June 1-15, 2018 - 3 years 11 months

Shut yer mouth, kid!
(just kidding, he did it to himself, for fun!)

Munching on some curly fries and at Live at 5.

The dogs LOVE his dump truck!

Mama, me do this?  When me hombre?

Spending quality time with Kadin, catching mosquitos as they feed on me, putting them into the spiderweb, and watching the spider wrap up the tasty morsel.  Kadin now loves spiders and doesn't kill them.  Yay!

Hey Mama, is that plant thirsty? It want agua?
(We had a sudden downpour of rain and he rain out onto the patio at Twister and was essentially showering in the drips from the rain gutter as he filled up the bucket to give to the plants.)

Watch this Mom!  Just like the Dukes of Hazard!

How did he get so big?  Relaxing and reading a book while I go inside and order us some food.  

Happy Birthday to me!  "Jota para ti Mama!"  ("J is for you Mom"

Kadin loves hanging out with Mr. Ernie and his grandkids at the library.

April 16-30, 2018 - 3 years 9 months

The Elementary School had an art show… this is the group project of The Scream! 

The next day, it was Earth Day, and Kadin spent most of it up in this alder, trying to climb as high as the older boys and girls.  In this pic, Sawyer is the boy to the right.

We are trying to grow some sunflower starts this year since last year they never flowered when we planted them directly into the soil outside.  Whatever they do, it's a fun activity with Kadin.  We poured the soil in, made a little bed for each seed and then covered them up with a dirt blanket.  When we were done, he said, "We plant seeds, go to bed, and tomorrow we eat plants!" 

I have one or two of these shots from when Kadin was an infant.  It still feels just as amazing now, 3 years later.

Biking, biking, and more biking.  He LOVES his new pedal bike and is out riding in rain or shine.  See videos below…

Of course, jumping off the bike to dive into the snow bank is just as much fun!  Even in the rain…  He tried to get me to join him but I declined.

Video of Kadin taking off on his bike without my help…

Video of Kadin swinging like a monkey in Gymnastics Class.

Video of Kadin and Luke sharing some raspberry silliness!

Video of Kadin climbing the alder tree downtown.  

He is saying, "Down, ok. That's how you go down.  Me show you how go up, alright?  This, do that, do that.  OK Mom?  Mom want to climb tree?"

And, last, but not least, Kadito in action… Fun times with puddles, snow, bikes, and Bucky.

January 17-18, 2018 - Mahahual, Mexico (3 years 6 months)

Kadito found two more friends!   They played for over an hour, running around with "Bebe" the chihuahua puppy, sharing toys, climbing things, pushing me in a hammock, etc. 

Yum!  After you drink the coconut water from a young coconut, you can eat the coconut on the insde.  It's softer and slimier than mature coconut and tastes great, especially with a bit of chile sprinkled on it.  Kadito doesn't like the coconut water but he actually liked the coconut with chile.  This is his first time starting to like a little bit of spice to his foods.

On a side note, with no picture to document it, Kadito found an open bag of Flamin Hot Cheetos on the beach with a few Cheetos still in it and he started to eat them before I could say anything (either about it being "trash" or it being spicy!).  So, I let him eat them, figuring they'd be way too spicy for him, and he LOVED them.  Must have been the MSG.  

Oh, and here's the ingredient list so you see why I don't normally give him these things:  

Enriched Corn Meal (Corn Meal, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, and Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil (Contains One or More of the Following: Corn, Soybean or Sunflower Oil), flamin hot seasoning (Maltodextrin, salt, Sugar, Monosodium Glutamate, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Artificial Color (Including Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Cheddar Cheese (Cultured Milk, Salt, Enzymes), Whey, Onion Powder, Whey Protein Concentrate, Corn Syrup Solids, Natural Flavor, Buttermilk, Garlic Powder, Disodium Phosphate, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Caseinate, Lactic acid, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, nonfat milk, Sodium Citrate, Carrageenan) , salt.

