Eclipse Update

Okay, so I am a little tired today from staying up until all hours of the night like a teenager and of course Addy chooses today to not want to take a morning OR afternoon nap (I finally persuaded her but it took a while so we missed most of our nap time!)  The movie was GREAT and we had fun, even though we probably were a little bit enthusastic on what time we arrived at the theater.  We did have great seats and we all sat together and we enjoyed good girl time waiting in line so it was totally worth it.  Fun times!

This is the line before we got to go in the theater... about 9:00.  We heard it wrapped around the outside of the building!

The early crew... LeAnn, Carla, Jennifer, me, Amber & Trish

The whole crew!

Eclipse!

Tonight, I am going to take part in the craziness that is Twilight... the new movie comes out at midnight and I am going with a group of girls... let me clarify - grown women... to the midnight showing.  We are going to get in line around 7:30... yes, we have tickets and will have a seat in the theater but apparently this is serious business and will be packed out so if we want to sit together, we have to get in line early!  It gets better - we have t-shirts that tell which "team" we are on (Edward OR Jacob for anyone not familiar with the Twilight story line).  I will be sure to post a picture of everyone with their Team shirts on!  By the way, I am on Team Edward :)

Lotsa Updates!

It's been a week and a half and I had a lot of catching up to do on the blog!  We are having a fun summer and I am loving being home with Addy.  Our house is much more peaceful and less stressed.  I like being able to keep up with laundry and cook more meals for us, although we did have pizza hut tonight...  I am trying to be a better blogger this summer... I want to have lots of pictures and memories of the summer to look back on!  I am excited that there are 20 posts for June... even though I usually post 6 or 7 at a time.  I don't see how these people update their blog every single day!!  I am not that dedicated to it!  I do love when people leave comments on the blog... I am blogging mostly for us but it is fun to know that our friends and family read it and look at our pictures! 

Father's Day Cookout

Our Father's Day plans with my family got rescheduled to Monday night and Mom, Dad and Kayla came over to visit and eat dinner.  We had grilled pineapple, grilled mushrooms and veggies marinated in Dale's sauce, Sister Schubert wheat rolls (makes me feel healthy even though I know they're not!), butternut squash casserole and kebabs with steak, red/yellow/green peppers, squash and zuchini!  I made peach cobbler for dessert with some peaches that Courtney brought back from Clanton when he was out of town for work last week.  We had fun!

While Courtney and I were getting supper wrapped up, Dad and Addy played dress up... well, Addy dressed up, not Dad!  First it was the bunny ears...

Then the fairy wings...

Dancing with Mom in her fairy wings... I love this one!

Father's Day with the LeCroys

On Sunday, we were supposed to have lunch at our house with my family and then head to Centreville to visit Courtney's grandparents and have dinner.  Our plans changed at the last minute and we had a nice Father's Day lunch with just the three of us and took a LOVELY afternoon nap before heading to Centreville later in the afternoon.  We enjoyed getting to visit with Pop's side of the family and celebrating Father's Day with them.  I love getting together with the whole family because everybody brings food and it is like Christmas or Thanksgiving because you get to eat lots!  My favorite thing on Sunday was the delicious carrot cake that Mia made... with cream cheese icing... yummy!

Walking around with help from Daddy

Addy and Courtney's Granddaddy (Pop's Dad)

Playing with cousin Michelle's sunglasses

First Father's Day!

Sunday was Courtney's First Father's Day!  He is a wonderful father and husband.  He loves and supports both of us very unselfishly and we appreciate all that he does for our family!  He is very hands-on with Addy and he loves spending time with her.  He loves being silly with her and making her smile... she likes the "sound effects" that he makes while feeding her and the voices he does when reading her books.  Their new game to play is "chase" - Courtney will get down in crawling stance and say "I'm gonna get her" and start crawling toward Addy and she takes off crawling away from him as fast as she can!  She loves it!!  I love watching them together - it is fun to see the daddy/daughter bond developing.  Happy Father's Day, Courtney!  We love you!!

Addy and her Daddy

Reading the card she got him for Father's Day!

Birthday Party

On Saturday, we took Addy to Riley's 1st Birthday Party at Josh & Rachel's house.  It is so hard to believe she is already a year old!!  We had lots of fun visiting with everyone.  Riley didn't have much to do with her cake but we all had fun watching to see what her reaction would be.  Of the first birthday parties I've been to lately, I have seen more often than not that the child does NOT want to get messy with the cake!  Wonder why?

