Mini vacay

Last weekend, we had a little miniature get away. I wish I was having another one this weekend. My mom, sister and the kids and I all went to Kansas City to see Whitney and have some family bonding time.

We crammed three adults and two car seats into Brooke's new SUV and left Friday around 6:30pm. It was raining and storming the whole way there. Which I loved, except a few times when it was raining so hard that we couldn't see. But Brooke did great at driving and I got to relax in the passenger seat while Nana entertained the kiddos in the back.

We went to sleep not long after we got there. It took longer than we planned since we were slowed down by rain and construction a few times and we were worn out. But we woke up bright and early the next morning. Mom watched the kids while Whitney and I went to a few thrift stores. I don't think Whitney had QUITE as fun of a time as I did, but I was in heaven! Love thrift shopping!! I found 2 shirts for myself and 7 or 8 dresses for Tessa that were in perfect condition. It's the challenge of the hunt that I love!

After we got home, we all got around and headed to the zoo. I was so excited because it was the first time Tommy would be old enough to know what was going on and it was Tessa's first time at all at the zoo. They both loved it!

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Tessa's face in this picture?

 

I wasn't super impressed by the zoo. It was REEEEAAALLLY big, but the animals were so spread out. We spent five hours there and really didn't get to see that much because you had to walk so far to get to each animal. But they also had a train and carousel. Tommy loved both of them and Tessa had fun, but wasn't too sure about the carousel.

 

I think we rode it no less than 6 times. I was starting to get a little dizzy :) But it's so fun watching my kids experience new things. I feel like as an adult, the wonder of the little things in life has really started to wear off. And now I get to watch them enjoy it and it feels new again!

Just a few random shots from the day........

After we trudged the 2 miles uphill back to the car, we dropped Nana and the kids off at Whitney's and us girls headed out for dinner and a movie.

I cheated on my diet with a delicious chimichanga smothered in jalapeno cream cheese sauce. And LOTS of chips and salsa. And it was worth the two pounds I gained (and lost again!). Then we went to the most awesome theater to see We're the Millers. Which is hilariously inappropriate. Do not take anyone under 18. But SO funny. The theater was really beautiful. And the bathrooms were awesome--each toilet stall had it's own sink and hand dryer and was huge. Then at each theater, you had a table in front of your seats and you could order throughout the movie. We had the most delicious popcorn. Loved the whole evening!

 


We got home and the kids were asleep, so us girls just stayed up and talked and laughed. It was perfectly perfect.

The next morning, we slept in a little and then went and got breakfast. We left after we ate to go shopping again. Mom found a little area with a bunch of animated rides. The kids loved it and could have stayed there all day.

But I was SO ready to get home and see Nick and lounge around for awhile. Does anyone else feel like they need a vacation to relax after their vacation?

It was an awesome weekend with one of our favorite ladies. Thanks for hosting us, Whit!

Tessa-14 months

Oops. I missed 13 months. I don't know if I have the time or energy to do this every month any more! My little girl is growing so fast and keeping me quite busy!

At 13 months, you:

*got your first ear infection. I had scheduled an appointment for Tommy because he was acting sick and figured I'd have you seen because you bound to get what he had. You weren't even acting sick. But the doctor looked in your left ear for about 5 seconds and declared you had one of the worst ear infections he's ever seen and he couldn't believe you were up and moving around and smiling. Poor baby.

*are weighing around 22 lbs and are about 29 1/2 inches. You're getting really tall!!

*are still bow-legged. It's especially clear since we've been putting you in leggings.

*are saying quite a few words--dog (goguh!), yuck (guck), mama, dada, nana, bubba, bath (bah!), uh-oh, uh-uh (like saying no when asked if you want to do something).

*are getting feisty. SO feisty. Your attitude is hilariously un-intimidating. When you get mad, you ball your little fist up and hit whatever's closest to you, all while maintaining eye contact with whoever you're mad at. We're trying to discipline you when you do that, but it's so funny that I usually have to walk away so you don't see me laughing.

*get SO sullen in your car seat. It's the weirdest thing. You'll be giggly and laughing and then we put you in your car seat and we get this........

*are in size 5 shoes. Big feet! You wear mostly size 18 month clothes. You can still fit in some 12 month pants, but they're pretty short on you :)

*getting a little pickier about what you eat. You still love green beans, corn, bread and macaroni, but you used to eat anything and everything. Now you're becoming more conscious of the texture of things and have been spitting out a lot of meat.

*climbing the stairs like a pro. I'm not confident enough yet to let you do it without someone behind you, but you do really good!

*getting long, curly hair. I LOVE it! Although it's kind of hard to maintain because it gets super crazy sometimes! We've been doing lots of pigtails!!

*can point to your ears, nose, mouth, eyes, hands, feet, fingers, toes and hair when asked! Smart girl!

