Kaden is 2 Years Old

 Somebody help!  I think I am in shock! 

How in the world do I have a 2 year old already?

 Granted he is the cutest 2 year old I've ever seen, of course I'm probably a bit biased!

This is his 'Hmm' face.  He says that when I ask him where something is in one of his books.  It cracks me up!

 I was trying to get him to hook his thumbs in his vest...  He didn't quite get it.

My beautiful son brings so much light and laughter to us.  He is always coming up with something new.  He loves to 'eat' random objects.  He 'grabs' something, pretends to put it in his mouth, then while he chews it he puffs out his cheeks, and waggles his head while stomping and swaying side to side.  You have to see it to fully appreciate it.  He is talking now.  Most of it is still pretty illegible to people outside these four walls, but it is getting clearer and clearer.  We are even 'playing' potty training.  Neither one of us is quite ready to get serious about it yet I think.  Maybe now that Kindi is starting to crawl I will feel like I can give it the amount of attention it needs to be successful.  

Kindi is 8 Months Old

Well I'm only half a month behind this time...  

My Kindi girl is 8 months old.  And she crawls!!!  

She just started crawling the day after Christmas.  She is still pretty slow and adorably deliberate with every placement of her hands.  She also still has a tendency to forget to move her hands...  She doesn't tolerate the face plants very well.

 I am so excited about her new ability.  I always suspected that she was extra cranky because she so intensely desired to follow her brother around and play with the toys on the other side of the room.  Turns out I was right!  Yesterday, while I worked on the computer and Jeremy and Kaden had a date, Kindi roamed around playing in Kaden's room (where most of the toys are) for at least half of an hour!  All by herself!!!  If you haven't spent much time with Kindi you won't realize what a miracle this is, but for this often haggard mommy it was a slice of heaven!

 Today she was so sweet following her daddy into the kitchen.  We were all in the living room and she was doing a great job playing with the books.  Jeremy went to work in the kitchen and she took off (like a snail) to hunt him down, twice.  Squealing with glee when she made it around the corner and there he was.  

She is still Kindi though, don't worry.  She still knows how to throw a fit, does not tolerate any kind of pain, and is a total Mama's girl.  But life just got a little bit sweeter (and a lot less cranky) in the Wells' household.

7 Months Old

So... since Kindi turned 8 months old today I figured I should post her 7 month pictures...  :)  Maybe I will get her 8 months up before she is 9 months.  And while I'm at it, maybe I will start posting our daily activities again... maybe!

Saving His Pennies

My Grandma Wilson got both of our kids piggy banks when they were born.  It wasn't until recently that Kaden cared one whit about this, but now he loves it.  I keep it up on his dresser so he can't play with it and break it, and I have made sure that he doesn't know that it opens!   He did however figure out that if you turn it upside down and shake, then you can put the coins in again.

I had such a terrible time trying to keep Kaden from eating (although he just sucks on them) any coins that managed to escape us.  So I started taking him to his room and getting his piggy bank down every time he found one.  Now instead of putting it in his mouth he brings it to me so we can put it away!  He shows me his coin, then we run to his room where he throws himself down on the floor while I grab the piggy.  I never make him sit while he puts his money in, but that seems to be his preferred way.  He has quite the array of faces for me to enjoy while he plays with his money.

I can't remember what was happening here... I think he was just starting to cheese for the camera.

Sucking in air in his favorite gasping sound.

Oooo

A Boy's Gotta Do...

Kaden has such a helpful spirit.  This is a good thing, and we hope he stays that way to balance out the stubborn side to his spirit!  So even if it is less than helpful we try to be patient and let him do his thing.

Kaden loves to pick the tomatoes.  He relished the afternoons when Daddy was home to take him out to the garden to bring in the tomatoes for me to can.  He often came bursting into the kitchen carrying some new treasure that he (or Daddy) had picked to show me.  Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, beans, they were all wonderfully exciting!  Unfortunately it wasn't until the end of the season that he figured out you are only supposed to pick the red tomatoes.  But maybe that was because the season was so stupid this year that we didn't have any ripe ones until the end of the season!  Once he figured that out though, he could often be found wandering around the garden and yard with a big juicy tomato dripping from his fingers and mouth.  Just like an apple!

