A Kara visit and first haircut?

We were blessed to have a visit from one of my college suitemates last weekend.  She was actually the first person I met when I arrived on the Cal Poly campus.  It turned out that we were "suitemates" (we shared a bathroom with 3 other rooms) in the dorms, and Kara was one of my closest college friends.  It was so great to introduce her to Kadence.  She was such a good auntie--played with her, gave her a bath, tolerated her incredibly loud and high-pitched squeals.  Kara is the most naturally gifted evangelist I have personally ever met.  She has a way of turning any conversation into a spiritual conversation, and all without making anyone feel awkward.  It's so awesome that she is able to use her gift of evangelism in her career with Campus Crusade for Christ.

I gave Kadence her first haircut today.  Sort of.  It was really just trimming her bangs, not a full haircut, but it's the first time her hair has been cut so I guess it counts.  It was really long overdue, but with her curly hair it was easy to sweep her bangs out of her way.  Or a barrette worked really well until she started pulling them out again.  I wasn't sure how to cut her hair because she is SO wiggly.  But I couldn't take her hair in her eyes anymore, so after her first nap today, I sat her on the counter in our bathroom, gave her a toy, and snipped her bangs.  It only took one snip to get it out of her eyes and I didn't dare go back in for more since the first snip was so successful.  I only cut about an inch and a half wide part of her bangs, but it was almost 2 inches long at some parts!  

Here is a before picture taken at our church's Harvest Festival a few weeks ago.  Even with her bangs in her eyes, the expression is adorable:

Here is the after picture:  "Oh! This is what it's like to see clearly!"

catching up

Kadence is growing so quickly it feels like a month has passed, but it's only been a week.  

Potty training (actually poop training) is going pretty well.  We get more than 50% of her poops on her potty.  She grunts and looks at you when she has to go.  Then I ask her if she has to go poop and if she grunts again we go into the bathroom.  This week she started walking to the bathroom and sitting on her potty (with her clothes still on) so she is getting it.  Yes, I realize it's super early to start poop training, and some days it feels like half of my day is spent on the bathroom floor keeping Kadence entertained enough to stay on the potty...but the payoff of not having to change poopy diapers is priceless.

Kadence is starting to say more words, or sounds that are like words anyway.  She is starting to copy what we say, but never on command.  She is fond of animal noises.  She says "ooh, ooh, ooh" like woof woof woof for a dog.  She says "kitty" and "doggie" but it's more like "dogah". Here is a video of her croaking like a frog.  No one that I know of taught her how to croak.  One day we were driving and she was in the backseat looking at a book that the doctor gave her that we hadn't read to her yet, and she made this strange sound.  I asked Steve what she was doing, and he said it sounded like a frog noise.  I turned around and saw her looking at the book, and she had the page open to a frog!  She actually was a frog, but we didn't teach her that.  Anyway, here is a video of the one sound she does on command.  The girl taught herself to croak like a frog, but she won't bring the word "mama" back.  

Here are her first pig tails.  She's been pulling the clips out her hair again lately, so I tried pig tails to keep her hair out of her face.  I had to distract her with food to let me do them, but they're pretty cute!  

We went to Fairytale Town for free on Thursday.  She had fun, but I'm glad we didn't pay for it at this age.  In a few years it will probably be one of her favorite places, but this time her favorite thing was pushing her stroller around.

In Cinderella's carriage.
On her throne.

Finally, our favorite trick is that she is kissing more often.  Sometimes when we ask, sometimes when we don't ask.  Her favorite are spiderman kisses (upside down kisses).  Here is a video of her giving Steve spiderman kisses.  She gave him 4 in a row, so I was actually able to get it on video!

Happy Halloween!

We had a busy and fun Halloween.  We were determined to get the most use out of Kadence's costume, so we hit up every event we could. 

Monday we went to the pumpkin patch (see previous post). On actual Halloween our HOA had a harvest festival that we went to (mostly for the free food!)  Kadence loved playing at the park with the other kids.  Then our church had a Trunk or Treat event.  Kadence didn't really "get" the whole trick-or-treating concept, but she loved running around and following other kids, and everyone loved watching the energetic and independent tiger!  Then we came home and hit up a few of our neighbor's houses for trick or treating and called it a night.  

at the HOA harvest festival

with all of the candy and games, the construction cone was her favorite thing and entertained her the first 10 minutes

raaaaaahr!

getting veeeeery sleepy

the Hubbard Creek cats--Gretel the Leopard, and Kadence the Tiger

This video is of Kadence "throwing" a ball.  She wasn't very successful throwing it into the fish's mouth for the carnival game, but somehow she ran off with the ball so she could practice her toss!

And this final video is of her Halloween shriek!  She is in the trunk of our friend's SUV at the Trunk or Treat (we called it a tiger cage).  Unfortunately this shriek isn't limited to Halloween or to when she is being scared by her Dada.  This shriek can happen at any time:  in the grocery store, at the park, in the car.  We have ourselves a soprano.

13 month Tiger

Kadence turns 13 months tomorrow.  Seems weird to be counting months after she is a year old, but so much is still happening!  

