Christmas Morning

It was so exciting to go Christmas shopping for Addie this year! There were so many things I thought she would love, it was hard to settle on just a few presents.

When I was an older child, I remember my grandma waking me up because she was so excited for me to see what Santa had brought. I remember thinking "the presents will still be there in an hour when I wake up for real!" We were definitely so excited we woke Addie up to open her presents Christmas morning!

Her first present from Mommy & Daddy was a Fischer Price Zoo. I was excited about this present for months...she thought it was cool until later that morning when she got a Sesame Street toy from my Aunt and Uncle. Then all she wanted to do was play with her "Elmo Street." I tried hard not to be crushed...but I wanted to give her the favorite present!!!

Santa brought her lots of cool things in her stocking! Some books for church, a new toothbrush, socks and big girl undies and even some yogurt drops (since Mommy and Daddy told Santa she was too little for candy in her stocking). She ate almost the entire package of yogurt drops before we left the house for breakfast with my family!

Santa also brought her a new bike! She was scared of it at first, but she LOVES it now. We mostly ride it inside the house (she's not quite big enough to reach the pedals yet), and she frequently calls - "Mommy, bike, stuck!" when it gets trapped behind a chair or some toys!

When my cousin Andy was young, he would get so excited about presents Christmas morning, my Aunt & Uncle used to have to set a reasonable time when he was allowed to come out of his room and wake them up to open presents. I'm sure that some day in the near future it will be Addie waking us up, instead of the other way around.

Wil got nursing stuff for Christmas this year. A set of scrubs, a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff and everything else he needs to start nursing school in style! He'll start the Spanish language nursing program in September!

Hats

Waldo had the coolest idea EVER and got all of his nieces and nephews hats (in birth order) for Christmas this year! 

Even the twins got hats - their's say Thing One and Thing Two.

My Little Angel

Addie was an angel in this year's Nativity at Wil's parents' house. Doesn't she look angelic with her tongue sticking out like that? 

Angels Addie & Clarisa 

 Addie & Xujey, who got to be Mary this year

 The shepherds, Junior, J.J and Lyzette

Our family...Wil was a wise man and Addie and I were both Angels.

Good Grief

Happy Halloween!

Dear Great Pumpkin,

I am looking forward to your arrival on Halloween night. I hope you will bring me lots of presents. 

You must get discouraged because more people believe in Santa Claus than in you. Well, let's face it; Santa Claus has had more publicity, but being #2, perhaps you try harder. 

Everyone tells me you are a fake, but I believe in you. 

P.S.: If you really are a fake, don't tell me. I don't wanna know. 

Addie Says

Every two or three days, Addie seems to master a new word. Today's word is happy....which makes me unbelievably happy. Already in her repertoire:

• Dada (when we practice her words, I'll say one and she'll repeat it. I say Daddy, and she repeats it Dada)
• Mommy
• Tita
• GG (that's what she calls my grandma)
• Jack (that's my grandma's dog - it comes out more like ja)
• Good Girl (goo gir, sometimes when she knows she did something naughty, she looks at me and says goo gir?)
• Clean Up (peen up)
• Ball (bah)
• Dog (dah)
• Apple
• Baby
• No
• Up
• Down
• Hi
• Bye
• Uh oh
• Oh no
• Night Night (nigh, nigh)
• Teeth (she just started saying this one last night)

I swear she knows Arlene too, but I can't get her to say it consistently.

Editor's Note: Since Wednesday, she has added a few more words to her list.

• Changa (that's Spanish for her monkey...well...we thinks it's a word...Chango is definitely the word for monkey in Mexico...we might have made up the feminine version)
• Stinky (this one is said while holding her nose)
• Nana (that's short for banana)
• Think, Think, Think (she says this while tapping her head with her finger)

Kohl's Ranch Lodge

We decided to take a little family trip this weekend to Payson. We went hiking and had lots of fun playing together. But the highlight of our weekend was definitely our hotel! Kohl's Ranch Lodge just outside of Payson - COOLEST hotel EVER!!!

Playing in the room

They had a bunch of these wooden cutouts for pictures. This is Addie riding a bull...

And in this one, she can't believe she's actually in jail!

Have I mentioned how much Addie loves slides?

Oops...

Trying to figure out how to climb back up the slide!

Playing peekaboo behind a tree.

Hey mom, look how cute I am...don't you want to take my picture?!?

For the record, this hotel also had a sand volleyball court, a basketball and tennis court, horse shoes, bocce ball, shuffle board, a heated pool, a creek Addie loved walking by, horse stables, miniature golf (it was being reseeded while we were there...bummer) and you could borrow fishing poles from the front desk to go fishing.

We will most definitely be going back to this hotel. It was a destination all by itself!

Blast Off

On Labor Day, Wil and I decided to head down to Tucson to visit Lynda at U of A (we were super lame and didn't get any pictures with Lynda!) and go to the Titan Missile Museum.

Apparently, there were many Titan Missile locations during the Cold War. As part of the treaty with Russia, we destroyed all of our sites, except this one in Tucson that we got permission to use as a museum.

Almost everything is underground, and was built to survive a nuclear attack - because if you're going to attack a country, it only makes sense to take out their nuclear missiles first. We loved the tour of the facility!

The rooms we were in were all suspended from huge springs so they could sway if the ground above them was hit by a bomb.

This is Addie, trying to launch a nuclear missile! Two people were on duty at all times - they each had to turn a key at the same time to actually launch a missile.

A replica of the Titan Missile. All of the missiles have since been dismantled - and most were used for the space program.

Wil and I loved the museum. Addie thought it was pretty much the most boring thing we'd ever made her do...until we went outside...and there were rocks! Addie LOVES rocks. No matter where we are, she goes out of her way to walk on them, pick them up and play in them!