Hugs & Pictures!

All is well. I've set a date for my prospectus (dissertation proposal) defense at the end of March so hopefully I will pass that and won't have many revisions before I can start collecting data. I am busy working on other research, school stuff, and consulting jobs.

Addison, Scott, and I have been enjoying the nice weather and are spending time outside as much as we can. Each day that we pick her up from school she runs to her cubbie and gets her jacket and then asks her teacher for her cup. She then says bye and runs over to us. When she sees her pictures or reflection in the mirror she says, "addi" and smiles.  She loves giving hugs, especially to us, Dylan, and her toys. Our little girl is growing up so quickly.

Giving Dylan hugs

More hugs

We asked Addi to say "cheese" for the camera...

Just hanging out

Swinging in the park behind our church

Addi thinks this platform is made for her!

"I'll go down the slide in a minute, ok Mom"

"See, here I go...no wait, just kidding"

Amen!

This morning Addi was being quite a handful so I prayed out loud, "God please give me patience" Addi responded with an, "Amen!" I couldn't help but laugh and be thankful that my prayer had been answered. 

Here are a few pictures from Valentine's Day (well, the day before when we celebrated...)

Scott's dinner - Red Velvet Pancakes, Eggs, and Bacon

Addi's Valentine's Dinner: Red Velvet Pancakes and Eggs with Cheese

Addi refused to smile...

Our cards, flowers, and goodies

Why it's an apple of course!

Not a lot of updates to talk about. Addison is saying new words and little sentences daily.

If we are coloring and I ask her to hand me a crayon please. She will ask me "which one?"

She will draw/scribble something and point to it and say "choo choo" or "dog" or "apple" or whatever she has drawn. Her imagination is so cute! We have to keep a close eye on her though as she has colored on the floor and couch - thank God for washable crayons so hopefully we can get it out.

She is still waking up at 5:00-5:30am though...

We head to SC and then NC to go skiing this weekend! Can't wait!

Of course I can't post without adding some cute pictures.

Sylvie's Birthday party...right after Addison dumped all the goldfish on her plate

Mmmm...chocolaty cupcake!

Before the party...just having fun hanging out with mom and dad

Check out my shades...

And hat...both party favors!

Showing off on the couch before we left for the party

Little things

that Addison does that I don't want to forget.

• She asks for help by signing and saying "help" when she can't reach something or get her toy bins down. 
• How after we take the toy bins down she dumps them out so she can sit in them and play.
• How she lines up all of her animal, Sesame Street, and Little People figures and says "uh oh" when one falls down or isn't in the line.
• When she is hungry she first asks for a banana, then an apple, then a cookie, then a cracker, then cheese. Usually, we try to get her to eat a veggie first since it is usually within an hour of dinner. Right now that veggie of choice is a cucumber.
• How she loves to color and eat the crayons. Yes, I said eat.
• How sometimes when she colors, she now points to her scribble and says "heart"
• The cute way she says "apple" and "shoe"
• Her obsession with reading "Harry the Dirty Dog." Fortunately, I loved this book as a child. If the book is in sight she will say "dog" again and again until we read it. Right now we read it in the morning when we wake up, before naptime, and before bedtime. It is out of sight the rest of the day usually.
• Sometimes when reading about Harry she points to Harry and says "dog" every single time - he is on each page.
• How she loves to steal Scott's breakfast every morning.
• How she is going through a really clingy phase so when she gets home from school she only wants her momma. We eat cucumbers (sometimes cheese and apples) and cuddle.
• How she eats bananas - her cheeks get really full like a chipmunk. 
• How she says "chicken" - I've been wanting to get it on video because it is so funny! She flaps her arms like a chicken and repeatedly says "chica, chica, chica" - we are pretty sure she learned this practice from Chica on Sprout.
• How her favorite part of "Wheels on the Bus" is the people on the bus go up and down and her movements to that part are so cute! Sometimes we do this part multiple times. 
• The way her and I sing Pat-a-Cake. For some reason at the part put it in the oven for baby and me she dives in for a hug. Now I meet her by opening my arms and snuggling close. She also likes to hold my hands and do the movements.
• How shy she gets around people - we started hanging out with our baby signing group again and she is really shy around them now.
• How she sticks her finger in her nose when you ask her where her nose is. We learned not to ask her to point out other people's noses...
• Her obsession with belly buttons - she loves showing her belly button off and of course she loves pointing out and now tickling our belly buttons.
• How when we pick her up from school we can watch her playing contently but as soon as she sees one of us she stands and starts to whine.

