11 Months

It is impossible to think that as I write this the next month's post will read Happy Birthday!  You are an incredible joy in our lives.  You continue to smile and laugh at virtually all times.  You love people and the ability to interact with them.  You are still completely comfortable to be dropped off at the nursery or at First Steps.  I will probably laugh at this in the future, but have asked the ladies that have watched you without us around if you are aggressive.  When I asked the Director of MDO, she literally laughed at me and said you do not have a mean bone in your body.  To this point, I will not argue, my only fear is that you play too rough.  Your pats that you give us and others are so sweet but oh so hard.  You have a sweet spirit and would not hurt a soul on purpose, but sometimes I don't think you know your own strength.

You had an interesting month as far a food is concerned.  You went through a long stretch where you were 'over' bottles and had no interest.  Thankfully that phase has passed and still drink 4-5 4oz. bottles a day coupled with your meals.  You are sippy cup champ, but really enjoy the opportunity to drink for our glasses or any liquid we place in straw to give you.  You certainly have a choice food 'color' group.  You would be perfectly satisfied with goldfish, cheese and peaches.  We continue to expose you to other foods/colors to show you life is a bit bigger than your choice three.

You have never required a great deal of sleep especially compared to your peer group.  You are now consistently waking up between 6:15 and 6:30 no matter when you normally go to bed (normally 8:30 - 9:00).  You are so happy when you wake up that we can't be angry to get up and go get you from your room.  I am now in full swing with tax season so I am already up, but we may have to talk about this pattern when I get to have Saturdays again.  With respect to naps, you take one in the morning and afternoon and they have been long enough to let Dad get quite a bit accomplished.

You LOVE books!  You will sit in your room and pull every single one of them off the bookshelf and 'read' for a very, very long time.  Our current definition of reading is turning page after page and stopping on most every one to see if there is an object that was meant for you to touch.  You love touch and feel books and books with flaps.  I love that you are showing what I would deem is an early interest in reading.  At this point, you are really not yet interested in listening to us read to you, but I think you are well on your way to that point.

You are:

• Able to turn things off and on without our help - lights, your jungle in your bed
• Able to shut doors and open and close drawers
• Feed us your snacks.  We love how you share, but sometimes you will take them back if we are not fast enough
• A speed crawler
• Walking holding our fingers
• Balancing on your own
• Walking behind your dinosaur at a very high rate of speed
• The best driver of Cozy Coupe I have ever seen
• Curious
• Incredibly happy.  You constantly clap and cheer.
• Verbal.  You will attempt to imitate each and every sound we make with great success.  We are anxiously awaiting more sweet words from your mouth.

We love you so much and are blessed to have such a sweet, sweet daughter.  

First Mud, First Bite, First Step and a Pot o' Goldfish

February 17th-20th

When Monty picked Addison up from school on Thursday she was in her spare clothes.  After 10 months, we are very familiar with why this happens, so we thought.  It appears while they were playing on the playground Addison discovered a mud puddle of some nature and decided it looked like a good place to play.  She must have had a good time because she manged to get it in her hair and enough on her clothes to require a change.  I am so sorry we did not have a picture, but it did earn her the name "Pig Pen" from PaPa.  Oh the messes Addison finds!

It has been a busy weekend for our family as far as firsts go.  When I got home from work on Friday night we all ran next door to see the progress of Grammy and PaPa's house.  After the update tour, we were sitting in our living room talking.  I was sitting in Addison's chair and she was crawling all over me laughing and playing.  She wanted me to put her in my lap, which I did, and then proceeded to what I thought was kiss me.  When you ask Addison to kiss someone goodbye, etc., she will open her mouth in a large "O" and place it on their cheek.  She had the same "O" formation when she approached my face only she closed her "O" and let her top and bottom teeth touch around my right jaw.  Needless to say this did hurt a bit and she did leave slight whelp.  More than anything tough, we now realize that we have a biter!  I pray this phase will be short lived (in fact, I would be ok if it is now over!) and that we don't get any notes sent home from school or church.

