Learning

You all know that my heart is that I would be a stay at home mom, but that's just not in our budget at the moment (or coming moments).  But, I love that Adalyn goes to "daycare" and gets to play with other kids during the day. Sometimes I wonder if she'd be as well adjusted as she is if I stayed home with her. She has no separation anxiety and never has so I don't know if that's her personality or from going to daycare starting at 8 weeks old.  We're so happy with Adalyn's sitter. She's great with the kids. (I know I couldn't do her job!!) And she does so much with the kids. When I think about it I could get sad that Adalyn is learning things without me being present, but I'm just happy that she's learning to play with others and learning new things all the time.  Here are some of her new things:

~ Playing with puzzles
~ She's been coloring and painting for a while at daycare and asks to color here at home but gets bored quickly.  Just recently now when we go to eat places she'll actually stay entertained with coloring and does pretty well with keeping the crayons on the paper (and out of her mouth). She used to kinda play with the crayons and then want me to color. Now she will seriously color her paper.
~ Last night Adalyn kept repeating something that sounded like "itch". Finally Jonathan deciphered what she was saying. She was saying "Ashes, Ashes we all fall down." Ok, we have never sung Ring around the Roses with her so we were so surprised. We started singing the whole little song and she got so excited that we knew what she was saying. And she would sing it with us. Jonathan asked the sitter this morning and she said that they do sing that song and that Adalyn absolutely loves it.
~ This morning before work, we had Sprout on and a Sesame Street commercial came on. She has always loved this commercial and stops to listen to the song. Well today during this song, she pointed to the TV and said "Elmo" clear as day. Jonathan and I looked at each other so surprised. We both grew up on Sesame Street so we like the show, but it's never on when we're home so it's not a show we ever watch with Adalyn let alone talk about the characters. We asked the sitter and sure enough one of the little boys that she keeps is obsessed with Elmo so I guess Adalyn has picked that up.  Tonight she came home asking for Elmo and then looking through her books for an Elmo book (she has 3 sesame street books in her basket of books).
~ When I picked Adalyn up from the sitter today she said that she had goldfish out on the counter and Adalyn pointed to them and said "goldfish" clearly.

It is just amazing what a sponge she is! She tries to repeat everything we say. She even heard me say "crap" yesterday and then said it after me. OOPS!! Guess we need to watch what we say even more than ever. She's also so good with directions. If we ask her to do a specific task, she will understand it and follow through (unless she's being ornery). :) Each day is a new discovery and I love it!!

Daddy / Daughter Time

Last week Adalyn's sitter was telling me how much Adalyn was enjoying playing with the wooden Melissa and Doug puzzles at her house. Sometimes I don't give Adalyn as much credit for being a big girl because I still picture her as my baby so I had never played puzzles with her. She received a M&D puzzle for Christmas and I put it away for her until she was older and hadn't gotten it back out. Well after I found out how much A loves puzzles I went down to the basement to retrieve her new puzzle and we've been playing with it ever since!

On Sunday afternoon Adalyn fell in love with a precious little purple bunny at the grocery store so that was carted with her everywhere once she got home! But she still wanted to play with her new puzzle with daddy so bunny just came along. Of course it was just so sweet that I had to get some pictures!

Then Adalyn was "dancing" to some music on the tv. Of course I can never catch her dancing on video but I had my camera out and got her little stomp move on camera!

 And just because I could just kiss those cheeks!

We were trying to wind down for the evening and Adalyn decided she wanted to move her rocking chair across the room to be right in front of the tv. She put her bunny in her chair and was talking to it and then patted it and kissed it. It was so sweet. Then she climbed in with it to watch tv so Jonathan grabbed the camera to capture the sweetness. (She pushed it right up to the ottoman. J tried to push it out so she could rock and she got out of the rocker and pushed it back to where she wanted it. She is so his child!)

Adalyn's hair is getting so thick and is all over the place which is why she needs a bow in it at all times! But these sweet curls in the back are my favorite! Love that J captured this picture since I never think to take a pic of the back of her:)

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, so not completely wordless since I feel the need to narrate.  Here are a few iphone pics from the past week. If you follow me on twitter, you've probably already seen them. I just couldn't resist posting them here. My girl is just so stinkin cute!

Riding her new-to-her (hand me down from our neighbors) bike. Still working on figuring out the pedals.

