Daddy's extra day off

James was supposed to go do something in LA this Monday, but circumstances had him have to put the trip off until next week (we can hope). Anyway, since he'd requested the time off using his personal hours, he figured he might as well take the day off and spend an extra day with us. We were all pretty happy with that arrangement! He works such long, weird hours, that sometimes it seems we just don't have enough time with him.

To celebrate, we went to Hart Park for an impromptu picnic. We wanted somewhere that Cadence could run around and let me take all sorts of cute pictures. And James also wanted to let Khloe explore somewhere beyond our patio and the grass under our stairs. So we packed ham sandwiches, juice boxes, cookies and goldfish and went for a drive. We picked an area near a play set and let Cadence sit on the table for easy access to her food:
Megan wasn't left out of the fun. She spent a bit of time in her car seat while we all ate, but we got her out and let her enjoy the sunshine and fresh air and be passed around from person to person (which she always enjoys). She was so content she didn't fuss the entire time, even though her lunchtime feeding was pushed back by nearly an hour.
Cadence loved the swings. She probably spent half the time we were at the park being pushed. Naturally, the one doing the pushing had to try to grab her toes, tickle her belly or growl at her as she got too close. It only made her laugh even more:
We let her romp around the play set as well. While she preferred running around on the grass and sand, she's recently become fascinated with stairs and showed off her latest achievement by climbing up the stairs to the slide all by herself. Well, Khloe helped... She tried to show Cadence it was possible to do it without holding on the bars, but Cadence decided she preferred her way for now.
At the top of the slide she, James and Khloe goofed off for a bit, then James got her set up to go down the slide. She loved it, so long as someone was there to catch her at the bottom of the slide. Khloe also went down the slide in James's lap, but she wasn't nearly as thrilled when she reached the bottom:
After we'd done everything at the play place, we walked across the park to check out the ducks and geese and maybe feed them some leftover goldfish crackers. Cadence was fascinated by the water and insisted on pointing it out to her dad (in case he hadn't noticed...)
We didn't get to feed many ducks or geese. We did have two follow us for awhile and we did toss some crackers to them, which they gobbled up. However, Cadence was more interested in testing out the duck's floating ability. She was very curious as to whether she could just walk off the edge and onto the water. We decided to not let her explore that particular curiosity too far. Since she was rather insistent, we had to leave after only a short time. She was not very happy, until she noticed all the flowers on the ground along our way back to the car:
Ultimately, that was the highlight of our day. We had a visit to the bookstore where Cadence, Megan and I flipped through every pop-up book they had in stock. And a trip to Walmart and FoodsCo for a few things. We also tried Jamba Juice, but Cadence was getting fussy at that point and didn't want any of it. Turns out, her fourth molar is popping through and the second half of her most recent two is also cutting. She was a pretty miserable little girl by the time bathtime rolled around.

Her misery was only made worse when neither James nor myself understood what she was crying for for the last hour before bedtime. All we knew was she was inconsolable and kept stopping to say, very clearly "bye-bye". Finally, we figured it out and let her go play outside in the grass for the last few minutes before bathtime itself. She wasn't too happy with us for bringing her back inside, but once she was in the water with her sister she was happy once again. And she always loved our bedtime story routine, complete with a few primary songs and a prayer before she got to lay in bed and talk to Taz (who always keeps her company as she falls asleep, it's rather sweet, actually).

Cadence has an obsession with cameras and cell phones. I understand it's a common fascination. She's figured out the playback capability of the camera and is quite skilled at pressing random buttons to figure out what they do. Behold, Cadence's budding photography skills:


And before I end this, I got a new diaper bag in the mail to replace the icky ones the hospital sent me home with. Only took me a year or so to actually buy one for myself, but... it's tote style, which I prefer (not a fan of too many pockets). It's big enough to fit as much as I might need without being overstuffed. It comes with a separate little bag for diapers and wipes so I don't have to lug the whole thing to do a quick diaper change. And... it's pretty, lol.