Emmyloo

22 Things I Love About My Sister

Emily is 22 today & I know she loves the blog lists so I thought I'd do one for HER!

1. Her laugh!
2. People say we look EXACTLY alike which we find funny because she has gorgeous blue eyes and brown hair.
3. She has GORGEOUS blue eyes - and so does Addie, so that's a pretty cool link!
4. She loves loud trucks.
5. She loves to garden and decorate with flowers.
6. I can make her day with a basket full of fresh tomatoes.
7. She's a terrible liar.
8. She is not too proud to say "never mind" - like the time she begged to go to Tijuana and as soon as we got there and she saw how trashy it was, she asked if we could leave!
9. She bears the brunt of being youngest SO well!
10. She lets us tease her about the same thing over and over again. :) (Like Paris!)
11. She has big dreams!
12. Her nieces and nephews think she hung the moon.
13. She's not too timid to admit she doesn't want to do something.
14. She is a great listener.
15. She is true to her friends.
16. When she was little she would always jump in my bed at night and move around real fast to warm it up for me!
17. She makes cool quilts.
18. She makes really cool cakes - just a regular Martha!
19. She barely even has to try to get a great tan...not fair!
20. Per Anthony - She makes her husband fried chicken which he thinks is the coolest!
21. She has a witty sense of humor acquired through many years of teasing from Grandad!
22. She can light up any family event with her smile!

Blue Baby

 

Killing Time

 

We took Addie outside tonight to kill some time before bed. Anthony had some fun throwing her around. It was so pretty this weekend we were outside as much as possible trying to soak it up. 6 days till Texas! :)

Whiny Baby

We went to an anesthesia gathering this afternoon and Addie met Anthony's coworker's baby Mia. She's been pretty whiny from teeth bugging her today so we couldn't get a good photo, but I thought this one was a pretty good shot of Mia looking at Addie like "what's your problem?"

Waves, Cheerios, and Claps for Mom!

Happy Mother's Day to ME! Ahhhhh, after 28 Mother's Days of going to church and listening to everyone oooh and ahhh about moms, then give gifts to the moms (& sometimes the leftovers to the non-moms) I had my first Mother's Day. No complaints about the former really...It was always a good day full of reminiscence about my very cool mom, but it's also nice to have another day in the year to celebrate myself! (I've probably totally missed the point.)

At the doctor's appointment on Friday, some of the many questions they asked me about Addie included whether or not she clapped or waved goodbye yet. Since my answer was "no" I was concerned about this. On a side note, I leave the pediatrician's office most of the time feeling like I barely passed and I'm lucky their going to let me keep her. Anthony says this is because there are so many stupid people who have children that they have to run everyone through the works. Anyway, determined to not let my child fall behind we worked on both things Friday and Saturday. Sure enough, at lunch Addie started saying "hey" and waving non stop. Then, in the middle of sacrament meeting she decided she was ready to clap. It was pretty funny. We were just sitting there paying attention until Anthony noticed some commotion to our left. Turns out Addie was entertaining everyone. She'd clap for a while and then wave and say "hey." We had to try hard to hold in our nerdy excitement over her little achievement right there in the middle of the meeting.

She also started munching on Cheerios this weekend, which she loves. The faces she makes while she's trying to chew them are pretty funny so I had to post some.

Running Wild

 

I got a jogging stroller this week and thought I'd break it in on Wednesday. This picture of Addie is a good one to describe my experience. It has been about 18 months since I last ran. I still weigh about 10 pounds more than I did the time I ran and I was pushing 47 pounds. What was I thinking would happen?? My stroller has an odometer on it, which is really cool but I didn't get it working properly until halfway into our "outing" (can't call the whole thing a run or a walk...). I figured that I ran maybe one mile cumulatively and came close to the 1/2 mile mark all together. Once I stopped there was not much motivation to start again. You'd think that I would be totally defeated by this, seeing as the last time I ran I was averaging 25 miles a week. Instead, as I pushed the stroller up the last hill on the way home I thought about how boring it would be if it had been easy. There would be no mastery in that, no challenge, nothing to urge me to push forward and keep trying.

