~WILW~

Man, I haven't done a 'What I'm Loving Wednesday' post in forever! But today is a great day to start back up because I have a lot of things that I'm loving this week!

First and foremost, Addy-girl is helmet free!!!! Woohoo!!! I won't get her before and after photos for a week or so, but I'll be sure to do a post with them as soon as I get them so you all can see her improvements!

Happy girl!

OK here's what else I'm loving this week...

Sonic Hot Fudge Malt, Sargento String Cheese, Rimmel Face Primer, VTech Storytime Rhymes

1. Last weekend I did some shopping with my mom and when we were all done I needed a sweet snack, so we hit up Sonic Happy Hour! I had never ordered this before, but I decided to try a mini hot fudge malt, and oh em gee. It was "tasty in my belly". It actually tasted just like a Wendy's frosty to me. My mom thought it was a little too chocolaty for her taste buds, but I thought it was delish!

2. Addy-girl can get down on some string cheese! Almost every afternoon I'll get one out and sit on the floor with her and feed her a whole, err, log of cheese while she crawls all over me. Much healthier than my hot fudge malt, lol.

3. I have horrible skin so I LOVE my Rimmel face primer. It really does work for me and completely smooths out my skin before I put on my make-up. It smells good and moisturizes too! Winning!

4. Addyson plays with this little book all the time. She'll sit and turn the pages back and forth all day long. It definitely keeps her busy while singing little rhyming stories to her.

God is so good for blessing me with so many things to love! What are some of the things y'all are loving this Wednesday??

Cheapo Depot Toys

Because I am officially a cheapo-depot I love making toys for my ever wandering little girl. Every morning I sit her down surrounded by all of her toys and after about 5 minutes she's already bored and takes off to roam the house looking for the nearest thing she can get hurt on. {Why is the oven so fascinating??} So I'm constantly trying to find new, safe, and easy ways to keep her entertained.

I took a cue from our diaper changing time. If she can get her tiny dimpled hands on the baby wipes box while I'm changing her diaper, the wipes are a goner. She can pull 64 wipes out of the box in 10 seconds flat. So since she seemed to have so much fun with it, I decided to make a toy out of it!

All you need is an empty kleenex box (or wipee container), a pair of scissors, and some fabric.

You can buy pre-cut fabric squares or bundles of fabric scraps at any Hobby Lobby. {Using different textured fabrics would make it even more fun.}

Then cut the fabric into as many squares, or rectangles depending on you container, as you wish. And now for the hard part: shove all the fabric into the box. Viola!

You can take the time to fold your fabric neatly so that they come out all nice and pretty like the real kleenex or wipes, but I only did that the very first time. After that it became pointless and much easier to just stuff it all in there :)

Let the fun begin!

They just keep coming!

The first time I did this for Addyson she played with it for at least 15 minutes straight! Might not sound like a long time to some, but to anyone who has a kiddo you know they have the attention span of  a fly. So that was a loooong time for her to be content in one spot with one toy.

I think she likes it!

God is so good for blessing me with the opportunity to watch my sweet pea get excited over the smallest things!

Sensory Saturday ~ Hearing

This weekend my in-laws came down and spent the night with us for a little Addy-loving, and of course some shopping :) As soon as they walked through the door Addyson and her aunt Kinsley got down on the floor and began doing what kids do best; play. Kinsley got out Addyson's butterfly rocker and started pressing all the buttons to make the songs play. Ryan commented that he didn't even know that toy made noise to which my MIL very wisely said "all kids toys make noise." And oh how true that is! Even the ones that don't come with a sound box make some kind of noise. But you don't have to own the newest high-tech, battery powered thing-a-ma-bop for your kiddo to enjoy making noise. As any parent will tell you, the best toys are the things that aren't actually toys.

So this week I let Addy-girl explore her sense of hearing with things that don't require two AA batteries!

Introducing THE best rattle ever! We've had this toy around our house for a while now, and it's always a favorite go-to for Addyson. I simply took an empty water bottle and filled it with a handful of rice.

She can literally shake, rattle, and roll this DIY toy. She loves to listen to the rice shaking inside, but even more she loves the sound it makes when she crunches the bottle between her little fingers. It also makes for a great drum stick which leads us to our next favorite noise maker...

The almighty tin can! You won't find a better drum for your little learner than a big 'ol tin can. My mom brought this one over after Christmas because she figured Addyson would think it was interesting, and boy was she right. Every morning when I set Addyson down to play the first thing she goes for is her tin can.

She can stand up at it and bang on the top all day long. If she ever gets bored with that, we use the handles to clang on the sides of the can. And sometime we take off the lid because every drum set needs a cymbal. She just loves to hear the different sounds that are made by hitting different parts of the can.

And yes I fully realize my child looks like pure white trash dressed like this, but it was just one of those days...

Then we have an actual musical instrument. A xylophone that she got in her stocking. Addy-girl is definitely at the stage where she likes to bang on everything, so this toy is just perfect for learning how to make beautiful sounds and hear the different tones.

Caught her by surprise! This is A's "deer in the headlights" look

And lastly we can't forget to keep those little ears stimulated while riding in the car. One of my best friends, Jessica York, gave Addyson this CD for Christmas. It is the sweetest little CD ever and is so special because they talk to Addyson and use her name in all the songs! I actually teared up listening to it for the first because I'm a mush-pot when it comes to my girl, haha.

God is so good for blessing us with ears to hear!

     

"But he said, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!'”

Luke 11:28

Sensory Saturday-Touch

I'm sure we've all heard our mom's tell us to not play with our food, right? Well now that I'm the mommy I'm changing the rules a little bit. Today I wanted to let Addy-girl get a little messy and use her sense of touch with some new textures, and food seemed like the perfect way to do that!

I started out by letting her feel something hard, rough, and crunchy. So she helped me crush up some corn flakes for dinner tonight!

She got it all banged out and then decided it was much more fun to drop it on the floor and let mommy pick it up.

Yes, it got old picking it up every time, but at least she's learning something new: cause and effect!

My action shot

Then came the spaghetti :)

I juiced a couple of oranges and then boiled the spaghetti in the orange juice and a little Gerber Tropical punch and water. I boiled it in the juices because I knew it would eventually end up in her mouth, so I wanted it to taste better than plain pasta. Plus I thought it might color the pasta orange, but that was a fail. {Next time I'll use raspberries or blueberries for some natural food coloring.}

Then we got to playing!

And eating...



She was able to feel the sliminess (is that a real word?) at the beginning, and then toward the end it got very, very sticky!

"It's so tasty too!"

God is so good for blessing us with hands that are able to feel, touch, and grasp the beautiful world around us!

9 Months Already!

Nine months already? Say it isn't so! Same as every other month I'm so sad to see my baby growing up, but completely loving getting to watch her learn new things every day! Here's what's changed for my girl this month:

Eating is going just great! She hasn't had a single allergic reaction to any new foods. -Praying I didn't just jinx myself- This month she's tried out grapes, spaghetti, crackers, bread, and cucumbers. Like always, she loved every bit of it! And I'm pretty sure she was fed a whole host of other things while my head was turned during the Christmas holidays that I'll never know about. Oh well, as long as she's healthy! She still nurses four times a day and eats three full meals with the big kids. She got her pincer grip going and now she loves to feed herself! She has even learned to pick up food she's dropped and put it back in her mouth. Mommy's little helper!

Grapes and oranges

Still teeny tiny in size. We don't go to the pedi until the 14th, but by my guesstimate she weighs 15.5 lbs and is about 28 inches long. She is wearing 6-9 month clothing, which is awesome because she had a whole new wardrobe just waiting for her to be able to fit into! Just this week we moved up to size 3 diapers.

The girl is on the move. She is a serious speed crawler now. She has figured out her way all around the house and is even testing out the stairs a little. Scary, scary. She pulls up and stands up on anything that will hold her weight. The past few week she has started taking steps from one place to the next, like the table to the couch. Walking is just around the corner!!!

Like every kid she loves to play with anything and everything. And I do mean anything...especially things that are not toys. Shoe strings, boxes, her socks- even with a bathtub full of toys she goes for the drain?! Crazy kid.

Still talking up a storm. She has been saying "ma ma ma ma ma" for a while, but now she's finally got it shortened to "ma ma". I know she doesn't associate those words with me just yet, but its still so fun to hear. Just this week she added "da da da da da" to her vocabulary. So I'm sure she's not far away from "da da". She'll also copy us and say "hi" or "hey" when we say it to her. Still working on the sign language and so far the only thing she can do is "bye bye", but of course she never does it when someone is actually leaving. Oh well, I still think she's brilliant :)

We have exactly 20 days until we are helmet free! Woo hoo!!! It's actually kind of bitter sweet though. I'm extremely happy to kiss my sweet girl's head again, and of course put bows on her, but that helmet has added a lot of extra security for my little explorer. She gets more and more brave every day and the helmet has definitely saved us from a few bumps on the noggin. It'll be interesting the first few days without it...

Sleep is still going great! She's in the middle of transitioning her three 30 minute naps during the day though. Sometimes she'll skip the morning and only do two afternoon naps, and sometimes she skips the third nap and just does the first two. Either way, I'm still getting a small break during the day and that's all I can ask for! She only wakes up once during the night, and she only cries for about 1-3 minutes, so I don't even have to go to her anymore. Yay for no more midnight trips up the stairs!

Sleeping Beauty

 



The time is going by waaaay too fast for this momma, but God is so good for blessing us with our beautiful, happy, and oh so lovable "big girl".

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful Addy Girl

If we didn't already know who the star of our house was now we have proof. Miss Addyson made the cover of the Parker County magazine; Your Family!

 

A few months ago the Weatherford Democrat ran an ad looking for babies to be in their county magazine for New Years. My mom called me and gave me the details that it was a free photo shoot and we would get to keep all of the photos, also free. We thought "why not"? I always love having new pictures of my sweet baby!

So my mom and I took her to the newspaper offices and lined her up for a photo session. We went back to their make-shift studio and got her primped. Primping included all of taking off the onesie and putting on a sash. Precious. We sat her on a table and got out our bag of tricks to get her smiling and laughing. But she wasn't having it. Addyson sat stone faced, staring at us like we were crazy people. Not amused. We snapped, crackled and popped our hands, mouths, and every toy in the diaper bag, but no luck.

Here's what most of the pictures turned out like

Finally I got out the one thing that will always put a smile on her face; a picture of her daddy. Worked like a charm! Miss priss lit up and gave us a smile. Unfortunately it wasn't one of her big gummy smiles that light up a room, but it was still a sweet little angelic smile. That one smile was all we needed.

We left that day thinking there's no way she'd be on the cover since she smiled for all of two seconds. But what do you know, the magazine came out in Sunday's paper and there on the front is the sweetest face I've ever seen!

New Year's Baby!

 

Here are a few of the other precious babies in the magazine

A couple quotes

God is so good for blessing us with a child, but we are abundantly blessed to have such a beautiful daughter. It's hard to not be boastful, but I truly think God gave us the prettiest little girl in the world!

 

"And let not your adornment be merely external-- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God."          1 Peter 3:3-4