Thursday, December 10, 2009

Addison Kate


Since I seem to keep getting pictures of Addison that I LOVE, it reminded me that it is time for an update of what is going on with her. Since I LONG gave up keeping records in their baby books, like I did early on, I am relying on these blog posts to remind me one day! So, here is Addison at the age of 23 months (almost):

* Talks nonstop and repeats everything we say. She has the cutest little voice and I love how she says, "I no Know" or "Min-it?" (Which is for "in a minute", which it seems like I am always telling her). She is putting words together like, "Daddy work?" or "We home!" She can also be like a broken record, saying something over and over until I want to pull my hair out.

*She has never watched any tv, until the last couple of weeks when she discovered the show Yo Gabba Gabba. This show is SO annoying, and of course she would choose it to be obsessed with. She asks for "Gabba Gabba" all the time now, and watches 15-25 minutes or so without getting distracted. I can't help but be thankful, just a little bit!

*She seems to be very ready for potty training, as she tells me every time she goes potty and insists on being changed immediately. She loves to sit on the potty, and has gone a couple of times on it. I am just waiting until after the holidays to begin the torture.

*She is still very attached to her binky and blanky, although we try to keep it mostly in her bed. I keep planning on breaking her of the binky, and keep putting it off. My plan is to do it after Christmas.

*Addison only stopped taking a morning nap about a month ago, and it was hard to break her of it even then! She was taking two good naps every day and still going to bed by 8 and sleeping until 7:30 or so. Due to our schedule, I finally broke the morning nap, and now she goes down around noon each day for a couple of hours. She doesn't mind going to sleep, because she gets to cuddle her blanky and binky.

*She is very social and never has a problem when I leave her with anyone. She loves to see our friends, and gets especially obsessed over Caden Boyd and Heidi Bell, whose names she repeats happily over and over. Usually followed by "hug", which is what she wants to do to them.

*She eats like a horse, as all the Edwards girls do. If she doesn't like something, she says, "No thank you" and takes my hand to spit it into. I'm trying to teach her an alternative to this!

*Daddy loves to play "kisses" with her, where he asks her for kisses, she says no, then he says "pleeeaaase", and she says no, then he says "ok, no kisses" and she immediately wants kisses. They do this with lots of giggling, over and over.

*She loves us to sing her songs in the car - her favorites are "happy and know it", "Bible" (either Jesus loves me or B-I-B-L-E), "Up above" (Twinkle Twinkle little star), or lately "in-a-bewoh" (a crazy way of saying Jingle Bells).

*Loves her sisters and hates when the door is closed to their room, which means they are doing something that she can't join them in. She cries "dough, dough!" over and over until I can distract her. Sometimes they need a little break from her:)

*The drama is coming out of her, as it has inevitably with each of our girls. She will put her head down and talk in a very sad little voice sometimes, which is so cute I can hardly stand it.

*When we are out, people will often tell her or me that she is cute. She has learned this quickly, and now says it about herself! Someone will wave at her or talk to her while we are shopping and she will hold her dress, or shirt and say, "coot!". I'm glad that half the time they don't know what she is talking about, but this does not bode well for the future. She also says it after I get her dressed (which is probably... well definitely my fault, because it is so fun to dress girls and put cute things on them). We'll work on humility later:)

Addison keeps us busy, and we have one foot in the big kid world and one foot in the baby world with our girls right now. I get sad when I think of leaving the baby world behind completely, but I am learning to enjoy the big kid world. It all flies by so quickly, I'm just savoring every minute! What a blessing kids are.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

My Christmas tree partner


What is usually a family event, turned into just me and Addison this year. For the past couple of years we have gone to a friend's Christmas tree farm (on their property) and party to get our tree. The party this year happened to be when Derek was out of town, so I decided to just go with the girls. However, as soon as we got there, the big girls were more interested in going and playing with their friends and this is all I saw of them.

So Addison and I went on the hunt, along with Grandma and Grandpa. It was a pretty quick process.

And here we are with our little tree, and Grandpa the tree cutter.

We are a little late in the game this year, but we plan on putting the tree up on Tuesday. At least that will be a family affair!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Home Theater

Aunt Patty and Uncle Scott came to visit on Saturday, bearing Christmas presents.... like this one of Addi's


and the Polly pockets for the big girls. Here is Aunt Patty with them.

And here is the very large screen that was set up in our little living room. This is NOT what the girls are used to, and it was very cool for them to watch Tinkerbell on such a screen!

