Art Wednesdays

The kids in the class right before Addy's came out with water color paintings and I'm glad Addy did the same type of painting as last week. I can just see a wall covered with these things!

Last Saturday Addy and I went to Michael's for an American Girl craft event so I took this picture to send to my American Girl friend. :)

Morgan sleeps!

Ok perhaps not as impressive as Addy's painting but it sure surprises the heck out of me!

A little background: Morgan has slept with us every night since she was born. Heck, she even naps in our bed (without me, though). I've tried to put her in her crib on and off and every time she screams her little head off and never sleeps. I let her go for an hour like that, it's about as long as I can take it. I was figuring we just needed to skip the crib altogether and move her to a big girl bed.

Fast forward to a week and a half ago. Morgan's sleeping is SO TERRIBLE I have to get her out of my bed just so I can have even the tiniest bit of sleep. So I decide to start laying her in her crib for naps and the first time she cried for maybe 20 minutes and then SHOCK! She fell asleep! The first couple of times she didn't get much of a nap but hey it was something and it was IN HER CRIB!

Friday the 12th (my birthday) Mitch and I go see a 10:00pm movie (Burn After Reading - very funny!) and my mom puts Morgan in her crib to sleep. I left her there and she ended up sleeping until 2:15am. Four hours, not bad for her! So I decide to keep starting her out in the crib, even if I could just get 4 hours of unbroken sleep that would be HUGE after what I was used to.

Night 2 she sleeps from 9:00 until, get this, 6:15! I couldn't believe it and figured it had to be a fluke but nope! Every night since then she has slept for about 11 hours straight in her crib. I am so amazed! And so rested, ahhhh... I thought it would take nights and nights of lots of crying to get to this but she hardly cries at all now, maybe just for a minute. She has the saddest look on her face when I lay her down for the night and it breaks my heart but she wakes up with a smile on her face every morning so I know she gets over it and forgives me. :) It's about time though!

well I'm impressed

Addy LOVES to draw, paint, color - anything artsy/crafty. Her teachers are always telling us how she puts more detail in her drawings than anyone else in the class so I signed her up for art lessons and last night she had her first class. She painted this picture! Then she came home and drew another picture she called "10 pretty things". She's hooked!

I think I'm going to need to invest in some frames...

I'm 33 today

Some things I'd like to do today:

eat ice cream
get a pedicure
fun dinner out with the family - maybe with some live music
go see a movie - I haven't seen a movie in a theater in years!
eat these cupcakes

Morgan at 18 months

22 pounds, 25th percentile
31.5 inches, 50-75th percentile
head is 18 inches, 50th percentile

In other words, she's perfectly on target! :)

She says:
Mama
Dada
Addy
Riley
Sadie
Nama (grandma)
Num num num
baby
shoe
hi
bye
thank you (tee you)
meow (cat)
hee haw (donkey or horse)
puppy
uh oh
oh no
NO!
MINE!
up

And she repeats a lot of what we say so I think lots more words are coming soon!

Her favorite things to do are puzzles - especially animal puzzles - and read books! She also LOVES to wear other people's shoes. She is always walking around in either my flip flops or a pair of Addy's shoes.

She had her first vaccination today - the Hib shot. Handled it like a champ and I'll probably take her back in a couple months to get another one. Ideally I'd like her to be caught up by the time she's 3 1/2 in case I put her in preschool. If not, I'll catch her up when she's 4. I just wanted her to be past this 18 month mark.

Addy's first day

Addy's first day of kindergarten was a success. Although I asked her if anyone in her class cried and she said "no, only me". Figures! Apparently she spilled her milk at lunch. Oh well.

Here she is with her new backpack

Mitch walked her in to school (I had a sleeping Riley and Morgan in the car)
She has been so excited to ride on a school bus for so long. I was going to pick her up her first day but she wanted to ride the bus so I figured why not. She's the first one on (6:20!) and the last one off but she loves it!

trip highlights

We are back! That drive is long. And sleeping in a hotel that has 2 double beds for 5 people is not fun. Especially when one person does not sleep so well. But anyway, we made it back home safely.

The computer at my parent's house is slow and I didn't feel like doing a bunch of individual posts so I'll just do one big one now that I'm home.

This is one of the big reasons I love going up to my parent's house. It is as peaceful as it looks in this picture. The lake level was LOW this year and they had lots of beach so we made a campfire and roasted marshmallows.
Yum!


We went to the wildlife park one day and all thought this turtle was fake until it moved. Pretty peacock
Mitch and Addy fed the bears
I used to love buffalo and I have no idea why. They are so ugly.

There was a nest of bald eagles on my parents lake so I took the camera out there but of course they flew away when I got close so here is the nest. :) Addy fished with her new Barbie pole, but didn't catch anything
My parents house isn't the easiest for Riley to walk in but she sure did have fun walking outside when we went to town one day. She needed a little help stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk though. For some reason she stopped at every one.
Addy enjoyed her big bag of candy from Dan's Minocqua Fudge

Addy went to Vacation Bible School at my old church. Here she is showing off her butterfly mask she made with silly Uncle Bryan Sadie had fun jumping in the water after tennis balls, as usual
Eventually we all made it into the water but Addy was the only one who swam every day. The weather just hasn't been hot enough to warm up the water this year.
The last couple days were spent at Mitch's parents house with all the cousins. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of them all playing together! I got the camera out once but Addy was too busy pouting about not being able to take off her lifejacket in the water so I only took this one lonely picture of Morgan in the boat.

Our trip was shorter than usual this year but it was hard since we had just moved. Hopefully next summer we'll be able to spend our usual 3 or so weeks up North!