our girl

Adeline loves to dump and fill. These beads are a daily source of comfort and joy for her. She sorts through the beads, picks them up, puts them very carefully in whatever little container she has: little jars and an empty TicTac container are her favorites. I love watching her do this. The concentration and attention are delightful to witness. She does the same thing in the sand box. Oh, to be almost two!

Strawberry picking!

Summer has finally decided to show it's face here in the Northwest, and we headed out to French Prairie Starwberry Fest to pick berries. Quite yummy, but a lot of stopping over.

The kids had a blast and were very good at picking.

Mac and Garen took turns being "bucket boy".

Addie was thrilled, and actually did a decent job of finding and picking (and immediately eating) the red ones.

Yeah for the arrival of summer and the rotation of ripe berries!

(I think visiting various berry fields might be our Friday field trips for the summer!)

Adeline

This girl...This girl has completely stolen our hearts!

She turned 22 months old on Saturday and keeps us laughing, playing and generally feeling incredibly blessed to have her in our lives.

She:

* loves blueberries.

* loves her ducks and usually carries one down from her crib in the morning and after naps.

* loves her blankets (thankfully she has three, so we can actually wash them)

* has decided that she is the "director" and that we are the actors in her play - and we need to sit, eat, lay down wherever she tells us. She's not upset about it when we want to do something else, just very persistent. Since she can't talk much yet, this is done by pointing, hand guiding, grunting, head shakes and simple words. Like today at REI: Adeline goes into a tent. Curt squats down by the door. Addie points to the middle inside the tent and says "Dada". Curt tells her he's right here. Addie shakes her head no and says "Dada!" while pointing to the middle of the tent. So... Curt goes in. And we do this all day long... it's fun until we have to do it differently and then do the tears pour down her face!!

* likes to read as much as McKinley does! Every night, there are tears when books are over. It used to be that eventually, she would hit her limit, head to her crib for her blanket and we'd move on to lights out. Now, we go back and forth negotiating. We really try to follow her lead about how many books to read, but lately, she just never wants to stop and then then time dictates stopping. But it's funny, when books are over, I'll get her blanket, she's crying and saying and signing "book! book!" over and over as if I don't understand, and she'll be so sad, but then after a couple minutes of crying, she'll point to her crib, snuggle in and be completely calm and usually asleep within minutes.

* bath has become loooooooooonnnnnnnnngggggg. She went through a phase of not liking her bath, and now she's swung the other way. She loves it. She plays on her belly. She washes her baby. She fills up all the bottle with water and dumps them out. She tries to blow bubbles. Sometimes Mac is with her, but it really doesn't matter. Tonight, she tooted in the tub, laughed and then looked really upset and wanted out. She immediately got out her little potty (she's been showing interest without results for months) sat down on the potty, tooted again and then freaked out when I thought she was done with her bath and tried to dry her off. No way. She only wanted to sit on the potty and then she got back into the bath for round two. Hilarious!

* She is an outside girl. We moved the little play house to "the woods" (as McKinley calls the trees at the back of our yard, much to my heart's delight) and Adeline can't get enough. I am usually messy and trying to keep them both safe, but somehow I need to get a picture of our sweet little rugrat after she's been playing in the sand box, hiking through the trees, hanging on the trapeze, splashing in the dirty rain water in the swimming pool and digging in the garden - all while wearing a pretty pink dress with ruffles. It is so cute!

* facial hair is scary. Yup. Not so sure about those men with facial hair. She has made strides in realizing that not all men with facial hair are scary because we have numerous friends who currently have facial hair. She is in love with McKinley's buddy Garen, and Garen's dad (Alan) has a beard. But Addie really likes Garen and Garen really likes his dad... so Adeline warmed up to Alan and even went for a short walk with both of them when we were out with them the other night, then wanted Alan to pick her up. At some point I told Adeline that we could ask Alan if it would be okay to touch his beard. Alan said yes, and Adeline stuck out one finger and touched it. Then she realized he was wearing a puffy down jacket and she really liked that too! Ahh... sweet moments of progress!

