Christmas Vacation.

We just got back yesterday from a weekend spent in North Carolina with Jason's family. Everyone was there, minus Auntie Amanda and Uncle Topher! (we missed you guys) It was a great time of year to drive thru the mountains and see how beautiful things out there, wouldn't trade it for Tennessee though I don't think -- I love looking at it, but I'd hate driving the winding roads all the time and the potential for snow is much greater than it is here. So I'll pass, but always love to visit. Unfortunately, we were banking on snow for the weekend, but to no avail :(

We loaded up us, Kadence and his parents + 2 large dogs in the Explorer to make the trek -- had to pull a little trailer behind us loaded down with all our stuff. I'm glad my old girl was able to make the journey with no problems :) Kadence did fairly well with the drive surprisingly. She's still having major issues with her teeth though, so she was fussy at times. She has one that's broken through on the top back right (not a molar) and a molar that's starting to crest in 3 places on the bottom right. And it seems like every time she opens her mouth, you can see little white blotches just under the gum every where. Poor thing!

Kadence got all kinds of great toys for the holiday -- she got her first baby doll + baby stroller from Papa and Nana. Cutest thing ever -- when she unwrapped it and we held it up for her, she literally leaned in to kiss it like 8 times! She's never done anything like that before. She's barely starting to give Jason and I kisses! She enjoyed pushing it around in the stroller and dragging it around all day. Haven't decided what to name her yet, but we'll keep you posted :)

She got lots of puzzles and books -- MeeMaw & PeePaw got her a kid friendly Bible that she can cart around easily and play with. She also got her Fischer Price zoo set that I've been...I mean, she's been dying to play with! Let's see, she also got a Elephant Poppin' Ball thingy and one of those corn poppers that you walk along the floor and it makes tons of noise. I'm sure I'm missing a couple things, but all in all it was a great Christmas morning!

Highlight of the weekend (one of many): Kadence decided to climb over the top of Clement (big golden retriever) but he didn't get the memo, so half way over his back, he stood up real quick and started to run off, causing Kadence to do a front flip onto her back on the other side of him -- she proceeded to just giggle like crazy. Apparently she enjoyed it! HA

That's all for now. Will keep everyone posted.

Stomach Flu.

*WARNING: this post is not for the week of stomach*

So we started this week off with Kadence randomly throwing up on me Monday. It was lovely. And lucky for me, I was home alone -- so I had to try to maneuver that whole cleanup process of her and I and the house on my own. FUN. Tuesday we went the whole day and she seemed to be fine until about 5 o'clock. I was making dinner and she was playing in the FunZone, when I suddenly smelled the most awful smell of my life and looked over the counter and yes, you guessed it, she's playing in her poop *gag* So I clean everything up including giving her a bath and manage to not burn dinner :) Jason got home shortly after and we proceeded to have what I thought might be a good evening. Laid Kadence down for bed with a milk bottle in her belly. Like 5 minutes later she starts shrieking at the top of her lungs. I tried to calm her down but to no avail so I made the mistake of picking her up -- and yes, you guessed it, she projectile vomited yet another entire load on a very surprised and disgusted me. Why does she wait till I pick her up?! HAHA (she's evil) So back to the bath tub we BOTH go and Jason gives her a bath (trying not to puke himself. men are wimps) whilst I take a cold shower and clean up real quick. Finally get her to go to sleep after all that and we sit down around 8:30 to watch some TV.

Well, 12:45am rolls around and I'm up sick in the bathroom with what we've now dubbed, "The Flu With A Vengeance" -- Kadence proceeds to wake up about 45 minutes later and is finally hungry after her whole episode earlier..and whilst making her a bottle, I have to run and have another episode. And then sleep at last.

Luckily for me (and her) that was the last of it for us. We had a couple lazy days of getting our strength back and eating the B.R.A.T. diet :(  Jason ended up getting it on Thursday, but he's recovered now too. We thought she might've had a milk allergy when it was only her because she was coming out both ends and kind of had a little rash after certain events through out the day. We've switched back to Silk just to be on the safe side, but I do think we all got the bug and it started with our little angel (sarcasm). Point of origin: Perhaps the church nursery on Saturday? Although MeeMaw and PeePaw kept her that night/following day at their house and seem to be fine? Who knows.

