Girl's Best Friend

Tiger is Addie's new best friend. I'm not sure he feels the same way about her though!

Merry Christmas To All!

This has been a great Christmas! Anthony had a crazy travel schedule trying to get to us, but it eventually happened and I think it was worth the trouble. Last night we had a great time with Serena, Dave, Grandma Clarkson, my aunt, and my cousins in addition to Nana and Pops. Then we enjoyed treating Addie to a little Christmas cheer this morning, although I think we enjoyed it all far more than she did. Today we tried to be as lazy as possible and Addie played hard with JD (he is her new favorite person!) She was so tired and wound up tonight when she went to bed. Ahhh, the holidays! :) I hope everyone had an equally wonderful day!

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Addie and I are already in Houston for Christmas and Anthony is joining us tomorrow (yeah!) It was 78 degrees yesterday!! I can't even believe I was relishing the warmth of 38 degrees on Tuesday (seriously, I was) and yesterday we were outside in short sleeves for most of the day. In the morning we walked with Nana to Target and back just to see if all the toys had been sold yet. Then yesterday afternoon Pops took us to the Houston Zoo. Addie had so much fun! It was really cute watching her say "wow" about all the animals. She was even impressed with the sleeping lions, tigers, leopards, and bears and enjoyed roaring at them. I guess it was their nap time.

The weather was beautiful, so Pops and I just enjoyed being out in it. Addie and Pops also walked hand in hand for a while at the end because she was tired of being in her stroller. It was so cute. She'd just pull him wherever she wanted to go. I got a video, but we'll see if I can get it up and edited away from my own computer... After the zoo we took a train ride around Hermann Memorial Park, which was also fun.

The first picture is Addie and Pops watching the zoo workers feed the pelicans. The second is Addie and I in front of a mommy and baby elephant at mealtime. That's a good time to see them because they get noisy about the food. As you can see from the picture, Addie really enjoyed herself. I, on the other hand, actually look as tired as I was feeling! Yikes.

P.S. We did not see the Hippopotamus yesterday. It was the only Christmas song I could think of that had a zoo animal in it! :)

Cabin Fever

We've been stuck in the house a lot lately with either ice, stomach flu, or colds. Sooooo, this isn't terribly exciting but for us first time parents, the part where she is eating so well with a spoon is exciting. She just barely showed some interest these last few weeks and it's been so cute to watch her.

All Done, Bye, Cookie??

Addie had to get a booster for her flu vaccine yesterday. We met Anthony up there for a few minutes before so she would be distracted by seeing him. They both like chocolate Teddy Grahams, so I brought some for them to share. I opted to just let Anthony run her in and out because I didn't feel well, so he came back with the details:

Apparently, along with flipping out as soon as she got into the room, she tried speaking her mind to everyone during the process. He said she kept waving her hands signing "all done." She also kept verbally saying "cookie" and "bye" over and over. So sad, but so funny. He said she was just frantically saying "bye!"..."cookie??"

Anthony and I have colds today...luckily Addie seems fine! One of these days I'll get a picture posted of the ice storm we got this week. The trees looked so cool!

"Biaper!"

During the passing of the sacrament at church today, Addie decided to work on a dirty diaper. Of course, it was totally quiet in the room which is unusual for our congregation of little children. Anyone who could not tell what she was doing from the expression on her face, soon probably had a clue because she started saying "biaper" over and over. Then, to clear up ANY questions for anyone...my grown-up husband waved his hand in front of his nose and made a yucky face. That's a good way to get yourself into changing the dirty diaper.

Anthony decided this weekend that Addie really needed to get out and experience the snow, so we went to Target and bought this little sled. Yesterday wasn't a good day anyway, so the sledding was not a hit. She was screaming as soon as they got into the garage. Then she calmed down enough to simply wave "all done" the entire time he was pulling her around the yard. It didn't help things when I stepped outside the front door to take a picture. Then it was "mommy" and the "all done" sign at the same time with spurts of wailing. So sad...Daddy was just trying to show her a good time. I'll get some happy sledding pictures up some time. :)

Just in case anyone doubted my coolness, I should confess that I am about to watch a John Denver Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel. I just finished "Holiday in Handcuffs" on ABC Family with Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez (Sabrina the Teenage Witch & Saved By the Bell.) So, yeah, I'm coooooooool.

Attempt at a Christmas Photo

We were suppose to get a picture of Addie for our Christmas card last week, but thought since she was pukey we'd give it some time. So, last night before we went to our church Christmas party we tried to accomplish the task. With printing & assembly time, it had to be done.

