Finger Paints and Oh My!

 The kids got to make the wrapping paper for Daddy's birthday present. 

I forgot to take a picture of the present though...  We put a poem about walking in Daddy's footsteps in a 10x13 frame and they each got to put a footprint on it too.   They loved getting to do that, so I got out the finger paints that I got them for Easter and hadn't let them use yet.  Basically because I'm lazy and didn't feel like cleaning up afterwards.  But for Daddy's birthday I decided to go for it.  They had so much fun and the paper turned out great.  In fact after wrapping the frame up it looked like a modern art canvas instead of a wrapped present.  So now I have a fun idea of making a collage of 'canvases' to hang in my kitchen.  This week is way to busy to attempt that though, so that will be coming later, and I will try to get pictures up as soon as we do it.

 Kaden really enjoyed the finger paints and he worked and worked at his pictures, drawing lines and 'round' aka circles.

 Kindi didn't really get that she was supposed to put the paint on the paper.  She really enjoyed playing with it and wiping it on her legs, or sticking her feet in it though.  She started to get more into it when I started painting her hands and having her hit the paper instead.  She is a touch on the violent side!

And just in case you are having a bad day and need something to laugh at:

I stepped outside and didn't see Kaden anywhere until I looked in the corner under a tree and saw this.

  At least he didn't potty his pants!

Kindi's Professional Cake Smash

 Look at my cutie pie!  She looks just like a little dolly!  A local photographer, Brandi Varnell, was looking for some 1 year old volunteers to come and destroy a cake in her studio so she could add some cake smash pictures to her portfolio.  (I have been watching for them, but so far I don't see any of the 3 cake smashes she did that weekend on her website.)  I of course hmmm'd and hawed and debated for all of 1/2 a second before I spouted out, Kindi will be one in a couple of weeks!  We'll do it!  Gotta love FaceBook and the unique opportunities it gives us.  I had never met Brandi, but she did some family pictures for a family I know and love so I 'liked' her on FB so I could see the pictures.  She is so creative.  I love all the fun contests that she does and her photography is always beautiful and touching.  Being the poor family that we are (okay, we aren't really poor, but with only one income we have to be careful how we spend our money) we have never been able to afford to get our pictures done by an established professional before.   We have been so blessed to have Heather come and take pictures for us with Kindi and she does a terrific job, but it isn't quite the same.

Such a regal looking princess!

 I had so much fun 'working' with Brandi, because if you have ever tried to take pictures of children you know it takes more than one person to be very successful.  Especially if they are not your kids.  I do fine by myself with my kids, but if I wasn't there to help Brandi, Kindi would have just been a hysterical disaster crying in the corner.  Brandi has some really cute props, I would love to have the pink chair in my stash!  She had a sweet little princess crown and an adorable green (The coolest color ever.) tutu with a matching hair clip.

 The cake was from the new bakery here in town, 4 Sisters Bakery, Brandi even sent them a picture of Kindi taking her cake eating very seriously on facebook.  It was a beautiful cake!  It was even strawberry flavored so that it was pink!  There was too much frosting for my taste, but then I don't really like more then a thin layer on the top.  So any cake, even ones I make, that are decorated all pretty, has too much frosting for me.

 Kindi started off by gently poking her finger into the cake and licking the frosting off, but you can see that that didn't last!  She was cracking me up though.  She would take a bite then wipe her face with her hand, pretending that she didn't like to get dirty!  Most of you don't see Kindi as she usually is because I typically change her 2 seconds before walking out the door, and put a bib on her in the car which I rip off as I get her out.  But if you were to show up to my house unexpectedly you would likely catch her with some sort of food running down her shirt, mixed with the drool ring that goes to her belly button.  Residue of something sticky that she found and shoved into her mouth on her hands and face, and hair either in her eyes or sticking up like she had been electrocuted!  Oh man, now my secret is out!

 There is something special about baby feet!

We worked and worked with Kindi getting her to smile (eating cake is serious business you know) and play a little.  We jumped up and down, danced and sang.  She had a great time until Brandi told her to try to pick up the cake.  Oh man did she get mad when she couldn't do it!!!  The session ended after that.  My Kindi girl has developed a fiery temper!
It was so hard to narrow down the 30 or so pictures and pick my favorite 5.  Since we came to help Brandi out she gave us a disc for free with 5 pictures of our choice.  We could pay for more if we wanted, but we stuck with the 5.

Our bonus picture!  Kindi's classic froggy pose.

But when Brandi showed up at my door with our CD (so sweet of her to surprise me and hand deliver it), she had put one extra picture on it as a bonus.  I was so excited because this picture was the last one I had eliminated and I had agonized over it!
After the session while I was getting Kindi cleaned up and dressed, Brandi was so sweet to share lots of photography tips with me.  She even invited me to come and be a second shooter at some weddings this summer!  I had told her that I've been asked to do 3 weddings but chickened out each time and begged them to find someone else.  So she offered to let me come and get some experience.  It would be a great ice breaker for me.  A chance to get some wedding photography in and if I totally blew it at least they would have all the beautiful pictures that Brandi took!  I think that would really help me to relax.  I'm hoping that I do get an opportunity to go help her out.  How fun!

