Rocky Mountain High

Welp, we did it. Addison AND I experienced a major first (many firsts actually).

First Trip to Denver:
Her first, my third or so. Anxious for a little getaway from the winter blues, we decided to plan a last minute trip to visit my cousin/best friend Jared and his little family in none other than....Colorado. Not quite the tropical destination but luckily the fun people waiting for us there made it all worth our while. Which says a lot considering all that we endured to get there!

Jared and I have spent our lives traveling the world together and creating wonderful, hilarious memories. Ann and I spent almost 9 months of our lives pregnant at the same time and have bonded over the ups/downs that come with pregnancy and the role of first-time moms. Carson is about 3 weeks older than Addison and as cute as a button. They hadn't seen each other since she was a month old so their visit was long overdue. As was ours.

First Plane Ride:
All in all, it was great. Security was seamless. Addison was happy and flirty-like usual. Thanks to an empty flight she got her very own window seat. We had a blast with our mini-little photo shoot before take-off. We ate our snacks and she never fussed once with the altitude.

However, by looking at this picture you would never guess what we endured to make it to the airport in the first place. If you look close enough, you'll see a bib and a bottle of pedialyte in the background. Yup, that's right. Of all the days for my non-pukey spity up baby to get the projectile pukes - she picked the day of our departure. Actually every hour of our trip up until the airport. I attributed it to something she ate since she never once had a temperature, felt warm, or even acted sick. So for these reasons we pushed onward and upward. (no pun intended ;-)

Getting her top two teeth:
She's been enjoying her bottom two teeth for a few months now. But the top two decided to pick this trip as their official debut. Lucky us. As a result, neither her or I were happy campers. My perfect, happy, sleeping baby, was everything but. Mostly at night (every hour of night) and early morning (as in 5 am). During the daytime hours she was as happy as a lark. I'm sure it didn't help that we were also adjusting to a new time zone and thinner air. And with an unfamiliar environment she was not keen to leaving my side even for a minute.

Me Learning to be a single parent:
For any who are considering.....DON'T recommend it! John had to stay behind and work while we went on our adventure. And with Addison re-visiting her separation anxiety and the sleepless nights and early mornings - it doesn't necessarily bring out the greatest parenting traits in a person. Needless to say we were thankful when we finally made it back home to Arky. Luckily we both had just a few ounces of sanity left.

Hanging Out With Fun People:
Even amidst all the pukies, sleepless nights, and short patience we had fun. Thanks to the Rodman clan. They went above and beyond to make sure our stay was worthwhile. We had nice relaxing days and the perfect amount of festivities to keep it exciting. Here are a few things we did...

Addison and Carson got to have some quality bonding time. It didn't take him long to warm up to her and sit on top of her every chance he got. Thanks Carson for helping Addison perfect her crawl! He never held still for even a second so it opened up a whole new world to Addison.

Thanks to Jared's "connections" we scored free admission to the local "Y" for some fun swim time. (Thanks Jared for saving us our buck fitty admission fee! ;-) We had a blast and Addison actually went under the water for the first time once Mommy got the courage to try it. She loved it of course!

We even got to visit a zoo that was on the side of a mountain. This was Addison's first zoo experience so needless to say she slept through most of it. I wasn't complaining though - I was a heavy promoter of her naps. I just took extra pictures to show her what she missed once she woke up. Nothing is cuter than a sleeping baby.

And Addison had more table food on this trip than she has ever had to date. Once again, Carson introduced her to it and she loved it of course. Completely kicked her canned baby food to the curb during our trip. She even ate TWO quesadilla slices at the restaurant. She loves her food - and now especially strawberries! Yum!