The list can keep on going...

Some pictures of our little Poppy Addison (taken last week)

She said a sentence!

Addison's first sentence (that we understood): "I draw hurt"

Context for her sentence, because it did make sense :)

We were coloring and I said, let's draw Daddy a heart because we love him. And I drew and colored a red heart. Addison colored beside my heart in red crayon. Addison looked at me and signed and said "hurt" (both firsts). I asked her, "what is hurt?" She looked at me, pointed to her red scribbles, and said, "I draw hurt." I got excited and she said it again! I tried to tell her that the heart was love (which she signed) and hurt was something different, but she didn't quite get it. It was so cute!

She has been putting together two words on her own since last week. She looked at Scott eating and said, "daddy eat" and then she looked at me eating and "mommy eat." Over the weekend when we were playing peek-a-boo, I was waiting on her turn when she said, "mommy boo" indicating that no it was my turn. How exciting! She looks at us and speaks in sentences all the time but we don't know what she is saying. She will say two words together, but we usually put them together (e.g. clean-up, uh-oh, oh wow, thank you). But now she is putting the words together herself. It is so exciting watching her grow.

Another fun random note...she loves to help empty the dishwasher. This started over the break while we were in SC but it has continued. She puts the silverware away in the right drawer (I put all the sharp and harmful utensils away first) and then I give her other plastic and metal items to put away. Many of them I only have to tell her once - she remembers it the next time (e.g. the mixing bowls - she puts them on the rack nested little to big). As soon as we start to empty the dishwasher, she runs over to help. I love that she likes to help. Hopefully, it will last ;-)

4 Year Anniversary

Today is our 4 year anniversary. We follow the traditional anniversary gift list and this year is "fruit and flowers" so I made Scott dark chocolate covered strawberries and bananas and arranged them like a flower (well kind of). Tonight we are going to dinner at a local restaurant with a rooftop bar. Since it is really cold, we will probably have our drinks inside instead of on the roof, but hopefully we will be able to walk around and check out the view. Our friend Natalie gave us a gift certificate to this restaurant for Christmas and included babysitting with it! She always watches Addison for us and we are so appreciative of this. When we get home we will have the fruit and champagne.

(Added later) 
When we got to the restaurant (Shula's), Scott had flowers waiting for me at the table. It was so romantic and sweet.  We enjoyed amazing food, drink, and company. When we got home we enjoyed the fruit, opened our cards, and decided the champagne needed to wait because we had two drinks with dinner and both had a lot to do today (we are so old sometimes!). Here are some pictures of the flowers. I couldn't get good pictures of them, and I don't edit flowers photographs well.

We don't do a lot on our anniversary as far as gifts are concerned. Usually, they are small gifts with large meaning behind them. Normally, we would cook dinner together (something new and fun!) or have an indoor picnic with our favorite foods (each person in charge of foods for the other person). When Scott and I first started dating he took me on a picnic on the old Santee bridge for our 9 month anniversary and made all of my favorites, which included pickles, olives, fruit, veggies and dip, various cheeses, pimento cheese and celery, and deviled eggs so we like to continue this tradition sometimes.

Year 1: Paper (I gave Scott a scrapbook from our honeymoon and he gave me a massage gift certificate).
Year 2: Cotton (I gave Scott a t-shirt and he gave me socks. Since I can't wear flip-flops year-round I am picky about socks but I love them).
Year 3: Leather (I gave Scott a wallet and belt and he gave me shoes).
Year 4: Fruit and Flowers (I gave Scott handmade dark chocolate covered strawberries and he gave me a bouquet of white flowers - I LOVE flowers).

18 Month Stats

Addison's Stats:
height: 30 3/4inches (15th percentile)

weight: 23lbs (30th percentile) - She is finally gaining weight!

Everything checked out well at her appointment today. Her tube is no longer in her ear (fell out since New Years) and the other one is just sitting in the canal surrounded by a bunch of wax. At this point we wait and see. Ped said to keep an eye out for ear infections (fever, change in sleep patterns, etc) and we will only put tubes back in if she gets more infections (I think 3 total again - it was hard to hear as Addison was screaming because she didn't like the doctor looking in and pulling wax out of her ear. She is really sensitive to having her ears looked at now). However, they both look good and are not infected.

And on another note today is 1-11-11 :)