Happy Birthday, Sweet Addie!

Adeline Joy is three today!

October 19, 2005... born at 4:00 a.m.




Addie, 1st birthday... got to celebrate twice! Once in California at Disneyland, and again at home...




Addie, 2nd birthday... got to celebrate at Disneyland AGAIN! Lucky girl!



Addie as a big, beautiful three year old...




Happy birthday, my sweet girl. I love you so, so much! Now start using the big girl potty!!!!!

No coupon necessary!

Before Brody was born in August, the girls would ask how I would know when it was time for him to be born. To keep it simple and well, non-scary, I told them that my tummy would hurt really bad and that's when I'd know it was time to go to the hospital. Of course, then they'd ask if my tummy hurt with them, and I'd get to tell them about when they were born. Telling your kids about their birth day is such a special thing!

Three years ago tonight, I was three days away from Addie's due date. I was pushing Emma in a grocery cart down the cereal aisle when a very real, very strong contraction hit.

I stopped the cart, looked straight at Emma and said, "Whoa!" To which she repeated with huge eyes, "Whoa!"

About seven minutes later, another one hit. Again, I stopped the cart, looked at Emma and said, "Oh my!" And a sweet little voice echoed, "Oh my!"

About 9 hours later, Addie was born... but according to Addie, "you got me at the grocery store!"

That would be like, MAJOR clean up on aisle 12!

Here's Gary and I 3 years ago tonight. Look how I'm totally bracing myself through a contraction as my dad took the picture. I remember saying through my forced smile, "Take the darn picture already!"

A Little Blogkeeping

I mentioned yesterday that I'm hung up on feeling like I can't blog until I'm all caught up with my blog reading. Well! The good news is I'm down to 248. I've purged a bunch, read a bunch, commented on a bunch, and only have 248 left to sort through. (ONLY?!)Well, another hang up I'm having is that I've been given awards and been tagged for a meme and need to follow up on those before I feel like I can get on my merry blogging way. (And these were from months ago...) So here we go!

Elaina tagged me for this ABC meme... so fun! Thanks, Elaina!

A- Available or Single: Neither - Available only for Gary!
B- Beach or Lake: Beach
C- Cake or Pie? Pie
D- Drink of Choice: Dr. Pepper
E- Essential Item you use every day: Cherry Chapstick
F- Favorite Color: Green
G- Gummy bears or Worms: Bears
H- Hometown: Highlands Ranch, CO
I- Indulgence: Ben & Jerry's Phish Food... I can down a pint of that like nobody's business!
J- January or February: February... it's a little closer to summer!
K- Kids & Names: Emmaline (Emma), Adeline (Addie), Brody... and Joshua
L- Life is Incomplete without: Jesus
M- Marriage Date: September 19th, 1999
N- Number of Siblings- Two sisters: Amy & Abby
O- Oranges or apples: Apples
P- Phobias: Drowning... not afraid of water so much, just the drowning part. Oh, and fish... not eating them, just the touching me while I'm swimming part. I have a story about that for another day...
Q- Fave Quote: hmmm... not sure... (That's not the quote, I'm just not sure what my favorite quote is. Got it?)
R- Reason to Smile: See "K"!
S- Season: Fall, hands down!
T- Tag 3 or 4 people: Loretta, Abby, Amy & Amber ... and anyone else who wants to do it. Leave me a comment if you do!
U- Unknown fact about me: I hate my thumbnails
V- Vegetable you don't like: Beets. Ewww.
W- Worst Habit: I'm a "late" person. I really hate that about me.
X- Xrays: Only for my teeth! Oh, scratch that. I had them for my stupid stress fractures.
Y- Your favorite food: This is hard... ice cream? licorice? french fries? oreos? What can I say... I'm a health nut.
Z- Zodiac Sign: Gemini

- - -

On to the awards!

Next is the "I *heart* Your Blog" award, given to me by Meredith. Awww, thanks Mer! I'd give it right back to you if it were allowed.

The people that first come to mind have either already been given this award or are the recipients of my next award. But one blog I've loved for quite some time is Sarah's blog. I don't know her, and I'm fairly certain she doesn't read my blog, so she won't know she got this award. But if you've never visited her blog - although I think a lot of you read it regularly - I encourage you to go take a peek because it's wonderful. She is a godly woman who loves her family but puts Jesus first. She makes the most adorable projects, and it seems she always has several on her plate. She's always doing a million things, yet always seems to have her priorities in order. I'm always eager to see what she's up to and always leave her blog feeling encouraged and refreshed. I'm sure she's probably not perfect, but I certainly admire her and learn so much from her. I wish I knew you in real life, Sarah!

Natalie gave me this next award. It's called the Arte y Pico award.

