Happy Family

My parents snapped this family photo of us last night!

Our Farm Boy...

Caden has a great affection for the farm...whether it is the equipment or the animals, he just loves it all and really enjoys spending time there! He loves hearing what his Papa, Uncle Tory or Uncle Cody are working on and he spends a large amount of his play time "combining" the carpet, picking up "haybales" or feeding his animals in the "pasture". As I was getting ready this morning I turned on the tv to let him watch some cartoons and we came across a channel that was showing a cattle auction...this ofcourse was Caden's choice of shows to watch, ranking above Sesame Street and The Wiggles, two of his usual favorites!

Caden is also very intrigued with his Uncle Cody's pulling tractor. In the above pictures he is loading his tractors and getting them ready for a tractor pull. He is also wearing his tractor pulling gear to get ready for the big event!

Our Future Picasso

Kinsie slept a bit longer yesterday for her nap so Caden and I took advantage of the extra time to do some watercolor painting together. It was so fun to see his imagination coming to life on paper as he would paint his masterpieces!

The above painting is a picture of the puppy that Caden painted.

Caden said that he was writing Kinsie's name in this picture.

U Gotta Love It...

at the Iowa State Fair!

We spent several days in the past two weeks camping at the Iowa State Fair with our family...thanks mom and dad! The weather could not have been more perfect and we had such a great time! Caden and Kinsie especially loved camping in Papa and Grandma's "bus", seeing all of the animals, the tractors, a performance by Bob The Builder, the train exhibit and so much more! And ofcourse, Caden discovered the joy of food on a stick by eating his share of corndogs!

Addie, Adler and Caden at the Little Hands on the Farm.

We took a picture with this same statue last year, but had two more additions this year! It makes you wonder what the little ones are thinking as they are looking at their older siblings!

Cousin Cuties

Each summer my sister and I have pictures taken of our children. This photo session proved to be the busiest yet! The older two cousins did a great job of staying posed while we placed the little ones...just as we would get them all posed Kinsie would wander away or Caden would decide he didn't want his picture taken or Adden would start to cry! They were quite the group! Tremendous credit goes to our photographer who exercised a lot of patience to get some great pictures of our five cuties!

Adler (4 1/2) and Addison (6)

Kinsie (1), Caden (2 1/2), and Adden (6 months)

In order to get Kinsie to stay in place for the photo, the photographer told Caden to give his sister a big hug so she would not crawl away!

Sibling love!

Caden was not at all interested in having his picture taken until the photographer brought out this pedal tractor. After that, he was all smiles!

Birthday Fun!

Caden had a lot of fun "helping" his little sister open all of her birthday gifts!

Every little girl needs a doll stroller and a doll to push around! Kinsie loves taking her new Abby Kadabby doll that Caden picked out for her for a stroll around the house!

Another new favorite for Kinsie is her Dora the Explorer ride-on toy!

Despite all of the new fun toys to play with Kinsie crawled off all by herself to play with the birthday balloons!

Let's Celebrate!

We celebrated Kinsie's first birthday with a family party yesterday. It was a wonderful day and she was surrounded with so much family!

Our lil' cupcake turned one on July 31st so what better way to celebrate than with a cupcake themed first birthday party! I made this oversized cupcake for Kinsie to tear in to and then our guests were served individual cupcakes.

At first Kinsie was not sure what to think about the sticky, sugary creation that was set in front of her...

but little by little she started to dig in with her fingers...

until she finally took a handful and tasted a bite!

When I grow up...

I want to be just like my daddy!

Instead of his usual bath, Caden decided he would rather take a shower with his daddy yesterday morning. Cass started to shave after taking a shower and Caden went running in to his bathroom and returned with his Thomas the Train bath "shaver". So ofcourse, he also needed the shaving cream to make the process complete! As you can see from the pictures he thought it was so much fun to do something just like his daddy!