Milestones

When Wil and I were dating (or engaged...it was either right before or right after we got engaged), we had a discussion about our cars turning 100,000 miles and what a big deal it is in the life of a car. Wil decided that he wanted to celebrate this milestone for his car by taking a drive and throwing it a little party. 

So when it was getting close, we bought horns and drove around until it turned 100,000 miles - at which point we cheered, blew our horns, pulled into a parking lot and took pictures of our party! 

This was then...

The car at 99,999 miles (please note the little frog and ninja toys on the dashboard). 

Blowing horns.

Wil with the 100,000 odometer.

The two of us with the Honda...we found a nice lady, well sort of nice, she mostly acted like we were crazy, to take our picture together.

On February 9th, Wil's Honda turned 200,000 miles! We went to dinner to celebrate, bought some horns and started driving around, waiting for the big moment. 

At about 199,994 miles, we realized we were in almost the exact spot where the Honda turned 100,000 miles! We didn't do it on purpose, we just ended up in the same area. So we drove a few more miles and then came back to wind up in the same parking lot at exactly 200,000 miles!

Wil blowing his horn. 

Addie fell asleep during the car ride. She woke up to us blowing horns but wasn't exactly sure what was going on or what she was supposed to do. At least she tried!

Wil and Addie with the Honda. There was no nice lady this time, so we didn't get a picture with all three of us.

Addie and me with the Honda (please ignore my really weird pose and note that I am six months pregnant in this picture).

Wil with the 200,000 odometer (now is the time to notice that the frog and the ninja are still there).

A lot has changed in 100,000 miles. During our party we decided it would probably be easier to list the things we haven't had to fix on the Honda than the ones we have fixed during the last 100,000 miles. It's not nearly as clean as it used to be! Wil used to clean/wash his car almost every time he picked me up to go on a date...I'm not sure he'd remember the last time he got his car washed now. The frog has found a more useful purpose as a cover to help hide the check engine light that has been on for a couple of years!

We've changed, too! We got married (possibly even got engaged - if only we could remember), bought a house, got a dog, had a child and have two more on the way! 

So far, it's been an awesome ride...and we're looking forward to the next 100,000!

Lockness Addie

A few weeks ago, my Grandma was babysitting Addie and went into the garage to get something. Addie, my Grandma's perfect great-grandchild, was supposed to be going potty, but managed to get up and run to the door while my Grandma was in the garage. She made quick work of locking the deadbolt (a skill we didn't know she had). My Grandma could hear her running and playing with the dogs on the other side of the door, but couldn't get in. Luckily, my uncle was coming over and was only a few minutes away, so he used his key to unlock the door. 

Fast forward to the day we moved Addie into her big girl bed. I looked at Wil and said, do we need to be worried that she'll lock herself in her room? She was able to lock the door at my Grandma's...

"No...that was a deadbolt, and I'm pretty sure she got lucky. She doesn't have the fine motor skills to lock the little lock on the doorknob." 

"Okay..."

The next morning, I was brushing my teeth when Addie decided she needed to go potty. So we ran to her bathroom and I finished brushing my teeth in there while she went potty. I put my toothbrush down on the sink, pulled up her pull up and gave her some soap to wash her hands. She LOVES washing her hands and playing in the bubbles, so I was giving her some extra time and went to put something away in her room. I sat on her bed for a minute and then decided it was time to make her dry off her hands and come out. Only when I got to the bathroom door, it was locked!

I calmly went to the garage, broke out Wil's screwdriver and took the door knob off the door. I did try to hurry because I was nervous she was going to get scared in there all by herself. I finally opened the door to the water running in the sink and Addie using my toothbrush to clean the little chair she uses as a step stool at the sink. EWWWW!!! She wasn't even slightly fazed by the ordeal!

Since, we've been working on lock proofing our house. So far, we've replaced the doorknobs on Addie's room and the babies' room to non-locking ones. Because really, there is no reason my two year old needs her door to be locked, EVER! We left the bathroom knob off the door for a while, but finally put it back on when some people were coming over and we didn't want them to be grossed out that there was no knob or lock if they had to pee. Our bedroom has double doors, so as long as the one door isn't locked into the ceiling to keep it from moving, we can get in and out easily even if she does lock us out! 

Big Girl Bed

Shortly after our snow trip, we set up a big girl bed in Addie's room. For the first couple weeks, we put the mattress on the floor so she could get used to it, but had her continue sleeping in her crib. 