And here is the audience in the movie theater - Scott, Patty and girls. Ryann joined us for the second movie, in the next picture. Lots of cuddling and relaxing.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A Walk in the Woods

Which happen to be out our front door. We took a little nature walk today to enjoy the sunshine - I do love that THIS is our neighborhood walk! We live on a pretty beautiful mountain:) We should totally do this more often.









Tuesday, December 1, 2009

We start 'em young in the Edwards' family



On sparkling cider, of course! Addison couldn't get enough of the bubbly this Thanksgiving. Hope you all had as much fun as she did!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Update on the birthday post

Ok, one more addition to the amazing birthday I had this year. My stepmom, Debby, made me a scrapbook of pictures she found in a box of my Dad's and an album of my grandma's (Nanny) and it is AMAZING!! It goes from my birth to my marriage, and I hadn't even seen some of the pictures she found. This takes a huge load off my mind, because I had always intended to work through those pictures and make a scrapbook one day, but I knew it would be a huge task.
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Debby and I together, but here is my Dad and the girls and I looking at the book, along with a few pages of it. I can't thank her enough!!





On a side note, I love this page that shows my sister and I with our good friends, Gary and Adam. I'm always telling Sara that boys and girls can be friends longer than the preschool years:)

Thanks again, Debby!!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A birthday to remember

What an amazing birthday I had this year! I was able to celebrate with so many different friends and family and I appreciated every second of it. It's funny that I actually kept forgetting how old I was turning - seems like once I hit 30, I can't keep the number straight. I actually had to count the years from 1975 a few times! That must mean I am getting old. Oh well, I had a great time turning another year older!

The week before my birthday, Derek and I went to a Tyrone Wells concert with 5 other couples. We all had dinner together at a place called Quinns, went to a meet and greet with Tyrone, then found some great booths to sit together and chat until Tyrone was on. So much fun. Then the best part was we stayed downtown Seattle in a hotel that was practically walking distance from the concert - that was what I had wanted for my birthday. It was super nice and I loved not having to drive an hour home!
The next day, I got to have lunch at Mama Stortinis with these great friends - Amy Jo, Chrissy and Heather. I don't get to see them nearly enough, so I love our tradition of getting together for each of our birthdays.
The night before my birthday I worked on Project 365 at Lisa's - what a small group this has usually become! But it was actually really nice just being able to visit with the two of them, even if I didn't get near as much as I wanted done. Lisa made delicious cupcakes for us, complete with a candle and everything. And I am going to be looking good in the kitchen with the most adorable apron she gave me!
On the morning of my birthday, the girls could not have been more excited. Hailey told me later that she was tired because she had to get up so early to prepare for my birthday! They brought me breakfast in bed and let me SLEEP IN (one of my all time favorite birthday presents). Then they created a cute little scavenger hunt for me to find my presents. Here are some of my clues (written by Derek, said by them)...
After church and an afternoon nap, we went to dinner at Red Robin. Of course, the people had to sing and bring me a sundae, the girls insisted. Notice where Hailey's eyes are in this picture!
The next day we celebrated at my Mom's house, and she had been talking for weeks about how excited she was about my present. I had no idea what it could be, and I could never have guessed. This has to be the most thoughtful present I have ever received! I first opened a little box that held this letter in it... If you read my blog, you might recognize this as a post I did a while back about how there are so many things I want to fit into a day and just can't do it.


Then I opened 12 separate gift bags , and each one had a printed strip of paper with one of those things on it. Each gift addressed one of those goals! For example, "Going to bed at a decent time," was a bag with new sheets and a reed diffuser from Pier One. Or "Friend Time to chat and catch up" was a gift card to Olive Garden and pedicures for two. And "Laughing with Derek, time to hang out," was a gift certificate to Amtrak to take a train to Leavenworth, while Mom keeps the kids. I won't explain every one to you, but let me tell you, it required so much thought and effort and was SO nice!! I hope I can give such thoughtful gifts to my girls one day, because I know how awesome it is to receive them.
I actually got to go to coffee and breakfast with Sara this morning, as our own little celebration, but I can't believe we didn't take a picture! I know, it seems like I should be all celebrated out, but I couldn't forget to mention her. And then I will still celebrate with my Dad and Debby on Thanksgiving and the Edwards family a couple days after that - it is starting to seem a little ridiculous. But once I mentioned a few here, I couldn't leave anyone out... hope I didn't! Thanks again to all my family and friends who made me feel so special, it was way more than I deserve and I love you all!!