All About Adeline

So we finally found out what has been plaguing Adeline since Memorial Day.  Two weeks ago we discovered it was pneumonia!  She took 10 days of Cefprozil and some prescription cough medicine and she's finally feeling better.  Praise Jesus!

Before she left to spend the week with her grandparents last week, we all went to Dickson Street for dinner and a little bit of culture.  Jon and Adeline had fun in the bent-wood sculptures.

Then that Saturday she was off to Texas with her grandmas.

They got her to poop in the potty, but she still won't do it for me.

She practiced some fine motor skills with Tiny.

I am really loving this age.  She keeps us laughing all the time.

I have hilarious conversations with her daily that I text to everyone or post on facebook.  I wish I was better at writing them all down.

Adeline: "Let me see you earrings, Mommy.  They so pretty!"

Me: "Do you want earrings?"

A: "No.  I too little.  Need to get bigger first."

A: Can I blow this & make noise? (a kazoo)

Me: No, not while Annabel is sleeping.

A: Why not?

Me:  You tell me why not.

A:  Get a spanking.

She was feeding Annabel the other day from her little baby food pouch thing.

"Annabel, be still you hands!  Look here at me!  You not done yet!  Mommy, Annabel can't like this one."  Then Annabel starts to eat it, "Good girl!  I so proud of you.  You eat you lunch like a big girl!"

She found a razorback tutu we'd bought for Lyla and wanted it on because she's a girl and loves tutus.  She starts to study it and looks at the razorbacks.  "Mommy, what's this?  A rah rah TCU pig? A piggy bank?"  Probably the only child in NWA who doesn't know what a razorback is.  Makes me proud!

Me:  It's time to get dressed.

A: I want a dress like a princess.

So we go put on a dress.  She then picks out a flower to go in her hair and runs to the living room.  I follow behind to see what she's doing.  She runs to the mirror and starts twirling around. 

A: Now I look like a princess!

By the way, she wants to wear a dress every single day.  She cries if I ask her to put on shorts.

She loves music and is constantly singing & making up songs.  It's music to my ears!  

She is loving the Olympics and spent all evening yesterday doing "gymnastics" and "swimming" all over the living room floor.

Every night before bath, after she takes off her clothes, she does a little dance.  She calls it her "naked dance."  This may or may not be inappropriate.  

We definitely have those "Terrible Twos" days, but for the most part, I am LOVING this age.  Adeline, thank you for making our days funny and lively.  We love you!

Baby Emma's Party

I helped host a baby shower for one of my BFFs this weekend.  I was working furiously on stuff and I had to keep telling Adeline, "This is for Baby Emma's party."  I knew she'd really be confused if I said "shower."  

Anyway, one of my very best friends and her husband are having their first child in November.  And the cherry on the top is it's a girl!  Yay!  I just love girls!  Her name is going to be Emma Kennedy.  Isn't that beautiful?  Anyway, Amanda is a school teacher and lives in Dallas, so it seemed most logical to go ahead and have her hometown shower in the summer before she gets busy with back-to-school stuff, etc.  

Isn't this cake the cutest?  It matched the invitations perfectly.

The cake table

My other BFF, Amber, and I made these numbers with coordinating outfits/hairbows for Emma to wear on each month's birthday throughout her first year.  Amber couldn't make it to the shower, but she helped me a lot from Houston.

The food

Time to open presents!  She got so many cute things!

Adeline & Tater Tot

Amanda with some of her hostesses.

I love this girl and her sweet baby so much!

Amanda with Emma's 2 biological aunts, Clara & Rachel  :)

And what's a post without this cutie?  Annabel stayed home with Pappy and napped.  I was worried about Adeline skipping her nap, but she did so well.  Who doesn't love a party?

I really love baby showers.  I had so much fun planning and decorating and everything that goes along with it.  And who can't be excited about the blessing of a new, precious little life?  Emma is one blessed little girl, and loved by so many already!

Annabel is 10 Months Old!

She's officially been outside my body for longer than she was in it.  Crazy!  I have to say, these 10 months have been much more exciting than the 9 months I was pregnant!

Happy 10 Months, Beautiful

What can you do at 10 months old?

• You still wear 6-9 month clothes & size 3 diapers.
• You still take a morning & afternoon nap (1-2 hours each, sometimes more in the afternoon)
• You can crawl faster than we can keep up.
• You pull up on everything & cruise around all the furniture.
• You even walk behind your push toys sometimes.
• You are down to nursing 5-6 times a day rather than 7
• You were just fine with going down to 6 times, but still not quite ok with just 5 times
• Eating solids at all meals & having an afternoon snack
• You've been kind of sick lately & have not felt like eating solids at all, except for cheese & cheetohs - you absolutely love these!
• When I'm not here to nurse you, you'd much prefer to drink your milk out of a sippy rather than a bottle.
• You use toys appropriately.
• You pretend to talk on toy phones.
• You pretend to drink out of play cups & hold them to others' mouths so we can pretend, too.
• You throw balls.
• You are not as curious as your sister was.  You do not open doors or drawers on your own.  Maybe because Adeline is always doing it for you.
• You love books & will sit and listen for a long time.  If we let you, you are constantly pulling Daddy's books out of the bookshelf and flipping through them.
• You want to be where you sister is & doing what she's doing ALL THE TIME.

