Ady's Birthday Party Recap

The colorful decorations weren't matchy matchy and not worthy of pinterest pinning.
The delicious drinks weren't served in special cups with cute straws.
And the fun activities didn't cost us a penny.

But it was perfect. Just perfect.

Derek and I didn't do anything for Drew's 1st birthday except have a small celebration while we were in KC. We hadn't made many friends in Cleveland yet and just enjoyed his birthday as a family of 3. But with Ady I knew I wanted to have a get together with our friends and some good food. The MAIN thing I wanted to spend money on was the BEST barbecue from Kansas City; Jack Stack. Derek's parents were driving up for the week and brought the 10 pounds of burnt ends and 2 gallons of cheesy corn bake that we ordered. We then also prepared a couple other food items, ordered cupcakes, loaded up on beer and I made 3 batches of Summer Brew.

Our friends have this awesome water rock wall and slide and that was a HIT with the bigger kids. The babies hung out around the baby pool, water table and sprinkler, but really just enjoyed trying to pull each others bows off.

Then it was time for Ady to dive into her birthday cake. She was dainty and meticulous but absolutely loved it and would have eaten for hours had we let her.

The cupcakes were a much easier idea than cake in my opinion! No slicing and serving, just take and go! And yes, that's my kid first in line for one....

It was a fun time with good food and good company. Just the way I like it!

Life Lately

I love being busy. I get antsy when we don't have a lot going on and start planning play dates with friends. Having a full calendar fulfills something deep inside me that I can't quite figure out, but it's there. Between my full time job, photography, all of Drew's activities and outings with our friends, it's been just plain busy. 

So when we have time to just sit and play, I relish in that. When I can sit in the backyard and watch 2 little humans that we created interact and play without schedule or a time limit, it's great. 

 

I'll give you one guess as to who made her laugh like this. Clue: it wasn't me. She'll laugh for momma, but not near as much as *someone* else can make her laugh.

Ady // 1 Year Old

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADALYN LAWREN!!!

It's beyond surreal that you're already a year old baby girl. I still think of you as my tiny little newborn but you're pretty much already a toddler now! Thank you so much for bringing us daily smiles and laughs and for being the best little girl we could have ever imagined.

Weight: 22 lbs, 8 oz (85%)
Height: 29.5 in (60%)

Sleep:  You still sleep about 11-12 hours at night but this month had a couple nights where you just woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep for a couple hours. Those nights are NOT fun little worm. You take 2 naps a day but those still range from 20 minutes to 2 hours. 

Food: Although I finished pumping last month, we had a good 15 bags that we incorporated with formula throughout the majority of this month. Then this week we added a bit of whole milk into your bottles and hope to have you fully on milk within a week or 2. You also tried more new foods but bananas and grapes remain your favorites. 

Diapers: Still wearing FuzziBunz size medium. 

Clothes: You are mostly in 18 or 24 month clothes.  

Talk: You mimic noises a bunch now including when we say 'uh oh'. We've also been working on signing for weeks now and you seem to be catching on.

Teeth: Only 1 new tooth this month and it was on the bottom. You have a total of only 5 teeth right now! 

Milestones:  This was a BIG month for milestones. Right after you turned 11 months, you started cruising everywhere. And then, around 11.5 months, you stood up unassisted out of nowhere. A couple days later you attempted the stairs and literally on your second try you climbed them all to the top. Then on July 23rd, you took your first steps and have taken a few several times a day now. It's crazy how much sooner you did than Drew and it's so fun to watch how you (and DREW) get so excited when you do step!

Other notes: Not sure if you might be a lefty like your brother. You use both your hands right now but seem to favor your left when eating. Also, you DEFINITELY got mommy's easily tanning skin. ThankGOODNESS for not another fair skin child!

Here's the monthly progression:

And one of the stinker face that we see often followed by the most happy face ever...

Photography

This makes me happy.

He found my old point and shoot and asked me to teach him how to use it. He said he wants to take pictures like mommy and went all around the house practicing with his new toy. I watched with a huge grin.

Photography is in my bones. It's something I desire to do, and something I'm extremely passionate about.

And I hope that the fact that I'm 95% booked until November means that others think I'm good at it.
And that makes me happy too.

Here's a sampling of some recent client work and if you'd like to see more, feel free to follow me on my Facebook Page!

Summering

Now that it's mid July and the temps are FINALLY hot, we've been trying to do everything we can to create the best summer memories for Drew.

And yes, that includes a lot of ice cream. And yes, I bribed him to give Ady a few tastes.

Oh and I love ruffle butts above fat legs.

Standing Queen

She's been standing for a few days now and although these aren't the best videos (ugh iphones), you get the idea. What's funny to us is that Drew didn't actually stand on his own until AFTER he took steps from cruising. Just another difference between these two!

