I want to ride my Tricycle!

We have been having unseasonably warm weather around here. Not even an inch of measureable snow. It's pretty weird considering the last two winters have been full of snow and blizzards and really cold temperatures. As much as I *kind of* miss the snow, I am thoroughly enjoying being able to take Addie outside most every day. If you have never been around a 2 year old, let me just tell you, they get cabin fever after being indoors for about an hour. Addie is no exception, she needs to run and jump and play outside. Lately though, she has mastered riding her tricycle. This is the only kind of playing she wants to do outside. No more swinging in the backyard. No more sidewalk chalk. This girl only wants to ride her "bike". And she only wants to ride it in the driveway, in continuous circles, for an hour, occasionally demanding we watch her "ride mah biiiiike!". Oh and I don't dare call it a tricycle, because to her it is most definitely a bike. For your viewing pleasure, my future Tour de France participant.

She decided hats are so not cool, she needs to feel the wind in her hair!

These are her typical poses: straight smiling from pure joy, tongue out, going under the bridge aka Big Daddy's legs and telling me to watch her.
Sometimes she stops long enough for me to take a profile shot. And then I can hardly believe how big she has gotten.
So I take a picture of her little hands so I can remember what they looked like when they were small and still a little chubby.

Family Photos

I haven't blogged in 5 months. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. But now that Addie's birthday has happened and I am all nostalgic and where did my baby go, I figure I should maybe try to blog more. To you know, document our life and such. Anyway, my good friend Christina took our family pictures a few weeks ago. She is talented, and amazing. See for yourself.

I know right? More to come. Because also? Big Daddy got me a brand new camera and I have been quite the photo taker lately.

2 Years

Dear Adeline,

I can hardly believe you are 2 years old. Time is such a weird thing. The 9 months you grew in my belly seemed to lag on and on. Once they were over it seemed as if it flew by. The first few weeks of up all nights and rocking for hours seemed endless. But then, before I knew it you were not only sleeping through the night, but crawling and then walking in the blink of an eye. If I really let myself think about it, oh, my heart hurts. It hurts because I don't think I will ever feel like I soaked up enough of your newborn-ness, or your adorable wrist rolls or your first stumbly steps. And when I realize how fast 2 years has gone by I then start to think about how fast the next 5, 10, 15 will go. And then? I have to stop myself.

I remind myself that you ARE constantly changing and growing and I need to enjoy where you are right now. Soak up all that is you. Like your sleepy smile and how you love for me to sing "You are my Sunshine". And your cheese face and how you say, "Thank you, welcome!". You are so smart, you literally learn something new every day. Just last week you picked up crayons and started spouting off which color was which. I mean, when did you learn that? You constantly surprise me.

And you are so sweet. You love to offer hugs and kisses, you love to get hugs and kisses. You especially love to kiss your own owies, which is pretty freaking cute.

You make me laugh every day, and apparently you think you are quite the comedian because you are often saying, "Addie funny!".

Yes Adeline you are funny. And like I already said smart and sweet and also perfect. Every day I feel lucky to be your mom, every day I feel blessed. Even when you are showing your ever growing strong will. Especially then. You have taught me so much in these two years, I love you for that.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Love,

Momma

Happy Birthday 'Merica!

I realize 4th of July was about 15 days ago, but it took me about that long to find the camera cord, download the pictures and write this blog so, forgive me. Anyway, this post is full of pictures, lots and lots of pictures. Because over the weekend of the 4th we did lots and lots of things.

Adeline and I started the weekend of right with an at home patriotic pedicure.

Friday night, our little town had an AMAZING fireworks show. It was free and before the show they had concessions and bounce houses set up and music. Addie was content to play on the nearby playground. Content of course until I made her rest on the blanket for a while. It was super hot that day. Here she is playing on the playground and about to protest not being able to run across the parking lot to go see......

....this guy. There was a line of kids waiting to get their picture taken with the guy on stilts. Addie doesn't understand the concept of lines very well yet, neither the fact that you have to wait nor the fact that you can't just run to the front. So we enjoyed the stilt dude from afar.

She quickly forgot about the above when she saw Big Daddy's nachos. She quite enjoyed her first nachos I must say. And then Grandma Patti bought her, her very first Bomb Pop, which she also enjoyed thoroughly. And THEN, when she was getting dangerously close to her breaking point, she was happily distracted by one of those light up spinny around things.

Before we knew it, the show started. It was beautiful. A local radio station was playing patriotic music timed with the fireworks. Addie was mesmerized.

The rest of the weekend was spent on the boat and in the water. I have mentioned before, but, we are very blessed to not only live by a bunch of lakes, but also to have family who invite us out on their boats all the time. Addie has gotten quite good at swimming I must say. The puddlejumper lifejacket has been a life saver!

Addie loves hanging out with her cousins. I can't say I blame her, they are fun, and super cute. I mean look at these guys!

On the actual 4th we tied up my cousin's and my uncle's boat and had a grand old time. Addie even wore a patriotic swimsuit!

We ended the night with a pre-fireworks show dance party. It was pretty much amazing, as you can see.

It was a fabulous weekend, and you won't even believe how tired we all were the next day. But it was all worth it!

Summer Bucket List-Stealing BFF's son/snuggling baby edition

A couple weeks ago one of my BFFs Christina kicked labor and delivery's ass and had an adorable baby boy. It's not like I was too surprised by this baby's freakish good looks, her first son is handsome and cute and super smart, it just makes sense that this trend would continue (and hopefully at least once more, right?). Anyway, I told Christina that I would love to grab her oldest son Rowan one day (or more) so she could rest and have some one-on-one time with baby Wyatt. And she, of course, was totally down with that plan.

So I showed up at her house, with Addie and Big Daddy and away we went. Luckily Christina lives near a super fun area to walk around and a few parks. Addie was in her stroller and Rowan rode on his tricycle. Rowan said way too many cute things that I wish I would have written down, because seriously, this kid slays me. Once we were at the park Addie and Ro pretty much stuck together and they will probably be BFFs. See pictures for evidence of said BFF-ness.

Addie and Rowan illegally climbing the slide, despite my best efforts to convince them not too. And Rowan explaining to Addie how she had "one more turn then SHARE the bell" on his tricycle. And Addie was all, "Dude, I don't know what share means".

Here Rowan was explaining something about the house across the street that was being worked on with rocks in the driveway and how he likes to drives on rocks. And also, do you see his hair? I want his hair!

And just when I thought Addie and Ro were starting to act more brother and sister and less BFFs I see this. Yeah, I know.

A week later I called Christina and let her know I would be free to snuggle baby Wyatt the next evening. So I headed over to her house fully intended on snuggling for about 45 minutes and then promptly heading to the gym. Except, once you start snuggling a two week old, it's hard to stop. And it gets even harder when his Mom asks if you mind holding him so she can whip up something for their older brother to eat. You get where I am going with this? I didn't go to the gym. I did, however, snuggle an adorable, calm little guy and chat and catch up with his Momma for a good few hours.

Okay, so maybe there is a little something there

It's no secret/surprise/shock that everyone and their mom thinks that Adeline is a direct clone of Big Daddy, right? I always respond with something about how she has a bit of me in there too, how she gets the stubborn flare, or maybe the funny facial expressions from me. Sometimes I even say that she has a BRILLLLIANT personality, like me.

(Do you remember that commercial from the 90s? Some lady was being interviewed and they kept asking her questions and she had no job skills, and kept telling them, "But I have a BRILLLLIANT personality!" It was on during the day, I saw it all the time when I was home sick, which was a lot because I had strep throat/tonsillitis/ear infections on the regular.)

Anyway, I am going to be honest. As much as I think Big Daddy is the most handsome guy around and love that my daughter looks like him, there is a teeny tiny part of me that gets kind of.....I don't know, bummed, when everyone constantly mentions how she is a clone of him and never mentions what DNA I may have given to her (besides that sassy attitude!). Except lately, a few, literally like two or three people, have started saying they think she looks like both of us, or a little bit like me. Say what??!?!?! So I figured I would see for myself, the same way I always have for Big Daddy. A picture of Addie and I around the same age, side by side.

Addie at 18 months on the left and me at around the same age.

There's something there, right? Can we go ahead and point out the luscious locks that my big brother was sporting? I think this is when he had a rat tail. Bring the rat tail back brother, BRING IT BACK!!! And also, I wish my mom would have kept more of my baby clothes. Vintage cord Osh Kosh overall jumper? I die!

Summer Bucket List-The Zoo Edition

A couple weeks ago the weather mysteriously cooled down and we knew it was potentially our only chance to go to the zoo without melting. Seriously, the heat index today was 115 degrees. Anyway, we packed up snacks and water and off we went.

Addie went from wanting to be out of the stroller, to wanting to be in, then out and then mostly in when she realized we were going to be walking about 3 miles round trip through the zoo. I haven't been to our zoo since I was in elementary school and I must say I was pretty impressed.

Addie liked looking at the tiger, polar bear and the lion. She kept roaring at almost every animal and we had to keep telling her, "That's the lemur/sloth/horn-billed bird of some kind Addie, it doesn't roar, it...um...it just doesn't roar okay?"

Our zoo is set up in trail form kind of. The trail just kind of dumps you in this petting zoo with a bunch of sheep. I mean literally you have to walk through the sheep to get to the other part of the zoo. I was a little worried how Addie would react, or more importantly how the sheep would react to Addie. Luckily, they got along perfectly. It helps that Addie likes to feed our dog Tucker all the time. She's so sweet that she gets into his food all day long to give Tuck handfuls here and there. Feeding sheep? Complete second nature to her.

We had enough of the sheep and moved on down the trail to Australia. There were all these signs about making sure to close the gate behind you. I was thinking, man they are serious about keeping these gates closed. And then we round the corner and there are kangaroos about 10 feet from us...with no fence holding them back. Pretty sure I could of just walked right on into the shady area and petted that little kangaroo. But I didn't, because I feel like I remember learning that kangaroos aren't nice and they can kick really hard with their big ole feet. But Addie didn't understand when I wouldn't let her out of the stroller, she apparently didn't believe me when I told her that that cute little kangaroo would not appreciate her showing it how "Niiiiiiiiiiiiicccccce" she could be.

And then we saw some lazy sleepy hippos. Which you really can't see in this picture, but I promise they are there. And also? I am there. See me? See my hand and head showing Addie the hippos? Addie also roared at the hippos and I told her that I indeed think hippos make some sort of roaring noise so, therefore genius baby.

It was dangerously nearing nap time and we had made the complete laps around the zoo. But we stopped for one last picture with the giant polar bear statue.

And then Addie fell asleep in the car on the way home.