Mama Addy Birthday Day

I've decided that every year for my kids birthdays I will take a day off and do something special with them. Addy and I had a great day. We had breakfast with a friend, went through the Macy's Christmas display, wrote a letter to Santa, lunch with Meena, and topped the day off with seeing the play of the Wizard of Oz (still a favorite for Addison).

Christmas (the big post)

I am sticking all things Christmas (so far) in one big post mainly due to the fact that my blogging has been suffering lately!

Addy saw Santa 4 times this year, only one of which was purposely intentional. She loves any dressed up character and Santa is magical. The first time we were on the way to a baby shower and decided to spend some time at the mall before we went and well Santa was there before Thanksgiving... there was no line and the friendly little elf persuaded us to come and see Santa (who by the way was super sweet and spent quite a bit of time talking with Miss A). The second time was at the local mall with JT (this was the intentional one but you will notice later in this post that JT was not in the picture). The third time was at Macys where we went through their

Christmas display, and the fourth time, well the fourth time was last week at the grocery store. They had a dressed up santa (not a very good one) and I tried to avoid him but Addy saw him and wanted to go say hi. He was super nice and gave her a present with a soccer ball and frisbee in it! After we left him though she did say, "Santa looks different today"... I told her he changed clothes! Yikes! I love the magic of Santa, obviously he's not what Christmas is really about but he adds a little magic and if you read this letter (http://www.cozi.com/live-simply/truth-about-santa), it definitely has the CHRISTmas spirit... "love and magic and hope and happiness" just tie in the Christmas Jesus story in there and it could really show Christmas.

Addy was very sweet this year. She understood the meaning of Christmas. Knew who's birthday it was and why we give presents but that it was about spending time together, being thankful for Jesus, etc. So when asked what she wanted for Christmas, she said, "Well we have a lot of toys so don't really need those, and I don't need clothes, but Santa brings us presents so we should take them to be nice" (insert heart melt here!). Then as the holiday season went on she decided she wanted a Happy Napper (go ahead, google it, I didnt know what they were either!). And so Happy Napper she got from Aunt Robyn!

Ji'Robert didn't really understand that he could ask for something (we didn't ask him what he wanted) bu he was clear on one thing... NO SANTA, well not near him anyhow! We went to see Santa, waited in line and he was SUPER excited. And then it

came time to sit with Santa and he freaked out! Poor kid was not having any part of it! Then after we got outside the Santa set, he was super excited again, yelling thank you and good bye to Santa. Guess he's not a big fan of dressed up people!

Santa Number 1

Santa Number 2 (note the absence of child number 2)

Santa Number 3

Santa Number 4

We decorated the trees this year (4 to be exact, 1 full, 1 decorative, 1 3 foot, 1 tiny one) and even put them up right after Thanksgiving. The kids had a blast. JT didn't quite get the spreading the ornaments out part so his branches were quite full!

Snow White decided to help decorate the tree this year!
JT was completely enthralled with the ornaments that he could see himself in! He was making tons of faces!Sibling love!One very proud tree decorator!
On Christmas Eve....
Meena and Papa came to celebrate Christmas eve and Christmas morning with us. The kids are always thrilled to have sleep overs!
One happy family.
Addy's new doll of which has had about ten thousand outfit changes already! She loves picking out the clothes and putting it on! Guess I'll have to dig out my old doll clothes from when I was little!
My pretty girl who wanted to take pictures in her Christmas dress.
And the boy who thought he wanted to take pictures and then decided against it.
Addy got a fun project from Jareds mom so we had to put that together right away. AJ wants it to go in my office at work so I'm going to somehow have to get it up there in one piece, oh "and you could put my picture in a frame next to it so everyone will know who made it for you" and so I will.
And so it was a lovely Christmas. Lovely family time.

To infinity and BEYOND!

My baby is FOUR!!!

Addison Javonna Sharelle turned FOUR this past week! The past few years have gone so fast!

Her first birthday...

Second birthday...

Third birthday...

FOURTH birthday!

My little baby is four! Holy cow, that's only one year away from 5 and well 5, 5 sounds so old! So now if you ask her how old she is she says, "I'm 4, well actually I'm almost 5".... Please don't grow up too fast!

We had a little family party for her and her cake was a huge FAIL! It didn't cook all the way through, the fondant wouldn't thicken... but the rainbow part did turn out pretty good! She really wanted a rainbow cake. And the little bit of frosting I had covered well enough!

We got her a balance beam. Active toys seem to be a good investment at the moment as it keeps them busy and wears out their energy! They also seem to be ones that stick around a lot longer! She was thrilled and has been on it constantly!

Practicing her skills!