All in all, the trip was fun and we had a lot of experiences. I didn't get pictures of our 'Garden of the Gods' trip, movie/popcorn nights, American Idol reviews, and all the delicious food we ate. We are very thankful to Ann & Jared for showing us a good time. We even got to reconnect with another of my favorite cousins, Deleen and her cute family before we flew out. We had a great lunch with them - even though Addison decided to once again re-introduce her pukies. :( Somehow flying must make her nervous and somehow she must KNOW which days we were boarding a plane. Three words: Crowded airport, projectile. Nuff said. Pity anyone? By the end of the trip we were both thrilled to be home where we could clean up. And of course, no pukies since that day. So mysterious she is.

The LaBrue Crew

Okay, time to play catch up on the blog. A few weeks ago we were graced with the LaBrue Crew's presence. As in, my little sister Cassie and her cute little family. We had so much fun just playing and hanging out and are so glad they came to visit little 'ole us. It had been wayyyy too long! (As in almost 3 months I think!)

We had a pretty lazy weekend but that is just the way we like them. We had fun hanging out, playing some guitar hero, thrift store and garage sale shopping, and making no-bakes and chocolate covered strawberries. Throw in there a frigid dip in a hotel swimming pool and you've got a recipe for a weekend o' fun! Thanks Kyle, Cassie, and Alexa for coming down to hang out with us. We hope we were worth your while! :D

Here are a few pics of our festivities:

We hunted around for a fun park to play with the kiddos.
Luckily the weather was perfect and all had fun! Look at the smiles on those faces!

We had so much fun flinging the kiddos down the slide and laughing at them! Hahaha...okay technically we posed Addison for that picture and Alexa was the only one we sent down solo - but she loved it of course.

Here we are at their hotel hanging out with the cute little cousins. Addison and Alexa are closest in age on the "Bell" side so it didn't take long for them to warm up to each other. Alexa was very good about loving and giving Addison kisses. This pic was taken after our frigid dip in the hotel pool. We finally resorted to sitting on the top step with our ankles in the water. However, despite the temperature, Addison kept fighting to get in the water so I sat her on the top step to make her happy. She's gonna be my little water baby!

Dueling Piggies

Since Addison is teething and refuses to let me leave her side...we made the best of the situation. Pigtails!! We were inspired by our friend Jenny's recommendation yesterday and today we got bored enough to give it a try. The house is a mess, I'm still un-showered and it's past 4:00 pm, and with the teefers pushing through we are living day-to-day but DANG does she look cute in pigtails? A.door.a.bull. She just barely has enough hair and it takes longer to make them straight than it does to pull them up in elastics but lets chalk one more hairdo on my accomplishment list! Booyah! Now I know two hairdo's - ponytail and pigtails. I'm well on my way! :D Who says today wasn't a productive day!?

Good Thing She's Cute

I feel sorry for people who have ugly babies. How can they possibly find the patience, love, or sanity when their child teethes? Right now, being cute and sweet, is Addison's only saving grace.

We've been going through the ringer the last two weeks. Actually, I got to endure an extra week just by myself since we were traveling in Colorado. Lucky me. Apparently it seems that Addison has two big teefers trying to make their way through her poor little gums. And at this point in the journey, I'm tempted to reach in and pull with all my might to help them out. Maybe then we'd get some reprieve from 3:00 am wakings, hours of tears, fighting sleep (her, not me, I love my sleep too much to fight it), refusal to eat or finish any food, cranky bouts/fits etc.

Thankfully our two tools in this battle are Motrin and teething tablets. But they don't cure anything - just prolong it until we can medicate again. I'm even tempted to tip back the baby bottle of Motrin myself so I can numb MY pain.

Remind me again why we need teeth? I'm beginning to think they are WAY overrated. Even at 3:00 in the morning the thought of pureeing all her food her whole life sounds wayyyyyy more tempting.

My only solace at 3:00 am as I battled through her tears for an hour before she finally conked out, was surfing the internet to hear of other desperate pleas of parents before me. Anyone out there in blog land want to remind us that we aren't alone in our battle? I need some reassurance.

