A long weekend and a short year

It was so very splendid to have a long weekend over Memorial Day. Jed usually works a lot on Saturdays with Plutonium, but he was home at noon and we got him the REST OF THE WEEKEND! It was awesome. We had our friends over on Saturday evening for dinner (too busy eating/playing and didn't snap any shots). Jed grilled up his famous Argi-style skirt steak and we had fun chatting and watching the girls play together. Addie and their little girl Lucy are only 3 weeks apart and such cute friends. Love it.

Sunday was nice and relaxing. I got to sleep in because Addie now realizes that Sunday mornings daddy is home and she'll request "mommy, you stay here and go back to bed" so that she can cuddle with her daddy down on the couch and watch shows. This week it was "I cuddled with daddy and watched the Yoda show". Nice. Hey, I'll take it!

Monday was pretty low key. We grabbed some breakfast and then washed all our cars. Addie LOVES washing the cars with daddy. One of her favorite things to do. In fact, she was annoyed the other day when I said I was going to go wash my car and meant at a car wash. She thought we were going out to play with water, not getting IN the car. When we pulled into the car wash, a guy was vacuuming his car out and she said "that's not daddy!" Sooo it would seem only daddy really ever washes the cars.

She was so soaked with water that I had to change her outfit. She was freezing because it wasn't that warm out.
Even Addie's car got a wash :)


Farewell/Memorial Day BBQ with the Snows

My dear long-time friend Niki and her little family moved back here a year ago after being gone for 3 LONG years in Arizona attending Medical school. I knew she'd only be here for a year for his final year of rotations-- but man this year flew by!
Niki and Brian and their kids left today to make their way to San Antonio, TX so Brian can complete his residency there. He graduates from Medical school on Friday- congrats Brian! So excited for you guys...even though it means you'll be far away from us.

Gotta love dutch oven cooking! YUM! Props to Niki's dad, Scott for some awesome food....cobbler not pictured (consumed before possible)

Yes, Addie made an appearance at both the adult and kid tables. She always mingles with the whole crowd at social events.

We love these cute little friends!


Addie got to take a ride on Papa Scott's "red bike" and LOVED it!

We will miss our friends a lot! We'll look forward to visits and we're excited for them embarking on their next adventure.

The month of May

This month has been a

Ash-visiting/pajama partying


Couch-crashing


Sweet Tooth Fairy induced diet cheating


Graduation attending/Ashley surprising



Ice cream cone lickin'/play place playin' (come ON spring get here)


Double seater shopping cart-ing


Addie cuddling


Indoor pool swimming



gym nursery art crafting


2-day goatee sportin'


Jed's amazing chocolate soufle indulging/Lori visiting





Coke exploding


Backyard lake forming


Energy drink trying


Gorgeous Wedding in the rain attending





filled month


*please note I totally copied this post format from my dear friend Lori and most of the pictures in the post I must thank my handy blackberry for

the key to nap time

Background:
Since Addie's been in a big girl bed, she can/does get out of bed when she's supposed to be napping or in bed for the night. The past few weeks she's been fighting going to and staying in bed. She claims to need to go potty like 4 times or whatever else she can think of to avoid the inevitable. Hoping it's a phase, but frustrating nonetheless. Jed put the bathroom doorknob on her door so that we can lock her in at night, because a couple of times she got out when we were downstairs and didn't know it for a while. We also were concerned about her escaping at night and going downstairs when we were sleeping and getting into who knows what.



Flash forward to nap time 2 days ago....she had fallen asleep for 5 minutes in the car just before. Never a good thing. A year ago, heck six months ago, if she did that I could totally take her up to bed and she'd stay asleep or go right back to sleep. Sigh...those were the days....Well now she wakes up. If I was smart I'd have left her in the garage for an hour. I decided to be not so smart and took her upstairs. She immediately started to cry and then went down the laundry list of excuses to stall nap time. We did the whole nap time routine of songs and potty time and what not....like 3 times. I finally told her if she got out of bed again, I'd just lock the door and not come back till nap time was over. (Yep that's right, new sheriff in town, tough mom bit)
Of course she got out again, so I locked the door and went downstairs. I kept hearing her trying to open the door and bang on it and she'd yell now and then too. I tried to ignore it and told myself she would learn that I was serious if I saw this through.

Well crap. I forgot something. My kid? Oh uh she's some sort of genius ninja or something. I was sitting on the couch working on my laptop and looked up and saw her STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Uh, what the?! It startled me and I asked "Addie what are you doing down here??"

"Oh, I just came downstairs to say hi to mommy" Oh, right, of course. Perfect explanation.

I ran up the stairs expecting to see a broken doorknob or who knows, a kicked in door jam? Well you know what I found on the floor....um THIS


Addie followed me in and saw the perplexed look on my face. I was trying figure out if it was a piece of her crib or what when she said, "Oh there's the key" uh WHAT?

Then, afraid of the answer, I asked "Addie, how did you open your door?"

"I just used that key and locked the door" Ohhh, of course. Once again, perfect explanation. Um, HOW? I was baffled. So apparently she shook the door enough that the "key" on top of the door jam fell down and my kid thought, oh sweet I'll just let myself out now.

I kept thinking I was crazy and that she had just jiggled it enough to open. Then I closed the door and locked it and without saying a word handed her the key. I proceeded to watch my TWO YEAR OLD unlock her door in about 5 seconds flat.

For. The. Love

So, I'm thinking that whole lock her up when she's sixteen thing may not work ;) Lucky for her I was so shocked and laughing so hard I couldn't even be mad that she had broken out of her room. Needless to say....there's no key on the door jam anymore.

Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day. I love being a mother, celebrating our mothers and time relaxing with my family. So I'm really glad that this holiday exists....Oh, and like many of my posts, I'm pretty sure Addie is in nearly every photo. Hey, it was my mother's day right? So of course I had to snap lots of shots of my daughter

Me and the little girl who made me a mother
she's got that cheese grin down...oh and do you love her cute dress? Grammy Rees gave it to her and she seriously twirled in it ALL day.

We had a lovely day. Seriously one of the more chill holidays we've had in a long time. We got to have brunch up at Jed's parents house and see his family. The weather was beautiful and Addie LOVED being able to play outside most of the day.

Auntie Ashy was very good to oblige her with all the running, spinning, twirling she wanted. Spoiled girl.

Addie swinging with Grammy Lynette. She was very cute and ended up snuggling with her for a half hour out there with a blanket. It was past nap time and I think she'd have fallen asleep if she allowed herself.

Grammy Dawn, Tristan and Addie boo

I almost forgot that since I'm a mommy these days, I get prizes! Jed got me some really cool new headphones and new biking shorts for RPM class and look at these freaking CUTE measuring spoons that Dawn gave me. Yes, yes they've got cupcakes all over them. Too perfect, no?


Later that afternoon we went over to my mom's house. Once again, we spent most of the time outside playing. Addie was excited that Deacon and Evan came over while we were there. She was slightly obsessed with kissing Deac, but it's still cute at this age. They ran up and down the hill with grammy and loved it.

My cute mom and cute baby girl taking a walk together. Oh how I love them.


Thanks so much to my wonderful family and husband for making my day very nice and special. I truly am so blessed to be surrounded by amazing women who are mothers in my life. Last year I had a post dedicated to my mom and how much she means to me. I won't repeat it all again, but mom- I love you so much! I also have a wonderful mother-in-law, Dawn, who loves, supports, and helps me so much. Dawn thanks so much for everything you do for us, especially Addie. We love you to pieces! We love and appreciate our grandmothers, aunts, sisters and friends in our lives who are great examples of motherhood. I hope you all had a splendid day!

Little Friends

Addie has been able to have lots of friends and cousins over to play lately. I've decided that being a kid pretty much rocks. You get to:

Play dress up
Help in the kitchen
whether it's tasting the bread dough...or making sure there are adequate amounts of sprinkles on cookies
(Lucy didn't get them memo that Addie and Max did about cheesing it)

Have impromptu picnics in the living room

Dance around to the Seven Dwarfs singing

New Nephew

Baby Nixon arrived on Tuesday weighing in at 7 lbs 15 oz and 20 1/2 inches long
Isn't he so precious?

I got to the hospital just as Beckam came to meet his baby brother. I got to snap a few shots of them together. Too sweet.

Beckam brought baby Nixon a tiny fireman's hat to match his own. What a cute big brother. I'm sure they'll be the best of buds.
It's been so fun to get two new nephews in the past two months. Newborns are so sweet. I'll get another one next month, then another one in September- bring on the baby boys!

Speaking of nephews, here's cute baby Evan. Melissa and I had the brilliant idea of swapping kid-watching with visiting baby Nixon. Win-win. I got to cuddle TWO babies in one day!