The Way We Sleep, Part Four

This makes me want to pick her up and hug her...

I never knew a little girl could be so in love with her stuffed animals! She has to take at least two to bed with her every night, and when I go to get her in the morning, the first thing she does is grab her animals before I lift her out of the crib! She even crawls around the house with one in each hand. Oh, how I LOVE this little girl!!!

High of 71

All summer long, I ask myself WHY we live here. All winter long, I ask myself why people live anywhere else!

It was 71 degrees today, so Addie and I went to the park to play in the grass. We had a great time crawling after each other, and while Addie was enjoying the new experience of grass, I enjoyed experimenting with my camera.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day...

It's a monster...ROAR!

Hi!

Cria - That's Zoologist for Baby Llama

My aunt and uncle live practically next door to the Wildlife World Zoo. When they moved into their house, I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever that you could hear the lions roaring at the zoo from their backyard.

One of the llamas at the zoo recently had a baby (did you know, baby llamas are called crias?) that it rejected shortly after birth. The zoo needed someone to take care of the baby llama (whose name is Durante) while it was growing, it has to be bottle fed every four hours during the day, so they called a neighbor and friend of my aunt and uncle. Long story made a little bit shorter, Durante is living at my aunt and uncle's friend/neighbor down the street's house.

Last weekend, we went to visit Durante because he's super cute and how many times do you get to meet and play with a baby llama?

Addie thought he was pretty cool (after all, he did look kind of like a fluffy, slightly taller Elvis), but Durante was not quite as sure about her.

I'll bet even fewer people can say they've ridden a baby llama! Addie's bucket list...check!

And...Asleep

It's exhausting to be a baby!

A Very Hairy Tale

Addie was born with a lot of hair...hair that has continued to grow and grow and grow. We LOVE her hair! So it was a topic of much debate and discussion about when/how we should cut her hair for the first time.

Finally, her bangs were so long she could barely see through them...and we felt bad. As much as we didn't want to cut her beautiful hair, we thought she deserved the gift of sight.

BEFORE...

Addie had her first hair cut Tuesday, Jan. 17. Wil was the hair cutter extraordinaire (I am SUPER chicken about that type of stuff...if Wil hadn't been willing, I probably would have paid to have them cut...I'm that chicken!).

After...

She can see! It took us a couple days to get used to the new bangs and to feel like she looked normal with shorter bangs. I LOVE being able to see her beautiful blue eyes all the time!

Big Girl Car Seat

I remember Wil bringing Addie's car seat up to the hospital room so we could load her up to go home. She seemed so tiny and fragile in that huge seat! I've never seen Wil drive so carefully or so slowly as he did on the way home. I don't think I've ever watched the other cars on the road as closely either!

Fast forward a little more than nine months and she no longer fits in the once ginormous seat!

My baby is growing up! It was time to make the switch to a bigger, convertible car seat. We bought the seat last week and took it to the fire department today to make sure we installed it correctly.

Here she is ready for her first trip in her new, big girl car seat. It's amazing what a difference nine months makes!

Baby Gate

There is no good place in our house for a baby gate. Despite this fact, we try to keep Addie out of the kitchen for a few reasons.

• First, she LOVES the garbage can, and while I recently disinfected it, I have a very real fear that she is going to crawl up to the garbage can one day and lick it!
• Second, she LOVES knocking over Elvis's water dish and splashing in the spilled water! In fact, I usually know when she's going for his dish because just a few seconds before she gets there, she starts breathing really heavy out of excitement.
• Third, I think it's dangerous to have her underfoot when we're cooking.

In order to accomplish the challenge of keeping Addie out of her favorite room in the house, we have resorted to creating makeshift baby gates between the couch and the wall. These baby gates are made out of toys, chairs, end tables, car seats and storage boxes.

This video is of Addie trying to make her way through the baby gate we constructed out of her car seat.

Our current baby gate is made out of our Christmas storage boxes. I think it looks like she's trying to help us carry the box to the garage! :-)

The funniest part of the baby gate experience is how upset Elvis gets when we block the walkway between the living room and dining room/kitchen area!

You should know the baby gates we construct are typically half the height of our couch, or less. Elvis could easily jump (and sometimes even step) over said gates. Instead, he stands in front of the gate and whines and whimpers and even howls because he is trapped. A few times, our brilliant dog has even gotten a running head start and jumped straight over the back of the couch! Seriously, if he can jump the couch, I promise, he can jump the baby gate, but for some reason, he refuses!