My guess is that she'll be walking, or near walking, on her first birthday July 28th.

Trip to Detroit

This past weekend we spent 48 hours in Detroit with my brother and his girlfriend. We ventured to the zoo, Belle Isle Park and a couple of restaurants and for the most part had great weather. Derek and I also learned a HUGE lesson while there regarding our kiddos sleep habits. Essentially they canNOT sleep when hot and they can NEVER share a room. You see my brother's apartment doesn't have central air. They do have a window unit as well as a pretty nice living room portable AC, but the room we had the kids in got pretty warm. The heat combined with it being a new place for Ady and she was scared combined with the fact that they are light sleepers and wake to any noise (ie: the other one making sounds) made for a rough 2 nights and an exhausted mom and dad. Other than that we had a great time, but I think I'm still behind a few hours in sleep!

Here are a few pics of our short trip. On Friday when we arrived, we grilled out and enjoyed the patio where we watched Drew pick up and play with all the mayflies. Yuck.

Then it was off to the zoo Saturday morning. It's really quite a beautiful zoo with gorgeous landscaping. There's also this beautiful fountain area where I snapped a couple portraits of my brother and his girlfriend. 

Then it was on to see all of the animals and feed the giraffe in which I snagged the VERY last ticket to do that. So glad I did though as Drew loved it and chatted all afternoon about how slimy his tongue was!

I adore this progression of my brother and Drew watching a sea lion swim overhead in the tunnel...

Then on Sunday, after an AMAZING breakfast involving red velvet pancakes, we head down to Belle Isle park to see the fountains and mini zoo they had there. (And by "zoo" I mean some reptiles, birds and deer.. it was pretty lame).

And whatttt?!?! Another picture with all 4 of us looking and smiling?! I can't believe we got 2 in one weekend but love this one more since our 4-legged was included!

Drew // 4.5 Years Old

**This post was set to go live on his actual 4.5 birthday (the 12th) but it failed so pretend you're reading yesterday!

Oh Drewdlebug. You are just such a little man now. I have no clue the exact age you stop using the term toddler and replace that with kid, but to us you are already a kid. Over the past 6 months you have grown so much and I'm so proud of where you are at. You're reading several 3 and 4 letter words and can spell so many as well. You ask a ton of questions nonstop and although sometimes I respond with 'I don't know', I try to answer the majority of them. The smarts and sensitivity you have doesn't come without it's challenges though. You're starting to understand what others think and have had some concerns that the boys in your class won't like a specific clothing item. Once and a while you have mentioned that you think a shirt would be made fun of. It breaks my heart that you're already encountering bullies and I wish I could kick all of their asses.

I'm so proud of how well you interact with your sister and others. You are courteous to other adults and play with your friends and sister so nicely (most of the time). You have manners and know right from wrong in most general aspects of life and you handle your *chores like a champ without arguing. You are helpful around the house when asked and are able to do so much yourself. The independence you have is outstanding, and you seem to be quite the people pleaser.

You definitely are still a narrator of life. You LOVE recapping everything that happened with the utmost detail full of adjectives. You are still quite the chatterbox continually talking nonstop. So much of your chatting is questions, and pretty smart ones if I do say so myself. You ask questions like "what is life" all the time... deep, deep questions!

You're still eating and sleeping as well as you always have. We start your shower (which you do all yourself) around 7:15 and you're in bed generally around 7:45 ready to read our 2 books, do some math/spanish and then say prayers. I would say depending on the day you're asleep by 8:30-9p. Sometimes you'll wake up around 7 on your own, but sometimes you'll sleep in until 8. And you're still napping the majority of days. If we're out and about on the weekends we will try to get you to take a car nap, but sometimes skip naps all-together. You still do much better with a nap so we're not ready to give them up just yet! And we've had a good 2 weeks or so without pullups at night so we might be fully moving to undies! You've always had an issue holding your pee throughout the night being that you drink so much fluid but you've been doing great at that lately! Sometimes I'll hear you get up and pee in the middle of the night but the next morning you have no recollection of doing that. I'm glad you can do all that in your sleep!

Thank you for being the best example and big brother ever. I love hearing you say things like 'no, Ady, you can't chew on that' in the sweetest tone right before you gently take it from her. Although you sometimes still squeeze her a bit too hard out of love, you're generally very sweet with her and can be found giving her hugs at all hours of the day. You also get just as excited as us when she hits milestones and you love waking her up in the morning before school. Thank you for being the best role model she could ever have!

Love you little man. So, so much.

* Your 'chores' right now include getting your milk for dinner, placing napkins at each spot before meals, taking the recycling to the bin and taking your plate to the sink after dinner. Sometimes you help feed Bailey and you often carry in the mail as well.