She loved reading with Daddy on her big girl bed!

 After a while, we took down her crib and put up a real bed. It's a trundle bed, so we rolled out the bottom part halfway. This way, if she falls off, she just lands on another mattress that's not too far away.

It took her a couple weeks, but she eventually realized she could get in and out of the bed as she pleased. Now she typically plays for an hour or so before she falls asleep.

The first day she figured out how to open her closet doors, I found her like this after nap time...

Snow Trip

We had so much fun playing in the snow last year, we decided to make it an annual trip. We packed up Addie, her toys and our warmest clothes and drove up to Flagstaff for a snow weekend in January.

It was snowing when we got to Flagstaff and too late to play in the snow, so we headed straight for the hotel. Addie thought the hotel was great fun and spent the night playing with her toys (notice I did NOT mention sleeping).

Wil and I both fell asleep long before Addie did, but she just kept playing away. She even managed to set off the radio alarm clock once...which was quickly remedied by turning down the volume all the way. In my half asleep state, I couldn't figure out how to turn it off.

She finally fell asleep after 1 a.m. At least, that's the last time we remember hearing her. She pulled her blanket down off the bed, covered herself and zonked out. I tried really hard not to be grossed out that she was sleeping on the floor, because there was NO WAY we were going to move her and risk waking her up!

The next morning, we headed for the same snow hill we played at last year (we even remembered to bring our sled).

This was Addie's first and last time on the sled this trip. It had snowed all night long, so the snow was quite powdery. She ended up with a face full of snow and wouldn't even get back in the sled to sit while we were playing or to be pulled around!

As we moved from the snow hill to a flatter, play area, Addie kept looking down and saying, "oh no, shoes!" Then she would bend over and brush the snow off the top of my shoes for me and we would keep walking. She must have dusted off my shoes at least three or four times. :-)

Addie absolutely LOVED playing in the snow! She liked holding it and feeling it and making it into balls.

Then she would shake her hands to get the extra snow off, but it was so cold and powdery, it was stuck to her mittens really well.

She would walk and then fall down and laugh and play and stand up again. You could see on her face that she was miserably cold, but was having so much fun it didn't matter.

Finally, she realized just how cold she was and our playtime was over! There was no consoling her until we got to the car and changed her into clean, warm clothes.

We came up with a couple ideas we're going to use on our next trip to keep her warmer. First, I'm going to find her plastic-y snow gloves instead of mittens, they got cold and wet way TOO fast! The other problem was that while her boots kept her feet warm, snow kept falling down inside of them. I think we're going to be totally white trash and duct tape her snow pants to the outside of her snow boots so there won't be a gap for snow to get in. The rest of her stayed pretty warm, it's just her feet and her hands that were FREEZING!

Gingerbread Houses

My extended family tries to have a get together close to Christmas every year. Lately, we've adopted a tradition of having a gingerbread house competition. Each family gets their own house to decorate and each person in the family has to contribute in some way. 

We frosted our house, put on a couple of the decorations and then let Addie go to town. She loved decorating her house!   

We even won first place in this year's decorating contest (although I think Addie may have been flirting with the judge hoping to win)! 

Tree Skirt

When I was a little girl, my mom made the cutest tree skirt. She patched together different Christmas fabrics with lace around the middle. As long as I can remember, I have LOVED our tree skirt. My friends' families all had boring red ones they bought at the store, but ours was special. 

When I got married, the tree skirt got to move to my house which made me extremely happy. This year, I pulled out the tree skirt, but didn't put it on right away because our tree was having some issues with falling over that we had to fix first. 

Addie confiscated the skirt and drug it all over the house with her. Wil put her to bed that night (I think I was with the youth at church), and when I went to get her the next morning, the skirt was in her crib. She had adopted it as her blanket!

I let her take it to bed with her a couple nights, but then it was time to put it on the tree. I told her the tree was cold and needed a blanket and she "helped" me put it around the bottom of the tree and put some presents on it. 

That night at bedtime, she pulled and pulled on the tree skirt. She's stronger than she looks; the presents were bouncing up and down on top of it. She cried all the way to bed that she couldn't have her blanket...but quickly forgot about it and settled down for the night. 

This is her when we were taking down the decorations. She was so excited to have her blanket back!

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!