This afternoon I took the new stroller out for a WALK along a path we walk often with the odometer on so that I could see how far it was. I confirmed that I had actually made it to the 1 mile mark of all running on Wednesday, which I did not realize. So I actually did more like 1.5 cumulatively. :) This motivated me so much that after I put Addie down for bed tonight I went out for a much lighter jog. This was still only 1.5 miles but hey, a girl's gotta start somewhere! I'll be sticking to 1.5 to 2 mile runs for a while until I'm conditioned. I think Addie likes the stroller too. I can plug the iPod into it and it plays music on some small speakers so she can jam while she rides. It's pretty cute. I'm sure the people we pass are really impressed with our childrens' music. I actually like the Jack Johnson "Curious George" soundtrack we listened to today. It's hip kids' tunes.

We went to the pediatrician today. For all of Addie's fans who obsess over her chubbiness...she weighed in at 25 lbs today and she is 29 inches long. She's still off the charts on the weight & 90th for height. The doctor confirmed that she looks GREAT and that there is not a weight problem and that NO I should not put my baby on a diet. So there...

Future Basketball Great

In addition to being taller than all the babies her own age, Addie can palm just about anything. One of these pictures has her gripping her sippy cup with her little tiny hand. It's like her hands have suction or something. I think she has a great future in basketball...that is if the "culture" of women's basketball turns back around from what it was becoming when I left high school and again becomes a respectable sport for feminine girls who like to go on dates with boys. If things in that area don't change, well, I guess she'll be a great tennis player, golfer, or runner! Anthony has a highly unusual 3-day weekend this weekend. I think he's going to get the baby gates up, so life as we know it will now be over until we leave this house in a year. So sad.

Jailbird

 
Let's see if the Picasa-Blogger relationship works for me this time...I've been getting complaints that photos are not showing up. We'll see. Here's how I found Addie when I got out of the shower this morning. It's so funny when she does this and I was glad I finally had a camera handy. She wasn't crying or unhappy, just happily playing with her toys. She knows that as soon as the shower turns off I'll be coming around the corner though so she always starts looking for me. I love it when she gets the pig nose. Ironically, there are pigs on her PJs here too.

I had to clean my house tonight because I procrastinated earlier in the week. The weather was too nice to stay in and clean. While I was cleaning, I could hear my neighbor singing. Strange. She doesn't strike me as a particularly musical person or the kind who would just be rocking out by herself. This got me wondering about what she can here ME doing! I know my former neighbor (Sarah!) reads this, so if you've heard anything particularly embarrassing please do not feel the need to share. Most of my singing takes place in the car anyway so no major worries there aside from the occasional chance I get caught in the act. That's no big deal these days though, you can just hold up your cell phone and pretend you were on speaker or something! :)

Spring into Summer

Finally, for the last 2 days of April it actually seemed like Spring here...just in time for Summer to roll in. I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind if it rained another day. Sunday was so pretty, so we took the opportunity for some outside pictures with Addie. Anthony never gets the chance to take pictures of her since he's been working like crazy lately. I thought he got some pretty cute shots.

We're still trying to recover from our travels. Addie has been waking up between 3 and 5 a.m. for about a week. Since 12 hours of sleep has been pretty much the norm since she was 3 months old, I have not been too excited about the step backwards. Yesterday I decided to put the bumper on her crib so she can't play with the slats when she wakes up (she likes to run her hands up and down them) and I did my own variation on many sources of advice and put a sippy cup of water in her crib. I don't know if my solutions are permenant, but I got a full nights rest last night (aside from Anthony waking me up before he left this morning to ask if Addie had slept through the night...???) which was so good. Half of the water was gone, so I'm thinking that was a good move. Now Anthony wants to install a video camera in her room so that he can see how she entertains herself in the middle of the night.

As I alluded to above, she's finally grasped the concept of the sippy cup. When we were in Texas I caught her sipping on Emma's cup, so I went out and purchased the same brand. After a week of just chewing on it and swinging it around in her mouth with no hands she finally took a drink. While we were in Texas Nana also gave her some cheese, which she loved, so I've started giving her some cheese with her meals. Yesterday she was scarfing it so fast she sounded like a little piggy. We'll be working on manners asap.