Summer Fun

Since my last post, we've celebrated Cadence's 4th birthday, my parents moved in, we took a week-long "staycation" and celebrated the 4th of July.  It's really hard to believe that August is just around the corner.  

The kids are doing great.  Cadence is into the movie "The Sandlot" right now - she's hilarious and randomly quotes the movie all day.  This morning on our bike ride, she says to Danny, "You're killing me Smalls!"  Ahh, I love it.  Cadence is still super "girlie", but she thinks the boys in her class are cool, as well as the things they're into.  When we went shopping, she picked out a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt.  Mom painted Cadence's nails yesterday - she ended up with gray toe nails and dark blue finger nails.  She's such an awesome kid.

Colin is almost 14 months old.  He's still not walking on his own.  We'll see if he follows in his sister's footsteps and walks at 15 months!  He'll crawl over to the couch or to a kitchen chair and cruise around.  He likes to walk around with his walker too.  He's very adventurous and crawls all over everything.  He growls like an animal now and can sign "more" and "please".  He will make a puff sound with his mouth like he's going to say, "please."  He will wave "bye" and has even started saying, "Poppa."  He's much more needy than Cadence was at this age and he's always into stuff.  If you forget to put up the baby gate, he will be up the stairs in the blink of an eye.  He eats almost anything and still has 6 teeth.  Speaking of teeth, we think he is getting some back molars.  He is drooling like crazy, he isn't eating as much, is super cranky, waking up at night, keeps spitting out his paci, and randomly smashes his mouth with his hands.  Teething is horrible - I feel like there is nothing I can do for him.  Orajel doesn't work and he hates taking meds to help ease his pain.  Since the teeth are coming in the back, he can't really chew on anything either.  I hope these teeth pop soon!

Cadence decided she wanted a "Frozen" themed birthday party.  She loved it - that was the goal.  A co-worker let me borrow some icicle Christmas lights, so the house looked like a winter wonderland inside.  

Elsa and Anna 

Cadence wanted Erica to try on her Rapunzel hair

The girls all got to get in the pool!

Cadence has come a long way with the pool since June, but she's still getting used to it!

Sweet cousins

Pin the nose on Olaf!  One of Danny's co-workers made this for us.  It turned out great and the girls had a blast!

Cadence also requested a pinata for her birthday.  When we got it, I didn't realize pinatas nowadays are a little different.  You take turns pulling strings and the one who pulls the lucky string releases all of the candy.  It was fun.

 

Cadence does not like birthday cake, so we decided on a cookie cake.  I think she might've had a couple of bites.  The best part to her is singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out the candles!

Their version of playing cornhole, I guess

Colin had a rough time that weekend.  He had his 12 month check up the day before and received some vaccinations.  When he was running a fever and not acting like himself, I chalked it up to his shots.  He kept having these fits where nothing could console him.  Here's Nanny trying to calm him down.  It turned out that he had a double ear infection.  Ugh, I felt so horribly for him!

Cadence - as happy as can be after her party 

Cadence had her first dentist appointment recently.  She did surprisingly well!  We thought she'd be super scared, but she was very brave!  The hygienist was great with Cadence.  She showed her all of the tools and the sink near the chair reminded us of Finding Nemo.  Of course they'd have a Nemo fish for Cadence to play with!  It was too perfect.  She did so well and didn't have any cavities!

Our family friend, Jackie, took some family pictures for us a couple of weeks ago.  I am so happy with all of the pictures she was able to capture. I'm excited that I will have these pictures to cherish for years to come. 

During our vacation, we did a ton around the house and got to spend a lot of time with the kids.  It was a great week.  The weather was cooler than normal toward the end of the week, so it worked out really well!  We spent a lot of time in the pool early in the week when it was warm, and then took the kids to the park and spent some time in Sunbury for the 4th of July parade later in the week.

Here's the kid who's not afraid of much...

...and the kid who is! :)

And the big kid!  He had to show Cadence how it's done.

And this, I simply just don't understand.  She won't go on the swings, but she'll go down this really tall slide!

The kids had a blast on their first bike ride together!

This past weekend was a little busy.  Danny and I attended a baby shower for our friends at Dave and Busters.  It was a good time and a great idea for a baby shower!

