Happy 6 month birthday Addison!

Addison is 6 months old today!

She loves:

Anything we are holding.

Diaper changes (being naked)

Her sister

Sitting up (not by herself)

She doesn't like: 

Wet/dirty diapers

I would say daddy, but pretty much anyone other than mommy

Sleeping at night, though she generally takes decent naps? Weird.

We will try some food with her this weekend and see if she's a better eater than her sister.  She's getting a little more of a personality and it looks like there may be some competition between the two girls as they get older.

Here are some pictures. I have more on the camera that I need to upload to the computer.

The 6 month old (not a great picture...it was and then she moved as I took it.)

Big sister holding the Christmas countdown nutcracker we have with a Faith Lutheran Santa hat on it...the things you can get at our school store (the hat came free with purchase).  She was shushing him to "sleep".

Braelyn is excited about Christmas. She loves doing the Advent calendar every day and can't wait to do the kings. (It's a nativity) Nate's family is coming out so that should be special.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's some Thanksgiving pictures...

Braelyn was trying to show you the leaves from the front yard.

Here's some video of Braelyn reading to Addison.

October/November

The girls holding hands

Braelyn took this picture of Addison in the car the other day.

Autumn gave Braelyn a scarecrow she was going to trash after Thanksgiving. It's as big as Braelyn!

Braelyn loves scarecrows and lawn ornaments. In fact, she asked for a fake alligator lawn ornament for Christmas.

Soccer is done for Nate, all except the banquet and that's next Tuesday. I have been keeping busy with the girls and researching about essential oils. The wife of Nate's assistant coach sells them and got me to try them, so I've been researching the properties and science of it when Addison doesn't want me to put her down for naps.

Fall!

It's finally feeling like fall.  Before we go into our activities, here's a few of Addison's 3 month pictures.

And here's Braelyn riding her trike.  She was doing really well with potty training and then for some reason decided to stop going on the potty because she didn't want to.  So we went back and forth with diapers for a day or so, and she's back going pee on the potty at least.  It's kind of annoying because she will still rarely tell me when she needs to go, so it's more that I make her go when I'm thinking about it.

We went to the pumpkin patch at Gilcrease Orchard.  Braelyn, Addison, and I went there with a Little Lambs group from Mountain View, and Nate wanted to go with us too, so we went a second time on the weekend.  Here's the view of the pumpkin patch, Braelyn's in the middle of the "road" and Nate is further up in blue.  Braelyn really liked the pumpkin patch.

Braelyn liked walking on top of the hay bale "maze".

 We made caramel apples.  Braelyn was very excited by this.  Her interest in caramel apples started because a student gave Nate a Mickey Mouse caramel apple, which as you can see below, we attempted to recreate, sort of. 

 We had to fix our toilet because one of the bolts came out...the flange was rusted because apparently the toilet was leaking for a while.  I was fixing it in our bathroom and had brought Addison in on her bouncer.  Braelyn decided to come in with her chair and sit and "feed" her baby.  Nate decided to take pictures.

We went trick or treating!  Well...trunk and treating at Lamb of God.  Braelyn was Tinkerbell...my mom made the dress, I did the hem and made the wings.  Braelyn wanted a sparkly headband, so we used some sparkly ribbon.  Braelyn put pink glitter on the wings.

Braelyn's latest picture-taking thing is to open her mouth all the way.

 Braelyn really wanted to hold Addison.

 This was a nice picture.

 Addison wasn't too happy about it.

 This is typical.  I'm not sure what Braelyn's doing here.

 Braelyn holding her pumpkin.

 Braelyn holding her trick or treating bucket.

 Addison!

 Getting ready to go trunk and treat.

 Her first time trick or treating!

 There was a Mickey themed "trunk".  She doesn't seem very excited here.  It was past her bedtime, so she was pretty tired.

There were some clowns doing balloon animals, she asked for a kitty.  She really liked the whole experience, except for possibly the smores booth run by the boy scouts.  She liked roasting the marshmallow, but didn't have any interest in eating it.

In the car on the way home.  She isn't asleep, I don't think....I'm fairly certain she stayed awake the entire ride home, which was pretty impressive.

Addison's 3 months and school's started

Time has flown by!  We started school and Nate has learned about parent guilt when I tell him Braelyn wonders where her daddy is. It's hard when he has late practice and doesn't get home until after her bedtime. There were a few days of 2-a-days before school started that he didn't see her at all for a few days. So we make the most of time we have on the weekends and I bring the girls to see him between school and late practice if I have to. Here he took Braelyn to the park and they played in the slide.