Miss Addy now at four enjoys lots of different activities and has taken various classes through out the past year such as dance, swimming, and Awana. Our daycare signs them up for community ed classes and gymnastics. She started preschool (sort of!) our daycare also does preschool curriculum and pulls from Waldorf and Montessori type learning/activities which Addy loves and is doing very well there. She can write all of her upper and lower case letters and numbers although is still working on the sounds that all of them makes. She LOVES art, projects, and all things crafty! Give her a good project to do and she'll be happy for hours! She loves the outdoors, riding her bike, playing at the park, exploring. She is an awesome big sister but has figured out how to push her baby brothers buttons! And does so frequently! She is strong and independent but sweet and caring at the same time. She's a leader and a follower. She is super helpful around the house and loves to help do anything (dishes, laundry, etc.) if you do it with her. She is into board games at the moment but really liked puzzles for a while as well. She still likes her baby dolls. Books are a HUGE hit again as well. She loves to "read" them to Tyty before bed. She is amazing. I cannot imagine my life if our paths had not become one.

Birthdays tend to bring around more discussions about adoption. I am amazed at how much she understands. We talk about her birth family often and are very open about everything and she is just a sponge asking amazingly complex (in a good way) questions for such a little girl.

My hope for my little baby is that she will continue to question everything, form her own opinions, and make her own decisions. I hope the world is ready for this amazing little girl! She's changed my life and I am sure she will change and impact many more.

Yarn Twists!

After a friend and I both did a row of yarn twists to try it out, I took the plunge since we are between swim classes and did a whole head! Yarn twists are basically extensions using acrylic yarn instead of hair. Her hair is then twisted into the yarn. They turned out pretty cute and were very versatile for doing a lot of different styles. They were a little too long but her natural hair at the bottom goes to about 1-2 inches to the bottom so I couldn't make them much shorter.

After leaving them in for a week and a half, I did a twist out in the front and then did flat twists down each side. We'll leave them in for a few more days and then take them out. She loves her curlies and has enjoyed having it be longer for a while and it gave her ends a little break!

Wedding

My sister in law got married and picked the cutest flower girl and ring bearer! Both kids did very well. JT was a little iffy at rehearsal so we didnt know if he would walk down the isle or not but he did! And he smiled the whole way down and then lined up with sissy and the bridesmaids...and then made his way up to the alter and ran across! Good thing it was a small wedding so we got him and sent him out with some cookies.

Wedding hair! We also added glitter spray so that she was sparkly!

JT was not too excited about pictures so this is the best one of the two of them!

Cute little toesies!

Mama and flower girl.... She looks so old (The flower girl:)

Ms Bliss!

Somehow I missed posting some of the pics that we had taken last month by Bliss Photography! She is a friend of ours and an amazing photographer. It was the first cold day with frost but we braved the weather and took pics anyway, even with a cold sad little boy!

This one is my favorite! I ordered a 16x20 canvas print of this and it turned out great... now to find the perfect spot for it!

The fire song

Addy loves pop music and sings constantly! So we had gotten a kids bop CD since the lyrics are a little more child appropriate. Here is one of her favorites! Usually she dances too but was very serious for her first recording!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Weekend fun and hair fun!

This weekend we had the pleasure of going to a friends baby shower! Addy was super excited to hold and meet the baby. Baby was hungry in this photo and mama was making a bottle!

We had a special mommy and me day and much to my dismay, Santa was already at the Mall! And since it had just opened there was no line and a lovely elf came over to us in the mall and asked if we wanted to visit with Santa. He was really great, spent about 5 minutes talking to Addy who thankfully hasn't thought about what she wants to ask Santa for Christmas. As a bonus, he gave her a big pack of Christmas Tree Marshmallow Peeps (as if we need more candy!).

We took a trip to the local Christmas light display and maze. We typically wouldn't do this until after Thanksgiving but since it was in the 50s, figured that we should take advantage of the nice weather! We got to do the light maze, drive through the displays, watch a stage singing/dancing thing, eat snacks and have a ton of fun!
The kids will be in Jareds sisters wedding in a few weeks so I needed to do a test run of AJ's hair!

We started with cornrows to a puff...
Then added flexirods (48 individual clumps of curls)Slept in them over night for the gel to set.... and VOILA! Defined curl clumps!

I actually like the way the puff looks with it more natural but the flexirods give it more definition and it stays nice longer and actually looks better after a day or two when they have stretched out. We got a special clip to put in her hair for the wedding to cover the band as well!

We also had a playdate recently to test out a new hair product on Ji'Roberts hair... the Nudred..Basically a hunk of foam with holes in it which is said to produce teeny finger coils quickly and effectively.

The Before:

During:
After:
He wasn't thrilled with it the first day but then asked for it to be done again the next day and loved it!

Here is my sweet little boy... with his finger stuck in a pretend otoscope.... nice....