Other than that, life is back to normal and we're looking forward to getting out of the house this weekend. It's cold here in Nashville, but not unbearable. It goes from 30 one day back to 60 the next. The frequent rain though has made it kind of a dreary Christmas season. I wish it would just hurry up and get to the snow -- at least that's more pleasant than rain -- well, kind of :) It's definitely prettier!


xo

My Daughter, The Ham.

So Kadence has reached another milestone since her one year birthday -- she now meets the requirements to turn her car seat around and be a forward facing baby :) Unfortunately, she's only been in the car twice since this has happened and it's been at night both times -- so I don't think she really can appreciate what this means now...and it kinda freaks her out on the back roads with people's brights being right in her eyes. But nonetheless, it's nice to be able to turn and talk to her while I'm in the passenger seat!!

So as the posting says, my daughter has been a little ham lately. Often times I'll be working at the computer and hear her start laughing uncontrollably for no reason behind me. I look over my shoulder, and it's just her sitting in the middle of her fun zone, laughing for no apparent reason. She's so easily amused :) Last night we got home after her slumber party at MeeMaw's this weekend and Jason climbed into the FunZone to play with her. He took one of her squeezy toys and like a typical guy, started to try to "annoy" her by blowing it in her face. Well, it backfired on him and she actually thought it was the funniest thing and actually forced him to do it over and over again. Enjoy :)

Old Saint Nick.

So for those of you that stumbled onto my blog for perhaps the first time, here's the progression of today's photo shoot with Santa. Enjoy xo

Click on the picture to make it larger :)

Affection.

So Kadence has been acting sweeter than normal lately -- I'm not complaining, but I thought I'd share some cute moments. She's been having trouble getting to sleep the last couple nights. We're in the process of weaning her off formula and only giving her a milk bottle before bed. She's not quite fond of this and it's been showing. So last night I was sitting on the ground by her crib and I'd reached my hand thru the bar to grab her foot. I was rubbing my thumb back and forth against her skin and she reached out to grab it -- and then pushed it back down on her foot as hard as she could. She let me do it a few more minutes and then she repeated the process. At one point, she even put her own hand down on her foot and did this raking motion back and forth -- trying to repeat what I was doing but to no avail. She grabbed my other hand and placed it on her other foot :)

Then this morning when she woke up, I was making a kissy face from a distance while leaning over her crib and she came right in and landed her forehead on my lips...and then her nose and then her fafa. It was like she wanted me to give her kisses!!

I love that she's starting to be more cute and cuddly and learning how to express her love for us. WAY better than when she was a little blob that barely smiled HAHA


xo

Play Date + Hip Appointment.

{KADENCE'S FIRST YEAR BOOK CAME IN THE MAIL TODAY!!!}

So Kadence and I had a play date last night with one of her new little BFF's and her mommy. It was great to have some adult conversation and her two year old, Dylan is GREAT with KK. They're like two peas in a pod. I can already see all the trouble they're going to get into as they get older. Tattoos, boys, sneaking out..maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but it's sure to come. All and all, it was a great night -- dance off, random nakedness and O's everywhere! They may have had more fun than us :)

As for today, Kadence had a followup appointment over at Vanderbilt for her hip. Dr. Mencio said that everything was still looking good and improving. Unfortunately he said it's still too early to know for sure and there's not really anything they can do but sit back and wait a little longer. We scheduled another appointment for her 2 year birthday and we'll go from there. He gave me a copy of her X-ray and explained where the hip "needs to be" by then..hopefully it will continue to drop into place. If not, he was talking about actual surgery taking place to cut a slit into the bone, tilt/angle it down and then take another piece of bone from a different place in her leg and fill in the slit they cut to push the hip down. Hope that makes sense in text form -- I completely understood what he was talking about doing which is a first with him. He's usually very cryptic and non descriptive, but he hit it on the head this time and made it black and white for me. So everyone keep praying that Kadence will continue to progress in the right direction. I don't even want to imagine that fiasco and/or doctor bill when that time comes!!

xo

Tree + Milk Face.