We also have tried doing some crafts with her, which she calls "craps". She made some coasters or something out of pony beads.

We are potty training, with good success.  She has about one accident a day, usually poop.  Her prize when she has one week with no accidents is a tricycle (or scooter or bike, depends on how old she is at that point). She doesn't quite understand as every time she goes on the toilet, she says "get tricycle" ha.

Addison is doing well. She is growing and likes to look at you and talk. She is also starting to grab at toys.

Here's some pictures

And Nate got some toddler sized soccer shirts this year.

Hunter is (has) a pain in his butt

Hunter is starting to be more high maintenance than the girls. He was dehydrated several weeks ago and had issues passing a whole bunch of rubber bands and ponytail holders. At least he's stopped eating twist ties. Now he has an abscess in his anal gland. He had this before and had to have surgery because it was so bad. Not so this time (guess I caught it sooner). So he's wearing the cone of shame again.

Everyone is sleeping at the moment, thank goodness. We went to the park early this morning, then went to pick up some stuff from a friend of mine, stopped at McDonalds to let Braelyn go potty (she loves public toilets for some reason) and then she got to play on the play place, which she loved. We then went to pick up a trike and a rocking chair I found on Craigslist. The trike is her present for no accidents and pooping on the potty. Since she had three accidents yesterday (one was my fault), she won't get it unless she does better today and tomorrow. I am putting her off by telling her she needs a helmet to ride it. :)

Here she is in her crusader soccer shirt.

Addison officially hates the carseat. If we want to go somewhere, we better take something to prevent a headache and expect her to scream the entire time. This cements my thoughts that my girls are too stubborn to cry it out. That's the other reason we stopped at McDonalds. To get a break from the crying. Here she is, sleeping on my lap.

What We've Been Up To

Not much, actually.

I have made two photo books, which maybe I'll share.  We got Groupons for them...one is Braelyn's trip to Disneyland and the other is Birth-Baptism for Addison.  We're going to get more insulation put in our attic.  We go back to meetings in two weeks. :(  It's thunderstorming here, which is awesome.  Though if Braelyn wakes up from her nap because of it, I won't think it's so awesome.

But here's some more pictures!

My mom made the girls matching dresses.  Braelyn loves them.  In fact we wore them both last Sunday and this Sunday (today) so that must mean that she really loves them.  I'm going to post several pictures of these dresses to show how this "photo shoot" evolved.  First...nice picture, Braelyn's not really looking at the camera, so we do some more.

 Here, Braelyn is trying to push Addison's head away from the camera.  Not sure why.  She is looking nicely at the camera.

 We try some pictures with Addison not on Braelyn's lap, since Braelyn insists upon turning her head in what seems an uncomfortable direction.  Those photos are not memorable.  However, we tell her to get closer to Addison, using the unfortunate word "snuggle"...to Braelyn this means putting her head on Addison's head.  Here they are, "snuggling".

Then Nate gets Braelyn to laugh, which results in general silliness.  I have no idea what she is doing here, but Addison is apparently sleeping through it, or at the least, not impressed.

 Here's Addison!

 Braelyn LOVES ice cream sandwiches and has pretty much mastered the art of eating one without getting her hands messy.  It's impressive if I do say so myself.

 Addison getting some floor time, Braelyn is trying to entertain her. 

 More Addison!

 We glued cheerios to paper to do numbers up to five.  Braelyn's still not into numbers too much.  She can count to two. :-)  To do things (like jump or something) she counts "one, three, two"...ha!  We also did shapes.  They disappeared off the table by the next day because Hunter ate them.  Good thing I got a picture.  Also:  found out that our school glue is all dried up, so we used wood glue.

In looking at these pictures, it looks like Braelyn loves orange.  Maybe?  She has orange pajamas which she refused to take off one day (the day these pictures were taken), and the dress Mom made was orange.  Other than that we don't have much orange. 

Braelyn's started to really love to hold Addison and give her kisses.  It's a little scary because when Addison is in the swing and wakes up (I know, slap my hand, I let my baby sleep in the swing...blah safety rules about sleeping...we have a blanket in the crib too...oh the horror!), Braelyn runs to it and tries to get her out and picked up before I get there.  I don't think it would be possible for her to do that, but it freaks me out a little.