Christmas Happenings

Here are some pictures of Addison enjoying her Christmas

My little sweetheart in her Santa jammies posing in front of the Christmas "Chee" (Tree)

Addison with her own cuddly A.J. doll sitting in her Mickey Mouse chair watching her new Sesame Street DVDs.

The famous Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street! Addison's favorite!

Elmo's restaurant from Nanda and Pippy. She loves it! Elmo, Grover, Cookie, and "Ocar" (Oscar) talk and sing.

Sit & Spin from Blaine, She-She, Jordyn, and Hunter. She's getting the hang of it and it plays music so she loves it!

This was our picture for our Christmas card. We tried to get A.J. in too, but he wasn't very cooperative. He couldn't sit still through the 10 attempts it took to get this picture just right with the timer on the camera!

Addison and her new little cousin, Emily, in their matching dresses enjoying Christmas Eve with family at their Great-Grandparents Mimi and Papa's house. When Addison first saw Emily, she thought she was a baby doll and didn't pay her much attention until Emily woke up and started crying. Then Addison was very curious about this baby doll that cries and moves around!

She finally got her own house toy from Grandma and Papa just like cousins "TiTi" (Trinity) and "Jayen" (Jayden) have.

As you can see, we had quite a fun Christmas. She got a lot of other neat stuff too, like a slide, baby dolls and strollers, a Little People manger set (now she has her own Baby Jesus to play with!), and some money for her savings account. We had a wonderful time visiting with family and sharing our blessings together. What a Merry Christmas it was!

Visit to Santa

I've been away from high speed internet for 5 days, but I survived! Now that I'm back home for a couple of days, I wanted to share about Addison's visit to see Santa Claus.

What an eventful day that was...not the best day to pick. Friday afternoon before Christmas when it was freezing cold and pouring down rain. I was crazy that day (as usual) and forgot to bring the good stroller, got soaking wet, and we were hungry when we got there. Lucky for me, Krista, Kevin, and Landon Pendley (Addison's second family a.k.a. daytime babysitters and our friends) were meeting us there and they came to my rescue. Addison and I ate and talked with The Pendleys until time to go see Santa!

The line to see Santa was short (thankfully) and we stepped up to the price menu to pick out the best deal. Who knew Santa pictures were so pricey?? Last year we did the free Bass Pro Shop pic, which I highly recommend, except the line is always extremely long. Anyway, one of Santa's "elves" gave us the scoop on the 5x7 and cd deal which meant you could print all the pictures you want and you get another 5x7 free. Score!

As we waited in line, I showed Addison Santa. She looked at him curiously and said "Santa Caus" and "Ho, Ho, Ho". As you can see in the picture, the Santa at the Rock Hill Galleria is quite a wonderful Santa. He has the real beard and everything! As we walked up, Addison was giving him the once-over, just checking him out. Between jolly "Ho, Ho, Ho's", Santa advised that I may want to wait until the last second to put her on his lap so that they could snap a good picture quickly before she starts crying. I said okay, and proceeded to hold her while I talked to Addison about Santa. We showed him her Rudolph and he really liked that. I gave Santa high-five and asked Addison to give him one too. She cautiously did, and from that moment on, she was Santa's girl.

I put her in his lap and she was in awe. She didn't want to get down. She sat there for at least 30 minutes as we took her picture, chose a picture and paid for it. Then, Landon wasn't too hip on the Santa, so Addison stayed on his lap through Landon's picture too. She had a ball. When I finally got her down, she walked away slowly, while looking back and pointing, saying "Santa Caus" and "Ho Ho Ho". It was so cute! So the dreary, exhausting trip to the mall was worth it after all.

Top 10 Favorite Things That Addison Says

[I tried to post sound clips of these that I recorded, but apparently, they only allow video posts...maybe when I have free time (ha!) I can cut some video clips out and post them here...but don't count on it!]

10. "Bess You" (Bless You) - as in when Mama sneezes at 3am and she calls this out from her room

9. "Scuse you" (Excuse You) - as in when Pippy burps

8. "Good girl!" - when she thinks she should be praised

7. "Jesus, where are you?" - as in when she steals baby Jesus from the manger and hides him in the dishwasher, her toy box, the kitchen cabinet, etc.

6. "Night Night" - as in when it's time to go to bed and we walk around and say "Night Night" to EVERYTHING we see..."Night Night chair...Mickey...Bear...Santa Caus, Stars," etc

5. "Ah Nuts!" - she thinks this is hilarious; so do we

4. "Choo Choo Buggy" (Choo Choo Boogie) - like the Mickey Mouse episode

3. "Tank you" (Thank you)

2. "Pease" (Please) - As in tonight, when she looked at Daddy as she ran out of blueberries, brought her empty bowl to him and said "More, pease!" ...Precious!

1. "I wove you" (I love you) - no explanation needed There's plenty more, but I'll stop there for tonight...

potty shopping

Once again, I am amazed by my daughter. She is 19 months old. She does so many new and exciting (who'da thunk it?) things each day, it is so hard to keep up with them all! That is one of the reasons I decided to start this blog. Hopefully it will help me to keep up and record all these milestones that are starting to run together.

She has been showing signs of being ready to potty train. Keep in mind, this is my first child. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind that she would be ready for this anytime soon. I just bought 2 cases of diapers, for heaven's sake! Nonetheless, she acts like she's ready. So, we went to Wal-Mart to pick out a potty. Who knew this could be so exciting?? (I have been saying that a lot in the past 19 months. Another example was last month when I was frantically trying to get tickets to see Sesame Street Live.)

So I looked online and decided maybe the Elmo potty was the way to go. It's cute, Elmo talks and sings, she loves Elmo, so that seemed like the right thing. I looked at ones that play music when a "deposit" is made, some that have their own toilet paper...all the bells and whistles. So, when Addison gets up from her nap, I decide that we should go to Wal-Mart and buy the Elmo potty.

So we get there, and I decide I need to check it out. My biggest concern is: How easy is it to empty and clean? I could care less about the bells and whistles; I'm just trying not to spill "poopoo" and "teetee"all over myself while I'm emptying the thing. I take the Elmo potty out of the box. Addison gives Elmo "high five" and he proceeds to praise her in multiple foreign languages...finally in English he says "good job!" I examine it to see how it empties and find that you have to lift the entire back and top piece off just to get to the little bucket inside. Nope, I'm thinking, this is NOT the one.

So I look around a little more and I see some ordinary ones that don't talk or sing. They are 3-in-1 potties. I think to myself, "I like this, more for my money!" After checking those out, I'm still not sure - they look as if they would leak easily, buckets are small, difficult to empty, etc. Then I see the one that I didn't even bother to look at online: The Froggy Potty. I had thought that this would be a waste of time, but now that I'm looking at it, it's PERFECT! Nothing but the seat and the bucket. The bucket is big and the child actually sits ON the bucket itself. GENIUS! There's no way this one's leaking. Simple, inexpensive, easy. Addison's totally into it too - she keeps saying "frog".

So we get it home and like the parenting books say, I just let her sit on it and check it out. No pushing. It's bath time so we run the bath water and get her undressed. She wants to sit on it again. (Pretty advanced, according to the books - go girl!). So she sits on it for a few minutes, then she gets in the bath tub. I'm thinking it will be a week or so before she actually attempts to use it. I was wrong.

After the bath, I wrap her up in her towel and she wants to sit on it again. So she does. I'm busy rubbing her with the towel to dry her and keep her warm. She starts to grunt. All of a sudden, a tiny trickle of pee comes out. "YAAY!" I shout, "Addison, you went tee tee in the potty! Good job! High five!" She high fives me and we clap and have a good old time. She's proud of herself and I am too. She goes once more before the night is over. Who knew going to the potty could be so much fun??!! I never imagined I'd be this fascinated and excited over all the new things she learns and does each day. I'm loving this mom thing.