We continued our evening with a visit to Lisa's (Eric had Disciple Now) to take her dinner.  Her mouth was bothering her so we ate an El Paseo picnic in her living room.  Addison ate mainly pineapple tidbits, but Lisa was kind enough to introduce her to Oreos following dinner.  Needless to say she is quite a fan!  One other amazing thing Addison did was lean her torso over to get a bite off her spoon while standing.  We were quite impressed with her core strength to keep her balance.

Saturday was rather uneventful as far as firsts go, but Sunday you made a giant leap!  After Addison got dressed for Sunday School, she was in our room for me to get ready.  I was letting her play in the floor and she crawled over to me and grabbed my pant leg to pull up.  I pulled her off and  held her by the hand and let go (she can easily stand with no support) and she took ONE step to me and then grabbed my hand.  I realize this is not walking but this shows our true progress in that direction.  It would appear we are getting more close to increased mobility!

Before church she also discovered how a Kleenex box works and pulled out one (thankfully!) Kleenex and shredded it into a ton of pieces.  She loves new discoveries and continually amazes us.

How small can pieces of Kleenex become? (February 20th)

Busted!!

 What mess?

Addison and Monty have some interesting things they do together.  She loves to play with pots and she loves to eat Goldfish.  So, you ask, why not put them together??  Monty has done just that!  He fills her pot with Goldfish and she eats them at her leisure.  Isn't he a genius?  It is like a giant snack trap without the lid Addison hates.  He might be on to something...

Addison and her pot o' fish

Our Valentine

As we celebrate a day that is set apart to show people in our lives how much we love them, it is hard to believe our love has grown so very, very much over this past year.  A life absent Addison seems impossible.  You fill each moment of our day with incredible laughter, pride, joy, and an abundance of other wonderful emotions.  You bring a smile to our face with your giggles, the way you pose for the camera, how you lean in to people who blow on you, the way you close a door before you reopen and go through it and too many other things to count. You are the love of our lives and cannot imagine a moment without you!  

You were showered with gifts from your Granny Virgie, Granny & PawPaw, Gram & Grandpa and Grammy & PaPa.  You now have more animals to entertain you and more books to read along with chocolates.  Mommy and Daddy thank you for your generosity in sharing your chocolates this year.  I have no doubt you will make up for it in future years!  Happy Valentine's Day!!

This is the pose where we show you our new turtle.  Wheel of Fortune here I come!

Sweet girl!  Elmo and the Elmo Loves You book are sure to be a hit.  She laughs when we 'talk like Elmo".

The toy Granny and PawPaw got signs and dances.  Addison is still a bit uncertain even when it is not playing.  

Super Cute Super Bowl

We were really bummed that Dallas was not in the "Big Game" this year as it was held at their home field in Arlington, but we decided to celebrate Addison's first Super Bowl either way.  The 45th Super Bowl on February 6, 2011 was played between the NY Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers with half-time headlined by The Blackeyed Peas. The Jets won 31-25.

We had the Pierces over to watch the game and share Leila's first experience as well.  We had fajitas, queso and goodies like any good party should. The girls played together and did very well.  It was really cute to watch Addison interact with a 'younger' child as she has had limited exposure to such things.  She even tickled Leila at one point and Leila thought she was hilarious.  We were happy to have them over and look forward to many more activities with them.

They were even dressed alike on complete coincidence!  What sweet girls!!

There has been and will continue to be plenty of football in our future

Addison's First Lesson in Texas Weather

As the adage goes, ‘If you don’t like the weather in Texas, just wait five minutes’.  In this case, wait three days.  Addison made her first trip to the lake on Saturday, January 29^th and three days later had her first encounter with snow.  She seemed to love both extremes of the weather which is a great because we have these extremes at least once a year. 

The weather did not get above freezing from Tuesday morning when this began until Saturday.  I worked every day but Wednesday and we ventured out to take pictures.  

Our happy snow girl

I will try to eat any and everything you put near my mouth!

I love to crawl so I might as well give snow crawling a chance

First encounter with the new slide.  Have to wait until the snow clears to try it out.

Friday - Addison and Daddy ventured out during the snow storm