We've learned that having a toddler means that you really have to be creative on entertaining them when it's too cold to go outside. Sure, they're more easily entertained than say, a five-year-old, but they can get tired of the same ol' thing all the time. After all, they're learning and exploring more and more every day. This past month we found some cheap entertainment:
- Pet stores are like a mini zoo; they have so many animals to look at and Zoie can come with us too!
- Book stores have fun play areas
- Many cities now have indoor bouncy parks which have a "toddler" zone
- Librarys have play areas and story time
We were going Asheville, NC to visit some friends for dinner on February 23rd. It was very cold that day so we decided to the Yarbroughs to meet us there so Adisyn and Amelia could play before dinner. The girls had a great time and enjoyed it much more than we thought! The separate toddler area had some climbing toys, puzzles, a big play house and a inflatable just for the little ones! I was amazed how Amelia and Adisyn just crawled right in and were playing on all the bouncy things inside! They had a lot of fun together! After we left the Play Lodge we went out to eat with our friends Jessica and TJ, Brandi, Robby and their daughter Emma, and the Yarbroughs: Katie, Kyle and Amelia. It was the first time that Emma, Amelia and Adisyn were all together.
Amelia & Adisyn playing in the canoe
Playing together on the piano
Adisyn playing in the play house
Going through the tunnel
Adisyn in the bouncy, she went right to the big ring
Adisyn comgin out of the bouncy
Amelia and Adisyn playing
Emma (22 months), Amelia (17 months), Adisyn (13 months)
Since it's been so cold, Adisyn seen her 1st snow on February 13th. The snow was beautiful with big snow flakes and we got a couple of inches, enough for Adisyn to "get her feet wet". The day that it snowed Grandma and Grandpa were visiting, so Adisyn loved looking out the window with Grandpa watching it coming down. When there was enough on the ground, I took her outside so she could see what all the commotion was about. She looked at it in amazement!
Grandpa & Adisyn watching the snow
What is this stuff?
Adisyn was very excited about her snowman Grandma made
Mommy and Adisyn in the snow
Here's some videos of Adisyn seeing the snow:
Another exciting thing this past month, since about the 15th, is that Adisyn now wants to walk everywhere! She is more and more confident with her walking abilities, is able to pick things off the floor, stand up without holding onto anything and go where ever she wants to! The best thing about this is that she can explore where she wants to! It allows her to be able to play like a "big" girl. She also now says "more" and does sign language to show she wants more, can use a spoon, helps to put on clothes and shoes, put Mommy's slippers on, tries to brush her teeth by herself, eats a banana & packets by herself, washes her hands with help, cleans off the table with a napkin, throws away trash, puts away toys, and picks up little things on the floor and hands them to you (instead of eating them). She still loves to say "hi" and "bye" very clearly and as soon as we walk in the room to pick her up at daycare she immediately starts waving and saying "bye" to all of her friends.
Did I mention that I love this age? I think I say that every month. Each month I just find more things to love!
For Adisyn's second year we decided to change the pictures up a little. Even though I really loved the monthly stickers, it was getting difficult to get her to keep them on. Mark, then, thought it was a good idea to use the chalkboard, seeing it was one less thing we had to keep from moving....Adisyn is really hard to keep in one place! She is more and more active by the day! The pictures are harder than they look, but they all manage to come out cute! I hope you like the new style!
It's been really cold lately, too cold for me in South Carolina (in my opinion), so it really limits our outdoor activities. We are more than ready for spring and being able to get out more now that Adisyn can do so many more things! We did have a few nice days mixed in with our cold weather so we got to get a sneak peak of the spring to come!
Adisyn went to her first gymnastics class. We all went to The Little Gym where they had a free introductory class for 10 month - 18 month olds. Her favorite thing was hanging from the uneven bars. At first she wasn't too sure of it and I held onto her hands. But, by the second try she wanted to do it again and she started swinging her legs and could do it on her own. She also liked the balance beam, which she was really good at, and playing with all the balls. It was really fun and it really wanted me to find some "Mommy and Me" activity that we can do together. It was even funner because Mark was there too!