Her favorite word of this week is dada.  A few weeks ago she would only say mama, then nana, and now dada.  She picks a word of the week and sticks to it.  The only other words allowed besides the word of the week is a very aggressive "Hi!" I'll have to get it on video some day so you can see how "hi" can be aggressive, but I assure you, it is.  

In fact, there are a lot of things I need to get on video before she stops doing them, or changes them.  Like her adorable high-pitched giggle, and her less-adorable high-pitched squeal.  Like the way she smacks herself in the mouth blowing kisses (a new trick this month).  Or the way she throws her arm in the air when she sees the picture of an elephant (it's her trunk, get it?) Or the way she tells you which book she wants you to read (she dances for Barnyard Dance, or wiggles her fingers for Hands Hands Fingers Thumb, or gives a scared "oh, oh, oh" when she sees her pop up book that she loves but is still afraid of).  Or the way she kisses things she's afraid of (A weird thing we taught her that could eventually get her eaten by a bear or something!   She gets scared when she sees an animal at first, even in a pop up book, but the way she gets over it is to give it a kiss.  On our walk to the mailbox yesterday she was scared of some jack-o-lantern lights at a neighbors house, but slowly she approached them and gave them a kiss!)  Speaking of kisses, she FINALLY gives us kisses more generously.  She has known how for a long time, but wasn't big on it until this month.  

Here are a few of her favorite things:  she is still obsessed with pushing things so her favorite toy is her baby stroller; she also LOVES this princess castle tent a girl at church gave her and she runs full force into it without ducking to hide from us, effectively knocking the castle over; she loves all kinds of cereal; she is a definite carnivore; she would be outside all day if she could.

Finally, we started potty training her.  Actually, poop-training her.  It's quite an ordeal (all Steve's crazy idea), but we have been fairly successful.  She grunts when she has to go, so we (ok, mostly I) drop everything to run her to the potty, then we sit on the floor for several minutes entertaining her with toys so she won't get up and run off...and on a good day she eventually goes poop on the potty like a big girl.  I feel like I spend most of my day on the floor of the bathroom right now, but somehow it is worth it to clean up less poopy diapers! 

Here she is falling out of her princess castle.  My favorite part is it collapses and fits behind the couch for easy clean up!

Here's our little tiger at the pumpkin patch.

Ready to pounce!

Wagon ride with Micah

Oh those curls!
Have you ever seen a tiger ride a pony?  (ok, pose for a picture on a pony?)

Tiger attack...

going, going....gone.  half-tiger had a long day at the pumpkin patch!

Such a big girl

Kadence is too grown up for me.  We met Steve for lunch today and took Kadence to play at a park nearby.  Steve is always a little more adventurous with Kadence, while I hover nervously trying to keep her from getting hurt.  Steve had Kadence at the park by himself while I was picking up the food.  When I got to the park, Steve showed me that Kadence can go down the slide all by herself (something I was never brave enough to let her try).  She could go to the slide, sit down, and go feet first.  While I was super nervous watching, I was so proud when she survived!  And she, of course, loved it.

She crawled through the tunnel, and figured out how to get out safely by going feet first.  I guess she can handle more than I think!

Another way that I probably stunt her growth by not letting her try is feeding herself with a spoon.  It's so messy, so I usually don't let her do it.  But a couple of days ago I let her feed herself yogurt, and she did so well!  Probably even less messy than when I do it.   Here's a video of that, too.  Mmmmmmmm. 

Videos

Here are the promised videos!  The first is of Emma (Troy & Becky's baby) playing with Kadence.  At first they were playing in the same room, but totally ignoring each other...until Troy introduced a toy.

The second is a video of what Bill Cosby coined a "zerbert" or some people call "blowing rasberries".  Steve especially zerberts Kadence's belly, and she learned how to do it on my shoulder!  She also follows the zerbert with her new lip trick.

Where have we been?

I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started this blog.  Where have we been?  We haven't been sick.  We haven't had internet or computer problems.  I wish we were on some lavish vacation.  But the truth is that Kadence has decided that now that she's a big girl, she only needs one nap, and it only needs to be for one hour.  So I now have one hour a day to shower, do my hair and makeup, do 20 hours of work required of my part time job, blog, update facebook, plan dinner, and clean the house.  So as you can imagine, a lot has fallen through the cracks as I've adjusted to this new "schedule" or lack of schedule.  Her one hour nap can come anywhere between the hours of 10:30am and 2pm.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.  I have a couple of videos to post later, but they take too long to load and I should have been asleep hours ago.  I had a volleyball game last night that didn't start until 9:15, so I got home at 11 and couldn't sleep until after 2am.  

Kadence playing in her fort that Steve made with her Saturday morning

Troy, Becky, and Emma stayed with us a couple of days.  SO fun to see the girls interact.  

Becky and the girls (and a great shot of Kadence's curls)

Kadence offering me a rock as a peace offering after I reminded her not to eat it ("I wasn't going to eat it mama, I was getting it as a present for you" manipulation starts young!)

I'm HOPING this crazy nap thing is because she's teething, but last time she was teething she slept more.  She does appear to be getting her incisor on the right AND another on the bottom right.  We'll see!