Obstacle Course!!!

Some more snow fun! I tried to post a video, but it wouldn't let me. If you're my (Monica's) friend on facebook, you can see it on my page.

Snowmageddon! Brrr.....

Well, the DC area had a whopping 30 inches of snow this weekend, starting Friday. We were prepared with extra food and enough toilet paper--and for being inside a lot with new stickers and art projects, but I can't say we were prepared to wake up on Saturday to...no electricity. It went off around 3am and when Addie woke up for the day at 5:45am we had to convince her to stay in our bed with us until the sun came up. Most normal kids are dying to crawl into their parents bed, right? No...she whined...we convinced her to stay by telling her stories--no extra sleep for us :) So we got up and were all in good spirits. We still had water (hot!) and we have a gas stove, so we were able to cook. Hot meals, hot showers....this wouldn't be too bad, right?

This is the view of our backyard after the snow stopped. To compare, here's a picture from the "Snowpocalypse" post from December.


We started off the day with a picnic breakfast in the living room

And while Steve did round one of shoveling while the snow was still coming down...

....Addie and I worked on making valentines


When Steve came back, he and Addie played in a fort
Check out that cool shadow puppet! And we just bundled up and tried to keep busy.

At around 3pm, I checked the temp and saw it was a balmy 56 degrees...not that bad, but not ideal, we definitely were all wearing several layers to keep warm, and then just before 3:30...the electricity came back on!



So we got confident, hey, we're in the clear! We got our electricity back! Woohoo! So we started to bake apple oatmeal cookies. Addie got all geared up in her apron and chef's hat.


Making sure the baby is warm and happy


And we did the dishes after we were done and I was cooking dinner.

But alas, right when we were finishing up dinner....the electricity went off again around 6:30pm :( Here is Addie wearing the hat she was going to go to sleep in.


And after she went to bed, Steve and I played Scrabble by candlelight. Very romantic :)

For the record...I won ;)

In the morning...luckily a bit later of a wakeup (6:15p) but still no electricity :(

And the house was much colder

Eating breakfast in hats and layers of fleece is fun, right?

Thank goodness our portable DVD player we have for long car rides had about 30 minutes of battery power in it...We tucked a blanket over Addie and she watched some Curious George DVDs.

Not many pics from the rest of the day because...well...we were too cold to care. We waited and waited for the electricity to come back on. While Steve was outside scoping out the situation, a neighbor told him that we weren't supposed to get it back until...Tuesday (it was currently Sunday afternoon) so despite the news of terrible road conditions, we moved Addie's carseat from the Prius to the Outback which has All Wheel Drive and set off for Gaga's house in Alexandria. It took double the time to get there, and there was a good deal of slipping and sliding and cursing of the plows (or lack thereof), but we made it safe and sound....and it was warm! And Gaga is a wonderful cook, so we had a fabulous meal and Addie got to sleep in Uncle Dan's old room and Steve got to watch the Super Bowl on Gaga's flat screen TV. All was right with the world.

In the morning, Gaga had to go to work, but Steve's office was closed so we hung around the apartment. Addie found all sorts of interesting toys at Gaga's house, her favorite being a magnifying glass


"Eye" see you ;)

And about 30 minutes before Addie's regular nap time, we got an automated call from Pepco saying our power was back! We put Addie down at Gaga's and we took naps also, then packed up and headed home hoping that our street would be plowed. The roads were a little bit better, but definitely far from perfect and we got home safe and sound...to a warm house!


So you see all this snow? Yeah, we're supposed to get anywhere from 10-20 inches starting tonight. I wonder what it's going to look like on top of all of this?
So to all our blog readers, PLEASE cross your fingers, send warm thoughts, or say a prayer that our electricity stays on this time around.

Art and Snow

Addie loves doing art! She started an actual art class a couple of weeks ago and has had a great time. At home, Addie draws and colors all the time, but we also try to do more intense "art projects" a few times a week. We recently did water-colors on folded paper towels to try and do "rainbow snowflakes"

You can see in this picture how some of them were supposed to look like, but...

...Addie was in more of an abstract mood and wanted to break out of the snowflake motif :)

Then she really had more fun moving water around with the turkey baster

She also loves hanging her own artwork on the fridge...sometimes after just a few scribbles, Addie dashes off to hang her newest work of art. She's her own museum director!


We also had more snow this weekend....again. And they're predicting another snowstorm this weekend. All I can say is...I'm ready for spring! But Addie has been a trooper, she doesn't mind playing indoors (mommy gets cabin fever more than she does) and she's even been happier spending more time playing outdoors in the snow, which she wasn't that into in the beginning of the season.

Wearing her Daddy's old snowpants from when he was a little tyke and practicing using the "snowball maker"

Just scooooop it up


Smile for the camera...and drop the snow in the snowball maker at the same time ;)

Have Daddy help you get the ball out....

...and launch it at mommy!

Sometimes I forget how little she really is :)

Big girl bed!

Like I said in the previous post, we put Addie in a big girl bed this past weekend and it has gone really well in that she hasn't gotten out of it when she's not "supposed to" but that doesn't mean she's slept straight through the night yet. She will occasionally call us to help her find her lovey Hiccup lost in the covers, but goes back to bed quickly. I've heard stories of kids standing at the door screaming for hours, so I'm pretty happy with how it all went. Tonight was the first night she hasn't called us back to rub her back after the first putting down. I call that progress! We still welcome all positive vibes that will help Addie sleep straight through the night again....it's happened before, it can happen again!

So the bedtime routine goes like this: Bath (yes, pretty much every night unless we're out really late but that's rare. No, we don't think it's necessary as she's not all that dirty, but it's just become part of the routine. Hair gets washed every 3rd night or so), tooth-brushing, diaper and pajamas on. Then mommy reads a book of Addie's choice, then daddy reads a book of daddy's choice. Then Addie says good night to the random assortment of friends on the table next to her: Buzz Lightyear, Curious George, and a Little People Queen whom Addie has named "King." Then lights off, sound machine on, the magic clock turns to blue, then we sing Puff the Magic Dragon--once in our arms (we alternate nights) then once again in bed with mommy rubbing her back and daddy tucking in the blanket. Inside the bed with her is Hiccups 1 and 2 (of course, those are in her hand), Polar Bear (a...polar bear, what else?), Caillou (a sheep named after one of her favorite cartoon characters), Big Bear, Little Bear, and Abby--a doll she got on her first Christmas and was the first doll/animal that Addie named herself (since we named Hiccup). A cast of thousands! When the clock turns yellow in the morning...she can get up! Again, she stays in bed even when she wakes and the clock is already yellow or if she's up 10 minutes before the clock changes (and it's not set late, people, we put it at 6:05am which is stretching it for the girl who this summer was sometimes getting up at 4:45a!) and she's done well with that. Will it last? Who knows? In the meantime....we could also use some "sleep past 6:10am vibes" also....thanks, much appreciated :)

Here are some pics of the fam cuddling in the new big girl bed

A Smattering of Addie updates

Usually the comments actually relate to the pictures, but looking back at the pictures I have to post, there's just a whole lot of sweet smiles and family lovin'. And in thinking about what I wanted to say, it's more about what Addie's been doing lately than anything, so the comments may not match the pictures, it's kind of in whatever-mode today. Hope it's still enjoyable :)


Addie's vocabulary and sentence forming capabilities have just skyrocketed in the past few months, which means we're having a lot of back and forth conversations and....questions. The first time Addie said "Why, mommy?" I was so thrilled--Steve and I always vowed to answer our kids' questions the best we could and not do the "just because" copout answer, but we didn't realize that the onslaught of "whys" would start so early, and be so frequent! We stuck to our guns, and still love the questions, but after the 8th "why, mommy?" or "why, daddy" in a row...it can get a bit grating (Steve's final answer is always "Quantum Physics," to which he is always asked, "Why?"). Oh, and she's asking all sorts of other questions, too. "This means?" "Name?" (when we read a book, she has to know the name of every single person on the page, which means we make up a LOT of names...thankfully, she doesn't get upset if the next time we read the book, the people have totally different names).

You know that Addie loves to listen to and tell stories from the previous post, but Addie has also been singing a lot more lately. She knows all the words to Happy Birthday (she threw me two birthday parties today complete with a pretend cake and song) and she even wrote a song herself! The lyrics are always the same: "Addie has fun friendssssss....Santa comes every niiiiight....YOU" The first part is sung in a high pitched voice and "YOU" is in her normal voice. It cracks her up every time.


Speaking of birthdays, one of Addie's favorite games nowadays is "present". Since her birthday, then hannukah, then christmas all came back to back, Addie had quite a present-filled winter. Luckily, she loves to give as much as receive. Every day, Addie will fill a random box with small toys and say "For YOU" and give it to one of us. We then have to "unwrap" it, pretend ribbon and all, and say "THANK you" and then we make her a gift. Sometimes, she just wraps Hiccup around a small toy. Sometimes she pretends to sleep and makes us put her "present" under a pretend christmas tree. Sometimes...Addie is the present herself :)


Addie is also really into role play these days. For example, she loves playing with her doctor's kit, so she'll say "You're Doctor Mommy, I'm patient" and then lies down for a checkup. The best part is that she keeps up with the characters long after the checkup is over and we've moved on to another toy, so I could be doctor mommy for another 20 minutes. Another example--the other day it rained cats and dogs in the morning and in the afternoon it was warm, but still muddy, so what else to do but get the rain boots on and play "puddle leaf" (a game Addie invented and named--you essentially throw leaves into a puddle over and over). She loves Caillou, a cartoon character who has a little sister, Rosie. That day she said "I'm Caillou, you're Rosie" and for the rest of our time outside (an hour) I was Rosie. "Look Rosie, more puddles!" and "Come, Rosie!"


So if the internet and this blog still exists in 10 years we may get a very angry pre-teen Addie mad at us for this one (sorry, hun!) but I couldn't resist. Are we potty-training Addie? Not officially, and we're honestly in no real rush to force it or do a 3-day boot camp thing quite yet, so we're letting her take the lead, we ask occasionally, we always encourage if she asks, but it's not often. We have a little seat that fits over the big bowl and she's peed on it a handful of times and pooped once (yay!) and she looooves to read books on it. I love this picture!


In other "big girl" news, as of this weekend Addie is now officially out of the crib and in a big girl bed! Forgot to take pictures of the bed, but will soon. She's doing surprisingly well--she doesn't get out of it at all at night or during nap, she waits for us to get her. She has still woken up 1-3 times each night (or very close to the morning wakeup time) needing us to help her find Hiccup or re-arrange the blankets, so all is not perfect, but we're taking it one step at a time.


Addie loves hearing the story of how Steve and I met and got married. She points to my rings all the time and says "Two rings?" and I say "Yep, Daddy gave me a ring when he promised to marry me, and then another one on our wedding day." She went into her jewelry box one day, gave Steve a ring, put one on her finger and said "We married!"



We think Addie is going to be a fantastic big sister. She often asks me to lift my shirt so she can tickle the baby, say hi, and give my belly hugs and kisses. We read her big sister books and refer often to our friends who already have two children. The first night she slept in her big girl bed she asked us where the crib was going, so we told her that the baby would be using it. She immediately started transferring things to from her room to the baby's room exclaiming "baby needs trashcan!" She even went as far to say "Baby needs Hiccup" and deposited her constant sleep companion, Hiccup, in the baby's room before bedtime" When it was bedtime, we told her to get Hiccup (she hasn't spent a single night without him since she was 4 months old) and she was adamant "NO! Baby needs Hiccup!" until we convinced her that he was still inside and wouldn't be able to use it for a few months anyway. We were surprised and touched at her generosity. So is she truly ready for the big change? Only time will tell, but we think so. Sure it'll be hard for her to not be the center of attention like she has been for the past 26 months, but with her warm, sweet heart....we're thinking it'll be all right.

STORY

Addie's favorite request these days is "tory" or...story. She wants us to tell her a story, not read from a book, but it should come straight from our brains and mouths (not always easy when you're tired!).

Her two favorite stories are Cinderella and Goldilocks and wants us to recite them daily. We've told the abbreviated versions for her so often that she knows the story by heart and often helps us tell them. Her favorite is to do Papa Bear's "low voice". We've tried to catch her helping us tell the stories on video so many times but she knows she's in the spotlight and usually acts up a bit ;) This is the closest we've got--fingers in her mouth, but you get the idea ;)

30 weeks pregnant!

Well, I took this photo early last week, so I'm almost 32 weeks pregnant now, but who's counting? ;)