Check-Up.

So I guess I'll start with today's news and then retrace my steps from this weekend. KK had her 9 month wellness checkup today and everything is going great :) She's still in the 95% for her height at 29.5 inches -- her weight is also still at 50% at 18 lbs 11 ozs. She hasn't gained much it seems like over the last couple months, but at least she's still at her goal, so I'm pleased. She told us we could start introducing cheese, meat and yogurt into her diet, so I picked up some GoBaby Yogurt at the store today. We'll see how that goes haha! Other than that, she was impressed that she was starting to pull up/cruise and get some walking done while pushing a box in front of her on our floors..she said next step after the pushing, is..well, walking!! Can't wait! I know I say that now..check with me in a month to see if I'm still happy about that step. Got a few more shots today and she took them like a champ. Got a cute bandaid and some stickers!!

Grabbed her some more foods at BabiesRUs this weekend -- for .23 cents each. Starting to get good at stocking up when they have sales. Tons of new flavors on the menu -- (for those that care) -- Creamy Chicken Apricot Compote, Sweet Pea Turkey Wild Rice, Banana Apricot Barley Yogurt, Banana Apricot Mixed Grain, Peach Oatmeal Banana, Green Bean Casserole, Sweet Potato Apricot, Banana Mango, Banana Peach Rasperry, Blueberry Banana Brown Rice Yogurt, Apple Yogurt Oatmeal and Plum Banana Brown Rice. Lots of fun combos I think!

Hit up a really great "after summer" sale at Target this weekend -- got her some stuff that we can finish out this summer with and have for next year too. Had an awesome little pool with a huge shade cover on it for only $6 bucks and then bought her some big Weeble type pool toys for $3 bucks! Got home and HAD to blow it up just to see it in it's full glory! It's huge! And it's a giant blue puffer fish. Can't wait it to work this weekend while some of the fam fam is in town. Should be a blast! Here's a little sneak peak...

She was kinda grumpy and upset from the air compressor we used to
blow this bad boy up. Not to mention it made her hair all static :)

No.

Little word. Big impact. Starting out with a vengeance. She's already such a little rebel.

-- No Kadence, you can't climb up the stairs.
-- Kadence, no, you can't play with that plug.
-- Kadence Louise Jones, NO you can not put that in your mouth.
-- No Mam. We do not do that.

HAHA..as you can see, we've been saying "no" alot the last few days -- mostly because I kinda let her do her own thing and crawl after me around the house now. It does lead to quite a bit of mischief, but there's so much to explore and the longer I keep her out of the Fun Zone, the more fun she has when she gets back in it. True story or at least that's what I tell myself :) She's developed this funny little thing though every time she hears it -- she kinda bows her little head and makes a quick little pouty face and then looks back up at me and goes along her way. It's adorable..makes saying no kinda a little more fun. haha

Other than that, we've been blowout free for a couple days now. Thank you God. There's nothing more annoying than having to redress her after each diaper change! She still has plenty of time room to grow in her diapers..she just moved up to the size 3's and they can "hold" up to 26 pounds and trust me folks, she's only a few ounces away from 19 :)

Keeping this update short since I'm always so long winded -- Took her to Bass Pro Shop last night and got her a cute little hat. Can't wait till it's a little colder and we can get her some cute little "fur" boots that I saw in pink camo! They're gonna rock. She loves her new hat, but was quite squirmy for pics. Enjoy!

5 Minutes.

Appropriately named blog for the day since I'll probably most certainly only have 5 minutes to do it in. Why only 5 minutes you say? Well, my darling wonderful precious tiny little princess snook'ems (said thru clenched teeth) has been giving me a run for my money over the last week or so. Ever since she's been standing up...well, she's been doing that. Standing up. Mostly because she can't comprehend how to sit back down. That's where I come in -- Mama Bird to the rescue. And it happens, well um, about every 5 minutes. Have you ever stopped to think what you can accomplish in short increments like 5 minutes.

-- 5 minute showers
-- 5 minute potty breaks
-- 5 minutes to cook lunch
-- 5 minutes x 8 to clean the house
-- 5 minutes to start laundry
-- 5 minute increments to try to run and keep organized 2 businesses!

It's exhausting. And there she goes again..my 5 minute timer is currently going off at the top of her lungs :)

Ice Cream.

So this weekend, Kadence had the joy of finally getting her first "real" taste of ice cream. I say "real" taste because when she was like 2-3 months (back in the Spica cast days) we'd gone out to Jason's Deli and they had free soft serve ice cream there for after your meal and Jason gave her a little finger full of chocolate ice cream. I know, I know..we didn't know we weren't suppose to let her have chocolate yet..oops. But she survived it haha : /  We went to Nati-Creme in Franklin -- it's one of those fill it and top it places and then they weigh it to see how greedy you are and then charge you by the ounce (or in my case the poundage). Well we did a little sampling of the flavors and then went with Banana Island. OMGosh it was the most amazing banana flavored yogurt ever! I actually went pretty light on my toppings so that I could enjoy the flavor -- a little crushed Andes mints, chocolate chips and a sprinkle cookie dough bits. MMM Amazing! Back to Kadence though -- so we got a little sample size of the Banana Island and as we were all eatting ours, MeeMaw spooned her out a couple bites and her face was priceless. The first couple bites were a little unsure probably because it was so cold, but she seemed to really dig it :) Eventually she lost interest though, but I was able to snap a few pictures before she did.