I'm sure it's no surprise that it didn't go well. She was really clingy all afternoon anyway & cried at just about everything. She cried while I put her dress on, then while I fixed her hair. So sad. Then when we got downstairs Anthony had taken the lampshade off of all the lamps to try to compensate for our dark living room and the lack of sunshine coming through the windows. I guess that only further freaked her out. The few shots of her from behind that Anthony did get in the lighting looked great, from a lighting perspective. After that she just rolled around on the couch rubbing her hair around so it got nice and static.

After she calmed down I just chased her around with the camera trying to get anything decent. Instead of a cute picture with the tree in the background and one of our Christmas bears, I have to settle for one of her sitting in "the chair" with her ragged brown bear. She was smiling though, so that's all I wanted!! Now when you get our card this year you know the story behind the picture. This picture is just one of the "chasing" pictures I got so that I could go ahead and show off the cute Christmas dress. Last year she grew out of her Christmas outfit before Christmas and this year the dress hangs on her. I'll get it right sometime! :)

Dad to the Rescue

After a week of clinging to Mom for dear life, Addie was in great need of some time out with Dad. So this morning they headed out for some fun while I had a nice quiet morning of exercise, cleaning, and showering! Despite the lack of glamor in these events, it was really enjoyable.

Instead of having Mickey Mouse Playhouse on my TV, I went with the weekly VH1 countdown. I'm pleased to report that after months of primarily listening to songs about food, dogs, colors, and wiggling, some of the music (most that I had not heard) still sounded good to me so I haven't totally lost my "cool" bone. On the Mickey Mouse note...since we've seen so much TV this week, I've been wondering what exactly Goofy is? I mean, Pluto is the dog. So what is Goofy? Just a question for all my brilliant readers.

So here are a few pictures Anthony took with his phone and sent me while they were out. Looks like she's picked out a pink gun for herself? Hmmmm. I love the one of her reading at the museum. The girl loves books and she's getting so good at turning the pages it's hard not to just sit and watch her.

Woe To Me

What a day! I couldn't resist having Anthony take this hideous, yet Christmas color coordinated, picture of me today. Look closely and you will see the IV bag hanging from the ceiling which is connected to a long tube going to my hand. About 10:30 last night I started to feel the impact of Addie's little "bug" hitting me. By midnight I was throwing up the first of NINE times that would occur by 11 a.m. this morning. The last fabulous occasion was while Addie and I were sitting in the car at the hospital waiting for Anthony to get IV bags, needles, and drugs for me.

Poor Addie had been wondering where her mother was all morning, so there had been quite a bit of crying anyways, but for some reason she enjoyed the car ride (obviously more than me and my stomach did.) She actually laughed at me as I was puking the sad remains of my insides into the bag. I was happy to entertain... Anyway, today it was really nice to enjoy one of the few perks we have yet to see of Anthony having a medical degree! He pumped me full of 2 liters and some Zofran for my stomach. It was like magic. So nice...and it saved us like 5 hours in the ER. Thank you thank you thank you!!! Oh - he gets extra praise because once I could sit up with Addie and take care of her, he ran around the house like a mad man cleaning. My hero!!

Ice and Sickness

It has been a slow going couple of days. We are still in Iowa instead of warm and sunny Houston because Thursday morning Addie threw up first thing and continued through the day. So, I am postponing the trip until January when Anthony is on nights which will be very nice too.

Poor Addie has never had tummy trouble, so this has been a first for all of us. First vomit cleaning up, first Pedialyte experience, first, first, first. I think we were doing okay until Friday when Addie was crying for food and I wouldn't give her anything but Pedialyte and crackers. Dr. Dad then stepped in and said I should give her "anything she will eat." I couldn't help but think back to days of being sick as a kid and how we had to eat crackers and drink Sprite for what seemed like forever before we got real food...but I caved to Anthony amongst the cries. Sure enough, this afternoon after a morning of laying on me and whining, Addie threw up more curdled milk than I could EVER desire to see again. I can't get the smell out of my nose. Yick. Back to the crackers and Pedialyte!

On another note, it's a good weekend to have a child who only wants to sleep and watch movies because we are getting iced today. Brings back memories of last years ice storm when Holly & Brent camped out with us. Memories! Something like 6 inches is expected. We'll try to get a picture...the trees look pretty cool coated in ice.