just cadynce.

This is all for you girl. Back in September, your first day of school, your face was more round, you had long hair, and all your teeth.

Since then you have:

• learned to read
• mastered all your Kindergarten skills
• gained a lot of friends
• lost 3 teeth
• played in the sun, rain, & snow
• been named student of the month twice
• gone camping
• been to lo-lopez
• dressed like tinkerbell, a princess and a pirate
• played with chalk and bugs
• become quite the little artist
• began writing letters and journals
• cut off all your hair to donate it to locks of love

You have a lot of attitude these days, Sissy, and I lose patience with you more often than I can seem to keep it. School is out for the summer & now you're a big 1st grader. Time is flying by. Your birthday is tomorrow. I love you to the moon and back little girl.

Holiday Performance

So, I was having some issues with my camera at this little Holiday performance, but you get the "grist" right? Cadynce was so excited when she saw her mob of fans! The songs were cute, all in all, they did good. (We totally left right after she was done.)

random pictures.

Cam is always lining up his cars like this. The Zhu Zhu pet really cracks me up though!

The kid has a few McQueens.

Cadynce was student of the month in January for "being responsible for her learning." Can you tell she was a nervous Nellie up there? Wierd considering the ham she is.

 

She was so excited to see us all there. We come in full force. Grandma Cleone, Papa, Uncle Tom, me, Colby and Camden. We are so proud of her.

reading. writing. talking.

Since Cadynce has started school she has learned so much. She absolutely loves school. Some of the things she's learned/learning are:

• sight words (31 to be exact - so far)
• sounding words out and starting to read some of her books on her own
• counting to 100, and identifying 0 thru 31
• she's finally mastered writing her name with a capitol C and lower case the rest
• greater than and smaller than 5
• her coloring is great, and her attention to detail is getting better and better

It's been amazing watching her grow and change. I think the other day at school I really was amazed at how many children she has had a good impact on, I mean, the other kiddos wouldn't be talking about her at home to their parents if she wasn't right?

Camden lost his binki on Christmas, which I'm sure you remember from (yeah I was going to post a link because I was sure I had blogged about this, but evidently I didn't!) ---scratch that. Back the bus up. Christmas Day at Mike's house I had found a hole in one of Cam's last 2 binkies, so I threw it away... later on the same day at Grandma Cleone's I found a hole in the last one. We figured okay, we're done. On the way home after our exhausting Christmas Eve and chaotic Holidays, we realized that was probably a crazy idea to give it up on Christmas Day. Well, I searched - no where was open -- and we had no hiding binkies in the house. So that was it, we were done. I found a different kind of binki stashed in his closet, but he didn't want anything to do with that...So we were binki-less on Christmas Day night. Camden was a trooper and only whined a little bit, he still has blankey so I think that helped. He really didn't need it and it was more for us I think at this point, but he has only ever asked for it maybe twice since then, so we have been really lucky. Okay, back to the here and now:

Camden was talking more and more, but I didn't see just how much his bink was inhibiting his words... he has come leaps and bounds in just a few short months. Every day he is saying more and more and his words are clearer and clearer. (Like other people can understand him now, not just me and Caydnce) He says things like:

• mommy, i eat a snack
• mommy/daddy i need a rink (drink) peeas (please)
• oh-uh the moowiee (movie) is over
• oh, okay, gooooodnight mommy/daddy/issy
• uh, no summer, get on yooo bed
• oh, i go a Tina's today?

He's ready for a big boy bed for the simple fact that he's just too big for the crib, but we haven't gotten one yet. As for potty training......well, eventually that will happen. I hope. I'm so done with diapers.

