More from Florida

Here are some more pics from our FL trip. I know they're late, but hey, at least they're up. Now if only they were scrapbooked..........

The Murdock village at the beach. I always feel bad for the people around us when we all come moving in to the beach. 15 chairs, 2 umbrellas, enough snacks for a small country, skim boards, beach pails, shovels, and a large load of beach towels always accompany us when we're all there. 

      


      

Playing in the pool. 

    


Playing in the Rain

                                             

Cadence and Kagan

I love the picture of Grannie and Poppa. Cadence took it while we were at dinner one night. 

    

Cadence telling her version of the Lazy 5

 

Shae's Birdie Story

click on this to see Shae talking about the birdies that April is posting about. 

I dood it myself, Mommy

Our little independent girl has struck again!!  She has been going to the potty all by herself lately (when we remind her to go) and she is very much into taking off her pull-up and putting it back on herself. She doesn't quite get the whole one leg in each hole concept yet and so we often have issues when she goes to put her pull-up back on. This day I had offered to help her but she said she could "dood it herself" so I let her and this is what she came out of the bathroom looking like. 

Doing a little dance because she was so proud of herself. :)

We're still working on it and this was a clean pull-up that had to then be ripped off of her. We do love our independent girl and just keep reminding ourselves that one day she will rule the world. :)

More Birthday

For her birthday this year we wanted to get Cadence a kitchen for her to play with. It's been in our garage for several weeks and she's tried to play with it but we just distract her from it. On Sunday afternoon we pulled it into the living room for her to play with for the first time. We have eaten more pretend pizza, cookies and coke in the last few days than in our whole lives but she's had lots of fun with it. Yesterday she even brought me and one of my piano students a cup of coffee during our lesson. It was hysterical.

The Palahnuks brought Cadence her very first American Girl baby. it is a bitty baby and it came all the way from Los Angeles!!  It is so cute and Cadence is enjoying carrying it all over the place. She came with a little suitcase full of outfits and a blanket and bottles that make the playing go that much longer. 

We asked our friends to not bring presents for Cadence to her party. We are so blessed to have lots of toys to play with already and since we were doing a flip flop cake (see the other post) Chris and I thought that it would be fun for them to bring something to give away. In keeping with the shoe theme, we went with Operation Christmas Child where you fill a shoe box full of stuff for kids that won't get anything for Christmas. We asked everyone to bring stuff for a little girl age 2-4. Our friends and family were awesome and came thru with so much stuff. We ended up with 4 shoe boxes!!!!  That is so cool because that means that thru Cadence's birthday, 4 little girls will have a whole shoe box full of stuff to open on Christmas!! and it was some super cool stuff too :)  Thanks to everyone who participated in making Cadence's birthday so special not only for her but for other little girls as well. 

Rollin, rollin, rollin

Cadence got her very first pair of roller skates from her Missouri Family for her birthday. She loves them. I think that in her mind they're another pair of shoes, they just happen to roll which makes them more fun to wear. She loved "kating" in them yesterday and when I went into the living room this morning she was making pizza in her kitchen with the skates on. I'm thinking she might have a future job at Sonic..........:)

The Birthday party pt. 1

So, it's hard to believe that our girl could be 2 but as of today, she is. We had a party in FL that will be posted later but for now, here are some pics of the party this evening.  Cadence LOVES flip flops so we decided to work with it for her party this year. I made the cake to be shaped like a pair of flip flops. Cadence (I think because of her FL party) was convinced that she was having an Elmo party today and told everyone in her class at church that it was Elmo. I was kind of feeling bad that there was no Elmo involved, but she liked her "flop-flops" too so it all worked out in the end. 

Here is the table all set and ready to go. 

Cadence tasting the cake to make sure it's edible. 

**I'm sure you're wondering how I got the cake to look like flip flops. Well, I found this recipe online that gave me the idea. However, not being much for reading recipes and stuff, I had in my head that I could just do the cake myself. So, I just took a pair of flip-flops out of my closet, laid them on a 9 x 13 sheet cake and cut around them. I've never worn the flip flops so I thought it would be fine to put them on a cake. Chris (and everyone else) felt a little differently I think, but played along and ate the cake anyway.**

Some of the peeps at the party. 

Ella also wanted to know if the cake was good and so Cadence was showing her how to tell how it tasted. The girls went out to play in the pool. In no time at all they were flipping themselves down the slide. Thankfully no one got hurt and they had a great time swimming.