 She loves using the front camera on my phone and watching herself while we take pics! Guess it's pretty funny:)

 She found a friend in the discount Easter aisle and we couldn't say no to $2 with this reaction. It made for a fun grocery shopping experience while she talked to and loved on bunny:) Since that day, bunny has gone to bed with her each night and is carted everywhere in the house with her! (Her hand is blurry because she just kept patting bunny.)

 I was getting dinner ready and while the fridge was open, Adalyn opened the bottom drawer of fruit and helped herself to an apple before I could stop her. She then walked around doing this. She doesn't like the skin, so when she'd get a piece off, she'd spit it out and hand it to me. oh my!

 Adalyn hates getting dirty while eating but she was really enjoying her spaghetti and meat sauce this night. It was so cute. She also had salad and scarfed it down and asked for more. The next night I gave her salad to see if she really liked it or if it was a fluke and she ate it all and asked for more again. So, she spits out apple and won't touch grapes but loves salad?!?

New ipod!

Let's take it back to my single days working at the bank. I wanted an ipod thinking it would help me be motivated to exercise. Ha! Like an ipod and a cute workout outfit will make me lose weight! Girls will try anything other than putting in the work right?  Anyway, I was poor (as if I'm not still poor) and back then if another branch needed a manager to fill in on a Saturday they would offer a $50 gift card to any store for the trouble of working an extra weekend in the month. So I decided to volunteer for a few of these spots and collected some Best Buy gift cards to buy myself my first ipod. I got the cheapest nano I could afford with my gift cards. Unfortunately that ipod didn't really give me motivation or make me lose weight.

After Jonathan and I were married and I packed on a few pounds and decided to start working out, that nano came in handy.  The nano got me through losing 23 lbs and many miles running. But as of a couple years ago it stopped keeping a charge so I would have to keep it plugged into the computer until I was headed out the door to run and even then, sometimes it would crap out during my run. (Which is really frustrating for someone like me who NEEDS music to run to and also uses the nike+ app to track my miles!)  So for at least the past year (or more) I've been "borrowing" Jonathan's ipod to run with. Not that running or ipods are in my vocabulary right now... But hopefully soon they will be back!

Anyway, a couple weeks ago Jonathan watch reading his twitter feed and saw that Apple was accepting first generation ipod nano's for a free replacement nano due to a faulty battery life. Well, he asked me what generation nano I had. I had absolutely no clue. I seriously forgot I even had one let alone what generation it was. (Thanks to twitter and my husband's freaky memory!!) He somehow found my old nano in a bin of my running stuff. (I think he had to blow the layer of dust off of the bin. HA!) He entered the serial number into Apple's website and it said that it was available for the replacement program!! How awesome!

Within about 2 days they sent us the packaging to ship mine back in. We sent it in and about a week later FedEx delivered this precious little beauty!:

Oh and even though my original ipod was 1GB, they sent me the new nano that is 8GB! That is stinkin awesome! What other company will replace a piece of technology that is that old?? And my nike+ that I used to have to plug into the bottom of my old ipod? It's built into this one! Ah-mazing! Jonathan had fun playing around with my new piece of technology. I think he might want to borrow it! I love how small it is. I always wore my ipod around my forearm when I was running just so that I could see it and use it easier while I was running. This ipod actually has wrist bands that make it into a "watch" and I think I'm going to love that for running! Maybe this new little piece of technology will motivate me to get back to running as soon as Cayden is born:) And this cute pink band might be that extra boost of motivation too:)

So for any of you out there that have a 1st generation nano in the back of a drawer collecting dust since it probably doesn't work anymore, make sure you do the replacement deal!!!

Belly Pics: Weeks 21-24

I've been bad about posting belly pictures and just realized that I haven't posted the past four weeks of pictures. The time is absolutely flying by this pregnancy. We have made a few steps towards creating Cayden's nursery. We (Jonathan mostly) cleared out our basement room, painted and moved our guest room furniture down there. We've bought the nursery bedding this weekend and I'm so excited about the decorating possibilities. I've already got dreams of DIY board and batten, color samples bought and ideas for curtains. Of course I completely forgot to take before pictures of the basement room, but hopefully from now on I'll keep track of our progress on the nursery! Our furniture is ready to be delivered but I've asked the store to wait for a couple weeks because I'd really like to have the paint finished. Hopefully within the next couple weeks we will have a nursery (and pictures too)!!