Dress Up

My best friend, Julie, told me about some pictures that a friend of hers did with her little girl.  I fell in love with the idea and decided that I just had to steal it!

She put her little girl in her wedding dress!  And the plan is to take a picture of Kindi in my dress every year.  It will measure how much she grows as well as just be stinkin adorable!  She wasn't terribly impressed with the idea this first year, but I hope that as she gets older she will enjoy it and look forward to it too.  I debated about doing this with my wedding dress.  What if it gets ruined?  Then I thought, What IF it gets ruined?  It isn't like I am ever going to wear it again and Kindi is going to want to pick her own wedding dress (Ugh... I can't think about THAT yet!).  Even if I wanted to put it on again it will never fit me.  Having nursed two babies...  if I did ever manage to get my waist that small again I certainly wouldn't be comfortable going out in public spilling out the top!  With those thoughts in mind I was also brave enough to cut out the built in bra.  It made it much easier to take pictures that didn't look completely ridiculous on Kindi.  Having cups sticking out of her belly button was just not working for me!

We couldn't leave Kaden out of this little dress up episode, but obviously I couldn't put him in my dress too!  Okay, I suppose that isn't entirely true.  He is young enough right now that he doesn't know that boys don't wear dresses.  He would have done it and loved it, but Jeremy wouldn't have been to thrilled and there is no way I am going to talk a 13 year old boy into putting my wedding dress on for his yearly picture!  So we went with Daddy's suit coat instead.  Jeremy rented his tux for the wedding so I don't have that, but he does own a very nice suit that will work just as well.  Kaden loved it!  He giggled and begged me to put it back on him when it fell off time and time again.  When he started getting a little bit wild and I put the coat away, it devestated him!  He cried and threw himself on his bed begging to have Daddy's coat back, please, please, pleeeeassse.  So I don't think it will be a problem to get him to put it back on next year!

Kindi was way more impressed with my veil than with my dress!

This picture of Kaden is so great!  He was having such a blast dancing and being a man just like Daddy.

This was one of the first pictures I took of Kindi, before I took the scissors to my dress.  It still turned out very sweet though.

I sure do have beautiful children!  What a wonderful blessing they have been in our lives.  We had a rough road getting them here, but no pain or sorrow compares with the joy that they bring to us every day.  God is good!

Why do they have to grow up?

Alright, so I know why they have to grow up, and honestly I don't think I want her to stay one forever.  She talks a lot for her age, but she can't articulate her wants and needs unless they are 'milk' or 'eat' etc.  I do wish time wouldn't move by so fast though.  I can't believe that we have owned our house a year and a half, and my BABY is over a year old.  Let alone that Kaden is 2 1/2.  I must admit that they are getting to be so much fun though.  Kindi is really starting to get into playing with her babies.  She carries them around by the head, full open mouth kisses them and, my favorite, hugs them close and pats their backs!  So precious!

  One of Jeremy's co-workers gave us two little rocking chairs that used to belong to her kids.  Kaden and Kindi were so impressed with them.  Kindi loves to get her baby and rock in her chair, or snuggle in with her blankie and bink.  So when I wanted to take her picture and get her to be still I just had to pull out the chair!  Her little tutu outfit was also a gift from another lady that Jeremy works with.

Kaden's latest thing is 'I did it myself.'  He is having a hard time understanding that just because he CAN do something himself, doesn't mean that he GETS to do it.  I am always having to tell him that he doesn't get to spank Kindi.  He will tap her hands and then tell me, 'I di i mysels'.  It's hard not to smile when he does it. 

So life may be going by too fast, but we sure are having a lot of fun!

Kindi is ONE.

 Is it possible?  Can she really be one already?  My 'baby' is not a baby any more.  She is getting to be more and more fun, but I can't help but be a little bit sad.  She is going to grow up way to fast, she is already pushing hard to keep up with Kaden.  She started walking before 10 months, and starting trying to talk about the same time.  Her first word was stickers believe it or not.  We were potty training Kaden and using stickers as an incentive.  So we spent a lot of time looking at and talking about stickers.  Of course if she said it to anybody but me you would think she was just babbling.  But it was very consistently the same sound every time.  :)  She is so much braver than Kaden when it comes to talking.  She tries new words all the time.  He used to look at us and grin with a mischievous look on his face.  He is really trying to talk now, but it is still pretty jumbled.  Kindi is also doing her best to follow in Kaden's monkey foot prints.  I hate this stage!  She is always managing to climb up on something and then standing up like she is the queen of the world.  She hasn't taken any really bad spills off of anything yet, but it sure makes me nervous and jumpy!  Thankfully she seems to have MUCH better balance and coordination than her brother!  It's a good thing too because although she is getting tougher, she is still quite the wimp.  I will have some more 1 year pictures that I'm pretty excited about, but for now... here is how Kindi's birthday went.

Since I decided to make Kindi's first birthday cake myself she got to enjoy her first beater!  Kaden showed her how and she dove right in leaving evidence of her treat all over her face and shirt.

