Kaia's Valentine's Day Playdate

I posted earlier about Kaia's playdate on Valentine's Day with Finnean and Grady...here are some cute pictures that Courtney sent me!

We were a little nervous about how she'd do when we left, but she did great!! She was having too much fun to even notice!

Kaia's first Valentine: Finnean!


Kaia in the tunnel!

Finnean, Grady, and Kaia

All the kids love Michael!! You can tell he's a great Daddy!

Girls Weekend

Josh flew to New Mexico this weekend for his friend Keith's wedding and the timing didn't work out for me to go, so Kaia and I had a fun girls weekend! Kaia got to spend the day with Grandma Julie on Friday and had a blast! Then on Saturday we went to the Science Center with Finnean and Courtney, and Kaia got to show Finn all the fun stuff in Toddler Town! It was so fun to see them playing together now that Finnean is walking and it was fun for me to remember Kaia checking things out for the first time a few months ago and fun for Courtney to see what it'll be like to bring Finn back in four months! Kaia ran everywhere. Her favorites were the bubble station and Toddler Town, which is basically a big bridge with steps leading up to it, where she'd run and run and run back and forth until I finally had to entice her away with promises of going to the bubble station. She loved the bubbles so much that she was still talking about them when we were leaving by saying "bubble?".

Saturday night we had my friend Lauren over and had a great time visiting with her and watching the Olympics! Kaia slept great and took great naps for me all weekend, so that made it even better! We went to church on Sunday and I was a little nervous about taking her by myself. She usually does great with both of us there and alternates between our laps and standing in the aisle. We take snacks and books and she usually does great just sitting with us the whole way through. But occasionally she gets the urge to run around and I have to take her in the hall. However, she did great for me! She loved singing the songs and sat on my lap almost the entire time! We had a fun afternoon with my friend Jenna and had a movie night Sunday night. Kaia loves the movie Bolt! I turned it on for a while and she laid with me on the couch and had a great time pointing out the "bow wow", "meow" and "bird".

Unfortunately Josh got stuck in Denver, so instead of getting in late Sunday night he didn't get in until Monday afternoon. So that meant an extra day of girl time, which we enjoyed, and we were very happy to see Josh get home safely on Monday!

On a side note, Kaia can now walk up the stairs like a big girl! She holds onto the wall and walks up them just like we do! She is great at it, but I'm a little more nervous about her going down. She now thinks she can walk down them too, and while she is getting better at that, she needs a lot more practice!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Yesterday was Josh's birthday! And Julie's! As I mentioned in the previous post, we celebrated their birthdays together on Sunday and we celebrated Josh's birthday as a family last night. Kaia helped Mama make Daddy's birthday cake! As you can see we started it at night and decorated it the next morning.

Stirring it up!

Frosting the cake!

Pouring on the sprinkles!

A little taste test!

Mmm...chocolate!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day! We went to Honey Creek Resort to have brunch with Josh's family to celebrate Josh and Julie's birthdays (they share the 15th)! Then we headed home and Kaia had a Valentine's date with Finnean and Grady while Mama and Daddy went to see Avatar, which was very cool and we'd definitely recommend seeing it in the theater!

Grandma's girls! Julie with Ella, Kaia, and Addy!

Excited to receive her Valentine's present! Kaia loves Elmo!

Grandma Julie and Kaia

Excited for her new activity books!

Kaia loves her new pony. She loves brushing her hair!

Yay for stickers!

Kaia loves her valentines from Nana Hazel and Papa Vernon!

This is her funny expression! I'm so glad I caught it on camera...she does it all the time and it cracks us up!

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

It's Kaia Mae's 1/2 Birthday today! Our little girl is 18 months old! She brings so much joy to our lives and it's hard to believe how quickly the time flies. We had a great day and were able to see my Aunt Christie and Uncle Matt and my cousins Kraig and Kyle today. They came to visit Kyle, who's in law school, so they met up with us at the mall! It was great to see them, since we don't get to see them enough and Kaia loved the Valentine and yummy cookies Aunt Christie brought her! I included a couple pictures from that & a few others that I took this week.

Checking out her valentine!

Daddy and Kaia with the Liskes.

Playing guitar with Daddy

Mandy has been super generous to let us use her girls' clothes, and Kaia was excited to go through the latest bag of 24 mos/2T clothes! She had a blast pulling them all out and making a pile, saying "dress" and "pants" as she went along. She loves clothes! Thanks Mandy!

Kaia and her best friend "Berk". She loves Sampson ("Mampas") too, but he doesn't rank quite as high as Berkeley.

With Mama

With Uncle Justin!

Yummy Recipe

I found a recipe that I made for the Superbowl and it was a hit, so I decided to share! It's super easy and there are lots of leftovers, so I used the leftover chicken to make enchiladas and paired the leftover sauce with some rice for some vegetarian burritos! Yum!

SALSA CHICKEN

3-5 chicken breasts (Make sure they're thawed or else your sauce gets very runny)

32 oz salsa (I used 3 chicken breasts so I used 24 oz salsa and still had lots leftover. I used medium hot, which paired well with the sweetness of the pineapple)

1 can black beans, drained
1 small can pineapple, drained (I used tidbits but you can use crushed or whatever you have)

Put everything in the crockpot and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours (I put mine in on high for 3 1/2 hours). Take the chicken out and shred with a fork. Place in a tortilla. Cover with the salsa, some cheese and sour cream. Yum!

In or Out of Favor?

I've got to say that I am really feeling the love for the dads out there. It seems that all of our friends who are dads take an active role in raising their children, which is in contrast to what the "traditional" role of father was just a generation or two ago. As a mom and a wife I really appreciate how much Josh does to take care of Kaia-he's awesome with her and she adores him. And I know my female friends who are mothers feel the same way. But I do find myself being envious of the relationship my daughter and husband have. You see, in our family Daddy is the favored one, and I find myself relating to so many of the dads who are in the opposite position, where their child is always glued to Mama. For the first year, I stayed home with Kaia and taking care of her was my full-time job, which it definitely was. I thought that maybe her favoritism toward Daddy had to do with the fact that she saw me all the time and he was something novel when he came home from work. Once I went back to work I thought maybe that would change and she'd see me as something novel too. No such luck. She is still as glued to him as ever and as we're entering the toddler years this is manifesting itself more and more. Kaia runs away from Mama whenever it is time to change her diaper or put on her coat and shoes. She screams whenever I try to do something for her, and while she sometimes does this to her Daddy, more often than not she will go lay right down for him to change her or put on her coat. The little stinker! Don't get me wrong, I know she loves me and she is quick to give me hugs and kisses and smiles just like she does to her Daddy. And she did surprise me yesterday by wanting to go with me to the grocery store and eagerly putting on her coat, even though Daddy was going to stay home. I also know that Josh gets frustrated sometimes that he is the one who has to do a lot of those things for Kaia, although I, as the nonfavored parent, suspect he secretly gets a kick out of it. =) I'm posting this partly as catharsis and partly as a reminder to our friends who might be in similar situations, regardless of who the "favored" parent is, that there are others in the same situation and maybe someone can offer me hope that she will grow out of it?! LOL. But I do want to say that I don't blame her for loving her Daddy so much and also to praise him for being so great with her...I admit I'd much rather have him be involved and be the favorite than the alternative, and I'm very thankful for such a great guy! I also imagine my Grandma is laughing as she is reading this and will be eager to remind me that I might have been just like this little girl when I was growing up and it might just be a case of what goes around comes back around. =)