*quirky*

Every child has their quirks. After years of working with little ones, I have come to know this to be not only true, but what makes each of them so amazingly unique and beautiful in their own way. Kaden has many of these quirky quirks, and there is one in particular that has thrown me for a loop. His objection to ponytails. Nope, I have not attempted to put his own hair into a ponytail, it is an objection to mine being up in anyway shape or form.

Ever since the little man can remember, I have had short hair. He never knew that mama once had long hair and rocked the ponytail on a daily basis. Now he has complete FITS if i so much as put my hair up to wash my face or clean around the house. He begs me "PEAS mama put your hair down", and will continuously become more and more upset and emotional if I do not follow his directives. With #2 coming into town, I have decided to grow my hair once again, so that I can rock the ponytail and make my life a helluva lot easier with low hair maintenance. I have been preparing kaden by practice runs with my mini ponytail. It has been emotionally exhausting for both of us! We spent a day at the zoo last week with his little girlfriend and my mommy friend who is also a child therapist. I told her about his ponytail aversion, and the look on her face made me feel that this is all stranger than I would like to think. We did some ponytail conditioning with him with her little girl's hair, and he had no problem with it. My friend played with my hair and pulled it back and he completely lost it.

The fate of my hair is up in the air with this little quirk of his. Am I being ridiculous letting my almost three year old have power over my hair. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome!

As quirky as he may be, he sure is one dancin machine! Here he is rockin out to his favorite, Old Dan Tucker (music by daddy).

guess what????

Baby Miller the SECOND edition will be making a grand entrance into the world on April 3, 2012!!! We could not be more overjoyed!!!!!!!!!!!!





Wishing you all happy, healthy, and dreamed filled days to come.
love, light and peace,
The Millers!

*fall fever*

What is it about Fall? This year, I feel completely intoxicated by all things pumpkin, the changing leaves and majestic Aspen trees, and all things Halloween. I just want to bake all things pumpkin and apple and savor every moment. I made an amazing apple butter last week, and this week I want to tackle pumpkin butter. It is supposed to snow this weekend so I need to enjoy this short lived fall FAST!

Kaden is also ridiculously excited about the season and has narrowed down his Halloween costumes to Snow White (has been in the running since he could say those words), Elephant, a "baby" pig, Mickey Mouse, Dopey, Monkey (he has an adorable Monkey costume thanks to Mamaw and Papaw...were pullin for the Monkey), a pirate, or a "girl". He is fascinated by all things girls. I really want him to be a mini Dwight Schrute (see below), but I have a feeling that will NOT be in the final three.




~rockin out at the Pumpkin Harvest Fest with Kaden and Julia.



~Kaden's first hayride with our friends Lindsay and Julia. Julia is the cutest!













~the road to our camping spot this past weekend.....to be continued!

*AM dance festivities*

~treat every morning like a solid gold dance party...complete with Chad's amazing acid washed denim jammies. *swoon*

*bullies*

~kaden with his owwie still *rockin on*

Poor little kaden got a little roughed up this week by some bullies. For the record, I do not actually believe these two and three year olds are actually "bullies", and I understand how impulsive and the low frustration tolerance that goes hand in hand with being a toddler. Although I know better and understand their intentions, my first instinct was to give these little bullies the stink eye.

The first was a huge scratch that he got on his face when some little girl (apparently with very long well manicured nails) wanted the toy he was playing with at daycare. I freaked out a little when I got home from work and first saw him, but Chad convinced me that his daycare teacher was super apologetic and said that she had spoken with the girl's mother. The second incident happened at the mall with both Chad and I there a few feet from him. I saw this little boy hitting his mama while she was texting (of course she didn't once put down the damn cell) and she continued to scream at him "go play". He was in a little tunnel in the play area at the mall, and although I didn't see exactly what happened, kaden said the boy smacked him in his face and threw him on the ground. Kaden was HOWLING and screaming "he got me".

At this point, I am wondering out loud how other mamas would handle this. In the past, I have felt that it is not my place to discipline other people's children. That being said, if a child is being overly aggressive, and no one is really supervising that child, I think somehow they need to be held accountable for their actions. I made the decision to go over to this boy's mama (still texting)and let her know what happened. She shared with me that he was autistic and he is nonverbal, and went right back to texting. Having experience working with children with autism, I quickly apologized to her and just focused on talking to kaden to calm him down.

I haven't stopped thinking about how I would handle this next time....and I know there will be a next time. Kaden is not the little guy that hits others at the park, he is the intuitive little people watcher that is probably gonna get bullied for being such a sweet and sensitive soul at some point. Or maybe not. He is a pretty cool little dude.








