Two weeks worth of... FAMILY!

another two week (or more) update.

Friday, July 4
We went to the fourth of July celebration that our church has every year. It was fun! Addison wasn’t sure what to think about the fireworks. Here is what she did during the fireworks: thought they were neat, then was surprised, then clapped for them, then bored and wiggly, then played with the people behind us, then thought they were funny, then tried to go to sleep, then played with Amanda sitting next to us, then watched them again.
Can’t remember right now what happened the next week. That’s no good for keeping tabs of Addison. At some point, I don’t have my calendar for the date, she started taking a few steps. She’ll only take 2-3 at a time; she’s more interested in talking.

One of my new favorite pictures of us. We are ready for the fireworks, like the firecracker bow I made her?

Saturday, July 12
Christopher’s birthday!! His friend from ACU, Neil Chadwick, got married so we went to Dallas for the wedding. I stayed with my Nana and Papa while Chris went to the wedding and stayed with some of his friends. We all had a good time. Nana and Papa really enjoyed getting to see and play with her! Several things she did with her great-grandparents: played in the pool (in her cloths, she decided to sit while we were taking pictures!), walked down to the creek, sat in the swing with Papa, laid in the hammock, played in pots and pans, took a bath in the BIG Jacuzzi tub (Nana really wanted a picture of this since I was the first grandchild to take a bath in that tub when I was 8 but I didn’t get one), played with all the toys, and last but not least threw up! That last one… awesome… I was worried since she had been on real formula for two weeks at that point and that is when Dr. Neff said she would start showing signs if she were still allergic. It went all over me and kept coming. The next day Addison must have decided that she left bad for throwing up all over me so she decided to grace Christopher with her “baby juice” while we were at Taco Bueno after church. So we went back to the Neutramgen.

Look at all those candles...

sweet picture of Papa and his first great granddaughter
this was right after she sat in the water, I love this face "what have I just done"

The next week when I went to work I had her checked again for the milk protein allergy... NEGATIVE. Those two were just coincidental throw ups! YEAH!!! So she has had a few new foods this past week that she loves: yogurt, ice cream (thanks Tony), shredded cheese, Gerber yogurt bites (these things are NASTY, but she LOVES them!).

Tuesday, July 15
Christopher’s parents and Mimi have a HUGE garden and we get to reap the benefits of the extra harvest. We had purple hole peas in our refrigerator for a week and finally decided to shell them. I usually don’t like Ranger games so I told Christopher that if he would help me shell the peas I would watch the game, not knowing at the time how long BOTH would last. We started watching the game in the 7th inning 2 ½ hours later both were still going, close to over, but going. Oh my, I didn’t realized how long it would take to shell all those peas. Of course, the competitiveness came out in me and Christopher and half way through we decided that we were going to measure our bowls at the end to see who shelled the most peas. He won, 9 cups to 8. We both had sore and purple fingers for a few days.
Wednesday, July 16
Addison and I left for Ft. Worth to stay with Melissa, Mary Beth joined us also so we had some sister / aunt and niece time! It was fun. We swam, went to Target, Olive Garden, the mall, went for a walk around the canal and Addison had the most fun playing with Melissa and Mary Beth on the air mattress. It was high enough that she could easily crawl up on the couches and then back down, she was all over the place! Helping Aunt Melissa do what she likes to do best, read magazines about famous people and as you can see by Mary's face in this picture she loved watching Addison play!

Thursday, July 17
We made a trip up to Callisburg to see Tony, Carol, Brad and Jacob Strickland. It was a fun trip! Tony had seen Addison before but Carol and the boys hadn’t. This family is so very special to me and I’m sad that I don’t get to see them as much since my parents are no longer in Callisburg so it was great to see them! The boys are so grown up. I hope Addison doesn’t grow up as fast as they did… I’ll put a picture on here later of Brad holding Addison. I met Brad when we was about to turn 6 and he used to sit in my lap and we would watch wrestling… now he just graduated from high school?

Friday, July 18
Mark had a horse show in Athens so on our way back home we stopped to see Uncle Mark! Addison says “dog” when she sees a dog, so she said “dog” when she saw a horse. It was funny. At first she wasn’t sure what to think about them and didn’t want to pet them, then once Melissa got her to touch one of their faces she just wanted to pet them. Later Mark was sitting on one and we put Addison up there with him and she LOVED it! She would lean forward and touch the mane and try to grab the reins too. We took her down and she did not like that. She literally was trying to climb up the gate to get back up there with Mark. He had so much fun with her! I got some really great pictures of that! There is one picture in particular that I know that my dad is going to LOVE, she is on the horse by herself, with Mark holding her, and she has perfect riding position, its great!

getting some love from Uncle Mark

Figuring out the reins! It was a tough, notice the sideways bow!

I think she's got it (love her curly hair in this one!)

sitting on the gate, wishing she was riding instead of watching

Told you she naturally had perfect form! I know my dad is so proud!

I'm pretty sure that only my family will get this. Title for this picture is ...

"She's coming... and she's standing in the saddle!"

Saturday, July 19
Russ’s Birthday. Kallen and Kelsey came in so Saturday morning Christopher and Kallen went to play golf and then we all went to Elysian Fields. We had fun playing Wii and just watching Addison play. It was a good end to the week. Addison got to see ALL her aunts and uncles within a 4 day span, that’s impressive. Russ enjoyed his birthday, I think. Kallen and Kelsey got him a new bible, large print. I asked him if that’s what he needed since he’s getting so old… he just gave me a funny look. Hey, I thought it was funny! I’ll have to take a picture of what I have him to put on here. I think that it turned out really good. It was a picture thing of Addison, Christopher, him, Mimi and Great-Granddad. We drove to Austin to take these pictures when Addison was just 5 weeks old since we were sure how much longer Great-Granddad would live, I can’t remember the date but I think that he died less than a month later. We are so glad to have those 5 generation pictures. Those are memories and pictures that you can never get back, so I wanted to make sure that Russ had something with those in there since his grandparents we so special to him.

Okay, I think that’s long enough for now. I’ll update this post with pictures later.