Camera Happy

Today I took 93 pictures of my daughter.

Yesterday I only took 10.

Last month I took just 3 shy of 600.

In my defense, I have my camera on rapid fire mode so it's like I'm taking 10 pictures at a time. But still...

It's really hard to pick just one for each day.

Oh, and PS: the tally so far for this year? 4,279.  But the aren't all of Cadence.  Just 95% of them.  I'm definitely getting my money's worth out of my external HD!

Good Morning Cadence!

Way Back When Wednesday - Time Zone Change

In 2008 for our 4th anniversary, we went to Las Vegas.  It was a great trip!  We didn't have a lot of money to spend so we tried to do as many things as we could that were free and pick two fun things that weren't.  One of the non-free things was a show, the Blue Man Group, playing at the Venetian.  I had heard great things about it and was really excited to see them.

The show started at 8pm so keeping an eye on time, we went to dinner.  I guess eating took a bit longer than we had thought so we had to book it over to the Venetian.  What a confusing place!  We had never been inside the Venetian (we were staying in a different hotel) and in our hurry, it seemed like a maze!  I was so worried we would be late, and if you've ever been to a Blue Man Group show, you know it's not a great idea to be late.  They pause the whole show, put a spotlight on the person or persons, and sing a "You're Late!" song.

When we finally found the theater, the doors were closed and locked and there wasn't anyone at the ticketing desk.  We were right on time and wanted to get in!!  Finally, a lady came and we asked them when the show would start.   She told us it would start promptly at 8pm. 

Dumbfounded, we looked at her, then at our watches, then at the doors.  Then at our watches again.  Then it dawned on us.  We asked her what time it was.  "Seven o'clock," she replied.  We were in a different time zone!  Not wanting to look like idiots, we stepped away from the desk and had a good laugh at our own expense!

The funniest part about this situation?  This wasn't our first day in Las Vegas.  We had gone a whole day and a half without realizing we were no longer in the Mountain Standard time zone!  Guess that shows you how relaxed we were!

Simple Sunday Pleasures

• Cadence made it through all three hours.  I think we've only done this two other times in our new ward?  It's tough when church runs right through your afternoon nap!!
  
• Derek took Cadence for the 3rd hour so I could enjoy Relief Society!!  What a sweetie!
  
• Sat next to a new friend in Relief Society.  Her name is Julie and her daughter's name is Kadence.  I know, what a coincidence!  She is great, but unfortunately might be moving to Boise in August...
  
• Relief Society was wonderful.  I'm totally inspired to start teaching my daughter gospel principles by example!
  
• Cadence fell asleep in the car on the way home from church, briefly woke up when I got her out of the car, but promptly fell back asleep on my shoulder as I carried her inside.  I absolutely LOVE it when this happens!  She's not a snuggler so I never get to hold her while she sleeps.  I guess this is the benefit of church running through her nap.
  
• I got to spend ALL DAY with Derek and just relax.  Sundays are wonderful.  Derek is wonderful.  I'm a lucky girl!

Cause for Celebration!

We have a lawn!  Derek and our friend Jared laid our sod today!  It's so nice to look out our windows and see green instead of brown, brown, brown!!!

Crawling, Crawling, Crawling!

Cadence LOVES her cat, Willow.  Willow loved Cadence until she started being more mobile.  And laughing maniacally whenever she's in sight!







It seems like Cadence has been going through an explosion of development since the beginning of this month. She started pushing up on her hands and knees (and sometimes hands and feet) while we were in Jackson just after Memorial Day and she hasn't stopped since then.

She's been scooting, army crawling, doing the worm, crawling, sprouting TWO new teeth, becoming WAY more vocal, pulling herself up, and even sleeping through the entire night once!

I can't wait to see what she does next!

Two Great Things

Two great things happened yesterday.

First: Cadence got another tooth!  It's so cute and small.  It makes her first tooth look big.  And the cuteness of those two teeth almost make it okay that she's growing up.  Derek and I are really enjoying the stage that she's in right now and almost don't want her to keep growing.  Almost.  Because we know that the next stage is going to be pretty good too.

Second: When I ran outside to greet Derek after getting home from his early morning job (It's a morning ritual.  I hear the front door, garage door, or Derek's LOUD truck and I come a runnin'!!), he says in a sweet voice, "I got something for you!"

"What is it?" I ask.

"It's a rake!" he exclaimed as he held up the ugly orange thing.  "Just kidding," he reassured me when he saw my confused/disappointed look.  "It's a ceiling fan!  I needed to go to to the Home Depot to check out some material for the bathroom job and I thought I'd get the ceiling fan that you wanted before they quit selling this style.  And I heard it's going to be a hot week."

I cheered!  I love ceiling fans!  And I love my husband who was thinking about me and my need for a ceiling fan in our kitchen during this hot week!  And he even installed it the same day!  How's that for service!

Way Back When Wedesday - It's all in who you know

In class one day we were talking about parents and what they do for jobs.  One of my students, Ye-In (English name Jane), said that her mother owned the bowling alley just up the hill from ETS.  I was really excited because Derek and I love to go bowling and hadn't found a good bowling alley in Sokcho yet.  We had seen Ye-In's mother's, but had yet to go in.

I told Ye-In that we would go there some time and to tell her mother that we would come.  I thought it would be fun for us (and her mother) to meet each other and do a fun thing at the same time. Unexpectedly, we got a sweet deal on bowling!  Ye-In had told her  mother we would come and since we "knew each other" gave us a free game!

It's really all in who you know in Korea!

Way Back When Wednesday - "Chocolate" Milk

Ha!  This one is really funny!

After a shopping trip to E-mart, Derek and I decided to eat at the food court.  We were going to save money by buying some drinks in the grocery area so I left Derek to pick up some chocolate milk and check out while I went over to the food court to order our food.

He came, brought the cartons of milk, and then went to pick up our order once our number was called.  I was so thirsty!!  I pulled out a carton, opened it and started chugging.  It had to have been the most disgusting thing I've ever drank!!  When I took a closer look at the carton, it said, "Coffee Milk!"

You can be sure I gave Derek a hard time about it when he got back to the table.  His excuse was, "Well, it was brown, so I thought it was chocolate!!"

After this experience we checked every bottle of chocolate milk to make sure it was actually chocolate!

Way Back When Wednesday - Trying to buy anti-itch cream

I don't speak Korean.  I lived there for a year and a half and I can read Korean, but I have no idea what I'm reading.  This makes shopping a bit difficult.  If there aren't big pictures on the packaging, I'm usually lost, and there usually aren't big pictures on anti-itch cream.

There are mosquitoes everywhere in Korea and I'm a mosquito magnet so I got bit a lot.  I went to a drugstore to find some.  I looked around for a bit but soon saw it was clear that I would need to ask for some help to find the cream. 

Asset #1:  I  know the word for mosquito... 모기 (mogi)

Problem #1:  Mogi is the only Korean word I know related to this subject.

So I decide to use English just in case the sales lady knows English.  No dice.  She smiled, but had no idea what I was talking about. 

When I don't know enough Korean and the salesperson doesn't know enough English, I end up resorting to charades hoping that will get the message across.  No dice.  And you should have seen the charades I was doing!  They were right on and totally embarrassing to boot, but the sales lady pointed at bug spray.  Not quite what I wanted.

So I ended up pulling my pant leg up to show her the bug bite and pantomiming scratching it.  That worked and she pointed to the little bottles of cream sitting on the counter right in front of me.  If only I could read AND understand what I was reading!

Way Back When Wednesday - Suk Jae

The Sokcho branch was small, but it had a lot of love!  One great of example of this was the love everyone showed for a 12-year-old autistic boy in the branch.  His name was Suk Jae.  He was fairly severely autistic which would make me think that people would shy away from him; especially in Korea where being different is not a good thing.  But everyone loved him and treated him as if they were their son, grandson, brother, or nephew!

Suk Jae was very active and would get up, flap his arms, yell and run around the chapel every 10 or 15 minutes during sacrament meeting.  Once you got used to it, it wasn't that distracting. 

One Sunday Brother Kim, a young man who was attending college in the area, wanted Suk Jae to sit down next to him to enjoy the reverence of the sacrament (and help Suk Jae's mother relax).  Suk Jae really didn't want to sit still and struggled a bit.  His 3-year-old sister saw this, marched right over to them and said in a loud voice, "Hey you!  Let go of my brother!  Let go of my brother!!"

Brother Kim was taken aback and decided that letting Suk Jae go would cause less of a disturbance than his little sister yelling at him.  So Brother Kim let him go and Suk Jae happily jumped up and continued running around the room!

Way Back When Wednesday - Body Perseptions

One of the major differences between American culture and Korean culture that I could never get over was their willingness to be "helpful" by telling you what's wrong with your appearance.

For example, one of my coworkers (who was well known among his Korean friends to be rude) greeted me and asked if I had caught a cold.  I said, "No, why?"  His response was, "You look HORRIBLE!"  Thanks...

