Grandparents

I can't say enough times how blessed Cadence is by her grandparents. She says "Papa" and "Nana" all the time hoping to see my parents and every time we tell her she is going to Big John and DDs she gets all excited.

This is Cadie with DD and Big John at church today. This is a VIDEO (Grandma Margaret, be sure to push play and watch this video - love you!) of Cadie and Papa/Grandpa Ron during our Washington trip. She was giggling so hard.

Sleepy Head

Cadie was PERFECT on both the flight to Seattle (4.5 hrs.) and returning (3.5 hrs.). We were upgraded to first class on the outgoing flight, which was nice, but sat in economy on the return. It was a tight fit and we were seated next to a decent-sized business man. I could tell when we sat down that he felt he had definitely drawn the short straw on this trip, but as we landed he said that Cadie and I were better to sit by than most. :)

The only real challenging thing that Cadie did on the trip was that she was nervous sleeping by herself in strange places. She ended up sleeping with me every night. She was very good and just snuggled right up next to me and slept pretty still, but neither of us were used to it so I don't think we slept as sound as usual. By the time we got back to Dallas we were totally zonked. We got back to the house at 5pm on Saturday and Cadie played with Dad and I went straight to bed. I slept until 8pm, then back to bed at 10pm until 9am Sunday morning. Cadie also went to bed at 8am on Saturday night without a peep and then on Sunday at 9:45am she still wasn't awake! I had to bribe her out of bed with milk so that we could make it to church. Then after church we both slept from 1pm to 4pm. It felt kinda like 24 hours of sleep, but we both needed it and it has helped us start out this week on the right foot.

This is Cadie wanting to play, but her little face is SOOO sleepy.
I am sad because I think the red snowflake jammies are about to be retired :( She is getting too big.

Uncle Eric

Cadie and I decided to power on and we are in Washington right now visiting Uncle Eric. I haven't been feeling great, but Cadie has done really well. I took a friend's advice (thanks Michelle!) and got some drops for Cadie's ears and she did awesome on the flight. My parents also met us here and Eric has showed us all around Crystal Mountain, where he works, and Cadence loved seeing the patrol dogs, skiers and snow. We spent two nights at Crystal Mt. and now are in Seattle. We spent time today at the lovely Gas Works Park and then also went to the space needle.

It is crazy that Eric and I are even related. He is a mountain guide during the summer (last summer Mr. Rainier and this next summer Denali in Alaska) and then usually does some sort of ski patrol in the window. He is incredibly strong (super-buff!), LOVES the outdoors and lives with a very-low overhead. He is passionate about climbing and has certifications as a first responder, avalanch Level 2 and I am not really sure what else. Anyway, I am so thankful I got to see him. I love you Eric!

Hanging out at Gas Works Park.

Riding the carousel outside the space needle.

Seattle?

Cadence and I are supposed to be headed to Seattle on Wednesday to visit my brother Eric. We haven't seen him since September! Last Wed. Cadence came now with a cold and now I am getting a bit of it too. Cadence's turned into an earache so Dad took her to the dr. this morning and she is on medicine. We are supposed to take her back to the dr. tomorrow evening and he will see if she is ok to fly. I REALLY want to see my awesome bro, but it might be a rough flight if Cadence's ears are not ok. This is going to be a very tough decision.

Cadence playing "pitiful sick me" on the couch today, but then she just couldn't keep from giggling.

Snow = Craziness

It snowed ALL day yesterday - I think we ended up with somewhere between 12 and 13 inches. There is still a lot of snow on the ground and we had kids sledding down our yard all day. The was the fun part.

The bad part is that the weather has resulted in a very hectic few days for us. We couldn't have taken Cadence to Mimi's in this weather anyway, but on top of that Cadence has a cold and is very uncomfortable. However, weather and sick baby does not mean work stops for either Grant or me. Grant and I have had to juggle work, sick baby, and schedules for the last two days and I am exhausted. I had a critical issue I had to address on a conference call today and poor Cadie just cried and cried in her bed. It was terrible. It is 7:30pm and I am going to take a bath and then off to bed for me! Thankfully tomorrow is Sat. so hopefully we can get ourselves collected before Monday.

16 Months

Happy 16 months Cadence! It was in the 60s today so we were outside as long as there was sunlight.

Swing me higher!

I hear a plane! She loves to stand/jump on the water meter thing.

I wish she would stop eating acorns. FYI - they come out whole.

ah uv ew

Cadence has been a bit out of sorts this week. Not sure why. Seems like I get this face quite often. This face and the grunting are taxing. She and I are having a stand-off with the grunting. She will point and grunt and expects you to quickly address the purpose of her grunt or you will almost immediatly get this face. I am not having it. Last night she wanted one of her babies that was on a shelf she couldn't reach and so, of course, she pointed at the baby and grunted. I told her I would give her the baby if she said "please," "mama," or "baby." She shook her head "no." So, the pointing and the grunting and the faces went on, but I did not give in. She is perfectly able to say words! She finally gave up (she didn't want to give in either) and moved on to another toy. The showdown has begun.

After a day of pointing and grunting and faces, we were cuddling and rocking before her bedtime. She snuggled in and I said "I love you so much baby girl" and then she wrapped her little arms around my neck and said "Ah uv ew." The tears welled up and the grunting and pointing and faces faded away. At least for now. I am sure she will remind me of them tomorrow.

Less of Me to Love

I started a diet last week and have lost 3.6 lbs! I have a long way to go, but I feel encouraged that what I am doing is at least working. I maintained a good weight throughout my pregnancy with Cadence, but once she arrived the wheels totally fell off. A bowl of cereal made me feel better about that 3am feeding, a Chick-Fil-A chocolate peppermint shake was such an uplifting treat after a long way with the baby and Grant working late, and a pizza while watching a movie with Grant over the weekend made me feel a bit more human. Not healthy, huh... So anyway, I finally put a stop to the bad habits, but I didn't make much progress losing what I had put on. With summer coming up and thinking about being in a swimsuit in our pool with all our friends, I finally decided to make a change. Grant is being very supportive and working from home makes controlling what I eat easier (no free muffins in the break room!). Keep me in your prayers as I make this journey, it isn't an easy one for me.

Changing topics... My mom and dad came down from Kansas City to visit us this past weekend. We had a wonderful time and Cadence even said "Bye-Bye Papa" when they left. We ate tamales (I only had two), took a drive out to a lake, went to church, had lunch with the Walsh's, and laughed a lot at Cadie's antics.

Tickling from Nana - the best! Looks like Cadence may have gotten my mom's beautiful skin.

Hanging in Papa and Nana's room after a bath from Papa.

I just love this picture of the three of them!