Addilyn at 8 months

Can I please just make time go slower!?!? I really just want to soak up every minute I've got with this little cutie. Ugh I know it's not possible so I'll just make sure I remember the highlights of my 8-month-old:

• She is an awesome sleeper! Consistently sleeps through the night now. Goes to bed about 8 and I have to wake her up to feed her before I go to work. Then she's back to bed for about another 2 hours. Throw in 2 more 1-2 hour naps and you've got one happy baby.

Taking a nap with her bum straight up in the air. A mid-day pick-me-up text from Daddy for me :-).

• She is doing a real crawl and is a little speed demon. She can make it all the way across the room in seconds, especially if she sees that her mom or dad just got home :)
• She has started drinking formula which was a huge weight off my shoulders. Up until this month I was struggling to keep up with how much she wanted to eat and how much I could pump at work. Things are going much better now.
• She has her first tooth! It's on the bottom right side and is just so cute. It's a little hard to get a glimpse of it because anytime you try to pull her lip down to look at it she sticks her tongue out. So you just have to catch it when she gives you a big grin.
• She is a super eater. Grammee loves to feed her and she loves to be fed. Her favorites are: sweet potatoes (yep my little Southern Bell), apple-cinnamon oatmeal, pretzels, yogurt snacks (Aunt Lauren calls these her "happy pills") and just about anything else you want to feed her. She doesn't care for blueberry meltable puffs, bananas, or rice cereal. Oh and she loves strawberries but we found out they give her a rash so we are currently battling over that one.
• She loves to walk around the furniture and shove herself into little cracks between the tables and couches and just basically get into everything. 

It's okay, I promise the can was empty!

• She's an escape artist. Daddy and Grammee have both lost her while each of them were in the bathroom. Grammee found her in a room that she hadn't thought to look in because the door was shut but Addilyn had crawled in there and then pushed it shut. Daddy found her in her room playing with her toys which has about 5 tiled stairs leading to it. She also still likes to escape from her jammies whenever possible.

Rockin' the one shoulder look.

• She loves people. She likes to try to kiss the babies and smiles at just about everybody.

Addilyn and her cousin Cooper (just one day apart from each other)

Addilyn and her "Best Friend" Lydia

Addilyn and Aunt Jen

Addilyn with Great-Grandma Neta. Even though they have an age difference of almost 95 years Grandma is one of her favorite people!

• She has the cutest laugh. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but I just can't get enough of it.

Addilyn is just an all-around happy sweet baby and we feel so blessed to have her as part of our family. I really am so lucky to be her mommy!

Month 7

Making up for last month's no pictures with a post full of pictures. Really there are no words to describe just how much I love this little girl. The best part of my day is coming home to her. 

Addi Eating Carrots

Addi showing off her new trick of standing up.

Month 6

Okay I feel like a bad bad mommy because I couldn't find a single picture I had taken of Addi in the past month. I promise to make up for that soon and I do have some great excuses you know, like moving across the country, starting a new job, working fulltime, trying to make this house feel like our home. But enough of my excuses: here's a update on our little one.

Stats:
Weight: 14 lbs. 1 oz, 20th %ile
Height: 25 1/2 inches, 50th %ile
Head: 17 1/3 inches, 90th %ile

Yep she's kind of a little one. I've been freaking out a little about her weight being so low but really she is just so mobile I think it's hard for her to put on any weight. She is a master of the army crawl and will get up on her hands and knees but just rocks back and forth and can't quite figure out how to coordinate her hands to actually crawl.

We've made attempts at baby food with mixed results. Her favorites are: squash, sweet potatoes, and a carrot-apple-mango mix. She does not care for green beans or rice cereal. She also loves to eat mom's bread and drink my water too.

