Grandparent Preschool

We love Addison's school, but we don't love it when the school closes for days at a time for Jewish holidays sprinkled throughout the year.  But on the flip side, we are super fortunate to have grandparents close by who are more than willing to let Addison come and play for the day while we go to work.  At the end of May/early April there was a week when the school was closed.  Dad does a great job of sending me notes through the day which always make me laugh.  Here are a couple e-mails I received from Addison and pics from recent Grandparent Preschool days.
-----------------------------------------------

Hi Mom and Dad,

Had a good time at the museum this morning.  Meme and I went in Granddad's truck while he was at the church.  When he finished he came over in Meme's car and met us.  Had a fun time but got tired and wanted to come home.  I lay down for at least 2 minutes and was back up wanting to watch TV again.  Meme had recorded some new things so that was fun. 

Granddad and I went out on the upstairs porch and shot the water gun into the pool - fun.  I got hot and decided to come in.  I beat Meme and Granddad real bad at Candyland.  I have rules that they cannot use.  See you guys in a little while.

Love,  Addy

 -----------------------------------------------

Hi mom again,

I gave granddad a lesson this morning about eating.  He did not know you're supposed to eat your healthy food before you eat your candy.  He was getting that all mixed up and I had to put his candy up out of the way.  He acted like he's never heard that.  I told him when he finished his healthy food I would give him some candy.

Love,  Ad 

-----------------------------------------------

A lot of bike riding goes on at Granddad and Meme's.  Too bad it is never enough to wear her out so she'll nap!  

Always a fun time at the zoo. Love the giraffe posing in the pic.

Nursery

Here it is...

Belly Pic

I've had multiple request to post pictures of the belly over the past 9 months, but this go round taking pictures of the growing belly has not been quite as exciting as it was the first time.  I have some for baby book purposes, but I think that is where they will stay.  But, I have a fun one to post.  At work there are 4 of us that are pregnant and due within a 6 week period, so there are a number of us with large bellies walking around at this point.  A number of the guys at work make comments about they can sympathize because they are carrying around some extra weight themselves.  Well I was leaving a meeting with one of our executives last week and as we walked out of the office another soon-to-be-momma was standing there.  Not sure how it happened, but next thing I knew we were taking this picture. 

The picture doesn't really do my belly justice, I feel about twice as big as I look! 

Addy Mommy Day

Addison and I like to call Mondays and Fridays our "Addy Mommy Day" since I don't work those days and we get to spend the whole day together.  This past Monday was our last official Addy Mommy Day.  I tried to explain it to Addison and tell her that in the future it will be Addy Mommy Baby Day, but not sure that has totally sunk in yet.  While she is super excited for the baby to come, not sure she really realizes that she isn't going to completely be the center of attention anymore!

I've slowed down quite a bit as the belly has grown, but I tried to keep up the energy as long as possible.  We started the day with her watching a TV show in bed with me then we moved to the family room for another show and breakfast.  Then we met Gail, Emily and Thomas for some fun at Pump It Up.  Addison and Emily LOVE running all over that place and Gail and I love being able to just sit on the bench for mom talk and tend to the girls when they inevitably bounce on top of each other and bonk heads or noses or cheeks or something.  Fortunately a quick kiss and they are off again!  Here are the princesses enjoying their princess gummy snacks on Monday.

Then we had planned to go grab lunch, but Addison decided she wanted peanut butter and tortilla at home for lunch, so home we went.  After that the afternoon consisted of painting rocks in the back yard, Addison "cooking" with leaves and berries she picked from the yard, a trip to the library to get some new books, and a trip to the grocery (this wasn't on Addison's to do list, but it is part of our typical routine).  Then mommy had to rest on the couch for a bit and then daddy came home.  It was a great time and I'm looking forward to the challenge of figuring out how to have Addy Mommy Baby Day in the future!

Weekend

I thought that the weekends leading up to baby day were going to be nice and relaxing, but the April calendar filled up quick.  This weekend we kept busy with a crawfish boil on Saturday and then our friends the Swanns came over on Sunday for some fun.  It has been way too long since we'd gotten together and we had a great time.  It is super cute to see Addison and Tyler play together.  I think that Addison was trying to boss Tyler around a bit, but he has already learned to tune out women which worked well for him this weekend!  Here is a cute pic of them on the slide at the park

There were multiple times when they both went into Addison's room and closed the door - it is cute now, but guess we are going to have to watch out for the little sneaks when they get older! 

