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!

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 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.

Baking with Mama

Remember that zucchini mess?  Well I guess I didn't learn my lesson!  Okay maybe I did, but I determined that including my son and teaching him how to be helpful, follow directions and obey was more important.  Man being a mom is tough sometimes!  And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I have a wonderful Kitchen Aide mixer that I would definitely recommend to anyone, but Kaden doesn't think that is nearly as much fun as a spoon.  So even though I did actually mix my chocolate zucchini bread with it Kaden got a spoon to help while we measured ingredients.  Did you catch that?  *Kaden* got a spoon.  He is so tall now that he can get into the top drawers to get his own 'schooon'.

Helping dump in the sugar!

So I probably shouldn't let people see these pictures, because I did give some of the bread away and Jeremy would be thoroughly disgusted... but it's been long enough.   Kaden was resting his mouth on the edge of the bowl while he stirred.  When I told him not to he put the end of his spoon in his mouth instead.

As I was putting eggs, oil and vanilla in the bowl Kaden kept saying, 'One more.' trying to coax me to put more into the bowl for him to stir and splash all over the counter.

Eventually we succeeded and had 4 loaves of bread in the oven.

Then came the shore of shredding all of the extra large zucchinnis to freeze for winter zuchinni bread fixes.

He concentrates so hard and really accomplishes nothing.

Checking to see if he has actually shredded any yet!

Then he let me do the shredding and he put it into a bucket to be measured and bagged.

Another day we did some baking more to Kaden's liking.  A major ingredient was crushed up graham crackers.  Give him a meat mallet and permission to smash things and he is a happy boy.

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?

Sand Box

So G&G Wells came to visit for a weekend and helped to finish Kaden's sandbox!  Jeremy and his dad got a yard and  half of dune sand to fill the hole.  It is such wonderful sand for building!

Someday we need to figure out some sort of framing for it to help hold the sand in, but for now it is just a patch of sand in the yard!

Kaden's first steps into his sandbox.  It was sprinkling off an on, but we just couldn't resist letting him check out his new toy.  He walked a few steps in then started stomping his feet in a happy little jig!

Grandma and Lily went to town and bought Kaden some toys for his new sandbox, they even bought enough for his cousins to come and play too.

Lily would help Kaden build a castle and he would gleefully smash it to bits with his little shovel.

He quickly figured out how to use his shovel, but had a hard time getting the sand to stay on it all the way to the bucket.  He sure enjoyed it though.

Ooo a big one to smash!

It was so sweet of Lily to build castles for Kaden to destroy!

Kaden                                                         Kori

My sister moved back to Lebanon the week before we finished the sandbox so Kaden got to invite them over to play with him.  He adores them.

Lillie                                                     Malaki

It's wonderful that it is plenty big for all of them to play together and still have space to move around.  This sandbox is going to get tons of use... if we ever get any real sunshine around here!