Tomato Soup

Awhile back I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch, sure that the kids would love the sandwiches and turn up their noses at the soup.  Or at the very least only use it to dip their sandwiches in.  Guess what?  Kaden didn't even touch his sandwich, and Kindi barely did.  Kaden LOVES tomato soup.  He will sit down and eat half a can sometimes.  He tells me it's 'Delicious'.  I just wish I could type it the way he says it.  I love it!  It makes me smile every time!  

Yep, Kaden loves to eat his tomato soup...

Kindi on the other hand...

 She likes to wear hers!

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!

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.

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!

Time to Eat.

It's that time.  At her 4 month Well Baby appointment, Kindi's Dr. recommended starting her on cereal since we hadn't yet.  He said that sometimes the thicker substance helps with the reflux.  It makes it harder to spit up.  I hadn't thought about starting her on cereal yet, she was so much younger than Kaden was when I started him.  She was only four months and four days old!  Kaden was four months and TEN days old!  Hmm... Funny how that works!  

So I prepared her cereal nice and runny, she took the first bite and wrinkled her nose at me.  Took another bite or two then...

She dove in!  She had all four limbs flailing and was leaning towards the spoon straining to get more!  Too cute!  The funny part is that she did great the next day too, then she decided she didn't like it.  I continued to try to feed it to her over and over again, different temperatures and consistencies, but she would take one bite then scowl (and she knows how to scowl) and spit it out.  It wasn't even like she just couldn't figure out how to eat it.  I really believe she just didn't like it.  

Another example of how Kindi gets the short end of the stick?  When I started Kaden on solids I diligently fed him something every day!  I gave him something new every week.  Poor Kindi on the other hand.  I have good intentions of feeding her solids every day (Don't worry, I don't forget to nurse her!), but instead something came up, or I'll do it at the next feeding, or she's too cranky to try it right now, or oops, she's down for the night now.  So it took three weeks before I tried giving her something with a little more flavor to see if she would eat it better.  

The first taste sensation that we gave to Kaden was Carrots and that did not go over well at all!  So sticking with the same color (I read somewhere that you are supposed to start your baby with vegetables of course, but that you are suppose to introduce the orange foods first  followed by the green.  I don't know why this would make a difference, but it's easy to do so, whatever.) we started with Sweet Potatoes, which Kaden enjoyed his first time.

Did you notice that her bib is smeared, but her face is clean?  No I did not get my pictures in the wrong order.  I put her bib on and set her food on the counter with a spoon (that was my first mistake), then went to get a stool to sit on before I put her in the highchair (that was my second).  Well in that short amount of time, Kaden, who had apparently been watching me like a hawk, snagged her food (He is getting WAY too tall and always surprising me with what he can reach.) and proceeded to try to feed her.  He missed.  Thankfully!

Yeah, she is so not impressed!

Mom!  Why do you keep shoving weird things into my mouth?

Then I just have to go to all the work of spitting it back out!

Then I discovered that although she didn't enjoy eating a bite like a big person, she did enjoy sucking the sweet potatoes off of her spoon more like a bottle style.  Although I don't know that I would classify that face as pure enjoyment by any means!

Guess it's not too bad.

She did pretty good for her first taste of color.  She ate a third of the container which is much better than the 3 bites Kaden had his first time.  And I am proud to announce that since we have started colored food I am remembering to give her some to eat.  Every day even!  She ate another third of a container the next day and then I sent the last third with her to Mom's house while I went to the dentist on Wednesday.  Mom said she ate it all and was not satisfied!  I think she is going to be growing like a weed again here pretty soon!  Today she finished her second container of sweet potatoes like a pro and I think we will try something new tomorrow!  She probably would prefer not to, but I enjoy it so much!

Kaden being the ever helpful, ever vigilant big brother stands on the back of her highchair to supervise!

More from the Well(s) of Randomness.

Hmm after this post it will be time to unload my camera again.  :)  I'm all caught up according to my computer, but my camera has another story to tell!  (Or maybe several!)

Garden season.  Zucchini taking over my kitchen.  Solution?  Shred and freeze said zucchini.

Kaden even helped me shred and package it, can you tell in this small picture?  Zucchini on the counter, on the chair, on the floor, in his hair...  So then I had the bright idea of waiting and letting the zucchini on the floor just dry up so I could easily sweep it up and throw it away.  Anybody ever tried that before?  Well, don't!  It doesn't dry nice and flaky, nope, instead it seems to melt into the floor and stick like glue!  The next time I just got on my hands and knees with a washcloth and wiped it up right away.

Kaden stirring the eggs, oil and vanilla for the Chocolate Zucchini Bread.  Yummy!  Most of it even stayed in the bowl!

I'll probably be in trouble with Jeremy for posting this picture!  Kaden found Kindi's headband stash and wanted ALL of them on.  So being the diligent mother that I am, I obliged.  Then proceeded to take blackmail pictures!

Then he tried to pull them down to get them off and turned them into a blind fold!

Kindi is getting strong so fast.  She loves to sit upright and can almost sit all by herself now.  When I upload my next batch of pictures I have a lot more stories to tell with her.  Food, toys, and more coming.

I don't remember if I posted anything about this cradle before...  Jeremy's dad made it for their boys.  Both Heath and Jeremy's names are carved into it.  He sanded and refinished it for us and brought it for Kindi.  It is so neat, it rocks both ways!  Sideways, and head to toe.  I put Kindi in it at night, but during the day it isn't safe!  Kaden loves to hang out in it.

Kaden has just recently figured out what the camera is for.  This is his 'cheese' face!!!  He doesn't actually say cheese, but when he sees the camera this is what he does.  It cracks me up!

My monkey boy is forever finding something, anything (chairs, pots, toys...), to pull into the kitchen to get into the sink, or on the counters.  It has gotten so bad in fact that all of our dining chairs are out in the garage because I got tired of rushing into the kitchen to pull knifes and things away from him.  Some days poor Kindi gets a bum rap!  I feel terrible when I have to stop her from eating and leave her on the couch while I go rescue her brother, over and over and over again!  Anyways... So this time he managed to get the dish scrubber that I had just been using and was still quite soapy.  At least he was cleaning my coffee table with it.

What Mom?!  I'm just helping you clean!

Want me to clean your camera too?