Mastering the stairs

Stairs are one of those things that babies can't do, but all in the sudden it's like they've been doing it all along. He couldn't get up more than one or two and it took a lot of encouragement. Then all in the sudden I'd turn my back and wouldn't be able to find him and he'd zoomed up the stairs. It took a little longer to learn to go down. The stairs make me have a constant mini stroke... I go back and forth between thinking "well he's gotta learn sometime" and just wanting to barcade the entire end of the house. It's a long steep staircase with stone floor at the bottom so it's a stair learning nightmare for this mommy.

Part of the problem is he refuses to go down on his stomach. He insists on standing up and walking down holding on to the railing. 

I'm convinced the whole reason he decided to learn to do stairs was to turn the light switch on and off. :)

To far gone

Whoa it's been so long since I was able to get any blogging done so it's to the point that I can't catch up.  So I'm just gonna start from now-ish and I'll just include a bunch of random recent pictures with captions

  

Kade's great grandma and Grandpa Peterson came to visit from Minnesota for the weekend in october. Kade and I went on a fun bus tour of Seattle with them, it was very interesting. I've been to seattle and or lived here for my whole life and i learned lots of stuff I didn't know. Then on saturday I went to work and they all stayed home and played with kade and hung out and watched football. On sunday they came to sacrament and got to see the Primary program... and more importantly Kade putting on his typical sunday show of shenanigans.  

At the begining of November Kade and I went over to the Ward's house to have a little birthday party for our friend Sarah (on the left) who is on the end and just recently had baby James. Paige and baby easton (about 4 months) was there and next to him is baby Jaxon and his mama Alicia were also there. He's about 8 months old. It so dang fun to see all the babies about 4 months apart so you  can really see the development and how much they change. It's also fun cause you can already see their different personalities. Kade is the oldest so he's the most mobil, but he's also a bully. He likes to sit on the other babies and take their toys. :) it's ok, he's just learning still, ... I hope. 

Clay came and starting living with us about three months ago. Him and kade have a great ol' time together. Clay has babysat him a few times so we could go out, which was super nice. Kade LOVES unkie C, he gets all excited when he comes home from work. Kade tries to be like unkie and he picks up clay's empty Mt dew cans (which he leaves out!) and pretends to drink out of them like Clay does. 

Kade and his little friend at church. His family usually sits in front of us and they like to pass their crackers back and forth over the bench and share toys. In this picture they are comparing shoes. 

The biggest problem we've had lately is Kade putting stuff in his mouth that he shouldn't be eating. He just hunts along the floor and every little piece of lint and every little piece of leaf off our shoes etc. In this picture he's searching under the couch for some snacks. He usually finds some crumbs or "treats" there. :)

Kade is gonna be a future self-pic-junkie. He loves to look at himself on the forward facing camera on my Iphone. He's got like a million "myspace pics" on my phone. haha

For Example...

 This is only three of like 15. 

Daddy's 27th birthday

First let me tell you before you judge me about what a lame birthday Andy had... he HATES his birthday. I do not know why, and it is a source of constant confusion every year, but he legitimately does not enjoy celebrating very much and he really does not want gifts. ... but I think THAT is just sad and not one bit fun so I celebrate anyway and only get him gifts of things he needs anyway so he cant fuss too much about me spending money on him. 

So for one of his gifts I made a frame for Andy to take to work and hang in his office because he doesn't have any pictures of Kade up there yet. So I got these photos, after about a million tries. It took me a zillion tries to get him to either stop waving the letter around or licking it and coving up his face with it. Anyway, after I got a few I could work with I edited them and printed them and framed them in black and white. 

This is a really bad picture of the final project but it turned out super cute I think, and Andy loved it. 

When Andy got home from work (he's such a hard worker working on his birthday) we opened presents. Kade wanted to help. This was a lawn dart set and a bike helmet that we'd been needing from andy's parents. 

Then Kade and I sang happy birthday to Daddy and gave him his cake. Andy and I are on an eating good kick and he didn't want a regular cake cause of course just with the two of us eating it we'd end up either eating a million calories we don't need, or most of it going to waste. So I peeled this mini watermelon and decorated it with fresh fruit! I have to say it was one of the tastier birthday cakes I've had and I didn't have to feel one bit guilty about getting seconds. :) 

After Kade went to bed I made Andy blow out his candle and we cut the cake. We ended the night by watching a movie and going to bed at ten. :) We are such wild party animals these days. 

Visit to Spokane

The second week in July we went to Spokane to hear my brother Clay's mission homecoming talk. My nice aunt Brooke and my cousin Ethan let Kade and I drive over with them and he wasn't a pretty good little trooper, only had to stop once to stretch his legs. While we were there we got to go to my parents friends lake cabin on Loon Lake and ride my parents jet ski's. Kade had never been swimming before and he didn't have a swimming suit, so he just went nakey. 

Kade had a great time splashing in the waves with Great aunt brooke. (he even liked it when he had to get all the way in the water and clean the sand from all his unmentionable areas)

The next day we went to Cour De: Alene and walked around the shops and had lunch, poor kade was such a good sport even though it was a very very hot day. Poor little guy what sweating bullets but he stayed happy. 

He did get tired out and took a nap in the park in the nice warm heat. Everyone walking by window shopping stopped to look at him sleeping cause he looked so funny and cute laying with his little leggies crossed taking a snooze on the grass. 

We all went to my parents Brentwood ward picnic and Kade continued to be a good spot even though it was so so hot and pretty miserable outside. 

Riley taught a few people in the ward a thing or two about watermelon eating contests. 

The following day we went up to Greenbluff and saw a nice Cherry festival and picked cherries. Kade got to pretend to drive a tractor which he thought was great great fun. 

And my parents and I thought this looked like an excellent planking opportunity. haha 

After a fun fun trip Kade and I rode with Aunt Brooke and Ethan back home. Just in time for Daddy's birthday the next day. Clay gave en excellent homecoming talk that not only had a great spirit but it really was a good demonstration of his fun cheerful personality and I think that a lot of people in the ward enjoyed it as well. 

Uncle Clay has returned!

My younger brother clay has been on a mission for the church for the last two years, so he hasn't got to meet baby Kade yet. Andy and Kade and I went to Spokane to see him come home and get off the plane. 

Baby Kade waiting for his uncle in his little mission bib. :)

So good to see him.

Uncle is so fun!

Uncle Riley is so fun too. Kade love listening to Rileys silly sounds.

Cute Cute nakey Kade man was so hot and Grandpa at Grami's house that he just wanted to play nakey on their cool tile floor, (the only cool place in the house). 

Planking

Here's our newest hobby...I'd been seeing this latest trend on Facebook and really thought it was ridiculous but one time did it just to be funny, and low and behold IT WAS HILARIOUS! Planking that is. It's so stupid and silly but for some reason it's really fun. So we've issued a formal competition with the family for best planking pic. The winner is just whoever we agree on, however "points" are awarded for certain coolness... for instance...

Highest plank goes to Andy

Baby Plank goes to Kade for being the cutest

The winner thus far! haha

Some scary scary cows

A few weeks ago the pediatrician asked us to start working on animal sounds with Kade, so we practice them all. We do the duck, kitty, doggy, horse, chicken, sheep, all the standard animals... except the cow. Every time I do the "mooo" sound Kade starts to cry or pout and he burries his head like he's afraid. haha Although it's sad, it's probably one of the cutest things I've ever seen. I suspected that I was just something about my voice that he doesn't like mooing, but then we got a little fischer price farm, and we can't open the barn door cause when ever he hears that mooing he starts with the quivery lip. :) As far as I know he's never had a bad experience with a cow, but for some reason he thinks those black and white guys are scary scary business.

Kade is six months old!

Big boy sitting up with his chubby tummy poking out. 

He's got a sun hat... now just gotta wait for the sun

 He gets so proud when he sits up all alone. 

He loves reading his books. They're his favorite toys.

Kade eating big boy food

Kade started eating some rice cereal every few days about two weeks ago, and he really likes it. After every bite he smiles and says "mmmm!!" He's not very good at eating though, mostly I have to coax him to pay attention to stop yelling at the ceiling or squeeling at the cat or rubbing cereal in his hair. I dunno how much he actually swallows. For his 6 month birthday I wanted to start him on actual veggie food, so I got a few jars of different kinds and Andy lined it up in front of Kade and he picked squash... 

He's very excited to dig in!

Good news was that he loved it! He ate them all up. And he temporarily died his eyebrows orange in the process... So relieved that we've started the solid food process on a good note. Pretty soon I'd like to start making my own baby food, once he's tried a few things and I know what he'll eat. 

My attempt to be domestic...

Because I got a sewing machine for mothers day, I've been wanting to bust it out and be all cute seamstress wife. However since it took me two whole days to try and thread it properly and get it going... my dreams were a little to big for my capabilities. But since Kade's drooling has reached epic levels, and he has to change bibs every few hours he needed some more. I found some patterns on Pinterest and kinda modified them for the supplies I had. 

This was my motivation...

 It turned out pretty nice! There's piping around the edge which I taught myself how to do on YouTube. This one had both sides made out a flannel, which I probably wouldn't do again, it needs to be something more absorbent for drool. But it was good to practice on...

This one I made for Clay's mission homecoming in two weeks! I think it turned out so cute! I cut out iron on applique for the tie and badge, I hope it holds up in the wash, we shall see. :) The top of this one is made out of jersey stretch material (btw, super hard to sew the piping on) and it is much more absorbent. But for future bibs I think I'll use a thin terry cloth or something even more absorbent.