Springing Forward

I'm not gonna lie. I've never been much of a fan of the "Spring Forward" part of Daylight Savings Time. I like my sleep and frankly losing an hour of it never bodes well for me. However, on the other hand, I've been a BIG promoter of the "Falling Back" side of it. For those same reasons of course.

But this time around...I have now turned over a new leaf! A SPRING leaf for that matter! It seems our forward springing has turned Addison into a late sleeper finally! "Late" as in this morning she woke up at 8:00 AM!! No more 5:30 am like she was doing for awhile. I'm hoping I don't jinx it by posting the good news. I just wanted to say I'm on cloud nine today! She has even napped well - which she has always struggled with. This morning she went down for 1 1/2 hours and she is now napping going on 1 hour again! It almost makes me worry if she is feeling okay. Yup, long naps are THAT uncommon around here.

Anyway, it makes me excited for spring, and puts a little bounce in my step, and keeps me excited for the future of both of our sanity's. So from this day forward I'm in LOVE with springing forward. I may even petition my state representative to make "springing forward" an every-other-day type thing now. :D

9 Months Old

Yay! Addison is 9 months old now! It seems as the days go by and the older she gets, she gets into such fun stages. I love seeing her personality come out more. I love seeing her get in silly moods where she'll just burrow her head into the carpet or blanket and jabber away while kicking her feet. I love seeing her babble to herself, especially when she starts grunting. Makes me wonder what she is saying when she has such cute inflection in her voice.

We went to the doctor last week and luckily for her AND I, her 9 month appointment is the only appointment that doesn't require shots of any kind. Can't say the same for our future ones though. :(

Anyway, ever since we switched doctors, it's been SO much better. This doctor gives us all the time in the world to ask our questions. And if I don't have any to ask, he offers advice and explanation all on his very own! I didn't think a doctor like that existed out there! However, the only downfall is that he is a family practice doctor, not a pediatrician. Typically, not a big deal - but this means he lacks all the gear to do measurements on kids. I'm not gonna lie, it's a little makeshift. I had to sit Addison on the adult scale for her weight. I had to lay her down on butcher paper while they marked off her length and got out their measuring tape. And I had to hold her still while they used the same measuring tape (6 times!) to measure her noggin (each with a different result!) When I kept asking for the percentiles they kept assuring me that she was healthy and within the norm. I was like uh yeah I realize that HOWEVER I want them for her baby book! They never could quite give me the stats so I finally just rolled my eyes and decided I'd google it myself. But, since he is such a good doctor and very patient, I'm letting this little quirk slide. Thank heavens for Google.

So here are the long awaited measurements. She seems to be sticking to her "norm". A chunky baby with a big noggin and a little on the shorter side. She wears it all so well and makes for such a cute and squeezy chunky monkey so we have no complaints whatsoever.

Weight: 20 1/2 lbs (73%)
Height: 27 1/2 inches (39%)
Head: 18 inches (88%)

And now for her accomplishments. Really there seem to be sooo many I'm afraid I'll forget some. She's learning and doing so much almost everyday. The one thing I will start with is what we seem to hear from a LOT of people. She is such a HAPPY baby! She smiles about 99% of the time. I thought this was a character trait of all babies but have since done some field research and apparently it is not. We just love all of her smiles. Her shy smile, her toothy grin, her ear to ear smile, her scrunchy nose smile. She has such a variety and isn't afraid to share them with everyone she meets. She has two teeth on the bottom (her little rabbit teeth) and just recently started working on her two top teeth.

She also has learned to clap when we say "Yay!". After she's done clapping she'll clasp her hands (fingers intertwined) and just hold them by her mouth (see pic above). She has also turned into a little baby bird that flaps her little arms so fast it seems like she is learning to fly. She always does this when she gets really excited and it's usually followed by a squeal or a cute little cackle of laughter.