Standing!

Well, it's no longer a fluke -- my big girl is just continuing to get bigger every day and hitting her milestones one after another -- she's nailed pulling herself up and standing now on a regular basis. A little too regular if you ask me :) I'm constantly having to "rescue" her when she can't figure out how to get back down. haha But she beams with pride with her little toothy grin...love her so much! Here's a few shots I've been able to capture over the last two days.

Kadence lately hasn't really been digging her Fun Zone lately and has literally thrown a temper tantrum for the last two weeks if you put her in it..kinda defeats the purpose, huh? So we've been exploring other options as far as play space and really only putting her in there if we have to or if one of us can play with her inside it. Surprisingly, she hasn't minded crawling around the concrete floors -- she's not too fond of the carpet in our bedroom though and she absolutely LOVES the pink carpet in her room. She sits there for long periods of time and tries to pull the fibers out and I'm always getting "handed" pink pieces of fabric haha But seriously, I just set her down now as I walk from room to room and she just follows me thru out the whole house. She's finally braved the two little steps we have from the living room to the kitchen -- I think I'm more nervous about them then she is : / Shouldn't be long before she's running around the house and I'm chasing her!

Helping Daddy with his building plans :)

xoxo guys!

Pitty Rescue.

So we went to Gamma and Gampa Cartier's house this weekend (my parents) and had a blast! She got to play with not one, not two, but 5 little weiner dogs that all seemed to chase after her -- or perhaps she was the one doing the chasing :) She was a little scared at first, but after a couple hours she seemed to really come along. Gampa loves to "get those little piggies" and Kadence loves to laugh at him. We did a little bit of shopping at WalMart and Gamma bought her some of those freeze dried yogurt bites -- peach flavored. We've been trying to work on finger foods with her, but she makes more of a mess than it's worth. Well, we gave those a try and it dyed everything she was wearing orange and you should've seen the little pucker face she made..they were a little tart, but very good. She seemed to a little better with her rice puffs though. We got home Sunday and she was major wound up. Think bedtime was around 10:30 haha

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful for most of the day -- I'm talking 70's - 80's beautiful! We went to Babies R US and stocked up on their $5 clearance sale. I got her like 8 new dresses/bloomers for $20 bucks and snagged some other goodies for all the other babies on our radar :) Went to the Farmer's Market after that and spent a couple hours browsing. She's got quite the following there now. People recognize her all the time AND by name..as for me, I'm just the no name stroller pusher. HA We had a little scare though. I didn't realize it, but KK had thrown Pitty out of the stroller and we'd walked away. An older woman came running down to us to ask if we'd lost a stuff animal (she was the only "little" person there) and I looked and yep, there was no Pitty in the stroller. Luckily someone had found him and placed him on top of a huge stack of cantaloupes so that he wouldn't be lost forever. Thank God for nice people. That would've been a disaster. Luckily she's not to the point where she HAS to sleep with that one animal quite yet, but she definately would've known he was gone :) After all the excitement, we went home to have snack time. And she successfully ate some yogurt drops without turning orange and powered thru some of the rice puffs too.

Last part of the update, I know I get long winded sometimes (smile) -- KK tried to stand last night and was successful for about 4 seconds before toppling down on herself. She pulled herself up on the gate and just beamed with pride. Daddy saw the whole thing and as usual, I caught the toppling down part. Guess we need to drop the crib down to the very bottom now.

Oh, and she's started dancing lately. Anytime there's certain kinds of music (ie her Winnie the Pooh walker toy) she does this little bouncy thing and throws her hand up in the ayer :)

Spoiled.

It's true -- Kadence is already batting her pretty little eye lashes and smiling the "I want it pretty please" smile. *sigh* We're going to be in big big trouble when she can start talking and actual asking for things + the gruesome twosome that I already mentioned. haha. She got another book in the mail yesterday from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library and I've picked up a few other kinda cute things in the last couple days. Enjoy!

This is one of those interactive stuffed animal books -- she
already has Watson the racoon and loves it! Hallmark
always has the greatest things in the world!

Bought this at Target during their huge clearance toy sale --
unfortunately for me, this wasn't one of the 75% off toys and
I'm sure if I held out long enough it might've been. But they were
in short supply and it was a Target only exclusive. Couldn't pass
it up! It makes all the animal noises :)

Indifferent.