*are able to find stuff we ask you about in books. You have a picture book and can find almost everything we say--the truck, shoes, dog, cat, etc. You get really quiet and serious while you're searching for it.

*getting more cuddly. You haven't always been into snuggling or hugging, but now you've started giving really big open mouth kisses (sometimes with tongue--ew) and you hug tight around our necks. It's the best feeling ever!

*are becoming more of a daddy's girl. You are usually VERY attached to mommy, but lately you've realized that Daddy takes you outside more and lets you do lots of fun stuff, so you've started branching out a bit :) He let you "drive" to the pond the other day and you were SO happy about that.

*still obsessed with shoes. I finally moved your shoes baskets out of the cabinet in your room to the very top of the shelves so you can't reach them. It looks a little messier, but you were dumping out the whole bucket (and Tommy's too) at LEAST 4 times a day to play in them. It was driving me NUTS!

*have become quite the cheeser. You know what the camera is now and I get this face a lot....

*are still a great sleeper. You go to bed between 9 and 9:30pm and sleep through the night until 7:30am. You would sleep later if it wasn't for your brother (and DO sleep late when he's gone!). Love it, love it, LOVE it!

*have a weird obsession with your brother's underwear. I know you just see him wearing it and want to do what he's doing, but whenever he takes them off or leaves a pair out, you grab them and try to put them on or carry them around with you through the house. Okay when they're clean.....disgusting when they're not. I finally put a pair on over your diaper the other day and you thought you were SUCH a big girl!

Tessa, you're a silly, sweet, funny, ornery, spunky, spicy little girl that we love to death! I can't wait to see your "little" personality develop even more over the next year!



BIG personality

As an "almost 3 year old", Tommy is coming into his own. His little personality has become a lot bigger (so has his mouth!). He's at a really hilarious stage right now that either has us laughing or fuming at any given point in the day.

*He's potty trained now (Praise God!!) and while that's awesome, it's also led to a lot of nakedness. The other day, he ran into the bedroom like this.......

That's the monkey that Brooke and Michael got him from Jamaica. Silly boy :)

*If he does something that bothers or hurts one of us, I'll say, "Ouch, that hurt mommy." And he says, "Ha! Sorry 'bout dat."

*I bought a book at a garage sale called Strawberry Freckleface Plays Dodgeball. He wants to read it every night. There's a part in there where she pretends she's a monster and says, "Roooooaaarr!! I'm a monster and I don't care!" Now he says that allllllll the time. Except he says he's a lion or a doggy or a chicken and HE DOESN'T CARE!! It's usually when he's getting in trouble too.

*whenever he pees or poops in the potty, he gets a little treat. As soon as he's done, he jumps off the potty and says (imagine this being said in an announcer's voice), "I get some NAAAAAANDY!!!!" and runs as fast as he can to the kitchen.

*When I'm taking a picture and tell him to smile, this is what he does.........

*His attitude has been really bad lately. Like, he's pretty good most of the day, but when he's bad.....he's BAD. VERY mouthy. So we're working on it, but these are a few of the phrases he throws out on a regular basis when he's in trouble:

"This is MY house and I not gonna to listen."

"No I NOT sitting in time out till you say I come out. No. I. NOT!"

"You are mean, Mommy!"--to this, I ask him if he wants to go live with another mommy since he thinks I'm so mean. Then his story changes to, "No! Udder mommies is mean!! You are NOT mean. I don't want to live wif udder mommies!" Yeah. That's what I thought.

"I don't LIKE to say sorry! I don't WANT to."

"Grrrrr! I am a lion and I. don't. CARE!"--I kind of want to rip up the Freckleface Strawberry book

*He's starting to want to pick out his clothes. I've got him trained to an extent...if I try to put on his gray and orange tennis shoes but there's no orange in his shirt, he says, "Hey! This doesn't match!" So funny. Nick's not too thrilled ;) But then he also likes to just wear whatever he likes at the moment....

*When I ask him to stop doing something, if he says he wasn't doing it and I say, "Yes, you were!", he says with 100% conviction in his voice, "No I amen't!" instead of "No I'm not." Makes me laugh every time.

*When he's NOT getting in trouble, he's very sweet. Lately, he's been running up to me, throwing his skinny little arms around my neck and saying, "You're the best mommy EVER!" He'll also randomly say, "I love you, mommy, sissy, daddy!"

*He's insisting on being a chicken for Halloween. I keep asking him what he wants to be, hoping he'll pick something that every store in Wichita sells off the shelf, but I have yet to get him to change his mind and couldn't find a dang chicken costume ANYWHERE!! So I broke down and ordered one off e-bay. He'll be the cutest chicken ever!

Love you Tom-Tom!! You're the sweetest, orneriest, funniest little guy I know!