 The day after Kindi's birthday I hosted a double baby shower and decided to make the cakes for that too.  I enlisted the help of a friend to make pretty fondant flowers for the shower and she made me a bunch of extras.  They were so pretty and girly that I used them to decorate Kindi's cake too, it made it so quick and easy to throw together a pretty cake.

 I made a small cake for Kindi to destroy out of two extra large cupcakes.  It had been so long since I had made frosting by myself that I got it a little bit too soft at first, so it was kind of running down the sides of her cake.  It firmed right up in the fridge though.  I figured it didn't matter too much, she was just going to make a mess out of it anyways.  So, did you notice there are two candle on it?  Oops!  I bought those cute curly candles so that I could use two of them as antennae for the butterfly cake I made for the shower.  So I didn't even think about it and grabbed two of each color and put them on the cakes.  I suppose it didn't look odd to me because I did two on Kaden's a few months ago.  It wasn't until Mom pointed it out that I realized my mistake.  We only lit one!  I also made a round cake for the rest of us to enjoy, cause who really wants to eat a cake that as been demolished by an excited one year old?

 Kindi did a pretty good job with her presents.  She had a lot of kids itching to help her. 

 My sister's kids' had wanted to play with the Vtech puppy they had gotten for her since they day they picked it out.  So they were pretty excited when she opened it.

 Daddy picked out a couple of really cute pink purse books.  Kindi loves to bring us books to read.

 I think Kindi was a little bit overwhelmed by all of the attention she was getting, and all of the eager hands reaching out to help her.  She did good with it though.

 I finished her quilt in time for her birthday!  Yay for me.  

 Grandma made up little treat bags full of party favors for all of the kids.  Kaden tried and tried and tried to blow his punching balloon up by himself.  He would give it to me and let me get it started then want to take it back to finish it.  It was pretty funny.  He never did succeed, but he had a blast!

 After presents we brought out the cake.  She was mesmerized.   I had high hopes that she would be able to blow her candle out by herself, but she doesn't really know how to aim her blowing yet.  She did try awfully hard to blow it out though.  I ended up blowing it out for her right before she tried to take a bite out of the flame.

 After we took the hot candle away she decided to blow the extra one out too.  What a cutie!

 She started out pretty slow, poking at the cake and pulling the flower off.  Lillie was a little confused, "Why doesn't she eat it with her face?!"  If you have ever seen pictures of Lillie's first birthday you will really appreciate that comment.  (She bent over and stuck her face in it.)  As Kindi got a taste of the frosting and realized that it was REALLY yummy, so got more into it.  She would grab at it then try to shove her whole hand into her mouth to suck it off.  

 You would expect a smile or two from a child who is devouring a chocolate cake, but she was quite serious about her task.  

 So we got Aunt Jeni down on the floor to tickle her and get her to smile.  Once she started smiling they started pouring out of her.  She had so much fun.  

This was a warm up cake smash.  On Saturday Kindi is going to be a model for a local photographer who needed some cake smash photos for her portfolio.  I am pretty excited to go do this.  I've been following Brandi Varnell Photography on facebook for awhile and really like what she does and her personality.  Plus because she requested to have 1 year old come destroy a cake in her studio, we get to do it for free!  And she is even going to give us some of the pictures on a disc.  I will have to post those when I get them too.

Look Alike Contest (part 2)

So I had every intention of posting this 4 months ago... obviously that didn't happen.  I don't remember if I have told you that I have a screen saver on my computer that rotates through a folder of pictures.  I put all of my favorites in that folder and get to enjoy them all day long... well as long as I'm not wasting all of my time sitting at the computer.  I love to compare pictures of my kids at the same age.  So enjoy.

11 Months

I know, I know!  I'm kinda behind, seeing as how Kindi actually turned 1 on the 16th of APRIL...  Hopefully I will get to that soon, but for now here are her 11 month pictures.

There is a house for sale just up the block from us that had beautiful bright yellow daffodils in it's front yard.  So Kindi and I 'borrowed' them for a photo shoot.  This new dress that mom bought for her while we were Easter dress shopping (that is a different dress which hopefully you will get to see soon too) just begged to be posed with those sunny daffodils.

 

 What a beauty she is!

I have been enjoying playing with Photoshop Elements lately.  Thanks to Julie who gave it to me when she upgraded!

Cute Baby Photo Contest

We entered Kaden in winkflash.com 's Cute Baby Photo Contest.  :)  So... if you would vote for him that would be awesome!  We could win $100 gift card for winkflash.  I use them all the time, so that would be awesome.  Here is the link:
http://www.winkflash.com/contest/winkflash/browse.aspx?idce=52664

This is the picture we entered.  I am going to register Jeremy too so we can enter Kindi... if it will let me.  :)

This is what Kaden has been up to lately.

 His favorite thing to do is build with his blocks.  He either builds 'sowers' (aka towers) or in this case he is building a 'choo choo'.  :)  He will build a tower then come running out of his room yelling, "SHOW ME SHOW ME"  Then he grabs our hands and drags us in to see his latest creation.  It's adorable and he is getting really good at it.

I'm working on Kindi's 11 month pictures so I will hopefully be posting those soon too.