So I finally just bite the bullet and put our Christmas tree up this morning. It looks a lot different then I remember it last year. We bought a 6.5' pre-lit fake tree during Black Friday last year and I guess I just didn't remember it being so "bare"..yeah, bare is the word I would use. There's a lot of empty spaces -- so I might steal an idea from my mom and the trees I use to have growing up -- and stuff a bunch of stuffed holiday animals in the back of the ornaments to make the tree seem "fuller" haha I also for the first time ever put some lights up outside on our balcony. Should have saved that joy for Jason since he's the one that wanted them there, but I'll wait till we're in a house next year and put it on his honey-do-list :) Kadence had a great time watching me and she still doesn't know how she feels about the tree. She keeps staring at it all lite up. Can't wait for tonight to see her face when it's the only thing shining in the living room!!

So to elaborate on the title -- Kadence had her first complete bottle of Silk just now. I've tried giving it to her the last couple bottles she's had and I think the fact that it's cold throws her off a bit. She denied it for breakfast, so I let it sit out in the bottle for an hour or so and she sucked it right down. When she was all done, she looked up at me with a sloppy milky face and a big toothy grin. Thank God she likes it! Seriously, I'm thanking Him! Now hopefully it filled her belly enough for a nap. Now that makes ME smile!

xo

1 Year CheckUp.

So we had KK's 1 Year Checkup today and everything went great! She's 20 lbs 13 ounces -- 66% in her age group. She's 30 inches tall, which drops her down from 95% to 77%, so she's not growing like a weed at the moment and her head circumference is at 65% I think.

The pediatrician gave me some good tips on how to get her going on a sippy cup which I'm hoping will work since I already have a wide selection of cups that she WON'T use..haha But looks like I'll be buying one more type to see if it works out for her.

As far as the whole milk debate goes, she said I can give her Silk (the unsweetened kind) a couple times a day and if I don't want to go that route, I can try to supplement her milk intake with other things that give her the same vitamins that she needs, ie fruits and veggies. I think I'll start with the Silk and see where that goes. I know she enjoys the soothing aspect of a "bottle" during certain points in her day.

She also gave me a couple meal "plans" so I can see what a weeks worth of food should look like for the little monster. It's refreshing to see something on paper and have a general idea of how the day pans out instead of just being told that she needs 5-6 fruit servings a day and 4-5 veggies, etc. I was starting to go crazy trying to find "serving" sizes online..but now I see that "servings" are actually much smaller than I thought so this should be a piece of cake.

She got 2 shots today and had her foot pricked for an iron test. I knew she wasn't going to be happy about it so I got out a rice rusk when the nurse came in and handed it to KK. As soon as the nurse started pricking her everywhere, she raised such a commotion. When it was all said and done though, Kadence looked at the nurse, then looked at me, then looked back at the nurse, stopped crying and took the loudest crunch/bite out of her rice rusk and went along with her business like it never happened. I couldn't stop laughing!!

Finally home and she's napping. So all is good in the world. Hoping to put up the Christmas tree tonight or sometime tomorrow. Cheers.

xo

Landmark Park.

So I know I just posted a big update, but I wanted to make sure I did a separate one for these pictures. Jason and I took Kadence to Landmark Park in Dothan, AL this past Saturday while we were down visiting my parents. Jason and his family had the pleasure of living there for a bit while they took care of the grounds and taught in the nature center. It was cool being able to walk the nature trails and see all the places where Jason use to play and get into "trouble" when he was younger. The weather was pretty nice outside and while we were on the boardwalk, I decide to snap some pictures of the two of them. Too many good ones not to share a bunch of them. Enjoy. XO

Thanksgiving + 1st Birthday!

