The Cassidee Way

The Kindergarten Queen

2011-12-23T19:49:00.000-08:00

Cassidee is in Kindergarten this year and is loving it. She has a fabulous teacher too.
Cassee passed her goal of 30 sight words a few weeks ago. She's learning so much and loves to read with me.
Her hearing greatly improved due to the little surgery she had done last year. Her speech has improved a lot too.
A couple months ago it was Cassee's week at school to be spotlighted in her class.
Her teacher sent home a poster that we were supposed to color and fill out. Some of the sections were name, family, favorite color, favorite food, etc.
Then at the bottom it asked for what she wanted to be when she grew up. I asked Cassidee that question and she confidently said, "Queen". I said ok and wrote that down on her poster. I thought that was a typical answer for a 5 year old.
A few days later I went to the school and chatted with her teacher. She commented that all the girls that had been spotlighted up until then had all said they wanted to be a "Princess". Cassee was the first to say Queen.
What a clever little girl! Go straight to the top!!

Cassee's 5 year old pictures

2011-09-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

First Day of Kindergarten

2011-08-18T18:23:00.001-07:00

Cassidee started Kindergarten this last Monday. She was very excited.
Here she is ready and waiting at home in the morning.

Here she is getting on Miss Elizabeth's bus.

This is Mrs. Lopez, her long term sub for one month.

And here's Mrs. Wagner, the aid.

Here she is at the end of the day. She had lots of fun and knows a couple of the girls in her class already.

Yeah for Cassidee.

A Broken Arm

2011-06-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

A few days ago something crazy happened to Cassee.
She was playing with Preston at Jill's house. They were on the bed downstairs. There was a laundry basket and a pillow. Preston did not push her. Cassidee did not fall off the bed. Yet, somehow she fell over the basket and landed on the bed and managed to break her arm!
So now, tomorrow we head to the doctor's office to get a cast put on her arm. It will be water-proof, so hopefully that won't ruin her whole summer!

Cassidee's Preschool Graduation

2011-05-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Cassidee finished her first full year of preschool at Esperanza Preschool in Farmington in May.
She looked so grown up in her cap and gown.
Here's her class. (And the afternoon kids too.)

I loved this small smile I got out of her. I think I was distracting her.

Here she's singing a song. She's very focused on watching her teacher and doing all the right actions. Her teacher said she was a good example to her class all the time.

Here she is getting her "diploma".

Yeah, she did it!

This is a guitar we made for one of her songs. All the kids were so funny playing their guitars. Pink is her favorite color again.

Here's she is showing me her spot.

This is her teacher, Miss Kelly. She was great. Cassee loved her a lot.

These are the classroom aides/helpers, Miss Henrietta and Miss Ko.

Daddy and little brothers, Adam and Andrew came to cheer her on.

And of course Mom too.

Good job Cassidee for all your hard work this year. You did great.
Now she's all ready for Kindergarten!

Cassee's 5th Birthday

2011-05-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

Cassee had her first friend birthday party.
We had about 8 other kids at the house.
Here they are playing with balloons.

Here's the table where we decorated flower pots and filled them with candy. And decorated cupcakes.

We had "flower" cupcakes for her cake this year.

Here's the birthday girl with her 5 candles!

You gotta love the "blowing-out-the-candles shot!

She got lots of great gifts from everyone.

Including a t-ball set, bat, balls, and baseball mitt from Mom and Dad!
She's quite the little baseball player already. Grandpapa's so proud!
Happy Birthday Cassidee!

Best Sisters

2011-03-04T12:16:00.001-08:00

Today Cassee told me that Emmalynn was her best friend. I hope she remembers that when she's 14!

Cassee Faces

2011-03-04T12:09:00.001-08:00

Cassee the Ladybug

2010-11-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

Little Cass decided to be a ladybug for Halloween this year. Thanks to our neighbors who had a suit big enough.
She was also a ladybug for her first Halloween 4 years ago! Not sure where that picture is!

Cassee and Books

2010-10-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

Cassee loves books. She can sit with a pile of books for an hour and "read" through each one. I recently got a few books with matching CDs. We put the CD player in her room and showed her how to work it. She is always going in there to listen to one of the books.
Today right after we got home from church she went in there to "read" a book.
We have so many books and it makes me so happy to see my kids actually enjoying them!