So we had our Dr's appointment yesterday for KK -- the doctor was behind about 2 hours, so we just got to sit in the freezing children's hospital waiting room. FUN! They took an extra of her hips and we finally got to see the doc. He said that radiology told him the hip was out of place, but he said (while rotating her legs/hips back and forth) "I'm here to tell you that it's definitely right where it needs to be". I explained to him that we weren't wearing the brace anymore and hadn't been for a while -- he said he understood since she was starting to get around with crawling and wanting to stand. So he basically agreed that she couldn't wear the brace anymore..and then in the next brace told me to try to "sneak" it on her while she's sleeping. I was thinking to myself.."have you seen how in depth this things is to put on"? There is no "sneaking" it onto her..haha..not to mention that she wakes up/gets stimulated at the drop of a hat and then wants to play for 3 hours. OMGosh. So needless to say, they didn't take the brace from me, so it's just going to sit and collect dust. Our next step from here is another followup appointment in December (3 months from now) and then we'll go from there. He said there really wasn't anything more to do until she gets to be around 18-24 months. By then with her walking, he'll be able to access whether or not she's doing a good job of it and all. I guess I take some comfort in knowing that he's a REALLY conservative doctor -- when she was first diagnosed, we would've gone the brace route and he insisted on the Spica cast to be cautious. So all in all, we're just waiting now..

In other news, my daughter is awesome :)

Bratty.

HAHA -- the headline says it all. Kadence has become a little brat. I knew it would happen, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it *sigh* But I refuse to give in still. She's gotten to the point where if you're NOT in the "Fun Zone" playing with her, she just sits there and cries. And the minute you walk up to her, she's all smiles again. Walk out of the room. Cries. Do the dishes. Cries. Try to work. Cries. Bathroom break. Cries. *sigh* Truly exhausting.

On to other news, she's been practicing pushing herself up a lot since our last update. She's gotten to where she's really good at getting to her knees quickly, but not so much on her feet now. She's holding back for sure, but her crawling is getting very quick! Seriously can't take your eyes off her for a second -- the destroyed newspaper in the middle of my living room right now is a testament to that :)

I tried switching up her eating regimen last week with some "puffs" -- banana flavored -- which I was sure she was just gonna love. Well, that's a negative. For now. We'll try again next week. I put a couple in her mouth and a couple in mine and tried to show her how "yummy" they were and she just preceded to give me an awful look and fling the rest off her tray. But instead, they just stuck to her hands which made her even more mad. I liked 'em at least!

Other than that, she spent the weekend at MeeMaw and PeePaw's since we had a house guest come visit. She's into wearing bows quite a bit now and MeeMaw bought her a new pair of stylish little flip flops that she doesn't seem to mind on her tiny feet. She managed to snap an awesome shot for me of some bath time fun they had! We'll be going down to Gamma and Gampa (my folks) house this weekend! We can't wait.

Doctor's appt today at 1:30pm about her little hip. Wish us luck -- xoxo

Self Portrait(s).

So Kadence cracks me up -- I've decided to start doing a new thing with her that just so happened to start off by mistake. I'd taken several pictures over the last couple months that look like old school "Myspace" pictures -- ie self portraits :) Here's a few of my favorites..enjoy!

Also scroll down to July 8th and July 29th for a few more that I love :)

Growth Spurts and Black Eyes.

So the past few days have been quite exciting (and tiresome). Kadence is hitting a major growth spurt as we speak and she seems to be eating us out of house and home. Literally. She's gone from 7 oz bottles to 9+ oz a feeding...have to do the whole double dipping thing on the bottles since they're only 8.5 oz ones. HA And every time I give her solids now, it seems like the 4 oz jars aren't cutting it. *sigh* But at least she's gotten over her cold and seems to be getting stronger. And longer. Most of her clothes don't even fit her anymore. Guess that means it's time to go shopping again :)

She took her first STEPS..haha just playing. But I was laying in the "Fun Zone" Sunday afternoon and she crawled up and started pushing herself up on my chest. She was able to stand herself up and lock her legs while pushing on me. Was awesome! (even though I couldn't breathe) Shouldn't be long before she's pulling herself up and cruising around.

The little has somehow managed to give herself a black eye in the past 2 days. Yesterday it was pretty blue and puffy -- today, it's just turned into a deep scratch and it's a little yellow around the edges of it. She must've gotten ahold of herself with her nails. Hopefully it's a one time thing. Kinda worried me a bit yesterday after it first happened : /

Got an automated phone call from her Orthopedic doctor today -- her followup appointment is going to be Tuesday @ 1:30pm. Keep your fingers crossed that we have good news and that she's in the clear. She hasn't been in her brace for over a month now, almost two. But with all the kickin', crawlin' and standin' she's been doing, we're not worried about it. If she wasn't strong in the hips, she wouldn't be making the progress that she is. We've got faith. Keep us in your prayers though.