OMGoodness, where does time go? I feel like it's flying by. Exactly one month today, Kadence was taking her very first steps and now she's almost running. The days of crawling are long gone (unless she's being lazy) and the new days of Mrs. Independence are rolling in quickly. Over the last week, she's suddenly become more clingy and more aware of herself as her little personality continues to blossom in front of us. She brings smiles to everyone around her and people just can't help but laugh at her antics. Not to mention she's developed this new little laugh and squeal that will melt anyone's heart. Stat!

As the weather continues to get colder and nastier outside, I find myself continually struggling to keep her shoes and socks on. I mean, what's the point really? I put 'em on right before we go outside -- then she pulls them off in the car -- in which I redo them before we get out of the car -- and then she proceeds to pull them off again when she gets into her stroller/cart. The end. I'm seriously contemplating duck taping them to her feet so she can't remove them. I've tried two types, velcro and zip ups and neither one seems to be a challenge. I'm thinking knee high socks perhaps that go under her little pants?! At least I feel like people give me the benefit of the doubt as they nod and smile at her bare toes. I do occassionally get a disapproving look from people -- usually people that look like they've never had kids or perhaps had that small 1% of children that actually kept theirs on. Oh well.

Kadence's first Thanksgiving just came and went last week. I tried to feed her everything from the table -- she enjoyed some turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, yams with marshmallows, homemade sweet potato rolls and cranberry sauce from a can. She LOVED the later two and it was quite funny to watch her try to pick up the cranberries as she proceeded to make a huge mess. My parents doxies just loved cleaning up after her though!!

So Kadence turned one this past Sunday! It's crazy to think that a year ago, I was Black Friday shopping (at midnight) and then standing out in the cold at 4am in front of Target in the rain/snow to try to induce labor. And now I have this little bundle of joy that's grown so much over the last year! We had the fun of celebrating her birthday twice -- and I'm sure if her grandparents in Florida lived any closer, we'd have had a third one! Saturday afternoon, we did cake and ice cream and presents at my parent's house in Alabama. My mom made an adorable caterpillar and we did some fun rainbow colors for the cake mix. She got tons of goodies and presents too!

Then Sunday we drove back home and on our way thru stopped at Jason's parents house to celebrate her birthday a second time. Presents came first and she got a ton of great things -- including some maracas from their recent cruise that they went on. (side note: she's already broken one from playing too hard with it haha) They had a little Teddy Bear cupcake "cake" made up for her with chocolate frosting...a first for her...and she cried in the beginning because she didn't like the texture of it. Once she got a taste though, it was all downhill and the mess was definitely a big one, but she ate it all and even managed to stuff a little in her diaper for later!!

Other than that, we're getting ready to put up our Christmas tree and I'm very excited about the idea of her being able to "celebrate" this holiday unlike last year she had no clue what was going on. I'm hoping to get her to a park within the next couple days and get some pictures of her for our holiday card. If not, worse case scenario, I'll just print out a cute photo and mail it with a card instead :) I hope with the rush of the holidays I'll be able to keep everyone more in the loop with everything.

xoxo

First Steps!

Yep, you read that right. But I'll get back to that :) Anticipation killin' ya?

So we got to go to my parent's house this weekend (finally) after having not been in quite some time it feels like. My mom flew my grandma in from Michigan and she was able to get some face time with her only grandchild!! So now Kadence has officially met all her great+grandparents! KK didn't do so hot with the drive down there which was kind of a bummer. I think she was just anxious to see everyone haha or at least that's what I'm telling myself. I gave her some stuff for her teeth and she passed out for about an hour or so and then was awake the rest of the drive. Talking. LOUDLY!