I'm thankful for my children. They are amazing.

good day gone bad

Today, was one of those days. You know, the kind that start out really good, and then one thing after another goes really wrong? Yep, that kind.
Colby left last night to go fishing until late Sunday night so I was mentally preparing myself for a single mother of 2 weekend. I knew/know we'll get through it, 3 days is easy squeezy compared to the ten in the fall right? right.
This morning went pretty smoothly as far as mornings go. Kids got up, had breakfast, got dressed...today was Cadynce's Valentine's Day Party at school that I needed to help out at and with Colby gone, that sort of threw a wrench in things, so Camden went to Tina's for the day. I got Cadynce to school and turned around to run to get some Starbucks. (Love me some Starbucks) I got Aunt Sandie a coffee and dropped by to visit her. (Things are going good so far right?) The Valentine's Day Party went well too. Done with school and no kids, meant a super fast trip through Target. Yeah for me! Then home to vacuum and do some laundry.
I headed back to pick up Cadynce, then Camden and back to town to get them a hair(s) cut. (still going good.) Cadynce had a good day she tells me and that she had lots of sweets. Oh joy for me, a sign of bad things to come for sure. We're going on three weeks in a row of 3 day weeks for her and she's already been tired. Arrive at Magic Shears to have our normal haircutterers gone. I decide, "what the heck, we're already here" big mistake. BIG MISTAKE.
Camden throws uber fit and ends up with a not so great haircut. I felt so bad for the lady; so, so bad. We get through it and both kids have a sucker. Okay, wait, backup, on the way to Magic Shears, Cadynce asks if she can have candy after dinner from Valentine's. I answer she can choose either a sucker at the haircutting place or one piece after dinner, she chose the sucker.
Here's where things get bad........


Cadynce drops her sucker on the floor and has to throw it away, which leads to a major meltdown. I go to put it in the garbage and see that she has thrown away her whole sandwich from lunch, which leads to one mad mommy. I won't go into details but we had some lying happen about lunchtime - lies do not go over well in this house. The super tired Cadynce then had a major kicking screaming meltdown complete with the catched breaths and the fear of vomit at any moment.


Ugh. Anyhoo, the crying stopped and the rest of the evening wasn't half bad. She is still pretty upset that she won't get to spend the night at Papa's house tomorrow night, but, oh well. On a lighter note: Colby caught his first Steelhead today (actually he caught 4 of them) so that's really exciting.

Tomorrow is a new day, right?

first day of Kindergarten

We made it! And just like I knew she would, she did great. She loved it and can't wait to go back. There were no tears...no hard goodbyes, just a, "bye mom, bye dad. love you."
Cadynce got ready for school at home with dad and then came down to Napa so I could fix her hair. She also got to see Papa before her first day this way. We took her up to school and Aunt Sandie met us there (thank goodness for Aunt Sandie doing her best to fill a big void). I really think that only we feel the void, not the kids, they are so blessed with amazing people that most of the time they forget what's missing. Outside of the school I got choked up, but amazingly enough, the tears didn't come. It was so cool to watch her walk right in, and literally drag Aunt Sandie down the hall to her classroom. (yes, she remembered where!) I couldn't believe she remembered, the ice cream social on Tuesday was total chaos and so stressful for me that I was super surprised she remembered. So that's it, she's off and running...


'

Love this shirt!


Talking to sissybug before going to school.


The girl and her Papa


Ugh, the backpack, that took us forever to get, mostly my fault because I was trying really hard to talk her into a regular backpack.


Daddy - Daughter - Dimples.


Me and caca. Colby asked me if I was really going to lug my camera all the way to school and take pictures all the way in. Of course I am! We only get this ONE time!


Cadynce has so much support...loving on Aunt Sandie.


See! Dragging Aunt Sandie down the hall!


Cadynce came home with a cute little hand necklace around her neck. She made it...it's shaped in the "i love you" with a heart glued in the middle. I guess there's a story about a raccoon going to school and it's scared. So the mom puts a kiss in its hand. I didn't know the story, but when we were talking to Tina while picking up Cam, she knew right away! I am so thankful that the beginning of this transition is going so smoothly. Now, I just have to get over all of my fears for her...kids being mean, being frustrated with school, getting embarrassed, learning bad things from her peers...these are all my fears, not hers. I know they are a part of the process, but I wouldn't be a mom if I wasn't wishing I could protect her from all those bad things...