

And guess what? She miraculously knew her phone number. Hmmmm.

This will be a secret weapon I use again! I'm also thinking this would be a great teaching tool for little kids who like to play spy, or figure out codes...

This is Your Brain {A Post About Cadence}

Remember those D.A.R.E. posters that said, "This is your brain... this is your brain on drugs?" I always think of those when Cadence goes into her berserk "I can't function because my system is completely messed up" mode. The most recordable, starkest contrast is in her art and coloring.

 

Cadence is very artistic, and loves to paint, draw, color, build, and mold things. She also loves to write pretend letters, and trace real writing. When she is well, she will spend endless time carefully laboring over a picture she has gotten out to work on. When she is not well, she quickly scribbles, then is done. She never initiates art, and will not trace or try to write. This summer, she was not well. At Bible School in June, they had all the children sit on the pews and color while they waited for class to start. Not pretty.

 

This transformation is typical of all aspects of her life when she is not doing well. She goes from sweet, easy-going, fun loving, intellegent Cadence to crying all. the. time., fit throwing, inflexable, angry, unfocus, disengaged Cadence. It's seriously like a brain on drugs. So, I made a 'poster.'

 

This is your brain:

 

 

This is your brain on constipation: