Hard working New Jersey trip

We took a quick trip to New Jersey this weekend and boy was Addie busy!

She showed Poppy and Grams how to walk safely through a parking lot.


She helped Grams ring up a few customers at the Booktrader

Then showed the customers how to use the cool baskets

And she kept the store safe by acting as security guard at her favorite little table.

Back at the home front, Daddy worked on teaching her some U2 riffs on the guitar...
...while Poppy taught her some drum rhythms

All that hard work and practice this weekend paid off! Listen to our musical genius ;)

What we've been up to

So you may be curious why the last post had a stick figure picture on it... And why it's been *so* long since the last photograph-filled post (I didn't think it was that long, but the natives were getting restless). Well...dum dum dummmm....the camera was missing. GASP! The very tool we use to capture the life and times of Addie Silvestro...gone. Poof. We checked everywhere, including the "hidey hole" (under the seat of Addie's little push car--we've found our keys and cell phones hidden in there). We were scanning our savings account to see if we could afford a "good" new one in these economic times when...

...it was discovered on a bookshelf behind some books. Phew! We're just grateful it's back and safe in our hands (especially because the last time we both remembered seeing it was when we took it out in the snow..eek!) I started to take more photos on my phone in the interim. It's actually a pretty good camera!

So what's been going on lately?

Well after the sickness lifted, we have just been doing everything and going everywhere.

The weather has been crazy. First we had snow:


(is that a camera down there?)

Then the sun came out and it was in the 70's less than a week later!

(this was from my phone camera--see, it's a good picture, right?)


We've been keeping busy by... reading stories with Uncle Dan's girlfriend Lauren. Addie calls her "Lo" :)



...dressing up and being a girly girl as always--look mom, I'm wearing a necklace!

(psst....check out all this that hair!)

...going to our mom's group every week and getting to play with other kid's toys. Here's Addie cheesin' it for Ellie's mom before climbing on Ellie's horsey (nayyyyyy)

Photo by Arria Ibach Durham

...and coloring. I got these amazing "Crayola Wonders" markers and special coloring book--the colors don't get on skin or furniture, just on the paper--it's great and keeps Addie occupied for hours!


Okay, that was an exxageration, it's more like minutes. Then the caps become more interesting.


And of course we actually have to get things done sometimes, like grocery shopping, running errands, etc. Addie usually behaves well when we're out and about (parenting tip: having snacks on hand always helps distract her from wanting to create general mayhem).

I'll leave you with this picture. I had to get the car serviced and the place we went has a little playroom. Addie walked right in and plopped herself down on the chair to have a snack. Doesn't she look like a big kid? She's no baby anymore!

All better!

Just a quick update--Addie has fully recovered from her stomach bug and is back in full force! Her appetite has been raging lately--gotta get her back to our chubby little girl!

She's now a wee bit spoiled what with being allowed to watch as much TV as she wanted and have whatever she wanted to eat (do you want an apple? No. Crackers? No. Cereal? No....). Let's just say, she's taking full advantage of our prior flexibility and we're working on cracking the whip.

Here's a quick family portrait for your viewing pleasure:

Dr. Pirate Stevo, Chef Monsy and Princess Addie

Sick

As you all know, when Addie was a mere 7 weeks old, she was pretty sick and had to be admitted to the hospital. That ordeal was not a fun one, but thankfully, she's been pretty healthy since then! A case of pink eye that cleared up quickly, a fever one night that was fine in the morning, quite a few runny noses, but nothing that stopped her from being crazy, fiesty Adeline.

Well, despite going all winter without anything serious...she finally got bit by a bug. This weekend she started running a fever, and we thought she was doing better yesterday, but then this morning she woke in a pile of throw-up. Bathtime at 6am= no fun!

Today was strictly a pajama-day--with a lot of TV watching and eating crackers on the couch--two things that are not common in this household. She napped a total of 5 hours today, which on a normal day would make me jump for joy, but when she was awake and clearly not feeling well, there's no way I could rejoice. It's so hard seeing your child less than their usual self.

Here's Addie, sick and mudging on the couch:

Despite all the naps, she went to bed at her normal time and we're hoping that tomorrow she wakes up tomorrow happy and feeling much better. We'll keep you updated!


But onto brighter news: in the last month she has just become such a funny little girl! We taught her to "smile" on command and she'll comply with a huge, cheesy grin, such as:


and:


She's also really into imagination play and dress-up! If you had told me that this happened at just over a year, I wouldn't have believed you. But Addie loves to pretend to cook by stirring a spoon in a pot and shaking a (closed and plastic!) bottle of garlic salt into the pot, then pretending to eat from the spoon.

And pretty much every day, she will come up to us with some random article of clothing and ask us to put it on her by handing it to us and signing "more" (which also apparently means "do it."). And every so often she'll show up in the kitchen with her winter hat on acting as if it were totally normal...hi mom, can I have a snack--yeah I have my winter hat on, so what? It's SNACK time, sheesh.

Her favorite is her daddy's hat (there's that cheesy grin again):

And his winter gloves (note the necklace as well--these are on her a LOT, I'll even forget she's wearing them and zip up her coat and ship her off to a playdate or the store with a big plastic necklace on):


But why stop there? The other day, Addie was still in her PJs after breakfast and saw me folding laundry. She saw her valentines day dress and asked me to put it on her. So we did. Then she found a pair of shorts. Sure, why not? A hat to round out the ensemble?--but of course.

Please, no pictures! Yes, this is what I am wearing to the Oscars, it is an original "TarJay Banana"

She took the hat off to get serious and help Steve ski (skii?) on the Wii

When she's sick and when she's healthy, we are clearly...


...madly in love...


...with our daughter...


I leave you with a video clip with about 2 minutes of tickling/giggling/squealing fun. A lot of this goes on at the Silvestro house.

There's not much more to the video than that, but, really, it doesn't get better than the laughter of a child.

15 months and Valentines Day

Our moms group gets together once a week, usually on Fridays. Jolyn was hosting this week and she had a Valentine's day party. We had a smaller group than normal, but we still had a lot of fun! We tried to do a group picture, but guess who wasn't cooperating?


Here's the back of Addie flanked by Mason (left) and Chase (right)

Here's Addie looking happy and slightly guilty after eating the chocolate off of my chocolate covered strawberry


Then we had a handful of Addie's girlfriends over for brunch this weekend.

Reese, Anne, Addie, and Rowan--um, how cute are these girls???

Anne stealing the show--Tada!

And finally--Addie's 15 month pictures. Since it was Valentine's week, I put her in a red and pink outfit for the photoshoot:




"Be mine!"

Who DIDN'T go to the zoo yesterday?

It was an absolutely gorgeous day in the DC area yesterday. We were itching for Addie to get her nap over with so we could get out of the house and into the sunlight. She went down a bit later than normal, and then we had to have lunch, and THEN we got out of the house.

We decided to head to the zoo. The last time Addie went to the zoo, she was too young to really get a lot out of it. Well now that she has her repertoire of animal noises and she can point to the animals in a book when we ask here "Where's the duck? Where's the elephant?" we knew that the real live animals would captivate her.

What we didn't know was that pretty much everyone else in the DC area wanted to go to the zoo, too, which meant that parking was HORRENDOUS. Like many of the attractions in the DC area (museums, monuments), the zoo itself is actually free of charge, so we are happy and willing to pay the exorbitant parking fee (hey, they gotta feed the elephants), but there wasn't any parking to be had. Tempers were running high in other cars (and, admittedly, in the front seat), but luckily Addie didn't notice--she was in a great mood (having snacks in the car was also a help) so she didn't notice that we circled the zoo grounds numerous times. We were about to give up, when we headed up Connecticut Ave. and found a spot right in front of the nearest metro station, which just a 10 minute walk away.

So by now it was 2:20. The only problem was--Steve had to be at a function for work back in VA at 4pm. So we decided we had approximately 35 minutes to be at the zoo. Add in the fact that mommy and daddy needed a bathroom break, let's just say that we did a zoo "blitz"

We saw: zebras, miniature pygmy ponies (which we just called "horses"), emus, elephants, hippopotamuses, a sloth bear, and gorillas. Of course, there were a few squirrels and birds on hand, too.

Here are some of the few photos we felt we could spare the extra seconds to snap on our rush through the zoo :)

Superbowl Sunday

Steve and I were trying to figure out what we did for the Superbowl last year. Having a 2.5 month old who wasn't sleeping well meant we were in the land of zombies. If anyone remembers what we did last year, please let us know.

In preparations for Addie's first "aware" superbowl, she got a pre-game massage from Grandma Eva (whom Addie started to call "Ga Ga")


We put her in the only football jersey she has, a Redskin's jersey from her great cousin Stephanie


Reading up on some pre-game stats...


And in deciding she looks too much like a boy, she found her tutu from her Great Aunt Anna and ordered us to put it on her:

TOUCHDOWN!!!