PARTY!

I've been planning her first birthday party for quite a while now, and I settled on Minnie Mouse as the theme -- not only because we love Minnie, but it coincides with our first family vacation that we'll be taking three days after her first birthday!

So..

Birthday outfit? Check.
Birthday invitations? Decided upon but not ordered!

...And that's about as far as I've gotten!

We do know that it will be a cookout with hamburgers and hot dogs - how cute and fun will Mickey head-shaped cheese be?! I've decided to make her birthday cake, and I'm pretty petrified of it. I've never worked with fondant or buttercream, and I highly doubt my skills. All I really know at this point is that I want a Mickey head on top with a bow. And the cake will either be white with red polka dots or red with white polka dots.

Scary.

Decorations? Well, my sister is making her birthday banner. And me.. well, I've decided to attempt Martha Stewart's tissue paper pom poms:

How adorable are those?! Cheap, cute decorations! Hopefully I can pull those off too!

I am thrilled to death for this party. I think we might even rent the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse "Halloween" DVD and play it at the end of the party. The only thing that would make this party perfect is the presence of my three nephews. I so, so wish they could be a part of her celebration!

Her party is in 40 days, and I can't wait!

my 10-month old!

Smack-dab in the middle of hurricane Irene is a great time to blog, right? Right!

Oh, I'll save the bit about me being a terrible blogger. Cause you know by now that I am. I used to have so much to say. And now? Now that I'm happier than ever, have so much going on, and am so busy, I have lost all creativity. It's just gone.

But here we are, and Adalyn is now 10 months old.

Ad, you're more social than ever. You wave and say "hi" (verbally) to everyone you see in the stores. You especially love waving to other kids, and it's downright adorable. You'll let anyone hold you, and you're always full of smiles.

Last month, you learned how to crawl. In just a few days, she went from immobile to FLYING around the house! You love to go anywhere where you shouldn't. Your favorite spots: the family room and kitchen. Your new loves are the animal magnets on our refrigerator and Piper's leashes & poochie bell on our back door.

You love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the freaky pirates, Sharkey & Bones, on the Disney Channel. You love to pull Piper's hair. You love balls and puzzles and any toy that makes noise. You love eating adult food, and you've already had your own little chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A. You're already self-weaning, and we nurse as you're waking up, twice during the day, and I nurse you to bed. Oh, and you like to snack all night long.

You're a terrible sleeper, by the way :)

You love to talk, and just today you learned to say baby. You know how to give kisses and hugs to your baby dolls, and you LOVE to hold babies!

You are Miss Independent, and you are one determined baby. I can already tell that as you grow, you will go after what you want and you will get it. You still think I'm the best thing ever, and sometimes I'm lucky enough to get snuggles from you - though they are few and far between! I love you, my little Ad :)

I wasn't kidding.

yep.

:)

A couple weeks ago, our dog jumped on our (open) laptop and broke our Alt key. I can't fix it. And now there's a missing key and it's driving me insane. Luckily, there are 2 Alt keys, and I never really use an Alt key. But still. Ugh.

Adalyn still isn't crawling, but what she can do is scoot around, do full 360's, and crawl backwards. And she's also a pro at getting on her stomach and getting annoyed.

Her specialty these days is finding the smallest amounts of lint ever and picking it up and examining it. This girl is destined to be a neat freak and cleaner extraordinaire, because she loves finding the teeniest bits of dirt! She now knows not to eat them, but I've had to say NO! one too many times this week as I catch her trying to put a piece of lint in her mouth.

Ew, child!

We're in-between Mark coming home from a TDY (that's military lingo for a business trip) and him leaving on another. We hate TDY's, and we're already dreading the one coming up and looking forward to it being done! He has to eat MRE's on these TDY's, which are meals ready to eat, and I enjoy hearing about the gross-ness (and yummy-ness) of them! He brought some home to show me how they work - you basically add water to a pouch of food and it miraculously becomes a meal. Or should I say it disgustingly becomes a meal. I'm pretty sure one of them is pork ribs? Uh, ew? Ribs should never be in a pouch!

Things I'm looking forward to:
going to the aquarium this weekend
Ad's photoshoot with The Picture People this weekend
venturing to Water Country soon!
taking Adalyn to the base housing pool for the first time
our cruise - coming up in 2.5 months!
planing her first birthday party
getting completely unpacked from our move
the day Adalyn discovers how to crawl forward


!!!!

8 months of joy.

Sigh.

Little Toot turns 9 months old tomorrow. Nine! I'm going to be one of those dramatic, sappy mothers and say WHERE has my baby gone!? In three months, she will be a year old.

Can't handle it, folks. Can't.

I have dreams and fantasies about what she'll be like when she walks and talks and can watch movies with me and, you know, do fun stuff. But I so, so love toting her around in my arms, kissing her face to death, and her baby-ness. I just love it. Do you think she'll let me wear her in the Moby when she's 6? Do you?

Please. Please, child.

Well, in all seriousness, yes - she will be 9 months tomorrow. Birthday plans are already in the works and have been for a quite a while now. Yes, I'm also one of those mothers. Ahem.

With all this daddy coming home, moving into a new house, and our lives being in a fantastic whirlwind, I forgot all about doing an 8-month check-in on the blog! Here goes:

-My "favorite" thing about her is when she crinkles her nose and smiles super big. It's pretty darn cute.

-Loves table food and wants "bites" of whatever we have. She thinks she's so grown up when she gets nibbles off mama's plate.

-Prefers to self-feed and hates when I try to feed her bites of adult food. She shoves my hand out of the way and grabs it off the table herself. Little Miss Independent.

-Still swaddled for naps and takes 2 2-hour naps a day. And about 3 times a week, she'll take 3 naps.

-The girl l.o.v.e.s. her passy now. So much that we had to go by pacifier clips so that she could have access to her Nuks at all times.

-We can't keep her awake in the car now. Suddenly, she falls asleep almost every time we go out. She sticks her pacifier in her mouth and goes right to sleep.

-Trying extremely hard to scoot around the house. She has gotten into the crawling position but prefers to sit up and scoot -- but she still can't totally scoot around. Yet.

-Loves holding onto our hands and walking around the house. Still can't stand alone or anything.

-Freaking LOVES our family dog, Piper. Laughs, smiles, and beats the crap out of our poor dog. And let me say, Piper loves loves loves her. They are extremely close -- Piper even lays under her crib as I sing Adalyn to sleep and will often stay in her room for the duration of her naps. Precious.

-Doesn't really get to watch television - with the exception of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The girl is glued to that show. Mark has even been known to do the Hot Dog Dance. Can you say.. TOOODLES!

-Thinks Daddy is super duper funny but still wants only mommy to put her down for naps and bedtime.

-Has two teeth coming right on through at the bottom. They're pretty darn cute, if I say so myself.

-Seriously loves baby dolls and "cuddles" them and smiles the biggest smiles when she sees them.

-Loves sippy cups, when I kiss her on the belly, riding in her new stroller, holding mommy's chapstick, pulling Piper's fur, watching mommy and daddy make goofy faces and noises, and smiling for the camera.

I love this girl.

Camera, Sleep, and Co-Parenting.

My Canon Rebel bit the dust the other day. Out of nowhere, I went to turn it on and nothing. Just blackness. The lens would try to focus, but it kept saying "Busy" in the view finder. And then it just stopped working altogether.

So, that calls for a shopping trip to Best Buy, right? Right! We got a new Canon Rebel T3, and I am quite in love.

Since moving back to Virginia, Adalyn has decided that she doesn't want to go to bed at night. She has always gone STRAIGHT to bed - no joke. No tears, no whining. I would just nurse her, and she would drift off to sleep like an angel. Now? There are kicks, pinches, whines, screams, and tears. It takes - on average - an hour each night to get to sleep. What.On.Earth! Is it teething? She waited until the week we moved to decide to grow some teeth - perfect timing, right!? She also wakes up gobs more at night to nurse. I'm just hoping that this is a bad phase caused by teething. Also, let it be said that she takes 2-hour naps in her crib twice a day, but she wants nothing to do with her crib at night. Which I'm fine with, because it makes feedings easier on me.. but it's just bizarre. I'm giving her time, extra love, and extra milk and hoping that this ugly phase goes away. Quickly...

Do you know how much easier "parenting" is now that both parents are present!? Ahh, yes. I've "slept in" (read: I now get up at 8) every morning since he's been home! It's been bliss, let me tell you. Just some stark differences:

-Now, when leaving the house, one of us grabs the baby, and the other grabs the diaper bag and belongings. Piece.of.cake.

-At restaurants, one of us can feed her while the other enjoys a meal. I love it.

-The whole, "Can you grab me a...." instead of being the only one in the house, now there's a helper!

-Someone gets to stay inside with Adalyn while the other takes Piper outside.

-We team up on everything. Bathtime, mealtimes, shopping, etc.

-Cleaning just got a whole lot easier now that Mark can take care of Adalyn while I work!

-He's now "in charge" of bath times and he loves it.


Ahh, yes. Easy. Parenting was definitely designed for a mama and a daddy to work together, that's for sure.

She's upstairs in our bed right now. In the middle. Cuddled onto Mark's pillow. It's so darn cute, but I have no idea how he'll get his pillow back from her :)

A Fourth of July Rhyme

Once upon a Fourth of July,
it was Ad's first Independence Day.
We met my sister and nephews
at Outerbanks to play!



We sat her down on the sandy shore
'Stuck her fingers in the sand.
She'd never seen the ocean before
Since she's always lived inland.





Ad smiled at the ocean, giggled at the waves
Played with Gray under the shade
Life at the beach? Relaxing on the coast?
Why, this little girl had it made.



Aunt Lauren gave her sips of water
Cause this girl was awfully hot
And boy, her first dip in a pool
Certainly hit the spot!



Daddy held her tight, they floated around
She loved to splish and splash
The huge smiles from Adalyn proved
that the pool was definitely a smash!





We watched the big boys play around
They tossed Frisbees in the waves
And pretty soon we got hungry
..it was seafood that we craved!



Coconut shrimp and seafood platters
hushpuppies and some fries
The babies munched off our plates
Nope, there wasn't a single cry.

So after a nap & some putt putt golf
and an ice cream cone or two
We headed back north to our little home
But first said our "'Love you's"





A sticky little kiss, a warm little hug
from my big boys H and C
And a big ol' wave "Bye bye" went
to my chunky Baby G.

Ad's first Fourth spent at the beach
with family all around her
The best one yet, by far!
Those cousins sure love one another!