I am a Child of God

2010-08-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

Here's Cassee singing "I am a Child of God".

ND Trip

2010-08-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

Cassee had fun playing with her cousins at Nana and Papa's farm.
Who actually needs to play pool on a pool table??

Sam is the cousin her age. Here they are playing with his new puzzle

We found some ripe raspberries next to the house. They were yummy!

We also went to see Grandma Gietzen in the nursing home.

Reading Books

2010-07-13T17:27:00.001-07:00

Cassee often likes to "read" books to herself. Today she "read" a book to Adam too.

Start of summer party!

2010-06-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Grandma McDaniel, the grandma from the "Grandma School" that Cassee went to on Friday's threw a "End of School - Start of Summer" party at the pool in Bloomfield.
Here's a few pics of the kids having fun.
We love the floaties! Go Emmee!!

Thank you Shauna for holding Cassee the whole time. Cassee is happy in the water, if and only if someone holds her the WHOLE TIME!

Adam jumped right in before anyone noticed. Good thing there were people near us watching. They rescued him before I even realized he'd jumped in!!
He sure loves his Daddy!!

Preschool Graduation 2010

2010-05-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

Today was Cassee's preschool's graduation day. Since she is going back in the fall, she didn't really "graduate" like the other kids in her class. (The ones sitting behind her with a little cap and gown.)
They sang a few songs, which Cassee claimed not to know and therefore couldn't sing along. Yeah, right!
This is her little certificate for the year.

These are the aids in her classroom. Miss Dessie on the left and Miss Sheri on the right.
And this is her teacher Miss Jan.

Cassee's 4th Birthday video clip2

2010-05-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

Cassee's 4th birthday Video clip 1

2010-05-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

More of Cassee turning 4!

2010-05-15T16:16:00.001-07:00

Cassee had a quiet little party at home for her real birthday.
Due to the fact that we don't have a kitchen right now, I had to buy a cake at the store. This is what Cassee picked.
She blew out the candles all by herself!

She got most of her presents in Utah over the previous weekend, but we saved a few from Mom and Dad.
Here's "The Prince" from SnowWhite.
And this is a little table with two chairs. It has a dry erase marker topper abilities. FUN!
And thanks to Uncle Dennis and Aunt Karen for the card and money gift!!!

Cassee's Utah Birthday Party

2010-05-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Cassidee's 4th birthday in Utah over Mother's Day with the Riskedahl side of the family. Cassee's cousin, Sam, is only 11 days younger. So as usual they got to share a party celebration!
They are pretty cute together when they play. Here they are looking a books together.

Here's Papa giving horsey rides.

They actually got leftover Kylee-baptism-cake for their cake.
Who cares as long as you can stick candles in, right?

Adam decided they needed a little help blowing out their whoppin' 4 candles.

What four year old doesn't love presents!

They were so cute. They actually took turns opening their presents one at a time.
Thanks for the new nightgown Ronda. She loves it.

Thanks for the other new nightgown Jill. She loves that one too!

And thanks Aunt Sally for the fun hat and other things.

Thanks Nana and Papa for your gifts too!
And Grandmama, who took Cassee shopping the next morning!

Eperanza Preschool

2010-04-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

I started the process of having Cassee screened for preschool in Feb. hoping to be able to get her into a fall class. We found some hearing problems in the process and found she also qualifies for articulation speech therapy.
Instead of waiting until fall, the teachers at the school decided to start her immediately. She goes on Mondays and Thursdays.
This is Cassee (by the front door of our home) on her first day of preschool on April 12, 2010.

This in the front door to the preschool. Adam helped her get to school.

Here is Cassee at the door to her new classroom. Her teacher was actually sick that day.
She loves to go to preschool. She was supposed to ride a bus, but because of the distance and other schedules, she would only be able to ride if she was in the morning class, which she is not. So, for the rest of this year, I will drive her every time. Next fall they will put her in the morning class and then she will get to ride the bus. She is VERY excited to ride the bus!!!

Eating Noodles

2010-03-20T11:35:00.001-07:00

Last night Mommy was lazy about making dinner, so the kids had one of those 'Cup o' Noodles'. There is broth in it, so they had a spoon to eat their noodles. However, the noodles are rather long and tend to slide off before reaching the mouth.
Cassee fixed that problem. At one point in the meal I looked over and saw this:
her method of fixing the 'noodle-falling-off-the-spoon-problem'.

It was so funny to us, we had to take a picture. Of course this snowballed into Emmalynn and Adam wanting to eat their noodles that way with a picture taken to accompany it.

Not the best of dinner manners, but it did make dinner more fun!

Watching and Waiting

2010-03-12T12:44:00.001-08:00

This is a typical scene in the morning and in the afternoon. Adam and Cassidee love to watch for the bus. Also, they are very excited every afternoon for Emmee to get home from school. (If only that love and excitement would last for many more years to come!)

Preschool for Cassidee

2010-03-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

Hurray! Hurray!!
Cassee qualified for the school district's preschool program! After Cassee's articulation screening, in which the lady recorded Cassee and her's conversation, she decided she couldn't understand enough of Cassee's words. (I'm glad she couldn't, because no one else can either.)
So, not only will we not have to pay for preschool for Cassee, she also gets speech therapy and they bus her to the preschool, I won't have to take her everyday that she goes! Bonus for mommy!!
We still need to see an ENT to find out what is preventing her eardrums from responding.

Cassee's Ears - Update 1

2010-02-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

We went to an audiologist on Wed. She found the same results. After cleaning out Cassee's ears (which took almost an hour for both ears - thanks to Papa for having very small ear canals) the Audiologist did an ear drum test.
Cassee's ear drums didn't respond any better when clean vs. ful of wax. Therefore, we are now going to an ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) to see what he has to say!
Hopefully this next week we will hear back from the articulation screening too.

Cassee's Ears

2010-02-23T18:24:00.001-08:00

We've had a speech screening for Cassee done for preschool this fall. She didn't pass the hearing tests (she's now had two). It could be why she doesn't annunciate her consonant sounds when she talks.
Tomorrow morning she has her articulation screening to see if she qualifies for the district preschool (FREE!) and in the afternoon she sees the audiologist at the hospital. (We were scheduled for the 4th of May, but today they had a cancellation for tomorrow!!)
We'll keep everyone updated on the "Hearing of Cassidee" Saga.

Cassee Outfits

2010-01-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

Cassidee truly has her own way of how she wants to be dressed. I can only make her change to normal clothes when we actually leave the house. I won't take her otherwise.
She loves play dress up clothes, but she loves real clothes too, maybe even more. She just doesn't wear them appropriately all the time.

Today she is wearing a slip. She loves this slip and has worn it for the past week. (It came to us the night before Julia's wedding thank to Dorothy and Holly, who had outgrown it, to Emmalynn to wear under her dress. It now fits Cassee very well.) She wears it under her clothes, over her clothes, all by itself (quite often) and has worn it under her pj's the last few nights. She also loves to wear tights. She wore those black tights to church yesterday, all day long and to bed with her slip and nightgown. She hasn't taken them off yet today and it's already almost 4 o'clock pm.
You can't tell but she also has on a black and orange Halloween skirt under her slip. She's wearing a shirt over the top because she was complaining to me earlier that she was cold. Imagine that! I told her to put a shirt on and that's what she picked. How warm huh?
She also loves her white sandals that she got from Grandmama for her birthday last year. She would wear them everywhere if I would let her.
Here she is in her latest and greatest nightgown (from the Ryan's for Christmas, good job Dorothy).
If you look closely you can see the pink lip gloss that she applied all over Adam's head and hair. How nice for her to have someone to let her practice on them! I wonder how long he'll last as her practice dummy!

"Someday my Prince will come..."

2010-01-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

This morning Cassee started singing this song. When I tried to sing with her she said, "No, like this." And she sang it again swaying to the song with her arms also dancing to the song. She does love SnowWhite! (Sorry about the darkness. This was in my bedroom and our three light-bulbed fixture has two bulbs burned out! How many Joneses does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently more than the five that live here!!)

Grandma Mac

2010-01-08T10:41:00.000-08:00

Cassee has found another grandma. And she loves her already.
A woman at church called and told me she has a little grandma school. She does it to spend time with her 3 year old granddaughter Claire (a little girl from church that Cassee plays with) while her 4 year old sister is at preschool. She just does it Friday mornings from 8:30 to 11:00 am. She has another little girl from church join as well whose grandmas also live far away.
Yesterday, Grandma Mac (McDaniel) called to invite Cassee to join her grandma school. Today Cassee went. They did puzzles, talked about snowmen and snow, made footprints in the snow and cut snowflakes with scissors. They also sing and have snacks too. Cassee had a lot of fun and is already calling this woman grandma. I'm so glad Cassee has a weekly outing now. She needs to play with friends and learn to talk better!

Scissor fun!!!

2009-12-03T20:10:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was in my room when Adam burst through the door. He paused long enough for Cassee to reach out with a scissors and snip his hair. I freaked. Then I looked at his hair, it was not the first snip. Then I looked at Cassee. It was not the second snip!
This is what she looked like after she gave herself a haircut!
Nice mullet huh?

It actually looks better on the pictures than it did in real life. I cried, it looked so bad.

Of course I forgot my camera at the salon but this is Cassee after the official haircut.
The hair cutter person did a good job of covering up her "bald spots".
It will look okay only if I blow dry it and curl it. I actually had to buy the right size curling iron. This better never happen again!

Cassee at the Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here's Cassee at the Sutherland Farms pumpkin patch.
They have a big sign, so you can see how much you grow from year to year.
(sorry it's sideways)

Cassee took a while to warm up (as usual). She didn't actually play in the corn pit. But at least I got her to sit on the edge and smile!

She also wouldn't go out into the pumpkin patch to get her little pumpkin. Mommy had to find her one. She did hold it though.

This is the little "train" ride. She loved it. Of course this was towards the end of our time there and she had finally warmed up.

She liked the chickens and actually let me take a picture of her standing near them. She refused to go remotely close to the goats. The bigger, the more intimidating I guess!

Cassee Finds the Costumes!

2009-10-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

We put the Halloween decor/costume tubs in the living room. Cassee had to try on ALL the costumes.

Cassidee the Pirate: Aarrgg, give me your candy!

The Cute Little Ladybug: (They don't say anything!)

The Fuzzy Yellow Chick: Cheep Cheep

The Pretty Pink Princess: Can I have all your candy since I'm a princess?

The Ugly Mean Witch: Heeheehee, I'll get you!

Any opinions of what she should be??

The Speech Impediment

2009-10-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

As with many three year olds, not all consonant sounds come out as intended.
One that we constantly notice that Cassee has trouble saying is the F sound. Words like Father comes out 'Hodder', and funny (which she says a lot) comes out 'hunny'.
Today we ate a plum for lunch. When Cassee said the word plum, it came out fum or flum. I laughed. Here comes the F sound on the wrong word.
She says H sounds for the F's, and F sounds for the P's.
This is going to take some work!!

The Bookworm

2009-10-06T13:37:00.001-07:00

I was unpacking all the boxes of books (Thanks to Julia for packing most of them!) and trying to organize them so I could figure out which bookshelf to put them on. I took a small break (for my legs!) and this is what I found when I got back.

Cassee loves books and can entertain herself "reading" books for up to a whole hour sometimes. Here she found a stack of Arthur books.

I didn't even might the mess she made!
Hopefully this is a sign that she will love to read as she gets older and goes to school!

Cassee Flying on (and off) the Treadmill

2009-10-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

A treadmill you say? I didn't know Dan and Leesa had a treadmill?

Well, we got it with the house. It was left in the garage. Now that we own the house, we figured we also own the treadmill too.

We put it in our master bedroom. It runs great too!

