On Friday Kayden and I went to Legoland with Nam. Embarrassingly enough, beyond having heard of the park, I knew nothing of the place! I knew it existed, I knew it was close by, and I knew it featured Legos. That was about it! Nam felt like Kayden was ready for her first set of Legos, especially now that they make the Duplo Legos in pastel, girly colors! I remember playing with the bigger Legos as a kid, but they sure didn’t have them in pink and purple. Of course we maybe could have found them at Toys R Us, but let me tell you stumbling through Legoland was so much more fun of a shopping experience! No surprise here, but it wasn’t Nam’s first time going to the park to just shop! We had one hour in the park to do some damage! We found an emergency shirt for Kayden upon entering the park- she got a little too excited eating her fishies in the car and a little came up. 🙁 Then we headed for the Castle Store. Of course this store was near the back of the park and we forgot to bring the stroller! On the way to the store Nam and I passed Kayden back and forth and she also walked for part of the way. We knew we had a time limit, so we had to give her a ride for part of the way! Once we got to the princess castle, Kayden was in heaven! She played with the ponies, tried on some shades, and had a great time looking at all of the girlie stuff! The ladies at the store managed to upsale Nam and we ended up not only getting some pink cupcake Legos, but we also got a set of the newly released princess collection! We’re starting with Cinderella!

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Check out those shades!! She tried on about a dozen sunglasses, but when she found these ones she just had to have them! She literally kept them on while we were in the park, for the car ride home, and even in the house after she got home! Can’t blame her though, she looks GOOD!

On our way out of the park Kayden was just getting too heavy for Nam and I to hold. Luckily, Nam’s sensitive nose honed in on some churros! Kayden has never had one of these sweet treats and let me tell you that girl was hooked as soon as the cinnamon sugar hit her lips!

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Kayden’s first Legos.

Today Nam and I took Kayden down to the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. Kayden has been to the aquarium once before, but I’m pretty sure she was about 3 months old and slept through the experience. This visit was much more action packed! She started off a little slow and wanted Mommy to carry her from tank to tank. Then Nam suggested she hold her hand and from there we were both running after her! She loved stepping up the step to be close to the aquariums. Her favorite exhibit was the wall to ceiling aquarium that housed many large fish and a few sharks!

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After touching each of the tanks and saying hi to all of the fishies, we headed outside to check out the tide pools. To my great surprise Kayden was rather independent in the play area and then at the fish tank! She was surrounded by other children and adults, and besides a few quick glances back to make sure Nam and I were nearby, she was totally fine! I thought for sure my little BFF would require me to be standing in close proximity, if not holding her hand the whole time! My little independent woman!

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Kayden’s first hands-on with a sea creature!

After our morning trip to the aquarium, we just had to stop off for lunch on the way home! We went to Nam’s favorite spot- Chevy’s! Kayden did a great job and Nam worked hard to keep her awake on the way home so she could get a nice, long nap at home!

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Thanks Nam for a great trip to the Birch Aquarium!!

Kayden might have been slow to crawl and walk, but my little princess has been talking since she knew her ability to produce sound! I love it, but it does get a little tiresome! She orders me around all day. I can’t pretend I don’t know what she wants, because she is very deliberate in her requests/demands. She can tell me when she wants to go outside and walk or take the dogs for a walk. She can tell me if she wants to eat and what exactly she wants to eat. You might think this is good because it takes the guess work out of making meals, but if you didn’t know, kids don’t like to eat the healthy veggies and grilled chicken you’d like them to! They like fishies, apple sauce, cookies, crackers, and candy. And my dear Kayden can tell me about each of these things ALL day long! Today during her nap I decided to make cookies. I did this during nap time because I purposely did not want her to see me making cookies because I knew I’d hear about it all afternoon. So while she napped I made the cookies, packed them up, and cleaned up the paraphernalia. After her nap she had a snack and we went on a long walk. When we came back from walking the dogs she helped me get their food and must have seen the boxed cookies sitting on the stove. I was sitting and playing with her dolls when she runs over to me and starts loudly saying “Cookies. Cookies. COOKIES!!” I was sure she could not be talking about MY cookies, so I asked her to show me. Sure enough, she was!! Wow, not only can my child repeat everything, but she now notices things in her environment that she wants. I better get real creative with my hiding spots!!

And here’s Ms. Chatty just chatting!

 

I guess I should feel proud that my child wants to ‘clean it’ to everything in the house. She wants to clean the dogs, the shutters, the floors, the carpet, daddy’s feet, mommy’s face, and all of her toys. Kayden is constantly asking me for “wipeys” so she can ‘clean it’ all over the place. She must have one wipey for each hand and once the wipes start to dry out, forget it, she wants another one! Heaven forbid I don’t have one eye on her at all times, she will get into her wipes every chance she gets! She thinks it’s especially funny to clean the dogs, probably because it turns into a chasing match. I’d like to take credit for this and say that she wants to clean all the time to be like mommy, but I honestly think this is one of those nature/nurture things and it’s nature taking over! While her “cleaning” might be making more of a mess for me now, I’m hoping that it will stick to when she is a teenager and she will want to clean the house on Saturday nights! Yep, I think that’s a real possibility!

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