~jamfest.



Linky Love!

Loving this super duper adorable Fall Bucket List printable from Loves of Life. Just click on the blog and you can print one for yourself!

I'm feeling giddy about Halloween this year, and I'm feeling extra crafty. Loving all these cute Halloween ideas!

I stumbled upon this blog this week and it is my newest blog crush. Passive Aggressive Notes. Definitely worth a drive by...it is hilarious!

I have been quite lazy this summer with regards to cooking, and it has been TOO hot out to turn on the oven! I needed some inspiration to get back into it, and I tried out two new recipes this week that were incredible and I have to share with you!

The first I made in my beloved slow cooker. It was this Brown Sugar and Balsamic glazed Pork Loin from the blog C&C Marriage factory. Worth a look with that super cute blog name! This was soooooo yummy and so easy, I will definitely be making this again soon!

The second didn't *sound* very yummy to me, but I am always looking for ways to get us all to eat more sweet potatoes, so I decided to give it a try. Please make this! You won't be sorry! These are Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos from the Cassie Craves blog. I find myself always perusing her blog when in need of new things to try...her site is definitely worth a visit! These were SO tasty and may be my new favorite way to make tacos!

little stomper

~kaden LOVES the Lion King and his new favorite song is Hakuna Matata. Well, this and Jingle Bells.


Last weekend (I know I'm behind on my updates), we went to the Italian Festival in Belmar and had so much fun! They had a grape stomping event for the kids, and I have always wanted to do that myself, so I thought I would try to live vicariously through my little one. Poor guy. I had no idea he would hate it so much. I myself, took one look and I definitely got over my desire to partake in any grape stomping in the future. Eeeewwwwww.




~kaden insisted on watching this flag throwing show three different times throughout the day.


~the amazing audrey!!! love her!


~what the....


~the face says it all.


~pure torture.


~the "little stomper" balloon slightly made him forget the trauma of the grape smooshing for a tiny moment.

and I had to do a litle update on chad's new hair. I am thinking of letting him help me out a bit with mine too! purple or green? hmmm....

The weather is finally starting to cool off a bit and is feeling like fall....yay for all things cozy! Kaden and Daddy were doing some daring moves on his bike at the park the other day... love his random jibberish at the end.


Next week I promise to be back with a real blog post and some linky love too!
Have a good weekend everyone!

~Jenny

goodbye mikey.

This weekend we said goodbye to our beloved Michael Meowgi. After Simon died, he lost all love and lust for life, stopped eating, cleaning himself, making those adorable cat screeching noises that I had become so accustommed to when he was hungry in the morning. He his under the bed 24/7, and his breathing started to get really labored. We took him to our incredible vet (seriously, she could NOT have been nicer during this whole situation), and she said he was having a really tough time breathing and it looked like it could have been kitty leukemia. It was a really hard decision to make, as we really didn't want to let him go for our own selfish reasons, but he appeared to be in an enormous amount of pain, and we couldn't watch him go through that anymore. Now he and Simon are together and are the coziest snuggle bunnies in kitty heaven.





~new bike. I get misty at this pic...he looks SO big!

Some of the latest random Kadenisms....

*kaden likes to scream "STOP" to the cars when we are looking both ways and crossing the street. Not sure where he gets this, but I find it hilarious every time.

*kaden and I shop a lot, but we rarely buy anything that is not of absolute necesity. I have this thing about entitlement in the kids I work with, and I am slightly militant about trying to dissuade him from having entitlement when he is older. Lately, whenever we are at a store, he asks random people to buy things for him. I am so mortified in the moment that it's hard to address it with him. Thankfully, people think it's hysterical. We now have pep talks before we go into a store about what NOT to say to people!

*while over at mamaw's house, kaden heard "this land is your land". Kaden was blown away by the part that says "from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters"....he said "How did they know my name?" teehee. Little does he know he was named after a beautiful, ginormous tree.

Kaden loves The Lion King, and even more he loves the chanting at the very beginning when they sing The Circle of Life. Here's his version....


Tonite we ventured out to the Taste of Colorado to see a free show of Boyz to Men. Good thing there were 1,000 other things to do there, because we couldn't squish by the zillion other people that were psyched to see them as well! Kaden loved the festival and we saw a lot of cool bands and had so much fun walking down 16th street mall afterward. We met up at Old Spaghetti Factory with Unk Bri and daddy and had a yummy spaghetti feast. Such a fun day.


playing in legoworld...I love legos. I think I love them as much as kaden.


~he was head over heels for this violin guy. The guy ROCKED!