Report Card Day

One of my new favorite things about Addison moving to the preschool side of the school is the progress reports and teacher conferences.  The progress report isn't really meant to be a report card with grades, but it has a list of age appropriate activities and how your child is progressing in those activities.  Much better than just hearing that your child is "on track"!  Gives us clueless parents and idea of what the track is. 

So we got Addison final progress report for the year and she is completely on track with one exception.  On the "accepts re-direction" category she actually went down a ranking from "with encouragement" to "skill emerging".  Both Michael and I laughed when we saw that b/c she surely can be one stubborn kiddo at times and I am sure it is multiplied at school when there are 3 little girls wanting to play with the same pink ball (Addison tries to stake claim to all that is pink in the room!).

Overall her teacher said she did great this year and she was a delight to have in their class.  She's grown up so much this past year in the Frog class and her teaches have been great.  I think that potty training was the biggest accomplishment I'm proud of!  

3 and a Half

Addison turned three and a half yesterday and I asked her what some of her favorite things are right now...
color:  pink
Disney princess:  Belle
TV show:  Clifford
thing to do:  play with toys
toy:  dollhouse
animal:  monkey
snack:  nilla wafers
drink:  milk
song:   Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
book:  the squirrel book (a.k.a. One Wide Sky)

In addition to playing with toys she is always drawing, singing and making up the words to her own songs and dancing around the house.

The Train

Living in Houston we obviously just drive wherever we need to go, but in an attempt to add some excitement to our usual Friday night routine of going out for Mexican food we decided to take the Metrorail downtown to the new shopping complex and eat at Guadalajara this past Friday.  Addison enjoyed riding a bus for the first time during the rodeo and we hadn't been on the light rail yet so we thought we'd make a little adventure out of it.  The train was very exciting at first, but thanks to the numerous stops along the rail, about 3/4 of the way there she was asking to get off...but we finally got downtown and had a nice dinner.  Took twice as long on the rail as it would have in the car and there were some strange people on the train on the way home from dinner, but glad we tried it.  Might just try going to the museum or zoo next time! 

Here is a picture to  capture the excitement of the 1st train ride!

Happy Easter, Christmas and Halloween!!

Easter has changed quite a bit for us over the past year...last year it was the excitement of the Easter egg hunt itself, seems like we were hiding eggs for weeks before Easter and Addison loved it.  This year it was the excitement of what was hidden inside the Easter egg, she didn't really get excited about hunting for eggs until she spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa's and they hid candy in all of the eggs.  Hence the Halloween connection - she got more candy in the week leading to Easter than she did at Halloween.  Granddad and Meme were not innocent I might add - they didn't put candy in the eggs, but instead just had little chocolate eggs around the house to snack on!

The Easter bunny didn't have any candy, so he hid quarters in the eggs.  Turns out that was an acceptable substitute for candy, although he didn't put a quarter in each egg, so Addison had to open every egg as she found it and tell us whether it had a "penny" in it or not.  Highlight was when she found the super big egg that the bunny had hidden and that one had a bathing suit and cover-up in it...hands down it beat candy and quarters, especially since it was an Ariel bathing suit with ruffles! 

Here is Addison unloading all of the quarters from the eggs.  Michael told her she could put 1/2 in her piggy bank and take the other 1/2 to the store and buy something.  Her plan is to spend her money on candy, milk and beer for Daddy.  Such a nice girl to consider things Daddy likes!  She had changed into her new bathing suit to color Easter eggs and left her church shoes on - stylin'.

Also somewhere along the line, the Easter Bunny and Santa got connected.  Both magically appear while you are sleeping and you wake up to fun surprises.  Michael even threw the tooth fairy into this discussion we had one night and now Addison is afraid her teeth are going to fall out I think.  But for a few days after this discussion we'd get up in the morning and Addison would ask if the Easter Bunny came last night. I think that she had almost given up and then he came Saturday night - what a treat!