Addi is really starting to show her personality more and I just love it. She really is such a happy girl. She is very ticklish and has the best laugh. My favorite is when she starts laughing just because I'm laughing and then neither one of us can stop laughing :)

She is adjusting well to her new home, although it took awhile. She loves being so close to her Grammee Carol, Grandma Neta, and Papa Bill. Usually we head over there a little after I get home for work and have dinner with them and then put Addi on the floor and let her entertain us by ripping up magazines, attempting to eat cords, and liking Grandma Neta's yarn. She still freaks out when I try to lay her down over at my mom's and loves to be in her own bed (must get that from me). We've had lots of fun visiting all of the family we haven't seen for a long time. She is not the least bit shy and loves to smile and coo to everybody.

I love her talking! She attempts to copy some of the sounds I make to her and is making the "h" "b" and "m" sound pretty good now (yep that's the speech therapist in me!). She also blows raspberries when she gets really mad. Grandma Neta's favorite is when you tell her "hi" and she sounds like she says it back.

Oh I just can't say enough about how much we love this little girl! She makes me smile everyday and I just wish I could freeze each moment I have with her and remember it for forever. We are so lucky!

Someday...

Someday...

• I will have furniture that is not hand-me-downs and mismatched.
• All of my picture frames will have beautiful photos in them and be hung on the wall.
• I will take cooking classes.
• My scrapbooks will be up-to-date and all printed out and beautiful.
• My house will be beautifully decorated, and coordinated, for each season.
• We will own our own home.
• I will find the perfect place for everything I own and be organized.

But for now...

• I will sit on my comfy couch and put my feet up on the coffee table my husband made by hand.
• I will smile when I look at the half-empty photo frames because it means I have so many more memories to fill them with.
• I'll stare at the boxes, empty and full stacked around me and be happy that it means something new is starting.
• I will give up a little organization to lay on the floor with Addilyn and watch her giggle.

For now I will be happy with what I have and where I am.

Month 5 and Big Changes

Addilyn's Baby Blessing 01/01/12

This has been one crazy month for us. We finished up our visit to Utah with some bowling with Addi's cousins. Actually, a lot of bowling with family thanks to the sweet gift from Dustin's parents- our own custom-fit bowling balls and shoes. Was the most random and loved present ever :)

Our New Years Eve consisted of Addilyn sleeping while Mom and Dad watched Bones on Netflix. Pretty boring around here, although we did toast with some Martinelli's at midnight.

The next day was a hustle to get ready for Addilyn's baby blessing. My sweet little girl was surrounded by her uncles and grandpa's as her daddy gave her a very sweet blessing (even though he was super nervous, poor guy).

Addilyn with Mom and Dad

Addilyn and Mommy

Addilyn with Daddy

A few days later we returned to North Carolina, but not before I (Kim) had a second interview for a position at Utah State University. On Friday, January 7th I got the official offer to work as a Speech-Language Pathologist for the Center for Persons with Disabilities at USU, doing Early Intervention and Clinical Services. After that we started a mad dash to get the house packed up, finish up work, and be ready to move by February 10th. More on that later...

We're Moving!

Addilyn at 5 months

4 months (just a little late...)

Addilyn has had A LOT of firsts this month;

Addilyn at 4 months

• First time rolling over back-to-front. She would then yell because she was stuck on her tummy and hated it.
• First time on a plane. It was not a pleasant experience. Really she was only bad during take-off and landing but it was just so hard to watch her be uncomfortable and not be able to do anything about it. 

About to take-off on her first airplane ride.

• First time meeting a bunch of different family members and friends. It was so much fun to get to share our little sweetheart with everyone we love.

Hanging out with cousin Tayler

Addilyn, Mommy, and cousin Nya

• First Aggie game. Luckily it was Christmas break so the Spectrum wasn't quite as loud as it can be but she still wasn't a fan of all the yelling. She fell asleep with my hands covering her ears though.

My little Big Blue

• First time rolling over front-to-back. Now she gets around everywhere!
• First solid food- Rice cereal. It didn't go well.
• First Christmas! So much fun with our family and seeing her with all her cousins.

Mom and Addi on Christmas

Cousin Shae checking out Addi's haul

Addi's stocking

Merry Christmas