Mentally imagine this:
I'm in the shower (in the bathroom off the master bedroom, with the door open). I'm almost done. I hear Cassee screaming and a quick repeated thump, thump, thump.
It takes a minute to register to the brain what I'm actually hearing.
I run out of the shower, through the bathroom and across the bedroom (completely naked and dripping wet!)
Cassee has turned on the treadmill and pushed 7 (which is equivalent to a 8 1/2 minute mile). She is desperately hanging onto the bar across the top and running as fast as her little legs can possibly go. (and screaming her head off in a panicked terrified voice.) She slips and falls off the side just before I reach the STOP button.

She got two nasty rug burns, or should I say belt-from-a-treadmill burn. One on her elbow and one on her foot.
Here is one of her battle wounds:
The picture doesn't do justice.

The funny thing is that the same thing happened yesterday. She and Emmalynn were on the treadmill and she pushed the 7. They were both running as fast as they could, hanging onto the bar, and screaming. I was next to them on the bed and immediately hit the stop button. Neither of them fell, but it shook them up a little. I gave them a little lecture and assumed they wouldn't do that again. (As usual I now think of Dan's favorite saying, "Never ASSUME anything, it only makes an a-- out of U and Me." Yeah, yeah, what was I thinking?

The Hip Swinger

2009-10-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

Cassee found a little key chain that plays a song. She was shaking her hips all day as she played it over and over again. She's got quite the hip action.

Cassee's Dinner Prayer

2009-09-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

Cassee is usually pretty consistent in what she says in her prayers. She blesses everyone to be safe, go to school and work, and to be "sick all better".
Tonight she threw us off when she added something to our dinner meal prayer.
She said her usual, then she added, "Bless us to have cookies and donuts."
Dan and I looked at each other and smiled. Heehee.
Pause.
"And suckers."
A bigger smile and inward chuckle.
Pause.
"And candy."
Couldn't help it, laugh out loud. Haha.
She's catching on, smart kid.

I Can't Eat Anymore

2009-09-29T06:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we made a trip to St. George, Utah. It took about 7 1/2 hours there and 7 1/2 hours back. We left on Friday afternoon and came back on Sunday.
Half way home I pulled out a bag of pretzel sticks, the small ones. Cassee asked for a handful. I gave her a good handful, maybe 10 to 15 sticks.
About a half hour later (she was also watching a movie at the time) she says, "Mommy, I can't eat anymore." Meaning the pretzels. She was holding her hand out to me to take the rest of the pretzels she just couldn't manage to finish.
I reached my hand back so she could give them to me.
This is what I got:
It was like a tenth of one piece. She just couldn't finish it. Such a kid.
I laughed so hard. I'm laughing again right now just thinking about it!

SnowWhite

2009-09-25T12:24:00.000-07:00

Cassidee had a tramatic night. Around 1:30 Dan heard something and went to check on the girls. Cassee was awake and afraid of the dark. He turned the bathroom light on and went back to bed.
Dan leaves around 5:30 in the morning. I got up to pack his lunch (what a good wife I am) and decided to shut the girls bedroom door so they wouldn't wake up to my noises.
As I shut the door Cassee calls out, "No, don't shut the door!" I'm thinking - did she ever go back to sleep??
She came out of her room and said, "Good morning, Mom." I knew she was up for the day. Darn. I asked her if she wanted to watch a movie, so as to not wake up the others and to stay very quiet.
She said, "Yes, Mommy. I want to watch SnowWhite."
I said, "SnowWhite??" She hadn't watched it for a while and I was surprised she requested that one.
She said, "Yes, she's my friend. I love her."
It was said with such a sincere and honest tone I couldn't help but start laughing.

The Salt and Pepper Shaker Girl

2009-09-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

Moving always throws a few curve balls that change your typical routine. Since moving to New Mexico and due to the fact that most of our stuff is somewhere unknown in storage (including all of our food storage), we have eaten out more than we should have.
Cassidee has discovered the salt and pepper shakers!
Now everywhere we go she needs to put salt and pepper on her food. She NEEDS to, she says. I know it's because she just wants to shake the shaker of course.
Tonight we went to a Chinese restaurant. I treated myself because I was gone most of the day and Dan went straight to Young Men's night from work.
Everytime I looked away from Cassidee's direction she did a little "shake". Her fried rice had lots of pepper by the end. I took the shakers away. She pleaded to have them back in their little holder. (Of course the holder was right next to her plate.) She tried to be sneaky with them when she thought I couldn't see. (I was rather humerous to watch her out of the corner of my eye.)
Of course they got taken away again before the meal ended.
Apparently we can only go to restaurants that do not have salt and pepper shakers on the tables. Are there any?

