A Day at the Museum

I have had a terrible case of cabin fever for the last few weeks so yesterday we made a last minute decision to head to the Children's Museum of Evansville (CMOE). It opened about 3 years ago and this was our first time to check it out. There are 4 huge rooms filled with a variety of hands-on activities for kids to do and Addie really enjoyed herself. Special thanks to Grandma (Mom) for going with us! Here are just a few pictures from our day...

Shoveling rice

Reaching for the balls in the "Wet Deck" room

Her favorite...pushing the "big duckies" into the huge bathtub

Making a water spout

The girls and Grandma in the "blue room"

Happy Heart Day!

We have had a great week of celebrating "Valentime Day," as Addie (and every other little kid I know) calls it! Monday, Addie made Valentines to send to her friends and family and she had a wonderful time coloring with her new markers and decorating the cards with heart stickers. She wanted to do it all herself and got mad at me several times for even offering to help her (how dare me!).

Busy making Valentines (Lydia is NOT happy in the background)

Today was the big day for cookie baking and Addie and I prepared the dough last night so it could cool in the fridge. We got a late start this morning because Lydia decided to sleep in (which I'm not at all complaining about) and I didn't want to have to stop in the middle of our baking to nurse her. Addie used the rolling pin to roll out the dough and then thoroughly enjoyed using our new heart shaped cookie cutter to make each cookie. We even had a little dough left over and made two cookies in the shape of her hands. She has really been into tracing her hands lately, so this was extra fun for her.

After the cookies were cooled off, we iced and "salted" them with red "sfrinkles," as she says. Looking at the cookies, you can definitely tell which ones she did ALL by herself when I wasn't looking. We (I) have a big mess to clean up now, but we had a blast together in the kitchen and I can't wait for our next baking adventure!

Rolling out the dough (with her tongue just right!)

Adding "sfrinkles"

Flour face :)

Addie posing with the finished cookies, wearing her "akron"

Amazing Addie

There is never a dull moment when you live with Addie! I've started writing down things she says and does and I thought I'd share. She is quite the singer and can sing the ABCs, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Jesus Loves Me (my personal favorite), and she even does Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes...and was caught doing this during the Children's sermon at church on Sunday :) She also likes Ba ba, Black Sheep and Little Bo Peep.

We have started doing "school" in the mornings and she is very good at letter recognition. She actually can name almost every letter of the alphabet when I randomly point to them and even knows some of the lower case letters. Numbers are a different story and she is still struggling with the number 4. She likes to count: 1, 2, 3....7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. If I say 4, she then goes on with 5 and 6. We'll be continuing to work on that!

She also LOVES to help around the house. Her stool goes to every room with her so she can be more on our level (which can be dangerous at times ;) We let her help wash the dishes (she rinses) and prepare lunch and dinner when possible. Here she is helping daddy with the dishes...

Here are a few of my favorite Addie-isms lately:
"That's my favorite kind of sissy"--talking about Lydia of course
When I told her that Lydia wanted to play with her she said in the cutest way to her baby sister, "Do you want to build a tower?" (I can't wait for the day when this can really happen!)
"I need some cow milk!"--asking for milk during church
"Hello, I am named Addie"
Last week she informed me of this: "I'm getting married!"
"Hold me BIG!" --meaning standing up, rather than sitting down
"That's amazing!"
While spinning in circles, "Mommy, I'm getting busy" (meaning dizzy)
She is really into reading and loves books by Jan Brett...so every book she "reads" by herself is "by Jan Brett," even the Bible ;)

Here she is singing partial versions of Jesus Loves me (note "the Bible tells me so...big") and the ABCs (she is saying tag along K, and gets this from the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom").

Snow Days

Evansville got hit with a batch of ice and snow this past week that had a huge effect on many people in this area. My parents and grandparents lost power very early Wednesday morning until late evening Thursday. There were tons of families and businesses without power for a long time, even some who still don't have power back yet. We were feeling very fortunate that our power stayed on...until Friday morning when it flickered on and off and then finally stayed off. Not wanting to stay the night in the cold with our babies, we packed up and headed to my parents' house for a little sleepover.

Our power came back on at some point very early Saturday morning, but we decided to spend the day at grandma and papaw's house playing in the snow. This was Addie's first experience playing in the snow and she LOVED it. We bundled her up and put her new snow boots on (which she was SO excited about) and headed out for a morning of fun. Chris took Addie on the sled and she was loving every minute of it, despite her freezing cold, red nose. She even went down a smaller hill by herself again and again. I was thankful that mom watched Lydia so I could be a part of her experience and play too :)

We had warm cookies and hot chocolate waiting for us when we came inside, mmmmmmmm it was yummy! After lunch, Addie took a nap while I watched a movie with my parents (and Lydia) and Chris played in the snow some more in my dad's Polaris. I just love days like this and didn't really want it to end. I am hopeful that the ice will melt enough for people to get their power back on, but I must admit I'm a little sad to get back into the normal routine of the week.

A gorgeous icy tree


Big girl on her own


My snow angel


Beautiful girl


Pulling Daddy

Happy Baby Girl

Lydia Mae turned 3 months old this past week and I didn't even realize it until a good friend reminded me (thanks Stephanie!). I guess with all the snow and ice we got this week, my brain took a little vacation. Our chunky monkey is such a happy and wonderful baby, sometimes it's hard to believe she's really ours to keep. She has been "talking" and laughing more and more lately and she just loves to smile at people when they talk to her. Lydia especially loves watching her big sister and just smiles with delight when Addie talks to her. She's extremely mellow and goes with the flow most of the time...I'm hoping this is a reflection of how her teenage years will be ;)

I have been trying to capture her laughing on video for several days now and finally got a little clip. I apologize for the shadow on her face, the lighting was bad in our room and I couldn't get her to laugh on cue in the well-lit living room. Enjoy!

Eating her big sister


Hanging out with her pal, Rene (who was born the day before Lydia)


Mommas and our chunky girls--Josi, Rene, Lydia, Me

A Great Ending

Other than a great visit to the doctor on Monday, our week did not start off so well. Among many other little issues, our old man dog, Joe, started in with doggy diarrhea very (I mean VERY) early morning on Tuesday. It wasn't a fun couple of days, but he visited the vet and I think his medication has kicked in. Addie decided to add to the sleeplessness by getting up very (once again, I mean VERY) early the few mornings when we desperately needed just a few more minutes of sleep. Lydia, well, she's Lydia and just slept through all the chaos and was a little angel.

Thankfully, Thursday was a WONDERFUL day around the house and everything went so well I thought I was dreaming. Addie got to have her first experience with finger painting and it was so much fun!

Trying out blue

Making a sweet little mess :)

Smelling it (and almost tasting, but got caught)

Friday, our friend Josi brought her little girl (who was born the day before Lydia!) over for a visit. We had a great time watching the babies play and staring at them in disbelief that they're just about exactly the same size (little chubbers :) Unfortunately, I forgot to get my camera out to catch these two together, but we know another play date is in our future soon.

My favorite moment of the week happened today at lunch. Addie and I were eating spaghetti and she hopped down for a moment to give Lydia a kiss and call her "sugar plum"...I didn't think anything of it and I looked back at Lydia a few minutes later to see this:

Spaghetti sauce eyebrow!

I wonder who did it!!!

Isn't she innocent??

These are the moments I cherish and hold dear in my heart...sisterly love at it's best!

Winding Down in 2009

After all the excitement of Christmas and Addie's birthday, it has been very nice to be on a slower paced schedule so far this year. We didn't do much around here to celebrate the New Year, in fact Chris and I both forgot it was even New Year's Eve most of that day. We did our usual routine of putting Addie to bed and we watched a movie (I don't even remember what we watched, how sad!). I am proud to say that we made it to midnight, but that's been kind of a normal thing lately too.

The first full week of January started off by a visit to the girls' pediatrician on Monday morning. I had been anticipating this visit for a while, just to find out how much weight our little chunky monkey had put on and talk with the doctor about some of Addie's not-so-great habits that have developed since Lydia's birth.

Little Miss Lydia Mae weighs a whopping 14 pounds and 2.5 ounces and is 24 1/4 inches long. She is off the charts for her age, to put it nicely. Needless to say, she is a wonderful little eater and we are both doing very well in that department :) She is also a great sleeper and I won't say much more on that subject for fear of jinxing our good streak we have had going for a while ;) We are enjoying getting to know her little personality more and more every day. She responds with smiles and even almost laughs when we talk to her...and she also babbles right back at us in her own language, it's so sweet.

Love those rolls :)

Big sister Addie is tall and skinny, but we knew that already. She weighs almost 26 pounds and is 36 inches tall. We discussed the pacifier issue with our doctor and decided to "leave the nummy with Dr. Cochran so he could give it to a little baby to use." So far (only about a day and a half in), she is falling for it and doing pretty well. Getting down for a nap was tough yesterday and I decided to pull out a different brand of "nummy" that she can use only at nap and bedtime. The next few days may be difficult for all of us, but we figure if she mastered potty training and carried on complete conversations with us before she even turned 2, getting rid of the nummy should be the last big step into two-dom. Wish us luck (and pray hard!).

I walked in the kitchen only to see the cutest little girl in her Little Mermaid panties and apron

Cooking up somethin' good

Lovin on my girls