Another time Derek and I were visiting with the missionaries after church.  I could tell one of the missionaries was interested in a conversation two of the branch members was having across the room.  I asked him what they were saying.

"You aren't going to like it.  They're talking about Sister Lee coming home from America.  Sister Kim just said, 'Did you have a good time in America?  You look a little fatter!!'" he explained.

I was horrified!!  I couldn't believe that a woman would say that to another woman, outloud!

Climbing Fences

Is it possible for my 8-month-old to laugh at me?  I mean really laugh.  When I'm not trying to get her to bust a gut.  I mean I'm just like all the other mothers out there who act like idiots--on purpose--to get their kids to laugh.

But this evening the furthest thing from my mind was trying to get Cadence to laugh.  I was just trying to climb over the little fence that separates our yard from the common area.  Derek was holding her while I tried to climb over the fence.  I didn't get very far because as soon as I started to swing one leg over, Cadence started to laugh.  And not just some half-hearted, I'll-laugh-so-you-don't-feel-bad laugh.  It was a full out belly laugh!

Which made Derek laugh, and me laugh, making it even harder to climb over the fence.  I tried two or three more times and every time I'd start to swing one leg up, she'd start all over again!

I guess I look ridiculous enough trying to climb over fences, even babies laugh!

P365 Imported!

I haven't been all that great about blogging on my Idaho Cheneys blog.  And that's because I've been working on my pet project, "365 Days in the life." 

I had originally planned on keeping an invite only blog, but now I kind of want to share my daughter with the world.  She's just that cute.  And you can see what we've been doing these past 8.5 months.

I Heart Faces - All About Babies

All About Babies Photo Challenge

This is one of my favorite pictures of my daughter! She had pulled down her headband over her eyes without us realizing. I guess it didn't bother her too much because she just kept on sleeping!

Sweet Baby Moment

I am so grateful that I've relaxed a bit in this mothering thing.  The first few months of Cadence's life were pretty stressful for me.  I wanted to do everything just RIGHT, I had no idea what to do, and I thought there was an exact procedure for every part of a baby's life.  Ha!  I'm still pretty strict to a schedule for Cadence, but I don't feel like it's unreasonable and it works for us.

But I have gotten a lot more flexible. 

For example, we went over to a friend's house tonight and stayed two hours past Cadence's bed time.  Five months ago, I would have been hyperventilating and pushing Derek out of their house so we could get home right on time.  But tonight Cadence was well behaved and happy, so I was too. :)

We did a short bedtime routine once we got home and Cadence was in bed by 9:30.  At 10:00 she still wasn't asleep.  Not upset, not crying, just not asleep.  Five months ago, I would have been FREAKING out.  But tonight I calmly went in to change her diaper to see if that would help the process.

If I was freaking out, I would have missed the so-happy-to-see-mommy little girl who laid on the changing table.  She smiled, kicked, squealed, and even GIGGLED when I tickled her belly! (That's unusual for Cadence.  Usually when I tickle her, she just acts annoyed.  Giggling is so much more fun!)

What a sweet baby moment that I'm so glad I didn't miss!

Milestone

My baby has a tooth!!  I found it Saturday on the ride home from Lucky Peak where we watched our friend Travis participate in a half Ironman (which was awesome by the way). 

There are no pictures as of yet.  I only saw it briefly after I pulled my finger out of her mouth.  And for some reason she's not too keen on the idea of me holding her mouth open while pulling her lip down to get a better look/picture.  :)

Cousins

My baby's crawling!

Day 262

When she gets really sleepy, she starts rubbing her bear blanket all over her face and then just leaving it there! :)

Funny Conversation with Derek Last Night

Me: I got your water.

Derek: Thanks!

Me: Sorry it's just a small glass...

Derek: That's fine.

Me:  I brought you a small cup so you wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night to pee.

Derek: Oh, that never happens to me.  Except for once a year... maybe.

Me:  Well, I don't want tonight to be that one night a year.

Day 261

She's starting to crawl!  And make huge messes!

We knelt down in Cadence's room to have family prayer, and look at this cute face peaking over her bumper!  

Day 260

Yeah, she's stuck under the sofa. At this point she only moves backwards.

Day 259

Day 258

Day 257

Not the best pictures, but she was having so much fun playing with her blocks in the condo in Jackson.

Day 256

She was so tuckered out, she couldn't even finish her cookie!

Day 255

She's starting to get on her hands and knees... and toes, too!!

Day 254

Yellowstone National Park

Wearing Uncle PJ's hat.

Day 253

On the car ride to Jackson, WY!