Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Santa came early for us. We are very thankful that we got to share our Christmas with my step-mom Mary and my brother Ryan for the first time in almost 10 years. They had a bit of a rough start getting out here since the weather was very uncooperative, but they finally made in on Friday the 18th (one day later than expected). We did a little shopping, celebrated my grandpa's 75th birthday, had 3 Christmas get together's with family, and spent quality time on the Wii. All in all we had a wonderful time. I'm very sad to see them go.

Reading with Grandma Mary

A little love from my "little" brother

Go Illini!

Sportin' her new John Deere boots

Ryan & I found time to make snow angels

Reading with Uncle Ryan

Addison had a wonderful 2nd Christmas. She was so much fun this year. It was great to see her tear in to her presents and get all excited. Between Mom and Dad, all of her grandparents, and other family she was spoiled rotten. She got lots of books, 2 baby dolls, a slide, Elmo Live, a 4-wheeler, a kitchen, some clothes, fancy pink John Deere boots, a drum and other loud musical instruments (aahhh!!!)...the list goes on. Next year we hope she'll have a little brother or sister to share with. Tristan and I didn't do too bad either. We are all very thankful!

Her new Christmas apron from Aunt Crystal

Unwrapping her new 4 wheeler

Helping Uncle Ryan

Our Christmas present ;)

Someone is spoiled...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The stockings are hung, the tree is up, the decorations are out, and the lights are on the house.

It's amazing how fatherhood has made Tristan go Griswold. Ok, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration...but compared to last years Christmas light display, this year's is great! Actually, for the the last two years our outdoor Christmas lights consisted of one string of hand-me-down lights (left by the previous owners of the house) across the roof line. We may have splurged last year and put some around the front door as well.

Addison has surprised me and is managing to stay away from the Christmas tree. I wish she would have let me know that it would be of no interest to her before I went out and spent $16 on plastic bulbs. :P

Now to get the rest of my shopping done...

Prom night!

Ok, not really. It did feel like it a little, minus the corsage. Although there was no wine, fancy name tags, or cute little hand passed hors d'oeuvres on prom night. Tristan received an award from work on Friday night. We were invited to a fancy little banquet held at Terra Blanca winery. His award is quite shiny and I'm certain I could knock someone out with it if I had to. Although I can't remember the entire reason he was recognized, I do remember he "sets the bar." For as hard has he works, he definately deserves this. I'm very proud of him!

The Cheerio Incident

You can't have a TP incident without a Cheerio incident to follow. Luckily I caught her before she dumped out the entire box of Cheerios.

After the dog graciously helped me clean them up, Addison decided she needed to cook.

I can't tell you how much fun she is. Every day...something new.

Fantasy vs. Reality

So my step-sis Natalie and her family are here visiting for Thanksgiving. Nat is a stay at home mom and lives 8 or so hours away in Rexburg, ID. We talk on the phone every week (sometimes daily) and often talk about how great it would be if she were here (or I were there. Ha! Yeah right). We could get together all the time, let the kids play, etc. Well we had the pleasure of spending some time together last weekend when we took the kids to get Christmas pictures. Can you say nightmare? Haha! Addison is teething and was already having a rough day and wasn’t real happy about getting pictures. Colton on the other hand was a complete ham and did awesome!! In between Addison’s tears and mad dashes off the backdrop, I did manage to get a couple decent pictures of her and a cute one of the two of them. We ran over to Costco real quick and Addison had a meltdown. Everyone was staring at us! Costco was full of parents… you’d think they’d never dealt with a little toddler drama before. After Costco we headed back to the mall to pick up pictures where the kids proceeded to take turns throwing fits. Ahh! Such a fun day! All we could do was laugh. Guess it’s better that we keep our dreams of living in the same town and our blissful days together with our kids in our heads. On the plus side, Nat and her hubby Bryce came over later with Colton and had dinner with us. The kids played together great and had fun together in the bathtub. A nice ending to a rather hectic day.

This one pretty much sums it all up! Haha!

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...

I ended up choosing this one as her Christmas pic. I wanted a full shot of her dress. (Thanks for the dress Grammy Cathy!)

This one was taken during one of her many mad dashes.

It's my favorite shot of her.

The winning pic of the kids.

Fall!

The weather is getting cooler and the leaves are all off the trees... It's official! Fall is here. I have to tell you, I'm not a fan of fall. Sure, driving down my street the trees are all a beautiful shade of red, orange, and yellow. Well, they used to be until they all fell off. Now it's nothing but leaves. Leaves EVERYWHERE! I'm so sick of leaves. Why can't they stay on the trees all pretty and colored? In the spring they could just turn green again. :P We decided to make cleaning up leaves fun and took Addison in the backyard to play in them before we bagged them all up. We bought this nifty leaf blower/vacuum that sucks up the leaves and chops them up in to teeny tiny pieces. Although we had a TON of leaves, we managed to get them all in to 3 bags. Addison had a pretty good time as well. Makes it easier on all of us.






Addison worked up quite an appetite playing outside, so we came in for some jelly sandwiches. I wouldn't take her sandwich if I were you...

Can you smell that?

