Going 'halfsies'

Alright - I am not oblivious to the fact that I haven't updated much on the kids' milestones/cuteness lately, so I thought I'd jump on the fact that Landon was just 20 1/2 months (I'm grasping for straws here, people...but work with me...) and Addie had her half-birthday a couple of weeks ago and is now 4 1/2. Yay! So here goes (and I'm not even going to apologize for the obnoxiousness):

Addie at 4 1/2:

* is still a little peanut. It is becoming more obvious to me how petite she is compared to her classmates, but she seems to be growing fine.

* wears a size 7 shoe and 4T clothes

* seems to have turned her corner of the "f_ fours" :) She still has the occasional tantrum, but is generally very sweet and thoughtful

* is a little smarty pants. We still get comments from her teachers on a regular basis about how smart she is. The funny thing? She pretends not to be at home. For example, her Spanish teacher was telling me how advanced she is in Spanish class and how she helps her friends. But when I ask her to help me with any of the words (even simple ones like colors) she'll tell me she doesn't know. Hmph.

* has outstanding fine motor skills. She has been staying in the lines and able to cut along very detailed lines for a while now. She seems to be quite gifted in art.

* shows ZERO interest in starting to read. She still loves to be read to, but gets upset if I try to have her help me sound out any words (and I swear I am not pressuring her!).

* loves her once-a-week gymnastics class!

* says the funniest, most grown-up things to us - we never know what's next

* is 4 1/2 going on 18

* loooves all things pink and girly (princess, baby dolls) but also loves to get dirty outside and help Daddy in the garden

* has randomly decided she is afraid of kittens (and suggested to Nana that she put their kittens in the car)

* goes to bed around 8ish and is still sound asleep when we go to wake her at 6:30

* is a fantastic big sister to Landon and loves to spend time with him

* would eat chicken nuggets or hot dogs every day if allowed; she is quite a picky eater lately. So frustrating! We have a hard time getting protein into her diet. She loves nuts, thank goodness. She still won't eat any fresh fruit but will eat dried.

* has started testing the waters of fibbing. So far she's finding out it doesn't work so well.

* went to her first sleepover about a month ago, and had her first friend over to spend (almost) the night (her friend got homesick around 10:30 :)) last night. What a big girl!

A little Q&A with my girl:

What are your teachers' names? Miss Emily and Miss Candi

Who are your friends in school? the girls

What is your favorite game to play? Hide and Seek

Do you have any boy friends? Hunter and Holland

What is your favorite color? pink

Do you have a favorite song? Twinkle, Twinkle

What is your favorite book? Cinderella

What is your favorite TV program/movie? All the Princess ones

What do you want to do when you grow up? A cow! [gotta love having big dreams! :)]

And now, the boy...

Landon at 20 1/2 months:

* is growing pretty steadily - wearing 24 month clothes

* becoming a pickier eater

* knows most of his colors and all of his basic shapes

* can count to ten! Sometimes he skips 2 and 4 though :)

* sings an adorable version of the alphabet - he stays on tune/tempo the whole time but misses about 1/3 of the letters. But boy, he sings it with soul ;)

* goes from zero to ANGRY with little-to-no warning; ends up throwing himself to the floor and having tantrums at least once a day

* is putting multiple words together and becoming easier to understand

* seems to understand most everything we say (whether or not he decides to listen... :))

* likes to follow Addie EVERYWHERE and do whatever she is doing

* got his first haircut a couple of weeks ago!

* asks to sit on the potty ALL THE TIME - so far only two "successful" trips. I am trying not to discourage him from sitting on the potty, but it is quite obvious that he is quite a ways off from being ready to really train.

* is still (mostly) a happy, loving baby boy!

"Seriously, Mom - what is going on here?"

First haircut - November 14, 2010

Christmas cards, or if you're slackers like us...

Happy New Year Cards! We started the tradition of doing New Year cards a few years ago. Okay, I admit - it started because we hadn't gotten off our duffs in enough time to get out Christmas cards (law school midterms/finals, anyone? Yeah, that's what I thought! ;)). But then we just got to where we liked it better. And now I think it's a fun tradition because everyone (i.e., ME!) has started getting bummed because the Christmas cards in the mail have come to a halt, and BAM! Re-energize the holiday season. The point of this post? One of my favorite card/photo places, Shutterfly, is doing a special for bloggers! You can get 50 holiday cards for free! WOOHOO! We have gotten tons of items from Shutterfly, including photo books for the grandmommies (and great-grandmommies), and our holiday cards from last year.

Here was last year's card, which I'm admittedly disappointed that I can't use twice in a row (because we've been told that it's still on refrigerators and up in cubicles, and that'd just be weird :)):

This one is also completely adorable:

I'm going to stop with giving away all my potential New Year's card ideas and give some of my favorites for those of you who actually get your cards out on time:

I love how classic this one is!

How fun is this one?

Anyway, all my blogger friends (and lurkers) - you guys should check more of these cards out here, and also check out this awesome promotion by going here.

I'm so excited about picking out the perfect card, and can't wait to personalize them and send them out. Now I just get to pore over wording for hours. Yes, I'm serious.

:)

Halloween 2010

I mean, at the rate I'm going, we'll be talking about this Christmas around the Fourth of July :)

Anyway - we had a fantastic Halloween weekend! We kicked it off the weekend before by going to Ring Farm in Columbia (yes, this was during my birthday weekend, but I decided to add it to this Halloween post because it made more sense). We had so much fun! It was similar to Gentry's Farm, which we also love, but smaller (and therefore a LOT less crowded). The kids, John Michael, Mimi and I headed over there a little before lunch time and we had a blast.

