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

10 Months

Yet another month has passed and it seems unreal that this could have already happened!  2011 is off to a great start.  You have had a busy month full of wonderful activities.  You are a busy, busy girl. During January we finally had to break down and put locks on all of the cabinets because our mobile genius has determined how to open the cabinet doors and drawers.  There are a number of drawers and cabinets that we let you play in, but there are some that are far too dangerous for you to explore.   Beginning in about mid-January, you began to let go of the objects you were holding to gain support, and stand on your own.  In the beginning, you started this because every time we say ‘Yea’ or ‘Yea Addison’ you automatically clap and you had to let go to clap at these phrases.  Eventually, you moved from doing it only on this instance to doing it at random.  You also love to hold our hands and walk, as well as walk behind the Dino Grammy and PaPa gave you for Christmas; it is adorable! 

You love music.  You love for us to sing to you, listen on the radio/TV music station, and on your piano.  Your class has also started to go to music time each day and your teachers comment that it is your favorite part of the day.   The part of your music experience that we enjoy the most is that you shake your bottom when you listen.  It is absolutely priceless and melts the hearts of everyone that sees you.

You were sick for the first time this month with bronchiolitis and an ear infection.  As you will read, you were on antibiotics and breathing treatments.  Coupled with these, we also added a humidifier, propped your bed and put Vick’s on your feet after bath under your socks.  There were so many ‘remedies’ going at once who knows what (if any) contributed with the antibiotics to get you well again.

You love to eat, aside from the week or so you weren’t your normal self!  This month we added a ton of new food, and there really have not been many that you don’t love.  To be honest, you will eat anything, but you love almost everything.  This month you tried lemons and pickles and loved them both.  You really, really take after me in the respect that you like snack foods.  You adore Goldfish crackers, YoBaby yogurt, applesauce, and fruit.  You are extremely bright in that you know when Daddy is eating ice cream and if he eats in front of you he knows he is going to have to share with you.  You did have a rough patch this month where you would throw fits when you wanted out of your high chair.  You would rare back and wiggle until you turned around and could stand up.  Needless to say you have now begun to wear the harness when you sit in your chair.  Luckily this was a short-lived phase and you are back to loving your highchair.

Bath time is still a highlight of your day and you will splash and sing and play with your toys until we make you get out.  We love how much you love water and are still anxiously waiting until pool time this summer. 

You are quite vocal, or as Dr. Ramsey noted, articulate.   Your current vocabulary includes: Dada, daddy, wow!, hi, bye-bye, ba-ba, pawpaw.  Sadly, you will notice it does not yet include mom, mommy or momma.  We are all three diligently working on it and I you are so very, very close.  You also like to flip your bottom lip and make a boat sound, and you love to motor boat your lips.     

We love you so much and are thankful for such a fantastic month!!    

Lake Mineral Wells

It goes without saying that Monty's fishing trips have decreased following Addison's arrival.  He is the absolute best dad and would not trade time with Addison for fishing any day of the week.  His boat, however, is in  shock following such a long break from the lake.  In order to not create a problem from lack of run time for the engine, the three of us took a trip to Mineral Wells State Park for a quick ride around the lake to get the boat in the water.  It was a gorgeous day, about 80 degrees, and what better way to enjoy the day than the lake.  Addison wore her camouflage Bass Pro hat and red life jacket that we bought last summer in anticipation for the arrival of this day.  She loved it!  She stood in floor of the boat while we drove (I held on to her life jacket 'handle') and then helped Monty 'drive' the boat when we were going at slower speeds.  She loved everything about it from feeding the ducks (Monty even remembered to bring bread!) to crawling around the bottom of the boat as we idled and let Monty fish a little (that would be evil to go to a lake and not fish!).  There will be many, many trips in her future, and we are so thankful we got off to such a great start!  I must confess I don't have any of the pictures with the ducks because they fed them while I was parking the truck.  This takes me a VERY long time because I am absolutely horrible with trailers and no matter how many times I practice, I seem to crumble under pressure.

First day on the water - January 29th

Addison loves to dig in her bad no matter the location

What a sweet end to a day Monty has looked forward to for a long time