Walking to daddy!

Addy is sure enjoying "practicing" her walk! She took about 5 steps today, over and over again. Daddy and Addy spent all afternoon in the playroom walking from the step to daddy, she did this several times -- she was so proud of herself! It looks like she may be walking by the New Year!

Shopping cart

Our neighbor, Barbara, brought over a Christmas present for Addy-- this adorable shopping cart. She LOVES it!! That was all she played with ALL day long. She kept pressing all the buttons, dancing to the music, walking bunny and her milk around the house.

First Step

And other big news today....Addy took her first step! She has been standing up by herself for awhile-- today in front of both mommy and daddy she took a step to daddy (of course) and than plopped on top of him. It was adorable and we were very excited. We have enjoyed 7 months of crawling- I think she holds a record for crawling longer than any other baby :) I doubt she'll be walking by the new year, but she's getting there!

Music Class

Addy had her last music class this week, we are definitely coming back next semester because she loved it! Her favorite parts are the scarves, shakers, and the drum. We took a class photo and since Addy is the teacher's pet, she sat on Mrs. C's lap.

Santa

We took Addy to see Santa at the Yankee Candle factory the other day. She thought he was okay at first, but quickly started reaching for us. We then took her to the neighborhood cookie decorating party about an hour later, and she was terrified of Santa! Poor baby did not like it when we sat her in Santa's chair. We did get a good picture of her at Yankee Candle with Santa, but we don't have a scanner to post. This is the best we can do!

Christmas Decor

I have been meaning to post these pictures for a little while. We spent the ENTIRE weekend of Thanksgiving putting up our Christmas decorations and getting our tree. We actually had our tree cut down at a local farm, and we really love it! It's nice having a tree that we know won't die before Christmas! I posted the picture of Jeff and Addy in front of the tree we picked out.

Addy's Christmas Tree

We bought a special little charlie brown tree for Addy's room and we LOVE it! She loved decorating it with us, and everyday when she wakes up she gets so excited to touch her tree. She does yank on some of the ornaments, but has no interest in our real tree downstairs. It's decorated with pink and red ornaments, and special girlie ornaments like purses, lipstick, dresses, a princess crown, and other fun things! We spent ALL weekend decorating the house for Christmas so I'll be sure to post the pictures of the rest of the house tomorrow......

Nativity Scene

We decided on a new tradition for Christmas for Addy. Every year she'll get a small gift the day after Thanksgiving to kick off the Christmas season! She received this adorable little people nativity scene. We figured since we can't put our own nativity scene on the coffee table (for obvious reasons) we would allow her to play with her own nativity scene. She loves it!

Mount Vernon

We had a very nice Thanksgiving in Northern VA visiting our friends the Cullinan Family. Becky cooked up a delicious feast! It was a quick trip, but we had lots of fun. We also kicked off the Christmas season by going to Mt Vernon this morning. The kids enjoyed the Christmas Camel, and looking at all of the other animals. The Estate tour was also nice, and we were lucky to have decent weather!
Addy, Aidan, and Emmy in front of one of the MANY Christmas trees at Mt Vernon.


Addy, Jeff, and Aidan getting close with the camel-- he was very friendly and let us all pet him!

On the back porch of Washington's estate

Yummy Chili

Even foods that require a spoon, Addy doesn't like when we feed her anymore. She turns her head and says no if we bring a spoon to her mouth (she does allow us to feed her oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast-- but that's it). Last night's dinner was quite a mess! I made her some yummy vegetarian chili (she LOVED it), but insisted on feeding herself. She does use spoons, she likes one in each hand. She dropped chili all over her pants, rubbed it in her hair, and it was all over the place. After dinner, I had to strip her down and hose down the kitchen. She took the opportunity to bring bunny to the high chair while the tray was off-- it was so cute. She wanted to share her chili with bunny! She found a spoon and fed tried to feed bunny, luckily for bunny the spoon was empty.