I bonked my head!

2009-09-18T15:21:00.001-07:00

Cassidee wants everyone to know that she just bonked her head. She came to me crying and so sad, obviously in a lot of pain.

I asked her if she wanted me to take a picture of her bonked head and she said yes.

Of course, taking the picture seemed to ... make it all better.

Pretty soon I couldn't even get her to make a sad face for the camera.

It's amazing what a little camera in your face can do!

The Nose Horn

2009-09-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

I've never been a fan of Sponge Bob, but one day it came on the TV while Cassee was watching. During that opening song (which is very obnoxious...can you even call it a song?) Sponge Bob puts his fingers up to his nose and pretends like he's playing a horn. Cassidee thought that was hilarious and immediately started imitating.

Now she comes up to me all the time, says something I can't quite understand, plays her little "nose horn" and laughs and laughs. I can't help but laugh too!

Driving Mom CRAZY!

2009-09-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Cassee never quite knows what she wants and if she does, she doesn't quite know how to say it. We do everything three times and waste a lot of food. (Actually I end up eating most of it.) Here are some examples:

Example 1 - Breakfast. For breakfast she tells me she wants cheerios. I pour cheerios into a bowl. Instantly she gets mad and doesn't want them. She points to another box. Oh, she wanted Honey Bunches of Oats instead. I pour the cheerios back and pour honey bunches instead. Next I ask if she wants milk. No she says. I sit down. Instantly she's panicked. Oh, now she wants milk. Ok, I pour the milk. I sit down again. She's mad. She refuses to eat her cereal. She didn't want milk on it after all. Sheesh, I can't win. I learned to ask each question at least three times. If every answer is the same (which they usually are not!) then I follow through.

Example 2 - Doing her hair. She loves to get her hair done cute. She watches in the mirror while she stands on a stool. She smiles at herself in the mirror. I say, what hair-do do you want. She says pig-tails. I part the hair and do pig-tails. She gets mad and pulls her hair out of the bands. Sigh. What other pig-tails are there without them actually being pig-tails. Umm? Just the top half? Ok, now she's happy, except I forgot the bows. Pink? no. White? no. Purple, yes. Finally we are done with the hair.

Example 3 - The clothes. I pull out three bottoms and three tops. I let her pick. She grabs the pink shorts. I put the other two away. Instant panic! She wanted the blue ones, how dare I put them away! Repeat that with the shirts! Repeat that with the socks. Repeat that with the shoes!
I'm exhausted and notice that it's only 7:45 in the morning. (And this whole situation is not getting better with her increased ability to talk!)

Example 4 - Lunch. I say what do you want for lunch. She says bwead. (bread) I say what do you want on the bread? She says, peanut butter honey. I get out the peanut butter. She panics and cries out not that peanut butter. What peanut butter then? She shows me in the frig. Oh, she wants just butter. I get the honey. Panic again! I don't want the honey bear! You just want bread with butter? Yes.
Ok, I guess I'll eat the other two sandwiches I just made!

I wish I could read minds and predict the future!

"I did it last night!"

2009-09-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

Kids go in spurts for everything. Things they eat, what book they want read, what movie they watch (over and over and over!). This also applies to prayers.
For the last few months Cassidee has wanted to say every prayer: family prayer, eating prayer, FHE prayers, etc. She would get mad at us if someone else started saying the prayer. We often had to have an extra prayer just so she could say it too. Whatever! It's probably better than having the kid who refuses to pray.
Then one day for breakfast (it was just Adam, Cassee and I) I asked her to say the prayer on the food. She turned to me and said, "No, I did it last night!" with a puzzled how-could-you-not-remember voice.
Oh, I thought, she did? Whatever, I'll say it then.
At lunch she again said, "No, I did it last night!" ...okay, again.
That night for family prayer she said the same thing. Fine, someone else said the prayer. This is a switch! Usually she wants to say every prayer, but, oh well.
The next morning for breakfast she says the same thing, "No, I did it last night!"
I tell her no, she didn't and she just repeats the line over and over and insists she can't say the prayer because "she said it last night!". I don't even think she knows what 'last night' means.
Now, about two weeks later she's still saying that often. Once in a while we get her to say the prayer, but we have to convince her that she didn't just say it "last night".
I guess this is one of those "spurts" of not wanting to pray! Such a funny line she came up with though!

Nap or no nap?

2009-09-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love that age when kids think they are too old to take naps and when you force them they just fool around in their rooms anyway. And then they fall asleep in the middle of the family room later on because they do of course still need a nap.

Don't you just love that?

Cassidee's lunchbox

2009-09-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

The other day Cassidee decided to go to school too. She even packed her own lunchbox.

This is what I found when I looked inside.

The banana grams game, a magazine (folded to fit), and a little peach from outside on the ground.
Obviously she's all set!

Cassee's version

2009-09-03T12:18:00.001-07:00

Cassee was so cute today. She was entertaining Adam for me. He was having a great time. I asked her what she was playing. She said she was playing a game of "pink-a-boo". It's funny what they think they hear!

Cassee's prayers

2009-08-31T20:16:00.000-07:00

You gotta love the lingo that goes into a child's prayer. Months ago I hurt by back for a couple of weeks. The girls started praying for me every time we said any kind of prayer. Cassee's line is "Bless Mommy, sick all better." It became a line she put in every prayer. Eventually she added everyone else in the family as well.
"Bless Daddy, sick all better."
"Bless Emmee, sick all better."
"Bless Cassee, sick all better."
"Bless Adam, sick all better."
If you watch her give a prayer you can see her eyes move around the room so that she doesn't forget anyone. If you try to rush her to the end without her saying someone, she ignores you and keeps going. Sometimes she'll say everyone twice. The prayers can get a little long.
The other day I said a prayer at lunch. After I ended she looked up with an annoyed, yet hurt expression and said "Mommy, you didn't say Cassee sick all better!"
I had to say another prayer to make her happy.

The Pink Blanket

2009-08-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

Cassee has a certain pink blanket ('B' to her) that she takes everywhere. Of course it looks awful. Stains everywhere and the hem ripping out. We have convinced her to leave it in the car when we go into a store or restaurant. However, we are not so lucky when we get to church. Every Sunday she throws a fit by the car door that she just has to have it in church. Since we are trying to feel peaceful and reverence as we walk into the door of the church, we feel it not worth the battle. Yet as soon as she gets into the doors she hands one of us the blanket and says she can't carry it. Much to my annoyance, I usually end up toting it around church for the rest of the time. A few weeks ago we all got into the car and realized that no one had the 'B'. Dan and I spent 10 minutes or more searching every part of the church she had been to, to no avail. We were about to give up and call it lost, but Dan did one more sweep of the building. He finally found it on the dark stage where Cassee had run up onto with Emmalynn. It was saved. We used that incident as leverage for the following weeks after. It seemed to work well. We started congratulating ourselves a little too soon. Today the 'B' rejoined us at church once again. (However, since the building was very cold, I ended up using it for the last hour! Maybe I shouldn't complain too loudly!!)

Cassee's way is the only way!

2009-08-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

Cassidee Marie is a smart, very stubborn three year old. She came along nothing like her older sister much to her parent's surprise. (Not that we assumed all kids would be the same!) Sometimes we just don't know where she came from. Ever since she was born she did things her way, on her time, and when and if she felt like it. As a child, she pushes parently limits. As an adult, she just might become the first woman president. (Sorry Hilary Clinton.)
This blog will be all about Cassidee. She maxes out her parent's patience limits, then turns around to show the sweetest face as she asks, "I have some candy, please?" with a gentle tilt to her head and her hands together under her chin and cheek. (Maybe if her mother ever figures out how, she'll post a picture or maybe even a vidoe clip of Cassee doing that. She does it all the time!) She's way too clever for her own good.
Her mother just prays everynight that her stubbornness will be used for amazing goodness someday!