When I first read that she had passed this award on to me, I thought, "But I don't even like salsa!" (I don't! Yes, I could hear the gasps.) But alas, it has nothing to do with food. In fact, it's about art. In Natalie's words, it's bestowed upon "women who are artistic in their own right."

So I'm passing it on to the following five blogs:

Michelle... she's a regular Martha Stewart, although I'm sure she'll argue otherwise. She's so crafty and ambitious in the things she tries. I love being her guinea pig with new projects! And she loves to try new recipes because she's a good cook. And basically, I just love her to pieces.

Kathleen... she's always been a good artist with her hands, but now... NOW! She's an actress, ladies and gents! Her art is on the stage these days. Plus, she's artistic with her words. Your blog always makes me laugh, Kath. Oh! And she's an HGTV superstar.

Molly... my cousin is stinkin' hilarious. Go read her blog - here are some of my favorites. Molly, your humor is your art!

Joanne... anyone who has read Joanne's blog for 2 seconds knows how artsy and craftsy she is. My goodness. She cooks, she sews, she writes, she speaks, she reads... I swear she has more hours in her day than most people. She's just good at everything she does, not to mention she always points to the Lord.

Kimmy-Cat... because you're crafty and funny and you know it. Now get blogging!

Now, the official rules:

To the recipients of the award...share this with five blogs you consider deserving of this award, whether for creativity, design, interesting material, or contributions to the blogging community, no matter what language.Name each nominee and link to his/her blog. Show the award and include the name (and link to his/her blog) of whoever presented you with this award. Link to the Arte y Pico blog so everyone knows the origin of this award. Post these rules.

- - -

And just so you know... my Google Reader is back up to 260 unread posts just in the time it took to write this. Doh!

Remember me?

Anyone who has read my blog for awhile is well aware that I go in cycles... I blog a lot and get on a roll, and then I take a long break. The break is never intentional. It just happens! And if you think I just forget about the blog and suddenly remember one day, you're wrong. No, instead I've felt a little stressed every day that I haven't posted. It's like that horrible feeling when you have a big assignment or project hanging over your head. The end result is that I have a million posts floating around in my head. Hopefully this will start me on another roll... until I accidentally abandon my blog again.

But enough about that. That was boring. Who wants to hear a million excuses about why I don't have time? No one, I'm sure. But do you want to see one? I thought so.



What? You want another one?


Okay, fine. One more.


Pretty good excuse, huh? Yeah. He's cute.

But I do have one more thing to say: I have this major block where I feel like I can't blog until I've caught up on all my blog reading. And I'm literally at least a month or more behind. At this moment, I have 487 unread posts in my Google Reader. Fat chance that they'll all be read! Instead, after I post this, I intend to delete nearly all of them. It's going to break my heart. I'll feel like I'm really missing out on stuff. Sure, I'll read a few here and there, but I have to start from scratch or I'll just have them hanging over my head. So if I don't comment on your funniest or most important or most profound blog post ever, please direct me to it. I sure wouldn't want to miss it!

Stay tuned... my head is about to explode with stuff I need to blog about.

Pooped

No, despite what the title might lead you to believe, this isn't a follow up post to Addie's potty training progress. Don't I wish.

Instead, this post will chronicle the one thing my kids have never done.

I've heard that other kids do it, but have never seen it with my own eyes.

I've been waiting for this day.

I'm writing it down in the baby book. (Which doesn't exist, but this is monumental enough to start one. Today. Right NOW.)

I even took a picture to record the event, because those who know my girls would never believe it otherwise.



Addie fell asleep playing. (Do you hear angels singing the Hallelujah chorus? I did when I saw her!)




Here's what happened: I was working in the kitchen while Emma and Addie were playing "Kitty-Cat." Addie put her kitty, Emma, down for a nap in the corner of the dining room while she went into the other room to make lunch for the kitty. Well, after about 10 minutes of quiet, I peeked in to see Emma still taking her pretend nap in the corner. (I was first amazed that she could be still - and quiet- for that long.) About then, she started calling Addie's name. We all get a little nervous when it's quiet and we don't know where Addie is (it usually means something is being destroyed), but for some reason, I thought I'd see how it played out instead of frantically searching for her. A few minutes later, Emma came to me and said, "Mommy, Addie's not moving."

PANIC. Those are not words you want to hear.

Since you've seen the picture, you know there was no need to worry. Emma ran to the other room to show me where Addie was, and by the time I got there, she was lifting Addie's limp arm up and letting it drop to show me how asleep she was. I laughed so hard! Emma said, "I even used her hand and made her hit herself, but she won't wake up!" (How tender.)

Well, Addie is an expert at faking sleep, so I gave her the true test. "Hey Emma," I said. "Let's go eat a bunch of Oreos!" Addie didn't flinch, so I knew she really was slumbering away.

I think Emma made it to the kitchen to scarf down Oreos in 2.1 seconds.



By the way...

I don't think I ever fell asleep playing when I was little. My sister did once, while we were playing Monopoly. I continued to play the game anyway, and took her turns for her. Can you believe she fell asleep and still beat me? I don't know if that makes me really honest or really dumb.

I'm going with honest. Honest and kind. And loving. Because after she won, I quietly put the game away and then gently and lovingly moved her to her bed where I kissed her sweetly on the cheek and wished her the happiest of dreams, as any caring big sister would. I tucked her in carefully, making sure that she was warm and cozy so that she'd get the proper sleep she needed. Then I tiptoed silently out of the room, taking care to shut her door with the softest of touches, so as not to disturb her as she dreamed away. I went to my own room, tired, but feeling fulfilled in my role as big sister.

I bet she never knew that part of the story. Wow, I can't believe I've held that in for so long.

The preschool buzz

Important stuff is happening in life and time just doesn't stop so I can blog it all. Ever since I re-prioritized and started feeding my kids and stuff, my blogging has taken a back burner. And if you follow my sweet cooking skillz, you know that it's a very dusty back burner, and there's nothing worse than a blog that collects dust. So here's my attempt at rescuing it from the dust bunnies and starting with a quick little story.

Disclaimer: There aren't actually dust bunnies on my back burners. Okay? That would be gross. And probably a fire hazard.

Emma started school last Friday. How cute is she with her ginormous backpack and missing tooth?



She is loving it. So far she's made two good friends, Sophie and Emma F. (she's Emma O... we knew we'd be throwing her into a world of Emmas when we named her), thinks it's really special that she has her own hook to hang her backpack and jacket on, barely says goodbye to us before running into her class, was excited to get "the kind of yogurt you squeeze" as a snack, and blushed when she told us she rode bikes with boys on the playground.





When I picked her up from class today, I asked her what she learned. She told me that if you get stung by a bee, you should wash it out with soap and water and bacon.

Bacon?

What are they teaching kids these days?

I think she meant baking soda. Or, make that, bakin' soda. Imagine substituting bacon for baking soda in your next batch of chocolate chip cookies. Eww.

From the sounds of it, Emma's destined to have the same culinary talents as her mama. I'm so proud.

Tinkle Trouble

I'm writing this post from the Land of Nod. Make that, the Land of Nodding Off. I'm so tired.

It seems that Brody isn't too fond of sleep. At least not during the wee hours of the morning. And actually, not a whole lot during the day either. In fact, at this very moment, the little man is crying his little heart out in his crib. So this might be a short post. (Was that a collective sigh of relief I just heard?)

I didn't come here to post about sleep, or the lack thereof, even if I am a little tired. Did I say that already?

No, I'm here to talk about potty training. Or the lack thereof.

I think I've asked Addie to use the potty about 328 times today.



I think Brody will be potty trained before Addie. There. It's in writing now, so I can gleefully say, "I told you so!" when Brody proudly moves on from his diapers before Addie. He's currently in size "N" for Newborn (not even in a size 1 yet), so don't hold your breath. It'll be a few years. Addie will be in kindergarten or 1st grade by then, and I'm not sure they make diapers that big. Or maybe it's size "D" for Depends.

Miss Addie has absolutely no desire to put diapers behind her and put her behind on the toilet.

I've bribed her. I've rewarded her. I've reasoned with her.

I've let her play all day in a soggy, smelly diaper to show her just how uncomfortable diapers are.

She doesn't care.

She's too busy to care. She has better things to do than take the time to go potty. (Okay, she comes by this naturally. That's a whole 'nother post.)



Potty training Emma was mostly a breeze. Sure, we had to explain that pull-ups are more special than diapers so she didn't go through them like crazy ("oh well, let's get another one!"), but once she put her Cinderella panties on, we were done. I think the icing on the cake was when she got to show Cinderella her Cinderella panties at Disneyland. That's when it was worth it to Emma.



And okay, we finally just perfected wiping, because Emma's logic was that "my panties wipe for me." (Was that a collective "EWWW!" I heard? I couldn't hear it clearly over my own "OH, GROSS!")

But Addie...

Today she was in tears because she has a horrid diaper rash. I tried explaining that it's because she doesn't want to use the big girl potty and won't tell me if she's wet. So, around noon today I took off her diaper once and for all and decided that cleaning up an accident here and there is better than paying for another box of diapers and sending her to her senior prom in Pampers.

So I've had a nudie cutie running around half the day.

(There was a photo here, but I took it down... I got paranoid!)

(A nudie cutie who thought it would be fun to pretend her markers were lipstick.)

I've only had to clean up one tiny accident so far. Maybe we should've given up diapers cold turkey months ago!

Like maybe when she started changing her own diapers.

I guess I don't pick up on cues too quickly.

Did I mention I'm sleep deprived?