Went to the Peanut Butter Festival with my mom and grandma on Saturday while the guys went and shot their guns. We had a great time -- KK tried to "lose" her lovie again, so I had to retrace our steps till I finally found him all the way back where we'd started for the day. Thank goodness I found him though. I think my Thanksgiving week craft project is going to be making more of them so if and when (realistically) she loses him again, I'll have some backups and she'll never know! HAHA After we spent most of the afternoon walking around and watching the parade, we headed into the neighborhood super Wal-Mart and I nabbed her a couple pairs of boots for winter! I've been searching forever for something that I liked and finally just said "to heck with it" and got 'em. They're adorable. We'll see how long she keeps them on. :)

Saturday night I was playing with her in her improvised "fun zone" and she kept standing up..taking a step and then falling down. Then I cross my heart she took two steps a couple different times. I kept telling Jason and everyone else that they needed to "look look look real quick" but I seemed to be the only one seeing what was taking place. So it didn't count in my book. Needed to have witnesses haha :) So Jason went off to take a shower and everyone else was in the kitchen finishing up supper and she did it again (twice) and everyone caught it, except Jason. She fell down on her bottom and we all started to cheer and clap -- she looked so concerned and almost started crying at the commotion. But nonetheless, I was so proud of her. And don't worry MeeMaw, I gave Jason a hard enough time for missing it. (big smile)

Was able to get some great pictures of her this weekend -- and a couple good ones of her with her great grandma. We also got our first 4 generation picture with her -- the last one we took from my side of the family was back when I was like 6 or 7. So it's been a while :)

I'll be posting pictures soon. Promise. xo

Mrs. Personality.

So I'm still behind on blogging and posting pictures on Facebook. Hopefully Kadence doesn't get as blessed with the gift of procrastination as I have :)

I feel like not much has happened in the last couple weeks -- but as I sit here and look back, milestones are just flying by. The weekend after my last post, Jason was out of town and ToysRUS was having a great toy sale before their Thanksgiving/Christmas sales were going to start (I found that out later...haha) But I was still able to stock up on some good things and got almost all my shopping done so I wouldn't have to fight the future traffic and the possibility of them not having something that I wanted for her. Keep in mind these toys are for her birthday AND Christmas -- which are just a little under a month apart. Plus some of this stuff is from MeeMaw/PeePaw since they went shopping with me. I'm so excited about the little Leap Frog table on the left..she's definitely getting that one for her birthday. Her B.F.F. Collette has one and Kadence LOVES playing with it! So I felt she should have one of her own. And I'm a sucker for all the Little People animal related things, so there you have it. Funny thing is she'll probably enjoy the boxes more than the toys themselves :)

I also bought her some rainbow stacking toys too while we were out shopping -- she got some of those immediately though. I'd been meaning to get some for a while and was really slacking (and delaying) on that milestone. In just a little under 2 weeks though and playing with her daily with them, she's started stacking them inside each other on her own. Plus it's fun to put her little O's inside them and watch her reach inside and pull them out before stuffing them in her face HA

KK got another free book in the mail thanks to Dolly Parton and her Imagination Library -- "Sleep Baby Sleep" has actually been one of my favorites that she's gotten since we started receiving them! I wish every state could raise the funding necessary to do this for their little people. I guess I feel blessed that I live in TN and I get to see her little library grow before my eyes. I've also purchased some new books within the last couple weeks -- Costco has some great board book sets + a carrier right now for $9.99 for the holidays.

Hmm....let's see -- new foods tried -- I've started giving her Yo Baby's Blueberry Yogurt which she loves but it's pretty cold, so she tries to pull it out of her mouth...looks at it...and then crams it back into her face!! Tried just some plain spiral pasta the other night with some jar food on the side and she took one bite and then threw the rest on the floor. So much for that idea. She likes bread when we go to restaurants, but still at a lose for what finger foods I should be giving her. Everything I make has spices in it and I know that's not really a good idea for baby. So who knows. Not to mention, the recommended daily diet for babies is INSANE! I read up the other day and here's the list -- (2) servings of vegetables AND fruits, (1) serving of yogurt, (1) serving of meat, (1) serving of grains a day + (3-4) bottles totaling 24 oz. Ummm...really?! How many times is my child suppose to eat a day?! Haha I am doing the best I can and trying to switch it up. She's still growing consistently even though I'm not feeding her everything she's suppose to be eating. *sigh*

BIGGEST NEWS OF THE UPDATE...Kadence is taking half steps! And by half steps I mean -- she is standing (and/or letting go of whatever she's holding onto) and taking a step with one foot and then either falling or sitting down as fast as she can. So we're not counting it as her first step yet until she gets a step in with both legs :) But she's done this like half a dozen times. So it's not going to be long before she's running! HA

Teeth count: Getting ready to break in her 6th one. (2 top, 4 bottom) Might have a few more on the horizon.