Week 21

 Week 22

 Week 23

 Week 24 (please don't mind that my child wore the same outfit two weeks in a row on the same day of the week:))

I can't believe that I'm {almost} 25 weeks!! I'm telling you...it's just going so fast this time! We had a healthy baby report last week at the OB's office and in 3 weeks I'll be taking the routine glucose test and will also get another ultrasound of baby Cayden!! I can't wait to see him again:) But then I remember that will mean that I'll be in my third trimester! WHAT?? Then I go back to wondering where the time has gone!

Friends

This past month, Adalyn's had some fun friend time so I thought I'd post a blog with some pictures of her with her friends!

Baby Caleb was born last month and we went to visit him in the hospital. Adalyn wasn't (and still isn't) sure what she thinks of him. She does like to touch him or hold his little feet. It's pretty cute. Then she goes back to playing with her own toys.  I have a feeling baby Caleb and baby Cayden will be bff's and probably be those annoying boys that get into Adalyn's toys when they're having a play date at our house. hehe.

Last month Adalyn was invited to her first friend birthday party! Avery turned 1 and invited 2 friends (and their parents) over for her birthday. Lindsy did an awesome job with decorations and food! It was so cute. We lined the kids up in their booster chairs for lunch and cake. So fun!

 Of course she fell and got a bruise on her nose that morning!

Of course, while the other two kids were digging into their cupcakes, Adalyn wasn't about to touch her cupcake, so she was using a fork. Silly girl!

Here's some proof that she actually used her hands, even if only for a moment...

Aftermath

Messy faces:)

Family pics!

 Smiley Birthday Girl!

Billie and Derek (and kids) came over for the UK final four game and the kids were so cute playing together. Adalyn would bring Emalyn toys and lay them next to her, but then when mommy was holding Emalyn, Adalyn was a bit distraught. (We're going to have some adjustments when Cayden comes!)

 Sweet baby girl!

Adalyn and Eli play so nicely together. They were playing with Adalyn's tea set and it was so cute!

 Eli is so sweet with Adalyn. Let's hope when Adalyn is the older friend to Emalyn, Adalyn is just as kind and patient:)

We're so blessed to have friends who have such sweet kids. I love that the kids (aka cousins) get along so well!

Happy Easter!

Easter is such a meaningful day. He is Risen!!  We were happy that my parents could come in town to celebrate with us. We started the day with an amazing church service that included some amazing praise and worship. Then we went home and worked on food for lunch while Adalyn took a nap and then opened her baskets. (Adalyn had way too many baskets thanks to the grandparents and us! But it was fun.)

Just up from her nap. Sleepy face.

She got some toys to use outdoors... a ball, sidewalk chalk and bubbles!

Jelly beans and M&M's are the best! When she figured out that there were treats in her plastic eggs, IT was ON! Those chipmunk cheeks were stuffed!

More candy in her cheeks with some dress up jewelry on! Pretty princess!

My loves.

Adalyn with her grandparents.

Family picture!

We went to Billie and Derek's house for a delicious lunch and an egg hunt for the kids. Of course we needed to take advantage of some photo opps with the kids.

Amazing to think Adalyn was Emalyn's size last year. Wow!!

All of the "cousins". They were so good for the pictures!

Hunting eggs filled with animal crackers and gold fish. The issue? Adalyn would shake the eggs to see that there was something inside and then instead of putting it in her basket she would open it and shove all of the food in her mouth. She couldn't get the idea of putting all the eggs in her basket to eat later. It was funny!

 Billie and Derek have a beautiful yard and it was perfect for an egg hunt!

So sweet. Daddy and daughter.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and remembered the true meaning of the day!

C A T S! Cats! Cats! Cats!!

Tonight is the final game in the NCAA tournament and we will be cheering on the CATS to win championship #8!!!  (Yes, the game is starting past my normal bedtime. That's dedication!) Adalyn was all dressed up for the final four game on Saturday so I thought I'd post some pictures. I was looking back through last year's pictures and Adalyn was all dressed up for last year's final four game and I couldn't handle how much she's grown!!  I had to post a few.

2011 UK Final Four Game

Here she is a year later...

 She was standing with her hands behind her back like a cheerleader. So cute.

 Checking out daddy's (blue and white) phone. I love watching them together.

Can someone tell me where my baby went?? Don't get me wrong. I love this age (even the fussing through dinner the past couple nights), but I just can't believe that this past year flew by so fast! She practically looks like a teenager already:)

And let me end with... Awwww.... C-A-T-S! CATS! CATS! CATS!! Let's go Kentucky!!!