Random Happenings This Week

I had just finished feeding Berkley the other day and Cade was asleep. It was nice to get some one-on-one time with my girl. She is so fun! Check her out:

We went to Disneyland for a few hours and we stopped in the Lego store.  Cade & Daddy (and me too) had a ball building robots and rockets!

Cade is obsessed with "Fire Cars", as Cade calls them.  So darn cute.

Our poor babies both have the "Hand, Foot, Mouth" Virus.  It is the saddest.thing.ever.  This virus is horrible.  Cade had a fever of 104.3!  They are getting better now but both were miserable.  They would cry/scream all.day.long.  I am not exaggerating.
They were starving and thirsty but they couldn't eat or drink because of the sores in their throat causing so much pain.  Please keep them in your prayers.  They have not been sleeping much either.  Until today!  They are both napping right now which is so nice.  They NEVER sleep at the same time - naps are always staggered - boo.  But not today.... so I am off to go enjoy the P & Q (peace & quiet)!  Woo hoo!

Video of the BIG Surprise

As promised, here is the video of the BIG surprise.  You can skip the first 46 seconds to jump right to their entrance.  At 2:37 is where you can see my brother walk in and surprise them (I talked about how he surprised them at the end of my last post).

Mom & Dad's 40th Anniversary SURPRISE Party!

One year ago (July 1st), on my parents' 39th wedding anniversary, I called my brother and told him that we had 1 year to plan mom & dad's 40th anniversary SURPRISE party.  He was on board and we quickly started throwing ideas around.  It wasn't until January that we really started to get the ball rolling, as far as planning goes.
My uncle Steve (mom's brother) was kind enough to allow us to use his gorgeous home.  We also hired "The Taco Man".  There were many details to plan and execute and I can now say that everything turned out PERFECT!  The best part..... THEY WERE ACTUALLY SURPRISED!  I am still shocked that no one blew it.  I didn't think that ever happened anymore.  It seems like someone always spills the beans. 
Here is how it worked:  Cade's birthday is in a few weeks, so I told my parents that we were having a "family only" party at uncle Steve's house for Cade.  I told them that we had to have it a few weeks before his bday since some of Brad's family would be out of town and this was the only weekend that worked.  I wanted my parents to arrive at 1pm, so I told them Cade's bday party started at 2pm, and could they please arrive at 1pm to help Brad & I set up.  They said, "Of course we will help!"  (But really, everyone was arriving at 12:30pm.  So this would give everyone time to arrive before mom & dad arrived at 1pm.)
Onto some pictures....
Here is the cake.  I just LOVED it with the "now and then" pictures!

I also got that photo board that you see in the top left corner.  It is a picture from their honeymoon.  Everyone signed it and it waas a great keepsake for them to remember this day.

A few pictures from "now and then" decorated the patio.

My brother and his wife and son (Chris, Aimee, and Brennan) flew out from Texas to surprise them as well.  Here is Cade whooping it up with his cousin Brennan.  They had a blast together!

We had a video that was a slideshow with a bunch of pictures.  It was set to the song "I Will Be Here For You" by Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman.  Here is Cade watching the video....

My parents (and Berkley) watching it...

My bro & I watching....

LOVE this one of my parents and their 3 grandchildren watching.  And how about Cade looking so excited?! :)  He must've seen a picture of himself in there:)

The happy couple.

Our family. 

Mom, dad, my brother, his son, me and my monkeys.

Same people but with my brother's wife Aimee, and my husband Brad.

Here you can see the pool and The Taco Guy setting up.

Cade &Brennan getting pushed in the hammock by auntie Bee Bo!  (This is what I called Beth growing up.  Now the kiddos call her the same thing:)

Nash (my cousin Steph's son), Brennan, and Cade playing ball.

Playing with Blake - or "Beek" as Cade calls him:)

We invited our huge family and also 5 couples that are my parents very best friends.  My parents were SO happy that all of their closest friends were there!  Here are a bunch of them.

I am SO happy that mom & dad were surprised!  I will post a video soon that shows them walking in and hearing "SURPRISE!".  You can tell by my mom's face that they had no clue.  It was really neat how we let them know that my brother and family had flown in from Texas.  Basically, they were in a back bedroom hiding.  Once we all said, "Surprise!", and our hearts stopped racing,  my mom said, "Oh my gosh!  Everyone's here.  Is Chris here too?"  I said, "No, but he wanted me to call him so that he could say hi and hear your reaction."  So, I called him right there and my mom was talknig to him and telling him how neat this was, etc.  She then gave the phone to my dad so that he could talk to Chris.  About 2 minutes later, Chris walks out of the room still on the phone!  I thought my parents were going to have a heart attack.  It was SO NEAT!  I will post the video soon!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to Bradley Derek! Our kids are so lucky to have you as their Daddy. Thank you for all of your hard work and for being so hands-on.  We are so glad you are ours:)  You are an amazing Daddy. 
Hope you had fun yesterday at the Angel game....