They had a cotton field (patch?) that the kids thought was so cool. I admit, I did, too! I hadn't seen "real" cotton up close since elementary school and a trip to one of the local farms in Nashville. Fascinating.

The babies also enjoyed the tractor tire tower, but especially loved the long slides! John Michael seemed to have just as much fun :)

We also got our pumpkins that day! We got some really pretty ones. We didn't end up carving them until the day of Halloween, which was probably the best idea - the weather has been so beautiful here (read: HOT for October/November) that they surely would've rotted on our front porch had we carved them too early!

As has been the tradition for the past few years, all of the grandparents came down for dinner. This year was the most fun yet; no tantrums from either baby, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect! Addie decided a few months ago that she was going to be Snow White. We tried to convince her to be something different or unusual, but she was determined. The best part about it is we already had her entire costume. Nice! We had planned to make Landon a costume to be one of the Seven Dwarves, but then life got in the way. JM ended up buying him a monkey costume two days before. He was adorable!

We took them trick-or-treating up and down our street (probably 6 houses or so) and I decided to take Landon and the wagon back home. Of course Addie wanted to keep going, so JM said he'd take her to a few more houses. Almost an HOUR later, they returned, and she had TONS of candy! He said she had wanted to keep going, so they did! Needless to say, she was exhausted by the time her bedtime came around that evening :)

The big 3-0!

It got here. The day I thought I'd dread. I turned 30. :) Actually, months before my birthday, I started getting excited just like every year (yes, I do start counting down to my birthday approximately nine months beforehand - don't judge :)). Then as it approached, I became kinda bummed about it. Why? I have no idea. ANYWAY - I snapped out of it and became kid-on-Christmas-Eve-excited as usual. I believe I called my mom every day for two weeks to remind her my birthday was coming up. It's our annual ritual, and it's a silly one: I call my parents to tell them, "Hey! Did you know that my birthday is in __ days?" And my mom will say, "I do know! I was there!" and my dad will say, "And it was the longest day of my life!" (He thinks he's hilarious :))

Again, I digress. My birthday was on a Sunday this year (October 24) so naturally, we began celebrating on Saturday. We went out to dinner with Lynn, Kris, Leslie and Skye to Flyte and it. was. amazing, as was the margarita cheesecake that Lynn made for me. WOW. We then went to Patterson House for a drink and that was pretty fantastic, too! I felt like a grownup - ha!

Sunday morning (the big day!) John Michael and the babies made my breakfast, and then we headed to Arrington Vineyards for a few hours with Lynn, Kris, Holland & Quinn; Sam (boss' husband), Shauna (my sweet boss) and Claire (Shauna and Sam's beautiful 2-year-old); and Sam (coworker) and Shelly (his adorable wife). The kids all ran around and had a BLAST! I have never seen five kids who were so dirty! And there were no meltdowns! Miracle, I tell ya. That may have been due to the fact that they had chocolate cake AND cupcakes to keep them occupied, along with the sticks they insisted on carrying while they ran (!).

From there we went to Mimi & PawPaw's for more yummy food. I swear, I know it sounds like I ate the whole weekend, but...well, I think I really did. HA! It was awesome! My mom made one of my favorite meals, a pork loin (a particular one - recipe by Emeril Lagasse - I'm not sure what it's really called; we just call it the "Emeril roast") and a chocolate truffle cheesecake. Double yum.

But wait, there's more! Monday I obviously had to work, and I was actually in Day Three of a four-day training class. My friends Brandi and Shauna surprised me by having an extra slide added to the PowerPoint (they did this during our lunch break - still not sure how I didn't see them!) and bringing ANOTHER cake and more cupcakes! Everyone in the class sang to me, which was half-embarrassing, half-awesome (I can't lie - I loooove birthdays so!).

We celebrated one last time on Wednesday by going out to lunch with some more of my coworkers. Yes, more food.

All in all, it was one of my best birthdays yet. Oh, and by the way, it's 11 months and 13 days til my birthday! :D

Arrington photos!

My world, hovering over a barrel :)

I'm going to try to pretend that this wasn't a trash can, and that my son wasn't playing inside said trash can. But I'm pretty sure I'm pretending for naught...

(These three photos swiped from Kris' Facebook account - taken with his iPhone)

Boys!

"God made dirt so dirt don't hurt."

Addie requested that I wear her tiara, just for a few minutes. It says "Birthday Girl" and she likes to wear it year round. That's my girl!

18-month checkup

Okay, so Landon is 20 months old now. And I already posted all the suuuper adorable stuff he was doing two months ago. But what I didn't post were his stats (and let's be honest - there's no way I'd remember otherwise, and I kinda keep losing the little stat sheets from the ped's office). So here ya go!

Height: 32 1/4 inches (50th percentile)

Weight: 25 pounds, 8 ounces (40-50th percentile)

John Michael took him to his checkup (we normally both go, but it was when I was out of town) but he said the doctor is pleased at his development - yay!

Slacker...

So I was catching up with my friend Nancy yesterday and realized I've completely slacked on blogging the past month or two. So here are some things I hope to blog about this week:

- Addie's first sleepover

- my 30th birthday

- Halloween

- Landon's new accomplishments

- Addie playing "dumb"

Hopefully I'll start tonight after the kids go to bed (if we can get them to bed, with the time change!).