Spring is On It's Way!

Oh, what a beautiful day we had on Saturday! It was 74 degrees! We spent the whole day working in the yard, and Addy played on her swingset and "helped" us with the yard. And, she dressed the part, too!


I love that she likes her "gasses" this year! Last year she wouldn't even consider wearing them! I also love how much she likes hats!

Then on Sunday, Chris, Jen and the girls came over for dinner and to hang out. Addy was so happy to see them! She snuggled a little:


She got a "pony" ride:


And then, she played ping pong with Chris and Jen! Obviously, this wasn't my idea to let her stand on the table! She was just having so much fun I had to snap a couple pictures!!!



Such a fun weekend! Now our focus is on celebrating Addy's 2nd birthday over the next couple weeks!

Such a Big Girl

March Madness has started! We are counting down the days to Addy's 2nd birthday...and it still just blows my mind she's going to be 2 years old already. I must say, we have completely enjoyed each stage thus far. I miss the baby days of bottles! I know it may sound crazy, but I enjoyed that, including the middle of the night feedings! I loved watching her begin to crawl, walk, everything.

Now, as we approach her 2nd birthday, here are a few of my favorite things about this stage!

Hands down, my absolute favorite thing about her right now is her heart! She is such a sweet little girl, so gentle and loving! I love how "motherly" she is toward her dolls and stuffed animals.

Oh, and her expressions! She can really get us laughing with her expressions. She even has a "look". When she gives me the look, I laugh every.single.time. Even when I shouldn't. She will give me the look when I'm trying to scold her, and I laugh. Not good! I haven't been able to get a picture of it. She always says, "no" to my request to give me the look if I'm holding the camera!

I love that she says, "bless you" when anyone sneezes, coughs, or blows their nose. And she repeats it until you say "thank you".

We love that she likes to play hide-n-seek. She believes that as long as she can't see our eyes, then we can't see her! And, one of her favorite places to hide is in our closet, under our clothes. It is so funny!

Her speech is really coming along as well. She has a tough time with "L" and "R", but we're working on it! She has a couple 3 word sentences such as, "there it is". She names everything that she can as she sees it, and will point out to whom it belongs..."daddy's hat", "mommy's drink", "Addy's shirt".

She's such a smart little cookie, she is surprising us all the time with her counting. She can count to 5 almost by herself. We usually will throw one number in there for her, just to have her keep going. She also gets 8, 9, 10 in the right order on her own! Every now and then she'll throw in a number in Spanish, too! It makes me wonder what else we don't give her enough credit for knowing.

I'm not sure if it's normal child development, but she can pick out colors better than she can name them. If I ask her to bring me something of a certain color, she'll pick up the right one and bring it to me. But if I hold something up and ask her what color it is, her answer is "blue". Unless whatever I'm holding is pink, she gets that one right every time!

Up until about 3 months ago, Addy really didn't watch any tv or movies. We would turn a cartoon on for her, but she just wasn't interested, which was fine with us! She was into Sesame Street and would pay attention when Elmo would come on, but that was about it. Then, at some point we showed her The Wiggles. Oh my, she LOVES The Wiggles. LOVES them! And, at the same time she became interested in Minnie Mouse. I think her interest in Minnie Mouse started with some pajamas she got with Minnie on them. Shortly after that, she saw Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. And quickly would ask to watch it pretty much every day. That didn't happen too much because we didn't have any recorded, and it's not on all the time. Pretty soon she was repeating things she heard on the show such as, "Oh toodles" and "hot dog". Now we have an episode recorded, which comes in handy for times when she wakes up before I get my shower! She'll lay in our bed and watch the show start to finish and not even know I'm gone!

Music...I love how much Addy loves music. She loves it when we have special music at church. When we sing, she'll open one of her own books and "sing" along with us! And lately, she's been singing a Justin Bieber song...Baby. Seriously. She heard it on a trailer for his movie, and she's been singing it ever since. "Baby, baby, oh baby". It is the cutest thing ever, but I have not had any success getting it on video. She doesn't like to perform for the camera! :) Of course, I'd love for her to be singing "Jesus Loves Me" instead, but understandably, the words to "Baby" are much easier right now!

Oh, I could go on and on and on, but I'll leave it at that for now. :) It's been a slow picture-taking week, so I only have one to leave you with.


This is her horse that Steven picked out to give her for Christmas, but then by the time we got home, didn't want to make her wait until Christmas to play with it! She didn't enjoy sitting on it so much a few months ago, but she really likes it now!

Still Here!

We're still here, I just took a little break from blogging after our vacation!

Here's a little Valentine's Day love from our Sweet Adeline:


Addy is working on taking up a new "sport". Maybe "activity" is a better way to say it. We bought her a little golf set. She picked it out herself. And she does not want any instruction on how to use the equipment! She's a funny girl, she prefers to make up her own way of using the clubs. Sometimes they make good walking sticks, and sometimes it gets frustrating when the ball just won't balance on the end of the club. :)



And of course, half the fun is just getting them out and then putting them away again!

Costa Rica, Day 7

Unfortunately Saturday was our last day! We really didn't do anything except get packed up. Addy took walks with Grandma and Papa while we packed. Here's our little car rental with all our stuff in it!



And here's Steven and me outside the gates of the condo. Addy was already buckled in her car seat!


And our airplane, that I wasn't supposed to take pictures of!


We had such a great time! We would have loved to stay longer. This is one of those trips where we weren't ready to leave! We can't wait to go back some day. We really loved Tamarindo. Thanks to Pete and Sarah for inviting all of us on their anniversary trip, and to Grandma and Papa for letting us stay with them!

Costa Rica, Day 6

Friday was the day we went to Avellanas, another beach close to Tamarindo, where we were staying. Avellanas was beautiful! We started out by having some lunch at Lola's. We had some fantastic pizza. Steven and I both loved the pizza here the best! Of course, this lunch included another pineapple orange juice for Addy!


After lunch it was time to play on the beach!





Here's a video of Addy on the beach. Warning: it gets a little long because she gets distracted by people playing with a soccer ball!



We stayed to see another gorgeous sunset.


This picture makes me laugh because I was trying to get a picture of Addy with the sunset, and I kept telling her to say, "beach" and look at the camera at the same time. She was quite annoyed by this request because she was trying to eat a snack, but she did say, "beach", but she was not interested in looking at the camera!