The girls got fairy wings as party favors... here is a picture of Addy trying her wings out at our house.  They kept hitting her in the back of the head and she couldn't figure out what it was!

Teeny Weeny Bikini!

Addy showing off her curves in her pink bikini...

Driving around Mia & Pop's pool in her float

She liked to be held instead of riding in the float... she is a splasher!

Recent Pictures

Courtney was on a roll one night last week and Addy was smiling and laughing at everything he did!

Notice her crazy hair! 

I love how she has her hands clasped together in this picture

What a little mess!  She pulled up to the cabinets in the kitchen yesterday and almost got one open.  I HAVE to finish baby-proofing our house! 

Chillin at the Pool (the baby pool, that is!)

No, that's not a snake in the pool with Addy... it's the water hose :)

Wearing her swimsuit from Jennifer & Courtney... look at her little belly!

Sunday Pictures

I try to take a picture of her on Sundays but sometimes I forget.  Here are a few of my favorites from this past Sunday. 

In her little slip... this is such an "Addy" face...that open-mouth smile

Bumps & Bruises

Now that Addy is pulling up on EVERYTHING, it seems we have a lot more bumps and bruises.  Bless her heart, she sometimes forgets that she needs to hold onto whatever she pulls up on and she will get excited about something and let go and let's just say it doesn't always end pretty!

So pitiful!

Last week, she was crawling right beside me in the kitchen and she lost her balance and fell forward onto her face... not sure if she bit her lip or hit it hard on the floor but there was a little blood involved.  I thought only boys got hurt??  I am not prepared for blood or stitches or any of those other scary things!  I was wiping her mouth with a washrag and I guess since it was cool, it felt good on her little injured mouth so she decided to chew on the rag for a few minutes.

Back to being happy again!

Recent Pictures

Addy is pulling up on everything in our house and she is even pulling up on me!  When I am standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes, she will crawl up and stand up while holding onto my legs.  Here are a few shots of her in action...

Wearing her cute green skirt from Courtney

She must really like this chair!  I think it's because my purse is usually sitting there and she thinks she can get to it!

Mission accomplished! She is standing in her bed.  Yes, she can pull up to standing even though it is on the lowest position.  I hope she does not figure out a way to climb out.

She loves to look at books!  It is one of the few things I can get her started doing and when I come back, she is usually still sitting where I left her.  If I give her a toy to play with, she gets disinterested after a minute and will crawl to wherever I am or find something close by to pull up on (and get into things!)

I think it's so cute how she turns the pages and looks through the book like she is really reading it!

8 Months Old!

One year is getting to be uncomfortably close!  Addy weighs about 18 ½ lbs and wears size 3 diapers and size 9 months clothes (some 12 months).  She crawls everywhere – she will follow us around and usually likes to be where we are but sometimes goes off on her own… I can see that she is going to be Miss Independent.  She pulls up on everything and has taken a few steps while holding onto furniture... I'm sure she will be "cruising" all over the place before long.  We have had lots more bumps and bruises lately with her pulling up all the time.  Sometimes sitting back down isn't that easy and she collides with the coffee table or chair on her way down.  This is usually followed by a few tears but generally, she gets over her injuries pretty quickly and is ready to go again!

We are working on learning the concept of "No Ma’am" and we have to reinforce it sometimes with a little pop on the hand to get her attention... which usually works.  She doesn't seem to get upset when I pop her little hand but she usually stops doing whatever she was doing and moves on to something else.  I struggle with whether she is old enough to understand/get "in trouble" for doing something we've told her not to but when she gives you THE LOOK after you've told her No Ma'am and goes back and does it again anyway, it is pretty evident that she knows exactly what she is doing and I don't want to wait until we've let all kinds of bad habits develop to start teaching her. 

Here are a few other Addy things that I want to remember:

• Finger Foods…cheerios, puffs, Gerber little crunchies (kind of like cheese puffs but without the cheese – they are the veggie kind), yogurt melts, Ritz crackers
• Continuing to have lunches once a week with my friends from work: Pam, Amber, Tiffany and Emma, Tiffany's daughter.  Addy has gone from being the quiet little baby at lunchtime to the one who doesn't want to sit in her stroller but wants to be at the table with the big girls.  I try to entertain her with puffs during lunch but she usually gets out of the stroller by the end of lunch and ends up in my lap!
• She is becoming more vocal and experiments with making her voice more high pitched.  She squeals a lot and sometimes it almost seems like she is singing
• She generally sleeps from around 8:00 or 8:30 to 7:00 but has been getting up at 6:20 for some reason this week.  I am not complaining though because a couple of weeks ago she was waking up at 4:00 in the morning!
• Still on the 7:00/11:00/3:00/7:00 schedule for eating and still doing E.A.S.Y. from the Baby Whisperer
• She likes going to church to see Ms. Tommie but hardly ever takes a nap in the nursery because there’s just too much going on… I am convinced that she doesn’t want to miss out.
• She LOVES to see other babies!  We were in Target the other day and every time we passed a buggy with a child in it, Addy got so excited and started squealing or "talking" to the other baby.
• She likes to tear things up.  I don't know if this is a bad thing or not?  I have a couple of old magazines under the coffee table that I deemed Addy's magazines and she is slowly tearing them to shreds.  She loves to pull out a page and rip it up.  She likes to tear up dryer sheets when I'm doing laundry and pretty much whatever else she can find that comes apart.  She is kind of rough!

I don't think I said this last week but I am at home with Addy for the summer and we are loving it!  I am planning to go back to work part-time in the fall but my office slows down so much in the summer that they encouraged some of the part time moms not to work.  We are having to tighten up budget-wise but it is so nice to be at home with Addy and have time to cook more and get some little projects done around the house that have been on my to-do list since she was born!  I am trying to check things off my list so that I don't feel like I never accomplish anything because that drives me crazy and I feel worthless.  I am about to sign off and have my quiet time while Addy is napping!

Pictures soon...

Little Caboose!

I guess crawling on the kitchen floor hurts Addy's knees...  when she enters the kitchen, this is what you see...

She sticks her booty up in the air and "walks" on her toes and hands!

Suggestions??

Does anyone have suggestions on good finger foods that we should try?  So far, we have tried Gerber puffs, plain Cheerios and Ritz crackers successfully.  A book I was reading had a whole long list of finger foods you could give babies Addy's age.  We tried a "small chunk of a ripe banana" yesterday and I will spare you the details but it was not a pretty sight.  AT ALL.  No more bananas for a while. 

Lunch with Nanny & Babby

Mia called this morning and said Nanny & Babby were coming to town to have lunch!  We ate at Cypress Inn and Addy sat in the big high chair for the first time.  She ate LOTS of puffs and dropped a few on the floor but she was pretty good and didn't disturb the other folks too much (I hope!) 

Nanny & Babby are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this month.  Wow!  They mean so much to us and we had fun getting to visit with them today.

As usual, Addy is trying to get hold of anything within reach... no, we don't let her use silverware yet :)

Babby, Nanny, Mia, Courtney and Addy

Babby, Nanny, Courtney, Addy and me

Memorial Day

We had a relaxing and uneventful Memorial Day.  It was nice to have Courtney at home on a weekday!  We got one or two things checked off our to-do list but mostly we rested and spent time together.  Mom & Dad had us over for dinner last night and I forgot to take pictures except for this one when we were about to leave...

Daddy Jim stealing a kiss!

I am so thankful that we live in the United States of America and on days like today, we think of all the freedoms that we normally take for granted and how blessed we are.  I am thankful for all the men and women who have paid (and are still paying) for our freedom with their lives.  

Peek a boo!

While I was folding towels over the weekend, Addy was playing beside me in her Baby Einstein jumper and we started playing peekaboo.  After a few times of me covering her up with a towel, she decided to get in on the action and covered up herself and popped her head back out to see if I would say peekaboo.  She caught on to the game!

Smiling when she re-appeared from her hiding place!

Favorite Book

Our night time routine includes reading Goodnight Moon before we put Addy down to go to sleep.  She must know that it means sleepy-time because she usually gets calm and sleepy when you start reading the book.  Courtney and I just about have it memorized from reading it so often! 

In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon...

There's that wrinkled up nose...

First Time Swimming

Saturday, we took Addy swimming at Mia & Pop's pool.  We let her put her toes in to test out the water and then when she woke up from her afternoon nap, we got the swimsuit on and let her get in with Courtney.  She was a little unsure at first but she quickly decided that it was fun to splash and play with her daddy in the pool!  She splashed hard enough to get water in her face but she did not mind one bit!

Testing the water with her toes...

Getting ready to go for a swim!

I love the wrinkled up nose!

She decided she liked it after all!

Splashing got a little out of control!

She and Courtney had fun chasing the ball around the pool.