1/26/13 at "The Little Gym"
This month we celebrated Jefferson's birthday. Jefferson and Adisyn were due on the same day and Jefferson was born on January 21st. Adisyn had a fun day at the big party and she got to see McNeill and Reynolds too!
1/27/13 at Jefferson's birthday
McNeill, Jefferson, Adisyn and Reynolds
Adisyn didn't really like to be in between the boys, as you can tell!
We started going to story time at the library. The local library has a fun time every Tuesday where they sing, play with puppets, read a story and what ever else goes along with it. I'm hoping this will help Adisyn get more comfortable playing and following along with group activities, without feeling like I'm always "leaving" her, like I have to do at day care.
Since last month Adisyn now says the word "baby", "utt ohh", banana (but it sounds like "nana"), "up" and knows the words (and can point) to your nose (or nariz in Spanish) and tummy. She also knows so many words now that it's amazing; she can point to the balloon, cat, dog, chair, milk, fan, and more and more each day. She loves to point to our tummies and she thinks it's hilarious. Her and Mark have a cute ritual where they will just laugh hard to each other and its so cute! Adisyn just laughs louder and louder. She also covers her mouth when she coughs (most of the time), rolls the ball back to you, picks things off the floor from the squatting position and stands up to give them to you and knows what a hair brush and tooth brush are for. She actually rather "brush" her teeth herself than have you do it for her. It seems like she knows something new every day!
Adisyn still loves to wave at everyone. As soon as I pick her up from daycare, she automatically waves to everyone in the classroom. Her teachers tell me she waves every time someone leaves the room. She is walking a lot more between her toys and to her toys. She seems to still prefer to crawl when she wants to get somewhere quick but with a little encouragement, she is getting more comfortable walking!
We went to a local consignment sale and got Adisyn her first bike. It's been a cold, but we had a few days of good weather so we went to the park and so she could try it out. She really seems to like it and it allows her to see much more than she can in her stroller. We can't wait to try it out more when it gets a little warmer!
Speaking of bikes, Adisyn went on her first 8 mile bike ride! We have a seat that we pull behind the bike and she really liked it! We had one warm day and we thought it would be perfect for a bike ride. We're really looking forward to the spring!
Here's another one of her 13 month pictures...you can get a little view of her bottom 2 teeth
This year Adisyn went from a helpless newborn to a walking, babbling sweet-heart! Isn't it amazing what a baby can do in one year? Could you imagine if we accomplished as much in one year as a baby? She is turning more and more into a toddler every day. I officially got rid of all of her bottles (although she has not used them since before Thanksgiving) and although she does still use her paci, she is limited to sleep time and travel. She went through a phase for about a week when she really didn't want to eat anything, but now she prefers to feed herself finger foods. We have begun feeding her what we eat (most of the time) and she really enjoys eating what the family eats! At her 1 year old check up, she weighted 19lbs, 1 oz. She has transitioned from a newborn to infant and now to a toddler!
After having a family birthday on Christmas, we decided we just wanted to have a quaint little get together for her birthday. We originally rented out the clubhouse at our subdivision, but since we invited only a few friends who live near-by, we thought it would be more intimate if we went for breakfast. So, on January 12th, we went out for breakfast at the GrapevineRestaurant and it was perfect! Adisyn shared the morning with her friends McNeill, Jefferson and their families. They all did so well together!
After breakfast we spent the afternoon in Greenville. We went on a nice walk around the park and played at the playground. The weather was great! After the park we stopped by the Rousey's to help with their remodeling project. While Mark and Trey worked on their back porch me and Paige watched Jefferson and Adisyn play. It was a great end to the day!
For Adisyn's birthday weekend, we went to the beach. It was cold there, but we were able to swim in the indoor lazy river. Adisyn loved it becasue she had her own little tube and loved to kick her feet! We also went to the Ripley's Aquarium. We were the 1st ones in there so we got to take our time and Adisyn could really enjoy all the exibits. She really enjoys touching and feeling the glass and of course trying to catch the fish! We also went walking on the beach and Adisyn picked out some seashells. It was a fun, relaxing weekend!
