January 2011

Addie and I have been doing a ton of wonderful things over the past couple of weeks. We were invited to Blair's 2nd birthday party a couple weekends ago and had a blast! Elmo made an appearance and Addie was ecstatic!

The food was wonderful and of course Addie and I had to try one (or two) of everything!

It was hard to get Addie to look at the camera because she was so excited about Elmo! I had to steal a picture from Tara's Blog (Thanks Tara) so I could get a picture of both of us looking at the camera! Ha!

Later that afternoon we went to the Dollar Store! I have to admit..I love the Dollar Store. I use this store as a learning tool for Addie. It is teaching Addie the value of a dollar and it teaches her self control as well. Sometimes when we go I'll give her a dollar to spend. If we go after a doctor's appointment, and I feel guilty from all the shots they give her, I'll give her a $20 and she can get 20 things. This particular day I had three dollars in my wallet so that was the amount of money she walked in with that day. She knew that three dollars...meant three things. Of course she could only buy 1 or 2 but why only buy 1 or 2 when you can get three! Anyway she went in holding her three dollars and we quickly had about 8 things in our basket. She has learned over our many trips to the Dollar Store how to evaluate what is in her basket and only pick what she really wants to take home based on the money she has to spend. It is really interesting watching her little mind work. She very maturely put 5 things back on the shelf and rationalized to me why she picked what she picked to buy. She had some Easter things in her basket and when I told her Easter was months away from now...she decided to put the Easter things back on the shelf because she had plenty of time to come back and get those things later! I always let her buy whatever she wants with her money...no matter if it is a box of zip lock bags or a tragic ceramic puppy. Well...we came home with the tragic ceramic puppy that I am hoping will fall and shatter into a million pieces any day now! When we got home we made a dog house for her puppy who she quickly named "Roscoe P Coltrane" (Dog from the Dukes of Hazard).

She is really learning how to use scissors...of course this picture shows her chewing on them..which is obviously not the right way to use them...ha!

After all...a cardboard doghouse is not complete without curtains, water and food dishes and flower window baskets!

Roscoe is the dog in the picture above on the left hand side. After we completed the house we gathered all the dogs we had and they had a play date in Roscoe's house!

The next weekend I headed to Montgomery to meet up with some friends from College. We went to see "Bear Country" which is a play that really humanizes the Alabama football coach, Paul "Bear" Bryant ! It was great. After the play we headed back to Kat and Jon's house and enjoyed some good wine and homemade gnocchi!

The next weekend was full of fun too! The first milestone of the weekend was Addie putting together a 48 piece puzzle....that we bought at the Dollar Store of course! I was so impressed.

The big event of the weekend was transitioning from a toddler bed to a "Big Girl" bed! This was way past due. Addie is so tall that she literally touched each end of her Toddler bed when she was in it. Now she has room to stretch out!

She was so excited when they came to deliver the mattresses on Saturday morning. She walked outside and saw the big delivery truck full of mattresses and said "A lot of people grew out of their beds"! So cute.

We still need to get a comforter for the bed but for now the white blanket will do!

YaYa and Granddad were here to join in the excitement too! We had story time before bed that night. I am 100% sure I fell asleep before the story was over. Her new bed is definitely comfortable!

The weekend weather was so beautiful that we were actually able to go to the park one day! Of course George had to come along with us! Guess who ended up holding him....

We finished off the weekend with Sidewalk chalk! Addie's doggies had to watch us while we drew!

I think some chalk got on the sidewalk.....most of it was on her pants, in her hair, on her shirt, on my shirt.....

Addie loves drawing rainbows and writing her name! Obviously we are still working on the sequence of letters in her name but it is a start!

Snow!

Sunday night it snowed 6 inches in Woodstock, well 5.8 to be exact! I woke up Monday morning at 6am to the sound of an incoming text message from my boss "Well..this is a first..stay home....I am officially closing the office due to the weather"! Yee Haw! He officially closed the office Tuesday as well. Not sure if today was officially open or closed but only a handful of people were able to make it into the office (me..not being one of them). Addie and I found plenty to do during our 5 day weekend! We had a couple play dates, had a fabulous lunch with Ya Ya and Granddad (Thanks for cooking Ya Ya), fed the birds, made Valentine Cards, clipped and organized coupons, washed, dried and put away laundry, jumped in the jumpy house, played 8 million games in Addie's playroom, cleaned out Addie's closet, filled up a plastic bin with toys Addie no longer plays with, hung pictures, had a snow ball fight, went sledding, read "Alberto The Dancing Alligator" so many times that Addie corrected me if I read the wrong words, watched "Tinker Bell and The Great Fairy Rescue" about 3 times and more more more! We had a BLAST! Of course those reading this probably did the same because they too were stuck in their house for 3 days straight.....and you probably know that it is impossible to keep a three year old sitting still for more than 30 seconds unless of course Tinker Bell is on the TV!

Play date from Sunday with Kenz, Krista and Emma! They played wonderfully together...and only got in one fight..Ha!

Some pictures of The Snow Storm of 2011 rolling in...it literally looked like God was pulling a white fluffy SNOW blanket over the clear blue sky.....

Addie had a blast throwing snowballs and trying to pull me on the sled........

She was exhausted after playing!


The picture below shows how deep it got in my yard..you can hardly see Addie's boots!



Thank Goodness we had something for the squirrels......Buffet at Beth's house.....

We ventured out today and after sliding around a little bit we were able to make it to McDonald's..of course! and Kroger! I did not want to cook anymore and we were in desperate need of milk and Charmin! Back to school and work tomorrow! Of course given the temperatures are in the teens tonight...I won't be making it into work until after the roads de-ice in the morning! Back to reality! Oh well..I think I can handle a two day work week!