And Happy Father's Day to my dad as well!  I love you so much, Dad!  You have loved me unconditionally and I have never had to question your love for me.  You made it known that Chris & I (and mom of course) were the "joys" of your days.  I love you.  Thanks for being my Daddy... and for being so darn good at it:)

Wedding Photo Booth

Rob & Olivia had a FUN photo booth at their wedding.  Seriously, the B.E.S.T. thing ever!   Brad & I couldn't get enough!   I even got my mom in on the action! See below:

Ring Bearer

Cade was the ring bearer in my cousin's wedding last night. Robbie married the gorgeous Olivia in Dana Point and we had a blast. We weren't sure if he would walk down the aisle or not, but fingers were crossed. He was going to walk down with his favorite person, Tori, who was a junior bridesmaid. While we were at the back waiting their turn, he kept saying, "I wanna see Bee Bo (my aunt)." So once it was "game time" I told him to go walk down and get Bee Bo (who was sitting on the end). As you will see below, he was quite excited to see Bee Bo and ran very quickly:)

His shirt read, "Ring Security".  Too cute!  He also had a badge on the front.  He was supposed to wear black sunglasses too, but he wanted no part of it.   :)

Below is Cade and Tori...

I guess we were a bit excited.... this was just before we were about to start.....

My parents & me at the cocktail hour....

Congratulations Rob & Olivia!  Here's to a great life together.  We love you guys!  

Playmates

Yesterday I had a glimpse into the future:)
I was making dinner and I heard the sweetest sound.... the kiddos playing TOGETHER! Up until this point they would interact, but they had never really "played" together. It was the sweetest thing ever! Cade was rolling balls up and down the hall and they were crawling (yes, Cade was crawling too:) after them. I heard giggles and squeals galore. I finally ran to grab my camera to video it, but of course it wasn't nearly as energetic at that point. Here is what I was able to get:

Yes, we really have "2 babies in diapers" as the clique says.
Here's to our babies being close friends! 

8 Months!

I cannot believe our "baby" is 8 whole months!  She is closer to "toddler" than "baby" and that makes me sad.  Berkley's giggle is contagious and her big brother loves and protects her, which makes us proud.  Berkie is a love bug and is as sweet as pie.  She plays so well by herself too and can entertain herself easily.  Being the 2nd child (with her older brother still a "baby" himself), she unfortunately has to be on her own sometimes.  She sleeps through the night and has been eating great!

Without further adieu, here are Lil' Miss Berks' 8 month stats:

Height: 27.25 in (50th percentile)

Weight: 16 lbs 13oz (22nd percentile)

We love you so much, baby girl!

Balboa Island's "Kick Off to Summer" Parade

Yesterday we went to Grammer's (my MIL's) house on the island to watch the parade. Tami, Josue, and Cade's best buddy Sofia met up with us too! The people in the parade passed out candy, flags, mini toys, etc. The kids loved waving their flags around like it was no body's business:)  These 2 entertained each other so well (as always) and they sat in the stroller together forever!

Not the best photos but here are a few I got...

This last one was of the Indian Princesses and their Daddies.  Seeing this brought back such sweet memories.  My dad and I participated in Indian Princesses for many years (we lived in Texas at the time) and we had the BEST time.  There is something about dads and their little girls spending such quality time together.  Dad, I will never forget going to camp and winning the award for "catching the most fish" and also for "catching the biggest fish".  I remember you politely asking if I wanted to just choose 1 award so I could let someone else have the other.  Of course, being a kid, I kindly declined that offer:)  I also remember that same year my near disastrous fall.  The cabins had bunk beds.  All the dads would sleep on the bottom bunk, and their daughters would sleep above them on the top bunk.  The ground underneath was concrete.  One night, I rolled off my top bunk and came falling down.  Luckily, dad had one eye open and reached out and caught me JUST before I hit the concrete!  Indian Princesses is something I still cherish to this day and something I hope Brad will do with Berkley in a few years.

Mr. Talkative

Mr. Cade Kendall is continuing to gab.... all.the.time.
He continues to amaze us at how much he is talking.  It seems like his vocab and sentence length grows on a daily basis.  He will say things like: "I wanna go this way", or "I want my summer shoes on", or "I want fries (or "do dos" - donuts), Mommy."
He also tells us where he wants to go.  Usually it is one of these 3 options: "I wanna go Chuck E's house", "I wanna go see the Mickey show" (at Disneyland), or "I wanna go to the park."
This morning I was putting his white socks on and he said, "no Mommy.  I want my red Elmo socks on."
We just fall even more in love with this little boy every day!  I cannot believe he is going to be 2 in one more month!  He is such a goof ball.  He likes to eat his dinner and when finished, put the bowl on his head for a hat!  This was quite comical last night since he had just had a bath and the bottom of the bowl had butter in it.  Needless to say, he had greasy hair today!  Gotta love our little comedian.  Cade has a very outgoing, goofy, fun-loving personality and I could just eat him up!