Since Adisyn has turned one she has started a whole new chapter in her life. She started day care and is free to eat just about anything! Since Mark and I eat pretty healthy (most of the time), she eats pretty good as well. We're hoping starting eating healthy from the beginning will set up good habits as she gets older. Day care is very exciting as well since she is in the "1 Year Old" classroom, she is meeting new friends, is learning so much and gets to try even more new foods! Her first project was a penguin that she colored on her first day. I love the excitement of what she's going to learn and do that day! In fact, her 1st two days of school, she didn't even care that I was leaving and I had to kiss her and tell her "bye" with her not even watching me leave! I know that this will be such a great opportunity for her to grow and learn!!
Adisyn had her first bout with walking pneumonia and a few weeks later (at the beginning of 1st full week of daycare) she got RSV and then, two days later, a double ear infection. Since having pneumonia in December she already had a nebulizer so we were already prepared for the treatment with RSV. But, despite her not feeling well, all of the staff at the pediatrician commented on how sweet she was, as she still loved to smile and wave at everyone (even the people walking by in the hallway of the medical building) - she truly is a very sweet girl!
Adisyn has learned a few new tricks since my last blog. She now says "ball" and loves to roll or kick the ball. She still loves her dolly and loves to hold, carry and hug her. She also likes to say "yes" or "no" by nodding or shaking her head. Surprisingly she does this appropriately - if you ask her a question she knows it's a question and will answer you. More commonly now she likes to nod "no", but to know that she's learning to express her own wishes and wants is amazing.
Adisyn also does "squats", as I like to call them, because she bends and straightens her knees repetitively, like she's doing her exercises. It's funny because I never realized how much she was really paying attention because when I'm holding her sometimes I'll go "down" and "up" in the squat position because she would always think it was fun. Now she does them on her own! Every day this week she has been walking more and more to her toys (where before she preferred crawling). She also is preferring to stand to play more often now.
She LOVES the song "If You're Happy and You know It". She has the song on her CD that we listen to in the car, but once again, I didn't realize how much she was actually paying attention. Then, one day while I had Pandora Radio on, the song came on. It was a different version of the song that she has in the car, but when they said "clap your hands" she actually clapped her hands with the song! Now, every time she hears the song she claps along with it.
Zoie (our female German Shepherd) and Adisyn have developed quite a symbiotic relationship with each other. I have noticed that Zoie is really beginning to appreciate Adisyn, now that she's more mobile. Now, though, Zoie will hide under the table and Adisyn will sneak food to her when they think we're not noticing it. When Adisyn is all done with her food, she just starts feeding Zoie. At least Zoie is there to pick up any scrap that Adisyn dropped, but it's still funny to see them work together!
What a great first year! We are so proud of Adisyn and she is growing into such an inquisitive toddler! We can't wait to see what her 2nd year brings!
She just couldn't contain herself before Christmas!
The days leading up to Christmas....she loved the bows on the gifts!
Adisyn loved the lights and the shiny ornaments
Christmas was even better than imagined! Adisyn loved opening her gifts, although she was very dainty when she did so. Surprisingly, she enjoyed looking at each and every toy that she got! I thought she would like the ripping open of the gifts more, but she just took in the whole thing! She was so tired, but with all the excitement she didn't want to stop. Then, when it was time for her afternoon nap, she slept over 2 hours!
Adisyn's 1st Christmas
On Christmas morning, we all got up about 7:30am or so. After a quick breakfast Adisyn opened her gifts from us and my parents. Then, Adisyn went upstairs to wake up Grandma and Grandpa so she could open their gifts. She sat on Grandpa's lap the whole time and looked at each present one by one. After a late lunch for Christmas dinner where we had ham, turkey, corn salad, mashed potatoes, potato salad, and macaroni and cheese, all homemade! Her aunt Sue, uncle Wayne and cousin Sarah came by afterwards.Adisyn really liked playing with Sarah and walked a lot for her. For dessert, we had a some homemade raspberry cupcakes, that Mark and I made to celebrate Adisyn's birthday with the family. Adisyn loved the cupcakes with the home make raspberry icing!