We had an incredibly irritating problem with flies this year.  After watching his Daddy successfully combat the nasty vermin, Kaden knew that he too was destined to be a fly killer.  He cracked us up, he would hear or see a fly and whip his head around to follow it exclaiming, "Uh, oh!".  If he could find a swatter within his reach he was quick to flail it around, accomplishing nothing but bringing a smile to our faces.  Which is even better than killing flies!

Oops!  I forgot to rotate this one.  So tilt your head to the left for a moment!

We are having issues with the wiring in our 1950's house.  It just wasn't made to handle two computers, including monitors, modems and speakers, two printers, and a phone.  Go figure!  So we were having problems with them all just randomly blinking off for a moment, kind of like a quick power flicker, but only in this one corner of the house.  Then Jeremy heard the outlet sizzle, so we had to do some rearranging.  Now we have extension cords running all around the room trying to spread out our power draw.  I think Jeremy and Max are going to put in a new breaker and outlet just for the computers next time they make it down.  As you can see, Kaden was a great helper as Daddy was crawling behind the desks trying to replace the fried socket and reroute things.

Whatcha doing Daddy?  Need some help?

Our ever resourceful son.  If you can't get in by climbing over Daddy's back there must be another way.  Just climb under the desk instead!

More recently Jeremy has been tearing down the garden getting it all ready for the long cold winter months.  He had some T posts in the ground that he needed to pull.  They were stuck really good, so he called in his back up... Kaden Raymond to the rescue!

The worked and worked at it.  They dug out the bottom with a shovel, shook the pole, and pulled really hard.

Kaden is such a mimic, so in perfect Daddy fashion he grabbed the pole, pulled hard and grunted.  It was priceless!

And in perfect little boy fashion he decided to climb the extra hog wire that hadn't been torn down yet!  He was quite impressed with himself as he went up and down.

Enjoying the Outdoors

Jeremy had tossed a few chunks and pieces of the old metal pipe they removed from under the house when he replaced it all with that new PEX pipe.  Kaden found the stash and was trying to put pieces back together.

So proud of his accomplishment.  (Actually he just found a piece that was already put together.)

Which made a great hammer! 

 That old clothesline pole is blocking the view, but he is beating on that concrete block with his pipe hammer. 

Kindi in a box.

Kindi loving being in a box!

She thought it was great.  It was the perfect size, it helped her sit up and she could even kick her feet and flail her arms and not tip over!

Owie!

Kaden got an owie!  How did he get it you ask?  Well... have I mentioned before about how much he and his cousin Kori (who is only 5 months older) love to hate each other?  They get so excited when they see each other.  She screams, "Kaden!" and they run and touch or hug each other.  Then they pretty much fight from then on.  This particular time they were fighting over whether or not the door on grandma's little cabinet should be open or closed.  I don't know who wanted what, but my guess is that Kaden wanted it open and Kori wanted it closed, because Kaden ended up with a nasty pinched finger!  It had a cut on it and a gnarly blood blister on the top.  I tried to clean it and bandage it, but do you know any nearly 2 year old that will leave a band aid on their finger?  So a few days later when it looked like it was getting worse again my mom came with her doctor supplies and bandaged him up good!

She left some extra stuff for him to play with in the hopes that it would distract him from tearing the stuff of of his finger that needed to stay covered for awhile so it could soak up some medicine.

Luckily Grandma Linda was there for the weekend and he had so much fun bandaging her up that he forgot to rip his own bandage off and managed to keep it there all the way through a nap!  His finger is mostly better now, you can still see where the owie was, but it doesn't hurt anymore.  Although once in awhile he remembers that it used to hurt and he will go around the house saying, 'Owww' and having everyone kiss it better!  In fact he even had the frogs on his wall kissing it better this afternoon.

6 Months for Kindi

 Man how time is absolutely flying!  My little baby is already half of a year old.  She is getting prettier and prettier and more and more fun.  Also more and more cranky...  It is absolutely killing her that she can't chase her brother around the house.  She gets so frustrated and angry that she is stuck in the same place while he runs from room to room.  But when he plays with her... she is in heaven!  The other day she was in her bouncer and he was playing with the toys on it with her.  She was so ecstatic that she started screaming (this time it was a happy scream, and not her usual grumpy scream).  Kaden found that to be quite amusing so he screamed back and her, then she screamed, then he did, over and over again for several minutes!  Is this something I should be worried about?  It was really funny and cute, but are my children always going to communicate with each other by yelling?!