Cadence also attended her first birthday party for one of her friends at school.  It was also a lot of fun.  It was at a local park in Westerville - probably the best park we've ever been to.  At the last minute, Danny remembered that the birthday girl is Blake's cousin.  Blake is Cadence's little buddy who she hasn't seen in a while since he's home for the summer.  He was at the party and she was in heaven!

They had face painting too.  Cadence wanted to be Elsa.  

How precious!

Cadence is Four!

I realized I had a lot of cute, but random, pictures on my phone.  I decided I should share all of the pictures with you!  

Since my last post, Cadence has turned four years old.  I still can't believe she is FOUR years old.  She continues to amaze Danny and me on a daily basis.  She continues to put a smile on our faces as well!  Some of the things she says lately, are things like, "You already told me that a thousand times!" or, "That will take forever!" or, "I look ridiculous!"  She's VERY dramatic...can you tell?  She's so stinkin' smart and knows exactly what to say to make you laugh.  She loves her brother - sometimes too much.  We have to remind her that he's still a baby - he falls over easily and she can't put all of her weight on him.  She likes to wrestle with him.  It's funny.  She's into role playing too.  Either you're the mommy deer and she's the baby deer or she's the mommy puppy and you're the baby puppy (that's what she calls it).  Oh, and she is obsessed with music.  To the point that you can't sing or whistle or hum while one of HER songs is on the radio.  It's mind boggling how she picks up on songs and can recognize them as soon as a couple notes play.  And she doesn't forget A THING.  I think she's a genius. 

I snapped a pic of her the other day in her outfit from Danny's family.  She likes that the jacket used to be Gracie's :)  I spy Colin trying to get in the pic!

Erica got him this pool hat for his birthday.  It has a cute, little shark fin on the top.  It's adorable - when he decides to leave it on!

Here's Colin enjoying his banana and pancake breakfast on the morning of his birthday.  He looks so sweet.

We have a newer Kroger near our house.  The kids like the carts.  Cadence had to tell everyone that we saw that Colin is her brother and he makes mean faces at everyone.  I was cracking up.

Mom brought over Cadence's chair from their house.  This is their daily routine after school.  Snack and TV time.  Precious.

A couple of weeks ago we traveled to Hamilton to see Lily and Gracie perform in their dance recital.  They did a great job!  

On the morning of Cadence's birthday, I found Colin standing up in his crib.  Cadence never climbed out of her crib.  I have a feeling Colin will.  Look how proud he is of himself.

The birthday girl before school!  She picked out her outfit and told me that her classmate, Blake, would think she was beautiful.  

I was able to leave work early to bring some birthday goodies to Cadence's class.  I had SO MUCH FUN celebrating with Cadence and her class.  The kids were super hyper and were excited that something out of the norm was happening.  I guess it's tradition to have the birthday kid stand on the table while they all sing "Happy Birthday:"  I was shocked that Cadence was a little bashful!

After they had their chocolate chip cookies (yup, no cake or cupcakes for Cadence), it was time to play outside.  I didn't have the heart to make Cadence leave school early, and it was beautiful outside, so we went out to play!

Here is Cadence with some of her buddies.  Yup, that's "Blake-y" on the right.  He is a pretty cute kid.

Cadence and Brynn have been close since they were wee little ones!

Last weekend we went to Cadence's gymnastics recital.  A company called Tap and Tumble comes to their school each week and the kids can participate in gymnastics and/or dance.  Cadence decided she wanted to do gymnastics since she was already involved in soccer.  It was very laid back and adorable to see what the kids have learned over the past few months.  They encouraged the parents to take pictures and video and told us to bring as many guests as we wanted.  The theme was Wizard of Oz.

I'm bummed that you can't really see Cadence well in these pictures.  We should've gotten closer to take some better pictures!  Or, I need a bigger lens! Ha.  I was laughing hysterically at how adorable Cadence was.  We had no idea she was going to be the Cowardly Lion.  She had this awesome headband mane of hair.  It blended in nicely with her own hair and made it look like she had a ton of curly hair!  She did so well and was really into it.  They started off with a routine to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."  You can see their teacher, Ms. Kirstie, showing them the moves.

Next, they showed us their skills on the balance beam.

Then they did straddle jumps on the trampoline!

My dad recorded some of the recital on my phone for us...enjoy!