Missing Gram and Grampy

Adam's parents were in town a few weeks ago, and Addison was immediately attached at their hips! She would wait patiently at the bottom of the stairs for them to get up in the morning and would walk around whispering, "Grandma sleeping," "Grandpa sleeping" until they were up, and then the non-stop playing would begin! She liked peeking her head through Grandpa's legs and helping Grandma to style her hair. She had a great night with just the two of them when Adam and I went on our anniversary date!

Her favorite day was when we went to St. Peter's Village and Grandma and Grandpa taught her how to gather rocks and throw them into the lake. Addison would throw the rock, and Grandpa would throw one at the same time making Addison think she was making a big splash in the lake all by herself! She still looks for rocks when we are out and about and calls them "Grandpa rocks!"

Even though two weeks have passed, she still looks for them in the guestroom every morning. She learned to say they are home in Seattle, and still talks about them on a daily basis. It's adorable! She sure formed a strong bond with them on this visit!

Here are a few of the pics from their visit...

A Special Moment...

We had a neat moment with our little Addy girl today! She gave me a big hug and said clear as day, "Mama, I love you!" It is the first time she said this to either one of us! My heart is still melting!

18 Month Stats...is this even possible?

I am really slacking on posting these stats as her appointment was about a month ago!

Height: 33.5 inches (92nd percentile)

Weight: 23lbs. 12 oz (42nd percentile)

She had a great appointment, but we had to schedule a follow up appointment with a Dermatologist to take a look at a small bump on her shoulder. She has what is called a "Juvenile Xanthogranuloma" which is luckily benign. It should go away in about 1-2 years. They recommended that we not remove it as it could cause some serious scarring! It isn't painful, and is not a big deal, but we are glad to know what it is! Over the past 6 months, this bump has been diagnosed as as everything from a bug bite to a rash to a syst!

Good news, bad news...

Good news is that Addison can now point to her nose when we ask her to, bad news is that she has also discovered that it has two holes! We have to laugh when she says "nose" with a finger (or two) stuck in the hole...

Mowing the Lawn

While in CO, Justin and Adam taught Addy some new skills on the basketball court! She learned how to steal the ball from dad, how to dunk, and most importantly, how to end the game with some awesome dance moves! I included a link to YouTube to check out a short clip of the action:

http://www.youtube.com/sarahvonnahme.

Here is a recent pic of the lawn mower in action at Buffett...always the "go-to" dance move it seems! I am glad that Addy is aspiring to be a great dancer, just like her father!

Da Da?

I really should be doing the mounds of laundry that are piling up, but I wanted to put this in writing so that we can always look back and giggle...

We have been trying to limit Addy's TV time to Sesame Street and other educational shows, but sometimes I just need to have some real TV on in the background! Yesterday I turned on Ellen, and Addison started yelling "da da, da da, da da" and pointing at Ellen! I could not stop laughing! I think she thinks that anyone with a short hair cut might be her dad! Some random Congressman was da da, Matt Lauer was da da (now I can understand the resemblance on this one), and even a black man on TV was da da. I still can't figure that one out...but he did have short hair! As you can imagine, this has become a nice joke in the Vonnahme family...love it!

15 Months!

Addison had her 15 month appt this week and continues grow like a weed! Here are her new stats: 32.75 inches (100th percentile) and 22lbs (35th percentile). She only gained 0.5 lbs in the past 3 months, so the pediatrician recommended encouraging the ice cream! She eats like a little birdie and is contantly in motion now burning off those calories! As you can see in this picture, she has taken a major liking to her pacifier which is affectionately called "bay." We are ready to wean her off of it soon...we heard from the Dr. that people have had success cutting off the silicone part and just giving them the base. Since it doesn't work like it used to, kids don't seem to want it anymore...we shall see! I am dreading this, but it needs to be done!

"BOP"

Adam has officially led Addison down the path of "Pop" vs. "Soda!" We let her try a drink of soda last night and Adam told her that it was pop. Of course she loved it, and now she is walking around the house saying "Bop, bop, bop!" Adam's reasoning is that she will likely grow up in "pop country," so it makes sense to teach her the correct terminology. The word pop left my vocabulary right when we moved to PA as I was teased about it mercilessly at work! Adam has been sticking true to his roots and has always called it pop. Anyway, it seems that Addy will be a bop girl, not a soda girl!

