Sick little girl

I got a call as soon as I sat down to eat my lunch today at work from Tony saying the sitter called and Addison was sick.  BLAH.  Poor baby's gotten sick every time she's tried to drink anything today since I left work to get her.  She's still playing and being crazy but very toned down from her normal & she's been being cuddly which is a sure sign she's not feeling like herself.  

I've been enjoying the cuddles and the fact that I have a job that allows me to leave for my kid as soon as I need to and I still get paid.  

cuddles.

Changes

I've been long, long, long overdue for a haircut. This generally means the longer I wait to cut the more chop happy I get. So I went a little shorter than I thought I would but it feels great and was much needed!!

Meijer Penny Pony

I loved being able to ride on the Sandy horse at Meijer when we were little after mom finished grocery shopping.  Call it the best bribery tool in the world if you want but Fred Meijer had it figured out, it was worth being good in the store to be able to ride the pony on the way out!  Addison is big enough now and sometimes I actually remember to go through the check out lanes closest to good ol' Sandy.   Here she is enjoying her latest ride.

Sorry for the blur, obviously Sandy is a fast mover.

You can't beat that much fun for a penny!

Addison's New Blanket

Addison has an obsession with her farm animal blanket that we got to go with her bedroom set.  It one of the kind that are velour on one side and soft fleece on the other side.  She is in love with it, she seems to love to rub the side with the velour.  She calls it her B and asks for it when shes tired and has some days where she doesn't want to leave without it.  So I figured I would make her a second "B" and hope that her attachment was to the softness and not the animals on the first blanket.

I bought a yard and a half of each velour and soft fleece and some matching rolled binding to put between them.  I have never done binding like that before so I was kind of nervous as to how it would turn out.   But rest assured I am the master of making stuff up as I go along and it turned out fantastically.  She loves it and immediately called it "B" also.  Success!  It should be big enough for her to use when we move to a toddler bed or a twin size!

A little trip to the Quick Care Station

We had some unexpected excitement last night, I was putting Addison in her highchair with some finger paints to entertain her while I finished up dinner.  I pushed up her sleeves so she could play squirted out some paint and just kept whining, I'm asking her whats wrong, whats wrong, do you want some food?, Drink? what is up.  Then she starts holding her left wrist.  Holding it like it HURTS, still just whimpering really but obvious pain.  I'm thinking what the heck she was just fine, acting normal, playing, being really good, now shes hurt?    So I get her out of the chair and she's really holding on to it like it hurts, Tony's telling me I must have broke her wrist (doing what exactly?!)  But he's not one to stay calm in a child hurt situation anyway.  So I say let's eat dinner, see if she'll eat and if she still acts like it hurts I'll take her to the express care place and make sure it's nothing serious.

We eat dinner, Addison eats but not with her left arm, she's holding it like a wounded bird, lifeless, limp, attached to her side.  So we pack her up and I take her to the Quick Care place in Jackson.  We wait for an hour to get back there, mean while she's totally acting normal but with a bum arm that shes just trying to not use very much.  The doctor comes in and is literally in the room for under 90 seconds after I describe what happens he says "Nursemaids Elbow", bends her arm back and says "there all better".  Seriously I thought she had a broken wrist or at least a bad sprain, like she took a fall we didn't realize was bad, or hurt herself at the sitters during the day and my grabbing  a hold of it made it start hurting badly.  Nope it was my fault, for holding her hand while I pushed up her sleeve!  Really.  I feel like I deserve a mean mom award for that.   Seriously who doesn't do that 2-3 times a day with their kid at mealtimes?  Lucky me my kids bones don't wanna stay where they should.  But at least it was nothing super serious, shes 100% back to her normal self now and she thinks the trip to the doctors was all in a fun night getting out of the house.  ugh.

In other news, Uncle Nick stopped by tonight with a cute little pink Carhartt coat that he & Aunt Joey picked up on clearance, then he turned it around to show that he had it personalized for her.

 How FRICKEN' cute!  You need a baby for advertising?  Addison is your lady!

Trying New Things

So the only Chili Cook-Off I have ever been to was at a tailgate for an MSU game that I was invited to.  So when the Jackson Cit Pat & K105.3 (our local radio station) kept talking about Jackson's Chili Cook-Off I was interested.  My best friend agreed to go down with me, so for $5 bucks this past Sunday we ate more chili than we could ever want to eat!  They had a chili competition + a salsa competition.  It was definitely different and I'm glad we checked it out, sometimes it's good to do something different for a change.  Not to mention get out of the house when winter is upon us!  Next up, wine tasting.  I live a mile from 2 winery's and have never been to a wine tasting.

Both photos via

Even Captain Jackson was there

The Verdict

Fun 'N' Stuff was a hit, Addison loved the music room, and the painting station, and the pile of pillows in the toddler area that she kept running and jumping into.  She ran around like a crazy kid and had a blast!  They had all kinds of fun things to do, a grocery store, water table, art room, music room, a stage, a catwalk, rockwall, pretend houses, cars, toddler room.  Defiantly worth the 5 dollar admission fee to wear a kid out in the cold weather!  As close as it is to our house we will be check it out again!

Kids 'n' Stuff & Business Cards

We have a birthday party to go to later today at Kids 'N' Stuff .  We've not gone there yet because I was unsure what age group it would be appropriate for so this is the perfect chance to check it out.  Even if it were too old for Addison it's not going to stop her from trying!  Now that I checked out their website I think she's going to be in toddler heaven!

I keep trying to get back into the blogging habit but I am doing some serious slacking.  I feel like every time I sit down I forget what it was I was going to blog about!  That and if I sit down with my notebook one little Miss tries to close the cover every two seconds, steal my mouse from me, or push the buttons.  Obviously not quite productive, so the only time I get a real chance to use the computer is when I sit at the desk which usually means I'm busy working on Photography stuff.

Speaking of photography stuff, I ordered myself business cards for my photography yesterday!  I'm excited to see them and hope they turn out well.  I was going to order some more expensive ones with lots of different photos that I have done for the back sides (each one would have 1 of 8 images on the back) But I decided to go cheap for my first time ordering them and ended up using Vista Print to order 250 for less than what I would have been spending on 50 cards.    Here's the Front:

The back side will have one of the pictures that I took for Addison's 18 month pictures.  I had a hard time deciding what pictures I wanted on the back since doing it the cheap way meant only one image, so I figured I'd stick to my own kid!  This will be the back:

I thought I would share this cute little video of Addison playing mommy. The girl is in love with her baby right now. Oh and someone peed on the potty for the first time last night (and no it wasn't me!!!) :)  I haven't been pushing the potty training because I wasn't sure if she was too young to "get" it.  I've been letting her sit on the potty when I do a diaper change for as long as she will tolerate sitting still, we've been doing it for a week or so consistently and last night she just happened to finally pee while she was saying "pee-pee go pee-pee".  I'm not sure it wasn't just an accidental occurrence but she got a thrill out of me letting her flush the big potty when she was done! :)

Oh and Happy Valentines Day! I'm not sure I will get a chance to do the little love survey that's floating around blog land but if I have time to sit down and use the computer after work, its on! :)

Addisons First Year Book

I'm only about 6 months behind schedule with getting this finished.  I finally had a day of nothing to do but sit around the house (and chase Addison from time to time) So I dedicated my day to getting this done!  Now to start on year number two and get myself caught up some!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

I finally got around to taking them...

Addison turned 18 months, I totally missed out on the doing of proper 12 month old pictures so I made sure to get the ball rolling on these 18 month pictures.  Anyway hop on over to my other blog and check the rest of them out! Addison 18 months

What did I do with all my time?

As I chase a toddler through the house every 2 seconds steering her away from all things jungle gym like, electronic or otherwise breakable I wonder exactly what I filled all this time with before.  Seriously, toddlerhood is no joke,  I forget what it's even like to sit on my couch with my lap top and not have a child trying to push buttons, flip down the screen or steal my mouse from me.  To not have to get up every 2 mins after I sit down to turn her away from something, try and translate some baby talk into what is is that shes telling me she wants (today "baby" didn't mean the baby doll that was on top of the book shelf, didn't mean the book with baby in it but it did mean the tiny little photo album that I let her have with pictures of her as a baby in it, seriously she cried" baby, baby, baby" over and over until I touched the right object!)  This kid has an endless supply of energy, never stopping to refuel for more than 45 seconds.

This is the half its so funny I can't help but laugh/why are you tickling me look.

Seriously feeling like I need some chill time today..... too bad bed time is 3 hours away and then its time for my own bed time shortly after!

Buh-Bye Again...

For YEARS I didn't drink pop (soda for you weird non-midwesterners)  I'm talking age 16 to 21 I didn't touch it unless it was the only option to drink at a party or something.  When I had to drink it because it was the only option I never cared much for it.  Then I moved in with Tony and his Coke addiction eventually became my Coke addiction too.  Eventually things like Mountain Dew sneaked back into my life, then I traded them all in for the wonder that is Cherry Coke Zero...oh how I love thee... But I'm giving it up, going back to my old ways.  Nothing but water & non-carbonated stuff for this chick.  Even one pop a day is just too many, I'll never give up my coffee so this is my first major health change for the year.  While I wish I had time for that gym membership & trainer to kick my ass, I just don't.  Even if I try to make time its not feasible with our schedules, so I'm trying to make the little changes.  I think a lot about my Dad's heath and what effect that had on his passing, I'm all for making whatever changes I need to to be around to torment my loved ones as long as possible! :)

via

  Buh-Bye old friend, from now on I'll be the one drooling longingly for you from outside the vending machine!

my poor neglected blog

I feel like I haven't given my blog proper loving lately.  Life has been CA-ra-ZY!  Between working full time, working weekends, chasing a toddler the rest of the time, and trying to get started in the world of photography life has been crazy.

I worked a ton of overtime over the holidays, and when I wasn't working at my job I was doing THIS.  Or running around keeping this girl out of trouble.

or not.

This weekend I finally got a little me time to chill out, kick back and relax a little.  Friday night while Addison slept & the hubby played poker with his friends I enjoyed some staying up way too late doing what I wanted to do instead of what I needed to do.  I dwindled down my music collection on my iPhone since it keeps telling me that I have no storage left for pictures as soon as I take more than 50...fail.  Then I set to work on making some more baby leggings!   A friend of mine asked me if I would make a set for her friend who recently had a baby & I figured while I was at it I would make Addison some more to go with the 4 or so that she already has.  I amazed myself with the speed in which I can make a pair of them and finished 7 pair in less than an hour!  Well 7 pair plus 2 head bands for the baby gift.

Mom took Addison overnight Saturday and while my husbands cousin was visiting us from the Coast Guard where he is stationed in Michigan we went out to dinner & did some cosmic bowling.   It's been so long since we've been to the bowling ally where we used to spend every Thursday night.  They even sneaked in a new toy, so I had to test him out.

All in all it was a great & much needed weekend of rejuvenation.

oh yeah & while I was picking up Addison from my mom my awesome neighbor brought us a box of hand-me-downs for Addison, which she promptly went through and claimed "mine" for every item she pulled out of the box. Thanks neighbor!