Addy's first haircut

Little Addy had her first haircut the other day. The results are sooooo cute! She has this cute little mushroom bob and shorter bangs. Her hair was getting long in the back, so we wanted to cut it so it would all be the same length. Everyone that sees her loves it! We are hoping it will grow in thicker and fuller. Also hoping that she has daddy's genes with his nice thick, straight hair--mommy's hair is funky. She was also very cooperative for the stylist! The only time she started squirming was when she cut the bangs........

To all of our family and friends who have served our Country, Happy Veterans Day! It's a great day to be a proud American!

Matt Holliday

So this blog is normally about our family and Addy, but I couldn't help myself. I'm soooo EXCITED!!! My favorite player has been traded to my favorite team!!! That's right, Matt Holliday is going to play for the A's!!!! I couldnt' be happier!!!! Now the A's will be serious AL championship contenders (they are most years, but not last season). WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!

1 Year Photos

Here are a few pictures from Addy's 1 year photo shoot (about 2 months late)-- We just received the proofs!

Halloween Night

We had a fun Halloween! We took Addy trick or treating to some houses on our street, and she was so spoiled! All of the neighbors loved seeing her in the Bunny costume. She also received an entire bag of raisins. Our neighborhood also had a party on Halloween night with a bonfire, cider, cookies, costume contest, and other fun games. We attended for a little while until the Bunny was tired from all of the excitement!

Playgroup Halloween Party

Our neighborhood playgroup had a Halloween party this week. Addy started off with some cute face make-up, and of course smeared it by the time we arrived. I love the picture of all the kids at the bottom-- it was a meltdown moment!

We're Famous......

Well sort of. Addy and I made it in the local paper today! We had an article written about us for Halloween. Here is the link:

http://www.wydaily.com/read_article.php?article=1235

Halloween Treats

Aren't these halloween cookies cute? They were very easy to make. My preschool Itsy Bitsy Yoga class will be held on Halloween and I decided to give them all a little fun treat :) Each week they get a new coloring handout of an animal yoga pose and this week's animal is the cat! The class will have a black cat theme (I'm also dressing up as a cat). I also made some extra for our playgroup halloween party tomorrow. Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
24 wooden craft sticks
48 pieces candy corn
24 red-hot candies or mini M&M's


DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Roll dough into 1-1/2-in. balls. Place 3 in. apart on lightly greased baking sheets.
Insert a wooden stick into each cookie. Flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. Pinch top of cookie to form ears. For whiskers, press a fork twice into each cookie. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are set. Remove from the oven; immediately press on candy corn for eyes and red-hots for noses. Remove to wire racks to cool.

"Babba" is what Addy calls our neighbor Barbara-- Addy loves her! We are very blessed to have her, she often babysits for me and is always helping me out. Jeff was out of town this week and she watched Addy tonight while I was teaching yoga. They played, ate dinner, and even started bed time routine before I got home. Addy was worn out!

Naked Yogini

Addy's been doing LOTS of yoga on command. Her favorites are"toes to the nose" and downdog. She's better than most of my students. I wanted to get it all on video, but the pictures will have to do! Everytime she gets ready for her bath at night, she loves to do her yoga in her birthday suit!

Playgroup Chaos

We've been meeting about once a week with a group of girls and their babies that are all around the age of 1 (give or take 2 months). They all happen to be girl babies! Of course on the day that I host, EVERYONE comes and we even had a new girl join us. We had 7 adults and 9 babies over here the other day and it was pretty chaotic (there are 2 girls that have twins). Sippy cup swapping, snack stealing, toy grabbing, hair pulling, etc. Addy was still gracious to share her toys.

Yummy!

Addy's favorite activity is still eating. We thought her appetite and love for food would diminish after she turned 1, but it didn't! She can still eat all day if I let her, even other little kids and babies know Addy as the baby who is always eating. One of her new favorite snacks are dried fruit leathers from Trader Joe's. They are one of my favorites too, but they are soooo messy for Addy! Her two bottom eye teeth just broke through the gums last week and she now has all 16 teeth. Now we'll just wait for the 2 year molars. Luckily the teething process was fast and relatively painless!