* have I mentioned that she likes purple? oh, yeah... getting dressed in the morning is a chore because most of the choices are "blah!" (seriously... she says "blah!" if she doesn't like it and there is no way to convince her to put it on. none.) so we go through the choices. Purple is usually the winner. Thank you to The Children's Place for selling lovely plain purple girls clothes. oh... and shoes are a big deal (atta girl!)

* I could go on and on all night! She is a delight and brightens our days. To watch she and McKinley exploring the world is difficult to describe. How amazing.

Happy 22 month birthday Sweet Adeline!

Adeline puts herself to bed...

It's true. Kids never cease to amaze.

Look at where we found our sweet Adeline the other night: alseep on her bedroom floor.

We'd done our bedtime routine, but I needed something from downstairs, then McKinley needed to come along, so Adeline was looking at books in her room and the rest of us headed downstairs.

A mere 8-10 minutes later, we came back up to find her crashed out on her floor with her blanket.

wow.

could. not. believe. it.

so, of course, I ran for the camera. now, most of you know our multi-layered sleep story with high-needs child #1,

so this from #2 is completely mind-blowing!

Granted, Adeline has had "practice" sleeping in other places (daycare) from a much earlier age, and she was "born a sleeper" as I like to say, but still. Wowo!
And this was a normal day, normal bedtime, healthy (finally!).
And I was able to pick her up and put her in her bed with no problem.

And her sweet, relaxed hands.

I need to remember nights like these when the night doesn't go as smoothly as this.

Fingers crossed for "easy" sleep when we travel to Wisconsin, because here's the real killer:

Adeline doesn't like to sleep on vacation and McKinley sleeps all night long.

Go figure.

I'm excited to be heading to Wisconsin because we haven't been there in a long time and I'm anxious to see my Grandpa! He's gonna be so delighted by the kids!

Adeline has the stomach flu

The stomach flu has hit our house this week.

Adeline has been sick since Tuesday.

We think it's just a virus at this point. Little sweetie.

She and I had Tuesday and Wednesday together to just lay around (McKinley was in school as thankfully, he's not sick). It was so wonderful to be able to give her whatever she needed exactly when she needed it.

Mostly she just wanted to sleep on me, then occasionally I could lay her down for a bit.

She couldn't resist a cookie from Grandma Vickie's cookie jar when we stopped by there after school on Tuesday, but she wouldn't eat it, and when we got home, she fell asleep on the futon, still clutching the cookie.
The advice nurse at our pediatrician's office told me to give her 1 tsp. of peach juice (from a can on peaches) every 10-15 minutes for an hour then to switch to Pedialyte. That perked her up, but a few hours later she threw up again.

McKinley desperately wanted to be close to Adeline and comfort her, and I even more desperately wanted to keep him away. In the end, I let him sit next to her and sing to her. She calmed down and he felt helpful.

Now that it's Friday, and Adeline is still sick, and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep all week and Mac is full of energy, he is trying to "help", but we're all just a bit stir crazy and needing everyone to be healthy again. Thankfully, tomorrow is Saturday and I have lunch and a pedicure scheduled with some work friends. Nothing is keeping me from going!

Sweet picture of Addie at the easel in one of her few upright moments this week.

More coloring. Thankfully, he can entertain himself for a while doing this.

Need to get some more coloring books as we've about exhausted our supply!

That will be a good outing for McKinley and I this weekend.

Adeline turns one

Our sweet Adeline is ONE!

We are amazed at how fast the past year has flown. Addie is darling, opinionated, curious, fast-moving. She loves to follow her brother around. He can get her to laugh like no one else!

It is fun to watch their relationship developing. We are so lucky!

Windy took most of the pictures, and I don't have them on our computer, but here is a sampling from the party. If you want the full Costco link, just send me an email. Kaya (6 weeks), Kolby (2), Mac (3), Addie (1).

Next summer, after Addie's birthday, Kaya will be 1, Kolby 2, Addie 3 and Mac 4. Cool, eh?

Mac and Lucy helping Addie dig into her cake.

Want some?

Flower and ladybug applesauce cake with raspberry filling and cherry frosting.

Ladybug placement by Mac-a-doo.

No doubt they are related!