What a week!

What a crazy week of new milestones! It's amazing to me how much progress a baby can make in such a short amount of time. On Monday, less than a week ago, Kaden started being able to push himself up to his knees. On Monday, he probably did this a hundred times!! On Thanksgiving morning, he crawled about 3 strides on his hands and knees and by the afternoon was able to do about 5 strides. Since then he realized he can get to his knees and pull up to a stand on just about everything in our house! This is a wonderful milestone Kaden has reached but also has it's downside... Kaden is now standing in the crib an knocking down his camera for our video monitor. We have watched him do it, which is quite hilarious... all of a sudden on the monitor you see an arm, a face and then the carpet! Here are some recent pictures of Kaden and family!

Kaden and his cousin Josh- seems like he is saying, "it's gonna be alright, man"

Playing with his favorite toy- the door stop!

Kaden apparently loves to dance to "low rider"... thanks Uncle Dan!

Gotta keep it movin'

Grandpa and his boys!

Christmas plates

Here are a few Christmas plates I did for Nic's sister, Megan. Lilly is going to give them to her teachers as gifts!

Happy Thanksgiving

What a wonderful Thanksgiving we had this year! I was lucky to have a lot of my family come in town this year. Nic, Kaden and I hosted 16 people (plus 2 babies) at our house for Turkey day! My dad, Pam, Grammie, Marla, Mike, Jane, Grandma and Grandpa all came down from Omaha; my brother Eric was here from New York and brough his sweet girlfriend Sara; Dan, Alicia and Josh drove up from Austin, and of course my mom and Paul were here! We had a fantastic day of great company and the only time things got crazy was when we had a fire in our oven... twice! I am not joking... the juice from the turkey spilled over and eventually caught on fire. Nic and I have made the brown bag turkey 2 other years and have never had enough juice... so this year we didn't even think to check on it. Paul was standing in our kitchen and told us, "did you know there is a fire in your oven?" With a little baking powder, we were cooking again. But I could have died... it threw everything off and felt like a chicken with my head cut off the rest of the afternoon. But dinner was served and everything was fabulous!! I am sure we will do it again next year!

Kaden loves his pups!

Watching out the front window

Resting with Max

Playing with Roxy

How cute are these pups!

Holiday samples

Christmas ornament- the back has the same design
and says 2008


Snowman plate... footprints were used as the snowmen.
This was my least favorite plate as I was painting it and
my FAVORITE plate after it was fired!


Christmas tree plate with footprint used as tree! And I
love the look of the lights connected to the Merry Christmas
at the top of the plate!


Hanukkah plate- we were thinking that we could
do fingerprints for the flames. I have also seen handprints
as the menorah which always turns out cute as well!



Santa's cookie plate

Sniffy

Kaden started this sniffing business a few weeks ago where he scrunches up his nose, puckers his lips and sniffs! I caught it on camera... it's pretty funny! That kid cracks me up...

Cross box and camo plate

This is a cross box that I painted for a customer at Be-dazzled. Cross boxes have been great gifts for births, baptisms and confirmations.

How cute is this sample??? Kaden is the perfect foot model for all my samples! This deer footprint could be turned into a reindeer for a Christmas plate too. Watch for a pink camo shoe to come!! So cute...

Footprint and handprint plates

Platterpus designs will be at be-dazzled! on Saturday, December 6th. Sign up to have hand and footprints plates created for unique holiday gifts. Parents and grandparents will treasure them forever! Visit platterpusdesigns.etsy.com for some ideas. New christmas and Hanukkah designs will be availble soon. Call be-dazzled! to schedule your appointment! 972/378-3211

Recent Shoes

Here are some shoes that I have done for customers at Be-dazzled and one for my sister-in-law, Megan. Shoes have become my top seller and make such great baby gifts. Little Amanda came into Be-dazzled when she was a week old to get her print on the bottom of the shoe.

Reminiscing...

Happy 8 month Birthday, my sweet baby boy!!

Today Nic, Kaden and I helped my friend Shea with the beginning stages of her baby registry. It doesn't seem like a year ago that we were doing the same thing! Helping Shea today reminded me of a funny story from back then (well... not funny back then... frustrating actually. But funny now). First of all, registering is not fun. It is overwhelming and frustrating. When we registered for our wedding, we got into a huge fight and left the store with nothing scanned. Since we knew we had a bad experience with our wedding registry, we decided to take it slow, promise to not get frustrated with each other and do some research on products before going. Done and done. We got there, signed up and started scanning away. Nic and I agree on most styles and since we knew we were having a boy, this was pretty easy.... until we got to the stroller section. Nic and I have a fairly contemporary sense of style so we knew we wanted a fairly contemporary looking stroller. We fell in love with the Maxi-Cosi which was the only one in the store that had the look and safety features we wanted. Since we are practical, we decided to test it out... drive it around, take it apart, fold it up, click in the carrier- all the things we were going to need to do. An hour later we couldn't be more frustrated with the stroller! To make things worse, a pregnant couple started looking a strollers and pointed to ours saying they liked how it looked. A minute into watching us struggle, the husband says, "let's not get that one... those people can't work it." Needless to say, we put the stroller back and left the store.

We ended up getting the stroller and practicing for several weeks. I think you have to in order to really get the hang of it. At least that's what I tell Nic to make us feel better!

After 2 1/2 hours at Babies R Us, Shea has all the basics down! It's truly a process which takes a lot of research and patience.

A year after registering, here is a list of things I couldn't have done without...

• Our infant bath.... built in thermometer, water that constantly flows through... who could ask for more?!


• Baby Bjorn. I can't tell you how many nights we put it on and walked around the house until Kaden stopped crying


• Our glider/recliner. Nic slept in it for two weeks straight. I have the best husband in the world, by the way


• Swaddle blankets. I never thought we would stop swaddling Kaden. After he broke out of the Kiddapotamus ones, we used the miracle blanket, and can I just say... Miracle...


• The Jumparoo. That kid can jump!

Who does Kaden look like?

This is a slideshow that my Uncle Mike and Auntie Jane made for us that we played the night of our rehearsal dinner. There are several pictures of Nic and me as babies and infants. We are always told that Kaden looks like a combination of both of us, mostly Nic with my eyes. Take a look for yourself!

The beginning of the worm

This is a video from October 23rd when Kaden first started doing the worm. He is getting better every day and last night he got closer to getting up on his knees. Babyproofing will begin ASAP.

Blogging... Blog on...

Well finally after much convincing... I am blogging. How do you like it? Today I am hanging out with my runny-nosed buggyboo (I think due to teething) while daddy is golfing. Right now we are in our jumper yelling at the poor frog hanging down in front of him. I am not quite sure what that blue frog did, but it made Kaden unhappy and he is giving him a piece of his mind. Kaden has been quite busy on the floor crawling (we like to call it doing the worm for all his break-dancing friends) around after dog toys. Usually he likes the squeeky ones, but today he is finding the bones quite facinating. I will try to post a video of this if I can figure it out!