Till next time guys. xo

Pumpkin Baby.

So a ton has happened in the last two weeks since my last post...Perhaps one of these days I'll just stop being lazy and start blogging/posting pictures on Facebook on the regular again :) One day. In my spare time. (ha)

Kadence gave away her first kiss. Yep, you heard me. Jason and I were sitting on the floor in the play room rough housing with KK. Well, more like she was rough housing with daddy. She kept crawling over the top of his face and kicking him. She crawled away a little and then turned around and charged him as fast as she could..got right up in his face..and out of no where, planted a juicy wet one right on his lips. It was the funniest and sweetest thing I've ever seen. Definitely jealous that he was the first..and only. She's yet to attempt another one!

I started obsessing about a new website called Pinterest -- and have been getting a lot of great inspiration for taking photos creatively. A great fall idea was to take a large pumpkin, carve it out and stuff it with a baby. HAHA So I did it. Not just once but twice and KK loved it. Not to mention all the attention she got because of it. We took her (and her pumpkin) and met up with her little B.F.F. Colette down at the Farmer's Market -- and surrounded her with a bunch of other pumpkins and took a ton of pictures. She was such a sport. I wasn't too happy with how they turned out and wanted a little different lighting..so I trekked her and the pumpkin down to MeeMaw's house at the end of the week and tried it out again. I must say, I like that photo shoot a little better. Still haven't found time to actually edit the pictures, but they'll be up soon!

{See FB for the first photo shoot}

This was the finale shot from the second shoot, wish she was
still in her pumpkin for this one :)

Speaking of Colette -- we've been doing quite a few play dates lately trying to get KK to interact a little more with some babies her own age. It seems like when we take her to church and leave her in the nursery that everyone loves on her so much that they never set her down -- therefore, eliminating her opportunities to play. Although last week when we picked her up, she had a huge wallop on her forehead HAHA. Colette's mommy and I just finished up their playroom this week though, so I'm looking forward to some future play time together!!!

I think the rug rat has yet ANOTHER tooth coming in -- on top, next to the other little pearly one. That brings us up to a grand total of 5 that I can see at the moment and she's not even 11 months yet! She's been taking them in stride though and it doesn't seem to affect her too much. Although, we did have a little issue with digestion a couple weeks ago..made a trip to the doctor and had a little scare with her being on the brink of dehydration. Guess the extra saliva from the teething caused quite an issue, but we got it under control. Her little bum was so raw though :(

If you click and look at this one bigger, you can
see a tiny little tooth poppin' up on the bottom. One
of many new ones :)

New foods since the last time -- she's up to #3's now! Such a big girl. She's had some pasta mixtures with big chunks in them -- an orchard mix with some chunky fruit -- and some beef rice pilaf which had some big carrot chunks. MeeMaw spoiled her with a teething biscuit..which was followed by an immediate bath. She was a hot mess for sure! She's also enjoyed some fresh broccoli, which she wanted SOOO badly until she actually got it in her mouth. Fail. She loves corn bread though and blueberry muffins :) 

Last little antidote for this update -- we were sitting on the couch the other night watching a movie and KK was doing her thing (ie getting into everything) and came across the diaper bag. Next thing we know, she has her little container of O's (what we call her round snacks) and she's somehow managed to open it and dump a good amount out all over the floor. Before I could even get up to start picking them up, she starts crawling around and cramming them into her little mouth as quickly as she can. We couldn't stop laughing at her and decided to let her "clean up" her own little mess. She's a trip!!

Till next time.

xo