Walking Clips

We finally got around to uploading a few clips of Addison first learning to walk...as you can see, she is very proud of herself!

I am not sure why this one is turned on its side...whoops!

Walking on Easter!

Addison is officially walking! She started walking at Ted and Angela's house after the egg hunt on Easter! Earlier in the day she started to move around like Smigel from Lord of the Rings (a reference that I obviously didn't come up with on my own), so she could avoid crawling on her dress! For those of you who aren't familiar with Smigel, he is the one who called the ring, "The Precious." By the end of the day, we think she was so tired of avoiding the dress that she decided to make the move to full-blown walking. She was taking a few steps here and there, but after we let go of her hand, she kept walking and walking and walking...all the way across the room! We had to lure her with a little candy to keep it up (a girl after my own heart), and she continued to walk across the room several more times! We plan to post a walking clip sometime soon.

As of this week, she is still primarily crawling if she wants to go somewhere fast, but she is getting more confident with the walking each day. WOO HOO ADDISON!

Swimming with Daddy

We recently enrolled Addison in a mommy and me swimming class a few days per week. Besides the fact that her lower lip is constantly quivering because the pool is freezing, she seems to be liking the whole experience so far! Adam was off early on Monday and came with us to class...he had a great time prancing around in the pool with all the other mommies! He was encouraging Addy to splash the water rather than pull the water like a doggie paddle, and they got singled out by the instructor. He was too busy posing for the camera rather than listening to the instructions! We had a good laugh about it! Adam is going to try to join us on Mondays if his schedule allows...

Imitation

Lately, our little girl has been really into imitating things. Last week she started to take the phone, put it up to her ear and say "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Apparently that is one of the things that I say on the phone...and I had no clue about this habit until she started to do it! On Friday, she put some of her magnetic letters into Miles' mouth and watched him run around the kitchen barking! Well, two minutes later, she was trying to stuff several magnets into her mouth and started barking as well. The best though, (and could possibly be the start to something we are not ready for yet) is saying "No" when we say "No." It kind of still sounds like "Na" which is kind of cute, but we were half expecting for her to greet us on Saturday morning in her crib with a big, fat "No!" We were not sure how to curb this, so we started saying "uh-uh" and shaking our heads, and you guessed it, that is now a fun little game too!

Addison also came up with a new form of crawling on Friday. It is scooting on her knees and pulling herself along with one arm to protect her juice pop from dragging on the floor. Adam affectionately calls this maneuver "the caveman."

Bangs

OK, I have to admit that I have been avoiding cutting Addy's bangs because I was worried that she would go through an awful growing out phase, as I did in high school! However, her neck started to be permanently cocked back trying to see, so it was definitely time! They took about two inches off the front and now we can see those big brown eyes!! We love her new do, but it definitely makes her look so much older...like a real toddler!

Before

After

The two steppin' queen

We are not trying to hurry any milestones, but it would be fantastic to see Addison walk more than two steps at a time! She takes two steps...balances...looks around...gets scared...and plops back down! We are getting closer by the day, but she still thinks it is much easier to crawl!

We did get a fairly good shot of the new top teeth...all four came in at the same time. To coin a phrase from a friend of ours, she has what you might call, "western teeth" with big wide open spaces!

You scream, we all scream!

On our very first nice day in March, we decided to check out the petting zoo in the heart of Amish country. We were shocked to find some very weird animals, animals that we couldn't even start to describe to Addy. "Oh Addison, look at the scary bear-cat creature that is hissing at us!" and "Hmmm, what is that big hairy thing with horns and a long white tongue?"

We later learned that that the 1st animal was a Chinese Bintron, which is still giving Adam nightmares, and the 2nd was some kind of rare Scottish Bull. How they ended up in Lancaster county is still a mystery, but it was fun to see some new animals and the old faves too! Addison enjoyed looking at the goats, ducks, donkeys and the turkey. Although we told her the name of each animal, she still called them all "dogg-essh" "dogg-essh" which is her version of "doggies."
They also had homemade ice cream, so Addison tried her first ice cream cone! She is definitely a chocolate girl, and after we showed her how to lick the ice cream, she was licking away like an old pro. We ended the afternoon with a stop at the local park and ended up swinging for over an hour. Every time we tried to take her out of the swing, she fought to stay in!