This was hysterical.  We met a nice woman visiting from another part of Mexico who agreed to take our picture.  I have 6 pictures with various poses of me trying to get him to face the camera.  Ridiculous!  But at least it was silly and fun and he was laughing instead of actually pouting like he usually does.  The woman said she was watching me earlier and thought I looked like the epitome of a woman thoroughly enjoying motherhood. ❤️

Afterwards, we played chase around the letters with me trying to catch him in a photo.

That same afternoon, we took an afternoon stroll along the beach by our camp and encountered two kids by the pier.
One, the girl pictured, was a French Canadian girl who didn't speak English.
The other was a local boy.  He's the one who thought of the great idea to bring a broken beach chair into the water to play on.  Unfortunately, soon after, his father or grandfather showed up, furious that he had wandered down the beach all by himself!!

Our one fully rainy day.  We went on a bike ride, got completely soaked, and then played in all the puddles along the Malecón.  All of the benches were painted – this one had the characters from the Jungle Book.

September 5 - 15, 2017 - 3 years 2 months

Daycare dress-up - ladybug outfit with a safety orange construction hat.  And note how he learned from all the girls in daycare how to hold the edges of the skirt up! 

Well, we missed the blueberry season this year but didn't want to come home empty handed.  Lots of high bush cranberries everywhere! 

What a fun time!  We were at the playground when it started raining so we headed home.  But then I had to pull over at the overlook because there was a rainbow… Pfff. Rainbow.  The next thing I knew, Kadin was running around like crazy, putting all of his firefighter gear on and putting out fires left and right.  We must have spent an hour there, having too much fun!

Hanging out at the Station parking lot, Kadin on his bicycle.  Notice the little froggy harness thing his wearing?  It's a leash!!  It had just arrived in the mail and I was trying it out on him… for use in Mexico and big cities for my little independent explorer.

And, last but not least, Patch, hanging out on the couch with me when Kadin isn't here.

Video:  Kadin putting out "muchos incendios" (many fires)!

Video: Kadin up on the old firetruck and climbing back down.

May 4 - 8, 2017 - 2 years 10 months CORDOVA SHOREBIRD TRIP

Kadin and I spent a week in Cordova, at the Copper River Shorebird Festival where every spring hundreds of thousands of shorebirds pass through on their migration north.  

First 3 days, we camped and had bald eagles swooping through the camp area.

Glad we had Pee Wee Herman with us!

At the festival reception, there was a very large Western Sandpiper that both scared and fascinated Kadin.  He wanted me to follow it wherever it went, but I had to carry him and he'd hide if I got too close.

Finally, he got up the nerve to approach the Sandpiper but still wouldn't touch her feathers.

On a boat tour for the birders, we saw a black bear on the beach.

Kadin had to try out my binoculars to get a better look at that bear (or maybe at the clouds?!)

Our last two nights we spent at the Orca Lodge and Kadin decided that it was time to brush Jorge Curioso's teeth.

Teeth nice and clean, Jorge was now ready to put on his boots...

And go for a walk!  Hey… where are you two going?  Wait for me Kadin!  (He didn't wait, of course, and I finally caught up with him in the lobby!)

Rainy and windy day, but we braved the elements to look at all those little peeps on the mudflats - predominently the true Western Sandpiper which is quite a bit smaller in real life.

My intrepid little birder!

Dinner at the Taco Bus and rain or shine, Kadin was outside playing in their courtyard which was full of awesome toys and trucks and stuff.

Our last night in Cordova, and we went out for an evening stroll in the drizzling rain.  As they say, there's no such thing as bad weather if you have good gear (and a good attitude)!

Aye, aye, Capitán!

Exploring the barnacle covered rocks and seaweed on the shore.  

Cool new playground in Anchorage with a "moose" in a "pond" and lots of other fake natural things to play on.

Video of Kadin throwing rocks and seaweed into the ocean with the raucous calling of gulls out at the  dilapidated pier.  At the end, he says, "Baja... Agua." which litterally translates as waterfall (cascada in Spanish) which is exactly what he is looking at in the distance.

October 30 - October 31, 2016 - 2 years 3 months… (first two days) Bike & Camp Trip on the CA coast!