You can't? Too bad for you! That's the smell of my fresh baked broccoli, mushroom, and cheese quiche! I love quiche but rarely eat it. It's usually my first choice when we go out to breakfast every once in a blue moon. We had a Veteran's day breakfast at work on Tuesday and someone brought in quiche. I got to thinking...it can't be THAT difficult to make... So I googled up a recipe and whipped one up these evening for tomorrow's breakfast. The sucker takes 45 minutes to bake and I just don't have that kind of patience in the morning when I'm hungry. :P The crust needs a little work but it looks so good... I'll let you know how it tastes.

It won't be like this for long

I just wanted to share this song with all of you. It made me cry. Motherhood has been such a blessing and I'm thankful for every minute of it. It seems like just yesterday we were bringing Addison home and now look how big she is... Before we know it, she'll be heading off to college! Haha! Time really does fly by so savor each and every moment.



He didnt have to wake up
He'd been up all nite
Lay'n there in bed listen'n
To his new born baby cry
He makes a pot of coffee
He splashes water on his face
His wife gives him a kiss and says
It gonna be OK

It wont be like this for long
One day soon we'll look back laugh'n
At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
It wont be like this for long

Four years later bout four thirty
She's crawling in there bed
And when he drops her off at preschool
She's clinging to his leg
The teacher peels her off of him
He says what can I do
She says now dont you worry
This will only last a week or two

It wont be like this for long
One day soon we'll drop her off
And she wont even know your gone
This phase is gonna fly by
If you can just hold on
It wont be like this for long

One day soon she'll be a teenager
And at times you'll think she hates him
Then he'll walk her down the isle
And he'll raise her vale
But right now she up and cry'n
And the truth is that he dont mind
As he kisses her good night
And she says her prayers
He lays down there beside her
Till her eyes are finally closed
And just watch'n her it breaks his heart
Cause he already knows
It wont be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be
All grown up and gone
Yeah this phase is gonna fly by
He's try'n to hold on
It wont be like this for long
It wont be like this for long

Animal Sounds

Trick or Treat...

smell my feet, give me something good to eat.

We stopped by Grandma Dee's house to show off her costume before heading over to trick or treat with Hannah & Hunter (Addison's cousins). Now that she is walking, it was impossible to carry her through the neighborhood so we just let her go. The kids are getting bigger and Addison had a hard time keeping up with them. She had a blast running from house to house and and would grab handfuls of candy (we taught her well) at a time. She did such a good job! She waited so patiently for people to open the door and managed to come back with quite a bit of loot for Mom & Dad. It was a fun night and she was out as soon as she hit the car seat. I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!





Anyone in there?


Trick or treat!


Our little butterfly.


Just one more for the road...

Update!

Addison had her 15 month well check yesterday. She had two immunizations and a flu shot. :( Overall she's doing great! She has 4 teeth now and she's meeting (and exceeding) all her milestones. Her ped says we have a very smart girl . :) Her vocabulary has blossomed and it seems she learns something new every day. Some of the words she is saying now are mommy, daddy, nana, papa, Bubba (Oscar)thank you, hi, bye bye, nigh nigh (night night), Elmo, turtle, doggie, duck, up, down, all done, out, uh oh, hot, book, belyee (belly) button, hap birt day (happy birthday), and she says "airpane! airpane!" and points to the sky whenever she hears any noise resembling an airplane. I'm sure I'm forgetting some. She also knows what a doggy, cow, pig, sheep, horse, bear, and chicken says and she's great at giving hugs and kisses. :)

She is 30 inches tall now and weighs 20 pounds, 10 ounces which is a little on the small side for her age. It's obvious that she gets plenty to eat but it's likely she'll be on the petite side (thanks to mommy's genes). She can be picky sometimes, but for the most part she loves to eat just about anything. Even the dirt off mommy's shoes! YUCK!

Yes, dirt. I was on the phone with Tristan and looked over to see her licking the bottom of my muddy shoe like an ice cream cone! When I took it from her she continued to smack her lips. Mmmm!

Pumpkin carving

Well you had to know this would be next! After our fun day at the mercantile, we came home to carve up our pumpkins. Addison had fun scooping out the pumpkin guts

and even went in for a bite (no, she didn't really eat it).

The finished products...

Addison loves her Elmo pumpkin.. Didn't she (uh...mommy) do a good job? Actually, I gave up after Elmo. Pumpkin carving is stressful for me! I made Tris carve my winking pumpkin after he finished his skull.

Pumpkin patch

Tris and I took Addison to the pumpkin patch at the Country Mercantile today. We met our friends Bradi and Scott and their 9 month old, Kylee. We took a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and managed to find 3 perfect (and heavy...60+ lbs total) pumpkins. I think next year we'll have to bring a wagon. Haha! There's not much for little ones to do but I think the girls enjoyed the hay ride and the petting zoo.

Addison's first haircut!

We took Addison over to Monkey Dooz (http://www.monkeydooz.net/) tonight to get her first haircut. Well, it was more of a trim, but I did learn a nifty new way to fix her hair. ;) Bye bye Pebbles Flintstone. Haha! She wasn't too sure about it at first but after she saw the sucker she was all good.

Before:

After: