Kai and Jude

KAI AND JUDE UPDATES:

As if I don't blog about them enough, here are what my babies (i know Kai isn't a baby anymore, but she will always be my baby) have been up to:

Jude: Jude is the most laid back, sweet, adorable little baby cake. He is so funny and I love him more and more each day. He started crawling several days after Thanksgiving and has been unstoppable ever since. He loves to crawl as fast as humanly possible and it is hilarious. His little tooshie waddles back and forth like a little puppy wags his tail. You can hear him tear out and cruise around from miles away. He will pull himself up on anything and everything and sometimes forgets he can't walk. He'll let go of his balancing post and act like he is going to walk right over to you and he eats it every time. His two bottom teeth came in at about 6months and his top two fang teeth came in about a month ago (he is 9 months now). It is so cute when he smiles cause he looks like a little vampire. His middle ones are starting to break so he won't look like Dracula for too much longer. I've tried getting a picture of it but the little wormy just wont sit still long enough. He thinks Kai is the funniest person on the planet and he loves to squint his eyes and snort his nose at her. He is happy just playing by himself or following Kai around. What a little doll he is. He adds so much to our little family and we love him so much. Here are a few of my favorite shots of him...

Kai: Kai is everything a typical 2 1/2 year old princess/fairy/kitten/butterfly/puppy/drama queen/everything pink and fluffy should be. She is so bright and is constantly proving to me that she is so much smarter than I think she is. She loves to read and to sing and to twirl. She loves to bully Jude around and comfort him when he is sad. She loves Ariel and Cinderella and anything princess. Lately she loves Barbie and the Diamond Castle and sings "Connected" all the time. Kai's biggest news is about her thumbs. About 8 months ago I noticed that her thumbs were quite stiff and bent downward. I was rather worried at this discovery so we had the Doctor check them out. He said she had something called Congenial Trigger Thumb. He gave it 6 months to clear up on it's own and if it didn't he recommended surgery. Well, it didn't clear up so we consulted a hand specialist and he also recommended the surgery to prevent any long term disfiguring and any other serious conditions that could result. So here are some photos of that ordeal...

This is as straight as either thumb would get...

Here is a shot of her doing "Cool Dude" (this one is for uncle Thys)... This is her waiting at the surgical center in her hospital gown. It was so cute on her. They gave her a surgery bear that had cute little scrubs and a little face mask. This was before they ripped out my heart (and Kai's) and sat on it. The anesthesiologist, who just happened to be a very handsome yet older 10 ft. giant stranger, came in and said, "It's time", and then ripped her out of my arms and proceeded to walk out with her. It took about a second and a half for her and me to realize what was happening. She totally freaked and started screaming "Mama, Mama" and struggled and struggled to get away from the giant scary strange man that was taking her away from Mama as I just watched and did nothing. It was horrible. Of coarse I started bawling and had to just walk away. Luckily they claim it is only a matter of seconds before they drift off into la-la land, even fewer seconds if they are screaming cause they breath in so deep, but it was gut wrenching none the less. Check out her cute little bunny slippers too...Here she is after the surgery. She was pretty disoriented and all she wanted to do was lay in my arms and have me sing to her. She didn't want to open her eyes and she kept asking me to take out her IV. After I would finish a song she would mumble "Sing another one Mama."
By the time we got home she was feeling much better. Very tired, but much better. Say "Cheeto cheese in my teeth"...
Close up of her "bandaides"...
By 7:00 that night she was back to her cute little princess self...
We were instructed to keep her thumbs dry for 2 weeks. Ya, good luck with that one. But we did the best we could...
These next ones are a little graphic so look away if you tend to get wheezy. They're really not that bad though. She had about 5 or 6 "itches"(stitches) in each thumb...
She was pretty hesitant to go in for her follow up appointment so I kept telling her the Doctor had to check her thumbs to tell us if we could get them wet so we could go swimming. She did great at the appointment and we made another appointment for a month away. When the receptionist handed Ben the reminder card for the appointment he gave it to Kai to hold and he asked her if she knew what it was. She said "Ya Dada, it's my swimming pass!" Of coarse we took her swimming the next day and she loved getting her thumbs wet. She still wont let me touch them, but they are looking better and better. The Doctor says we won't even be able to see the scars as they are right along her natural hand creases. She was so brave and did so great throughout the whole thing. Two thumbs up baby, straight up!!! Cool Dude!!!

Happy Haircut:
Kai's other big news is about her mullet head. We finally took the plunge and gave her a real hair cut. She's had somewhat of a mullet for the past little while so I decided to chop it. It looked so cute and I was very proud of my work. I've been a big fan of her cute little bangs, they just kept her looking like my little girl, so I've kept them trimmed since she's had them. But I finally decided to grow them out and they were getting pretty long. They were almost to the point where I could tuck them behind her ears, but they drove her crazy. Especially if we didn't do her hair that day and they would just hang in her eyes. So I thought to myself, "Maybe I'll just trim them a little to get them out of her eyes". It wasn't really that good of an idea. An inexperienced unofficial hair cutter + a wiggly little 2 year old= some pretty funky bang action. She still looks adorable cause lets face it, she is adorable, but it was a much cuter haircut with the long bangs. All well, can't turn back now. I'm sure it's not the last time I'll maime one of my children's haircuts. I only cut off about 1/2 inch of bangs so it won't be but a couple of months before they are back to where they were. But, from here on out, I vow not to touch Kai's bangs with the scissors ever again...so help me.

Here is her first (and only, for a while) braid. I won't be able to do this again until it grows out, but it was cute while it lasted...
I love this picture of her. She just looks so grown up...Before...After...Cute bangs...

Not so cute bangs (but seriously, she is too cute to look too ridiculous)...
So that's Kai and Jude in a nut shell. Kudos...again, if you are still reading this. I love my kids.