Adisyn's birthday cupcake
She loved the icing!
She ate the whole cupcake!
Sarah liked reading to Adisyn
Adisyn loved walking to Sarah
For Christmas Adisyn got some girly building blocks and a Disney Princess Castle from us. I am amazed how Adisyn stands to play with the castle and gently puts the princesses inside. She really likes it! She is standing up a lot more to play, especially when she plays with things like her castle. At times, she's even walking to her toys instead of crawling! She got two baby dolls (from MiMi and Grandma and Grandpa) and she loves them both. She loves to cuddle up to them and hold them.
We had a wonderful Christmas as a family and we couldn't have asked for a better time. It was so exciting to see Adisyn experience everything for the first time! We feel so blessed to call her our little girl!
What an exciting month! Adisyn has been up to so much this past month that I had to write it all down as the month went on.
To start off, the moment we've all been waiting for - Adisyn is officially walking! She has been standing and taking a step since 11/11, then on Thanksgiving day she took about 2 steps and on 11/24 she took 4 or more steps! Here is a video from that day:
Mark had to work on Thankgiving day and originally we planned on making a nice little meal for the three of us when he got out of work. But, on Thanksgiving day we were invited to the Rousey family dinner and they didn't want to take no for an answer. We really love spending time with them and Adisyn really likes playing around Jefferson. Adisyn had her first taste of turkey and she loved it. She ate all the pieces we put on her tray. She also ate stuffing and sweet potato casserole. It was nice to share Adisyn's first steps with them so we had a memorable Thanksgiving around great friends!
The following day we decided to have our own little Thanksgiving at home when Mark got out of work. Besides turkey Adisyn had some more stuffing and sweet potatoes. She is really getting the hang of finger foods and is starting to prefer to feed herself. She even drinks her milk from a sippy cup!
Thanksgiving meal
Thanksgiving Day
Adisyn has a lot of special friends. At the end of November we went to the park with her friend Amelia, who's about 4 months older than her. She liked watching Amelia walk because she's so good at it! She also met, for the first time, Ava and Bella (who are a few years older than her) at the park.
Adisyn & Amelia 11/2012
Adisyn & Hunter playing at his 1st birthday - 12/1/12
On December 1st Adisyn went to Hunter's first birthday party. Hunter walks so good and can run where he almost looks like he's skiing with his arms back! She also met Santa for the 1st time that
day. We went to a place called "Hatcher Gardens" where they had free picture in exchange for can goods. So, we got Adisyn dressed up in her cute Santa outfit and got her picture taken. The only problem was that the photographer took the picture right when Adisyn first sat down, so she wasn't looking at the camera....it was still a cute, memorable day, though!
Adisyn's 1st time with Santa at Hatcher Gardens
Adisyn has been to a couple play dates since the last blog. In November her friend McNeill hosted, then in December, Jefferson had a playdate where Santa came. All of her friends wore their pajamas, so it was really cute!
Playdate at McNeill's house 11/18/12
Pajama Santa Playdate 12/9/12
Pajama Santa Playdate 12/9/12
It's apparent that Adisyn is understanding a lot more words. On 11/14 she started nodding "yes" when you ask a question. On the 19th she actually said "dada" on purpose, when calling or talking to Mark. Now, she loves to call him all the time! She knows what the words kitty, doggy, mommy, daddy, grandma, light, fan, ball and dolly are. She also blows a "kissy" and waves "hi" and "bye" on command. Later in the month, on the 26th, she started saying "mama" on purpose (not just when she was mad).
As Adisyn is starting to understand more, she is also letting her personality really show through. She now tries to be silly and makes funny sounds like putting her hand up and down on her lips when talking and she starting clapping. The first day when she started clapping, on the 29th, she would crawl 2 feet, sit, clap, then crawl another 2 feet and do the same thing.
Adisyn clapping:
We noticed she is also getting more sociable because she wants to wave at everyone (and everything). The three of us went to the Greenville Christmas Parade on December 1st and she really liked all the music. But, what she liked most of all is that everyone was waving! When people in the parade or in the audience would start waving, she would just wave back to everyone around her. When we go in a restaurant or store she waves at everyone that goes by. Every morning when we wake up she has to wave at Mr. Snowman by the fireplace, Zoie, Guss, Camo (the cat), even the ceiling fan. She is quite the social butterfly!
After the parade we went to Roper Mountain Lights. There, you drive through and look at all the Christmas lights from the car. By this time it was getting late and she was really tired, but when I got her out of her car seat to look at all the lights she watched them like they were the coolest thing ever! We loved to see her face of excitement! It makes us feel like we're re-living our childhood again. I loved the feeling I use to have around Christmas and as an adult, I never thought I'd feel that same way again. Now, to see everything though Adisyn's eyes and to join in to all the festivities makes us feel as we did when we were younger.
Greenville Christmas parade 12/1/12
We really want to make Christmas special for Adisyn so that she loves it as much as we do. One thing that we decided to do and we want to start the tradition off when she's young, is that she understands the meaning of Christmas. Mark and I have been talking about this for some time and then I got a message from my sister telling us that she is trying to get my niece, Kylli, to appreciate less materialistic things during Christmas time so she is limiting her spending. I just thought this was such a great idea because we were wanting the same thing and to know my sister is on the same page just gave us the push we needed to come up with some ideas. To begin, we adopted a family in which we bought Christmas gifts for the family. Adisyn went with me as we picked out the gifts for the children. We want to be a part of this as a family every year so Adisyn will grow up and look forward to this.
Adisyn helping pick out gifts for a special family
We also decided that we are only going to buy a few things for her. We don't want her to think of Christmas as a time when she gets infinite toys that she doesn't even need. At the same time we do want to get her a few things so that she will get the thrill of the excitement of a few new things. What we really want to focus on is, like I said, what Christmas is all about. We want it to be a celebration of Jesus's birthday and not about proving your love through materialistic things. We have what we want in our family and we want to share that with others. To further encourage us with this idea was our Sunday school lessons this month were about the "Advent Conspiracy" which basically talk about the same idea of how commercialized Christmas has become. The lesson's don't necessarily say not to get gifts for one another but instead makes you realize how you can make the season more meaningful to your family to celebrate the real meaning of Christmas.
With this in mind, the final thing we plan to do this year is bake cookies to deliver around the neighborhood to the new neighbors. We figured we have about 6 new families living here, so we want to make some cookies, put them in some pretty packages, put a tag on them with a verse of the true meaning of Christmas followed by "welcome to the neighborhood". We thought it would be a fun thing to do as a family every year. Adisyn and I have been busy making crafts to give to her grandparents that we thought they would enjoy, rather than gifts. We hope this all will create great traditions for us as a family and at the same time get Adisyn excited about Christmas time, while understanding what Christmas is all about.
This pass month Adisyn has been trying a lot more finger foods and she finally has 2 bottom teeth! We thought she was teething long ago, then, at the beginning of November the two finally came through! Besides our Thanksgiving dinner, she has eaten spaghetti squash, wheat pasta, black beans, turnips and instead of processing everything in the food processor, we're getting her to eat more solid foods of things we eat such as meats, fruits and vegetables. She weighs almost 19 pounds now and is growing by the day. She hardly fits in some her her size 2 shoes but some of the size 3 are still a little big. I have been pulling out more of her 12 month clothes, although I noticed she still fits into 6-9 month clothes, but I guess that's because of sizing. She fits better in her 12 month footy pajamas than her 9 month ones. Her new favorite things are her dollies and sleeping in with mommy and daddy on their days off (after getting up at her normal time, we bring her back to bed and she has slept to 9 or 9:30!). She has also started trying to play with Zoie and is learning how to climb up on things (such as the mantel). She still loves to chase Camo around the house and he's realizing that she's getting a lot quicker! She loves to be outside as she'll kick her feet as we're opening the door. She loves being able to be more independent and she's able to explore the world around her!
We're all ready and very excited for Adisyn's 1st Christmas! We can't wait to share it with you next month!
I just love this video, so I had to share. Adisyn really doesn't like to nap....
