Addie is quite the little drama queen these days.  She has a fit when Grady gets near her "work" whether it is her lego building or her art.  Then she will ask me, "Mommy can Grady have a crayon?"  I say, "No" and then she takes much pleasure in ripping it out of his hands.  She also frequently tells me that Grady is tired and needs to take a nap....even if he did just wake up.  However, as quickly as she turns on her drama, she can also turn on the sweetness.  Today she spent a while snuggling up to me and kissing me and telling me that she "loves me faevah and evah and evah to the moon and back faeveh."  It was really cute!  She also said that mommy, daddy, addie and grady are the best family around!  Of course I agreed with her while at the same time wondering where she comes up with this stuff!  Yesterday we were talking about playgroup coming to our house today.  She said she did not want anyone to come to our house because she is the special one and only the special one can talk to her mommy.  She did not want me to talk to any other mommies or kids.  Of course everyone came today and she had a great time and even let me talk to other mommies!

We have been working on writing her name for a few weeks.  We hold the marker together and talk about how to write each letter.  The other day, she was coloring and I went to get her another piece of paper.  She started screaming for me to come back and when I did, this is what I found.

This was the first time she wrote her entire name by herself!  We are so proud of her!  Now she is working on Mommy and Daddy.

Last week, she also got a haircut.  She sat in Ms. Kelly's chair and told her she wanted a short haircut.  We were so impressed with how still she sat the entire time.  She was serious about her cut and she looks adorable!

Before

                                      

After

We are working on a 3 year old scrapbook and one of the pages is for all of the letters that she recognizes.  I got one foam letter for every letter of the alphabet and randomly asked her each letter.  As she said them correctly, she got to stick it onto her scrapbook page.  Before we knew it, she had all of the letters on the page! 

While I was in Vegas last month, Bryan and Addie went fishing. He took her to buy her first fishing pole and she was so excited!!!  She caught several fish and had a wonderful time with him! 

(can you tell by her hair that I was out of town???)

My mom and Denny came the other day for a visit and took tons of pictures of the 4 of us...unfortunately, this was the best one...

The handsome man...probably looking for something to munch on!

It rained a lot 4th of July weekend and the city fireworks were cancelled because of it.  We bought a few fireworks and sparklers and lit them at home!  Both Addie and Grady loved watching them but did not enjoy the noise!

On a side note, when Denny walked into our house that day, Grady crawled right up to him and refused to let him go until he was forced to when they left.  If I wanted to hold him, I had to take him into another room.  He wanted NOTHING to do with me when Denny was around.  I told him that he may need to leave a little early and not come back for awhile!

We have been having a little trouble getting Addie to eat breakfast so I stuck a spoon in a cup of yogurt and froze it.  She thinks it is great that she gets to eat a popsicle for breakfast!  She is now excited to eat in the morning!

6.29.10

 Grady is happiest at meal time.  Eating is by far his favorite activity.  He is so different than Addie was.  He gets incredibly dirty and makes a HUGE mess every time!

Addie loves to make crafts.  She loves glue and stickers and could do "projects" for hours.  However, our time is limited to times when Grady is sleeping.  He eats everything and may already be stronger than Addie. He fights for things now and usually wins!

A cute pair...if I say so myself!!

Grady follows Addie everywhere and wants to have everything she has.  It really frustrates her!  Bryan keeps telling her that Grady will be bigger than her soon, so she better be nice to him now!

Doesn't he look proud?  He is always after blankie...and he finally got it! 

10 months old

I am a little behind schedule!  Grady is 10 months old and a crazy little man.  He crawls after Addie as fast as he can and it is a little sad to watch.  She doesn't really care that he wants to play with her.  As soon as he gets to her, she is off in another direction.  His little knees are bruised from the constant chasing!  He has also started getting his feelings hurt when she tells him no.  His little lip quivers and he cries like someone is chopping off his limbs...so sad!  He says Addie (Ada) all day long and occaisonally says mama and dada. He repeats coughing and  Addie's squeals.  Mealtimes are still his favorite times of the day.  He loves fruit and cheese.  He actually throws a fit if he catches me taking cheese out of the refrigerator.  We are finally settling into a really great routine.  He sleeps past 7 in the morning and takes an hour long nap in the morning and a 1.5 to 2 hour long nap in the afternoon.  He is getting enough sleep during the day and now he can finally stay awake past 6:30 at night!  He has also become quite the little biter.  Yesterday at Andrea's house, he bit all three of her boys.  I hope it is just because he is teething!  He only gets tiny little bites and they really hurt!  He loves to drink water and drinks a ton of it every day!  He loves the swimming pool and unlike Addie, will float around in a baby float for quite a while!  I wouldn't say he is either a mommy's or a daddy's boy.  He just likes attention and doesn't really care who has him.  He stands up by himself for 20 to 30 seconds and then squats down.  He thinks about taking a step but doesn't quite go there yet.  He walks holding on to furniture but then sits down when he doesn't have anything else to hold on to.  He cries anytime we walk into his room because he thinks I am going to put him in his bed.  He cries when I strap him into the carseat but them once he is in, he is fine.  He sits up and watches Addie the entire time I am driving...just smiling at her.  We can not believe he is almost a year.  This has been the fastest year of my life...I wish I could keep him a baby just a bit longer!  He is so sweet and good and we need to get Addie out of the terrible two/three stage before he enters it!!!

It is now impossible to get a picture of Grady with his month sign!

Addie decided to help and then she and Grady fought over the paper.

Mr. and Mrs. Ellis

June 8, 2010

Addie and I went on a couple of "dates" last weekend.  First, we went and got her first pedicure.  She was so cute and absolutely loved it!  That night I took her with me to Emma's baptism party.  (Emma is Willie and Yvonne's adorable baby).  She was so excited to go to the party with me because it started after her bedtime.  She wore a fancy dress and was thrilled to eat junk for dinner along with a juice box!  She was so good and had a great time dancing to the music, playing with Ben and Charlie and hanging out with me by herself! I really enjoyed spending alone time with her and am excited to do it a lot more often now that she is a little older! 

Here is Grady man in action.  He is crazy and is everywhere.  He has started having little meltdowns when he sees me leave the room!  He is so cute and still very smiley!  He also said ma ma today!!!  He has been saying na na a lot and today when I picked him up after his nap, he said ma ma! 

Today, we had an indoor picnic.  Addie loved it!  She said she felt like we were eating in a restaurant...which is one of her favorite pastimes!

Addie and Grady are really playing together a lot lately and it is so cute to watch.  He absolutely adores her and follows her everywhere.  She gets frustrated with him and he cries and cries when she walks away from him.  He does not let her take things away from him very easily anymore....he will be stronger than her before we know it!  We are so thankful to have such wonderful and sweet kids and I am especially thankful that I get to spend every minute with them!

Train Ride

A couple of weeks ago, we rode the Amtrak train from Del Rio to Alpine.  Addie loves trains.  She giggled every time we mentioned riding on the train because she could not imagine that people ride on trains!  Both Addie and Grady were great on the train.  Addie loved going to the snack bar and watching movies.  Grady loved sleeping and eating his own snacks! 

Waiting for the train to come

Here comes the train!

It is so loud!

Here is our train

Life on the train...

   

                                                 

Getting off the train in Alpine

Picnic in Ft. Davis

Dinner at the Reata...adults only!

Addie and Grady have a little down time before we leave.

Buck took a picture of our train on the ride home.

We made it home!

Thanks Buck and Nanna!  We had a great time!

Addie and Grady singing

Addie loves to sing!  A karaoke program came in the mail today (thanks Daddy) and we sang all morning.  She is a much better singer than I am!