 Wow this butterfly costume makes my petite little Kindi girl look like a chunker!  

Kaden got dressed up too and took some pictures with her.  He loved that they both had hats with antennae on them.  

Kindi much preferred to lay on the costume rather than wear it!

 She sits up like a pro now.  When she first gets up in the mornings, before Kaden wakes up, I will bring her into my room and she sits on my bed giggling and screaming and cooing.  She's so excited that she is getting to be a big girl and although I am loving watching her I wouldn't mind if she would slow down a bit.  I do have to admit that I am looking forward to her starting to crawl though.  I believe that she will be much more content when she can move around by herself and can chase her brother instead of always getting left behind.  

The Mischief Maker

This post is dedicated to the daily mischievous moments of Kaden Raymond Wells.

"There's nothing behind my back."

Kaden, wanting desperately to go outside to help his daddy with the rototiller, pushed an end table in front of the door and crawled up on it to try to open it.  Luckily he hasn't figured out that you have to turn the knob yet, although if he had, he wouldn't have been very successful as he had the table pushed up against the door and the door opens in.  He did enjoy looking out the window and watching Daddy though.

This is the lovely cradle that Max made for his boys many years ago.  Now Kindi gets to sleep in it, just like her Daddy did.  The only problem is that it is low to the ground and Kaden loves to crawl in with her.  At least we hope it is with and not on!  If he isn't crawling in it with her he is rocking it viciously into the wall!  So usually we only use it at night.

Jen's kids came over to play in the sprinklers one hot day this summer.  Kori and Kaden found a hose that was watering the watermelons and used it to fill up a bucket...

...which Kaden turned into a swimming pool!

I turn my back on him for one minute while tending to Kindi and he crawls into Jeremy's experimental potato pit.

"Cheese!"

One of Kaden's new favorite games is to take all of the toys and pillows out of Kindi's room, one at a time, and throw them under the kitchen table.  I guess he is making a nest or something, because then he crawls under there to play and lay down. 

This game also translates well to outside, where he strips my swing of all of it's pillows and piles them next to the sandbox.  They make a great trampoline.

So I don't think you can read that lid, but can you guess what's in the jar?  

If you guessed chocolate chips you'd be right.  Their home is in the cupboard right behind him.  But if you leave the door open, or even open it too wide, Kaden swoops in and snatches them away.  He may not know how to turn a door knob yet, but unscrewing the lid to the chocolate chips is no problem at all!

Jump-a-roo

Kindi has really been struggling with being the little one.  She would fuss and fuss and fuss unless she was being held in an upright position.  Usually standing was required although sometimes you could get away with letting her sit up on your lap.  She watched Kaden running and jumping and wanted desperately to be a part of it.  I was about to the point of losing my sanity with all of the fussing, when my Mom saved the day!  She found this 'Bounce, Bounce, Baby!' at a garage sale.

Now Kindi can stand to her hearts content and I don't have to hold her all day, I can even get things done once in awhile!  I was beginning to doubt that would ever happen again!  The bottom has three height settings and is suspended with three strong bungee type straps.  Now my fussy little girl can be found giggling and bouncing with a big smile on her face.

To say that she is always happy and content in it would be a bald faced lie.  I fear she will always be my cranky little girl, but we have much more content times and they even last longer than 2 minutes now!  She does the best in it when Kaden will play with her or at least be playing in her nearby vicinity.  Kaden loves to play with her, but...

He likes it better when she is somewhere else and he can just play with her toys by himself!

It's about right for his knees!  It gives enough that he can't crawl out of it by himself though.  

We take this thing everywhere!  It travels through the house all day long as I work in the kitchen, living room or bedrooms and it even goes outside with us.

Kindi loves to play in it outside where she can watch the tree leaves rustle in the wind.  In fact she does so good in it out there that Jeremy had her in it while he worked in the garden and I was working on dinner and he almost forgot she was there.  If she hadn't started talking to herself he might have come in without her.