What can you say at 10 months?

• You say Daddy, Momma, Bye Bye, Night Night, Book, & Ball.
• You sign more & all done.
• You imitate animal sounds.
• Pig, Dog, Cow, Duck, Sheep

You light up our lives, Annabel.  We love you.  We love you.  We love you!

On Being a Mom

One of my best friends is pregnant with her first baby right now.  She lives in Dallas so she's not around us much.  She went to lunch with another friend of hers who has two kids the other day.  Afterwards we were talking and she said, "I got a glimpse into what my life is about to be like.  You can't see how exhausting it is from y'alls cute little pictures on facebook."

I've been thinking about that ever since.  My first thought was, that is so true!  Anybody who isn't a mom must think, "Oh aren't those kids so cute? Her life is all about fun times and dressing her kids up & posing for pictures."  But anybody who is a mom knows that isn't true.  We all know that nobody gets a picture of the 50 dirty diapers we change a week, or the snot dried on all our t-shirts, or the spit-out, floor-covered organic home-made baby food you spent so much time steaming and pureeing, or the  piles of laundry you can't seem to stay on top of, or the screaming toddler in her 3rd time-out in 2 hours,  the list could go on and on and on.

So then, if it's so awful and demanding and exhausting, why do people keep doing it?  Why do moms say it's the best thing ever?  Here's why I do it.  Here's why being a mom is the best thing I've ever done.

Nobody gets a picture of how it makes you feel when:

• Your 2 year old says, "Mommy, I love you."
• Your baby's eyes light up when you walk in her room to get her out of her crib in the mornings.
• After tantrums & loss of patience from parent & 2 year old, she finally learns how to pedal her tricycle around the driveway.
• After snot & crying & refusing to eat, your baby's stubborn teeth finally break through & she flashes that new, precious, toothy grin at you.
• Your child wants so much to be just like you that she runs to her room as fast as she can & drags out her play vacuum to follow behind you while you clean up her 20th mess of the day.
• Your baby crawls around you and pulls on your legs incessantly while you're cooking dinner because she wants nothing more than to be in your arms.
• After cleaning up numerous pee-pee accidents, your 2 year old finally announces on her own, "I have to go potty" and proceeds to complete the task all on her own.
• Both your babies wake up from their naps and spend the next 30 minutes snuggling with their momma.

Oh this list is endless, but you all get the picture.  Being a mom is way more work than I ever dreamed imaginable, but it is beyond rewarding.  It is delightful, amazing, fantastic, wonderful.......

And to think, God loves me even more than this.  Wow!

Various Happenings

Be prepared for a random conglomerate of our lives the past couple weeks.

Annabel learned how to talk on the phone.  She's also learned to pat her belly when you say, "Where's your belly?"  It's the cutest thing!

I caught a sweet sister moment on camera.  Adeline's been having a hard time sharing and being sweet since Annabel has become so mobile.

This cracks me up!  I guess we'll be keeping out all this patriotic stuff to wear through the Olympics.  USA!!

Saturday night we went to a surprise birthday party for Shannon.  I like how I'm the only one in my family smiling in this picture.  :)

Annabel played with her first balloon.  I love the look of sheer joy on her face in this picture.

It's impossible to get everyone smiling & looking at the camera.

Sunday after church we went to Charlie's birthday party.  It was carnival-themed.  Adeline enjoyed her first root beer and paper straw.  So much fun!

Adeline & Charlie

Monday we stayed home & played.  Adeline got to finger paint.

Then when Daddy got home, it was all fun & games.

Last night after dinner the girls rode around in their Jeep all over the front yard while Jon and I just sat back and watched and listened to all their happy sounds.  I said, "This is the life"  and I meant it.

Swimming Lessons: Take 2

Adeline completed her swimming lessons this week since she'd only gotten to go twice the first week before she got sick. 

It worked out better, though since Jon was off on Wednesday & Thursday because then we didn't have to pay a babysitter.  I took her on Wednesday and Jon took her on Thursday.

Then on Friday, her two grandmothers came to watch her graduate, and Annabel sat with them!

Annabel was pretty tired since it was during her morning nap-time.

She can't wait to swim next year!

Our little graduate!

Some things I want to remember about this year's swimming lessons:

• She still does not like to jump in without holding our hands
• She will remember to kick as long as we're telling her to
• She can climb out of the pool like a pro
• She laughs and keeps her mouth open the whole time rather than blowing bubbles
• She will float on her back, but it's not her favorite.  She won't let go of our hands in order to put her arms straight out by her sides.
• She's learned how to push off with her feet from the wall to shoot her further into the water
• She got stung by a bee or some other stinging bug within the first 5 minutes of her lesson on Wednesday.  She cried for a minute, but was then fine.  This was the only time she cried during any of her lessons.
• Her favorite part about every lesson was the cookie at the end!

I love that she loves the water and I think by the end of next summer she'll b swimming like a fish!