She is still learning to crawl. She'll get to the pivot and get on all fours and even bounce for a bit but after one leap forward she flops on her belly and goes back to her rolling. Which by the way, she has mastered really well. It seems she has adopted all forms of transportation except for full blown crawling. She has even incorporated some backwards crawling movements and the army crawl.

It seems she is finally getting through her separation anxiety phase. I'm WAY excited about this one since now it seems more hopeful that I can leave her with babysitters once again. I was always an extremely shy child growing up so I try to introduce her to a variety of people to ensure she is more well rounded than I was.

I'm also convinced Addison is going to be a little thrill seeker, if she isn't already. It seems the things that get her the most excited usually involve some sort of thrill or breathtaking moment. She LOVES when Daddy throws her in the air. She loves hanging upside down. She loves rolling down the hills in her stroller. She loves getting chased or playing peek-a-boo. I'm excited for when she grows up a bit so we can ride the roller coasters together! :D

In addition to her smiles, she has a lot of really cute mannerisms. One of my favorites is when she is trying to get your attention. She'll lean over, angle her head toward you, and smile and wait until you see her. She also loves to fake laugh. We do it a lot while we are driving down the road to ensure she stays happy until our destination. She also loves to hear me sing Old McDonald, Bingo, and The Wheels on the Bus. If we are in the car, these songs almost always bring a smile to her face (even if she was crying). However, if I break out in song in any other location, no reaction whatsoever. Thankfully it works in the car so I'm not complaining.

She has now learned to say "Mama" however it sounds more like "mamamamamamama" and I doubt she knows what she is saying - but it's close enough so I'm counting it! She learned "dadadada" a few months back so I'm glad it's my turn now. :D

She absolutely LOVES the water. Yesterday we went to an indoor hotel pool while my sister and her family were visiting. The water was FREEZING cold so we just sat on the step. She would keep leaning down trying to get in. I sat her in the water on the top step and she loved it even though her little teeth were chattering. I kept trying to take her out and get her warm but she kept leaning toward the water. She's gonna be our little water baby. Summer here we come! :D

I'm sure I didn't cover all the cute things Addison has been learning lately so you'll have to stay tuned for next month. She seems to be doing something cute, exciting, or adorable every day so it's hard to remember all of it. She's at such a fun age now and I think I'm finally getting my feet wet on this mothering thing! Enjoy the pics!

Still Blessed....Just Tired

An addendum to my previous post:

I'm a big promoter on people being "real" so I feel like I should insert a few disclaimers for my blog. If one were to read it beginning to end you may feel like everything is just gum drops and candy canes around here. That life is blissfully perfect and we just oodle and google at our little Addibell all day long.

I'm here to say if you think that, you are mistaken. Don't get me wrong - we do oodle and google at Addison and still adore her. But we also have our moments that test our patience and give us LOTS of proof that we are still human and could be better parents.

The little Addibell that is soooo happy and giggly and adorable all the time can also have her moments. For example, just this week she has decided that 5:30 am is a great time to start the day. Not sure how this started happening out of the blue but it doesn't bode well for a Mommy or Daddy that stay up until midnight the previous night. So, I guess it's us that get to relearn a new bedtime eh?

Anyway, I didn't want anyone to think this post is all negative. We still love and adore Addison and wouldn't change a thing about her. I just want to try to make my blog more "real" and honest so people realize that we aren't skipping through a field of daisies on a daily basis.I definitely welcome honesty. I think without it we will convince ourselves that we are the only one that has tough days and that we are the only flawed people out there. I can't count the number of meltdowns I have had since I started being a Mommy. So now, you lucky readers will get to hear about every single one of 'em in the future! Hahaha.

Oh and another addendum....

John would like to note that I have no concept of distance (I don't argue this fact either). The Centerton park is less than 500 YARDS from our front door (not two miles like I mentioned before). I've always been horrible at distance and number estimation...but who's counting? (besides John....;-)

Oh and one more thing. Here is a better picture to represent our "Erkel Initiation" ceremony of da Addibell: