Cadence and Friends

This past Friday night, Ella, Mary, and Emily came over for a girls night at our house. Cadence was so excited that her best friends were coming over to play. 

Here they are watching Sleeping Beauty. It still amazes me how entranced little girls are by a Princess. 

We made Pizza for supper and the girls got to put the toppings on. here they are so proud of their creation :)

And of course, eating the pizza. Ella kept saying it was crunchy pizza (oops) and Mary and Cadence didn't like the pepperoni but other than that it was successful. 

We then had a pajama party where the girls watched a movie. They weren't completely into the movie but they did play pretty quietly so that Chris and I could still enjoy it!

Random pics from the last couple of weeks

This picture was from last night. Chris and I were upstairs watching the Red Carpet stuff for the Oscars and when we realized that Cadence wasn't with us and went to find her, she looked like this!  In my bathroom, in the make-up. I wish there was a way for you to be able to scratch-n-sniff because all you would smell is hairspray. She LOVES it!!  and so she had sprayed it into her hand and put it in her hair like we do her hair product. Can I just say that hairspray is not fun to get out of those curls?!?!?

She wanted to be a baby and I had the pack-n-play set up from the weekend so she made herself a bed in it and asked us to tuck her in for the night :)


These are the last pics from Valentines Day. I love them because they so encompass what V-Day was like this year. Chinese food, Cadence's Cake, and a little girl who loves all things sugar. 

MiMi and PopPop's visit

For Valentine's Day/President's Day Keith and Cindy (Chris' parents) came to visit us. They had both Friday and Monday off so it worked out well for them to make a quick trip to NC. Cadence was so excited!  The came in of Friday afternoon and came bearing gifts :)

Being in the "Holiday" spirit, Cadence jumped all over the gifts. She was so excited to add to her Princess Barbie collection and a new Princess movie too!  Cindy found this great book called "Polite as a Princess" that uses the Disney Princesses and teaches manners at the same time. It's working great!  Now we can say something like "Cadence you know that Belle uses her fork at the table so why don't you try and use yours too?"  and it works!  I highly recommend this book for anyone with little girls who are into the whole Princess thing. 

Friday night, we were scheduled to play in downtown Mooresville with some of the kids from our music lessons so Keith and Cindy got to tag along and see what we do :)  There are more pictures of that but they're on our other blog www.musictimeinmooresville.blogspot.com

Saturday (and Sunday) cadence was so excited because Keith and Cindy took her on really long walks in the wagon. She loves to ride in the wagon but we don't take her very often because it's cold so here's Daddy airing up the wagon tires. 

And off they go on their walk. On Saturday, once they took off, Chris and I went to the movies to see Gran Torino. Great movie!  Cadence actually fell asleep in the wagon so when they finished their walk, they just brought her in and put her down for her nap. 

We're so glad that Mimi and PopPop got to come and can't wait until we get to see them again. 

Valentines Packages

If our mail lady had any doubt at all that a holiday is coming. I'm sure it is all erased when the packages start showing up at the Andersen house. This year it was 3 packages in 2 days - all for Cadence - along with lots of cards that I have lost count of. Shae LOVES to get packages so this always makes her very happy :)

The first one to arrive was from "yellow Gigi" or "grammie" (same person, multiple names, Ashleigh's mom)   She loved her shirt as well as the candy in the package. We're really having to pace her with the candy this year because there was so much of it. 

Here she is actually wearing the shirt. 

I'm embarrassed to say I've forgotten who the monkey was from (either Kathy or my mom) but either way she likes to swing with it and has named it Alex. No idea where the name Alex came from, she just picked it and it has stuck :)

The purple stuff and gummi bears are from Aunt Connie. That's a given :)  We love the blanket because it's so soft and I love that it matches her room! It now has become one of the blankets that has to be piled up on her to go to bed. 


The dress from KayKay is adorable!  Her baby is already dressed in her dress and as soon I the start align and Cadence has fixed hair and the dress on, pictures will come :)

We've had some difficulty this holiday with Cadence being sneaky to eat the candy. in fact, on this same day, she grabbed one of the princess hearts full of chocolate and disappeared. Chris went looking for her and as he called her, she quickly slammed the bathroom door shut. Well, of course, then we knew right where she was and after getting the door open, Chris found that she had eaten all of the chocolates except one. She's not very good at hiding stuff like that and so she had one in her mouth and wrappers all over the bathroom. So, we're learning that candy has to be put WAY out of reach to keep Cadence honest :)  She has done much better asking for candy tho since this one episode. Hopefully she learned that lesson quickly...

Little Drummer Girl

There's another post below this so don't forget to look at it too!

This video is of Cadence drumming with Chris. It's a little loud and weird to start but at the end, the way she's actually on the beat, was the way she played with him for quite a while. It's a little scary to us how much rhythm she has :)  Click HERE to watch.

Cinderella

On Saturday, I (Ashleigh) took Cadence and one of her friends to downtown Charlotte to see a play. It was Cinderella and I thought that the girls would really enjoy it. So, as we're driving to the theater, I tell this what the surprise is and this is how the conversation goes:

ME:  Girls, your surprise is that we're going to see a play of Cinderella!

CADENCE:   I WANNA BE BELLE!

MARY:   NO, I WANNA BE SNOW WHITE!

Me: no, you don't get to BE anyone, you just watch it. Like a movie except with real people.

MARY:  I'm gonna kick that Beast and say NO NO Beast!

Cadence:  NO NO Beast don't be ugly!

and so the rest of the drive was the girls talking about various ways to "get" the Beast and me trying to explain that the beast wouldn't even be there because it was Cinderella and there's no Beast in Cinderella only the step-mother and step-sisters. 

We get to the theater, run in and find our seats, (me praying that no one says they have to go potty) and sit down. The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra is playing and thankfully the whole theater is full of little girls wanting to see Cinderella. So, after some music from the orchestra and some really cool explanations from the conductor that were completely lost on 2 year olds looking for Cinderella, the play began. Except it wasn't a play it was a ballet. So, lots of dancing with no words. However, the girls did great! and loved the whole thing. 

I couldn't take pictures in the theater so here are some I snagged from online of the performance. 

A picture on the drive there

Posing with the really cool art in downtown Charlotte

And some water that mary wanted to jump in

inside the theater

Snow Day

We woke up this morning to snow!  It had snowed last night around dinner time and we just figured it was a fluke and was gone because the weather men hadn't said anything about snow (and neither had anyone else). So, it was quite a surprise when Chris let Slang out at 1 am and there was snow on everything. The even bigger surprise was that it was still around when we woke up. Because there was snow, Chris got the day off! We had such a fun day. We went over to the Kale's house because they have a hill and a sled and spent some time playing in the snow. It was so much fun!

The Andersen Winter Wonderland

Cadence getting ready to go out in it the first time. She has just woken up and is thrilled. Can't you tell?

Chris helped Shae make a snow angel. She didn't like it because her "pants got all wet"

Slang's snow shoes :)

Ready to play at the Kale's house

Cadence's first sledding adventure. 

This is me (ashleigh) on the sled. Evan pushed me and I fell off. Chris is at the bottom of the hill taping my first ever sledding experience. I'm thankful for all the support. 

Hot Chocolate break. 

Sweet Baby Emily inside and out. 

Our snow man. He's really a sad little snow man but it was the best we could do. The first picture is him as a giant and the second is him for real. You have to look for him on the trampoline. 

      
Cadence and Mary had so much fun sliding down the hill on their bottoms. 

Cadence's snowball

Garrett and Evan were sledding too. They were better at it than us :)