Table Rock on steroids

I'm having a hard time getting motivated to blog lately. Not because I don't have anything to write about. More because I have so MUCH to write about, but no time to do it! The first week of September was insane. It was like our trip to Table Rock, but on steroids.

*Disclaimer--this is really long and mostly documentation for my memory's sake!*

We had Monday, September 2nd off of work because of the holiday, so I was all set for it to be a nice, relaxing week. Wrong. Tommy was kind of sniffly and puny all day Monday. He wasn't acting much better Tuesday, so I called his PCP and asked for amoxicillin and luckily, they called it in without an appointment. We gave that Tuesday night. He was acting a little better on Wednesday, so I dropped him off at Brooke's with some Tylenol and a kiss. I called a few times during the morning and she said he was being super quiet and clingy and whiny. I took my lunch and hoped he would feel better. And then she called and said he was throwing up. Gross.

**Sidenote-- Funny story that I didn't find out until a week later. Tommy was sleeping and then started yelling for Brooke because he threw up. When Brooke ran in to see what was wrong, she left some chip dip on the couch.........yeah. Bad idea. She said she came out to the living room and Tessa had a handful of dip and was shoveling in her mouth as fast as she could!! I about died laughing when I heard that. I can just see her spooning it in with her hands and watching for Aunt Brooke to come back! So funny!**

Anywho, we were short staffed at work, so I couldn't leave. Nick took off work to go pick the kids up. I got home around 6:00pm and Tommy was just laying around and cuddling and watching Mickey Mouse. I don't think he moved from his spot the whole night. He slept really good and was much more enthusiastic the next morning, so he went back to Brooke's. That was Thursday. The rest of Thursday passed without incident.

And then there was Friday.......oh Friday. Friday, Friday, Friday. FRRRRIIIIIIDAAAAYYY!!!!!!! Okay, enough of that. But really, it was a horrible day.

First, I had taken the morning off so I could take Tessa to the oral surgeon. Her PCP was concerned about her lip tie, so we scheduled this appointment to get it checked out. I was going to have Tommy stay the night at Brooke's Thursday night so I wouldn't have to take him too, but she ended up working really late. So all three of us headed off to the appointment the next morning. They were being pretty good, so I crossed my fingers and prayed for angelic children during the whole appointment. After waiting for about 20 minutes in the waiting room, I was about to go nuts. They had automatic doors there. Enough said. The kids thought it was awesome, but I'm pretty sure me and everyone in the waiting room was super annoyed by the 900th time they set it off. Then we went back to the room and it got worse. They had O2 hook-ups coming out of the wall and Tommy kept hitting the tubes. They also had a button on the floor you could push with your foot that moved the chair up and down. Yeah. And some GENIUS put a phone at my knee height, so Tessa's head height. Why?!? Who would do that in a room where children go?!? I had put Tommy in time out for hitting and he was screaming at the top of his lungs that I was MEAN. I would put him in the chair and then have to run over to pull Tessa off the phone, then run back to put him back in the time out chair. I was over it. And then the doctor came in. He lifted her lip, confirmed she does indeed have a lip tie and said they usually don't treat it until they're old enough to need braces. So if it's still a concern, we can come back then. Really? REALLY?! When you saw she was ONE and coming in for a lip tie, why didn't you save me the 1 1/2 hours and the drive in and the time off work and tell me that on the phone? SO annoying. So I drove the kids back to Towanda and then drove BACK to Wichita. I got there at about 11:30am.

At around 12:30pm, Brooke called me at work and as soon as she started talking, I started packing up my stuff. I could hear in her tone that she was panicking before I could even comprehend what she was saying. I heard, "table fell on his head"....."blood"....."I don't think his nose is broken"........and I was gone. She has a big, tall pub style table and him and his friend had decided (in his words, after we left the ER), "Aunt Dook don't have a swing, so we swinged on dah table." They were hanging onto the edge and before she could even tell them to let go, the table fell over on them. She wasn't sure if he needed to go to the ER or not, so I called my mom and had her head over there. Thank God for his timing because Brooke's mother-in-law showed up right after everything happened. Between the three of them, they decided he definitely needed to go to the ER. I tried to get there as fast as I could, but stupidly took Kellogg. They had construction, so it was down to one lane. My blood was BOILING by the time I got through it and I miiiiiiiight have said the 'f'' word  once  twice  a few times. I was dying because my baby was going to be at the ER without me. I called Nick on the way and he was meeting us there.

When I FINALLY got to the Andover ER, my mom and Brooke's mother in law had Tommy inside already. When I saw him, I was SO glad we had brought him in.

The gash on his head was pretty deep and bleeding a LOT. His whole shirt was covered in blood. I can see why Brooke was panicked! The doctor came in pretty quickly and decided to just use glue so we didn't have to put him through the trauma of stitches. I was grateful for that. He perked up quickly and was already reaking havoc on the exam room by the time we were ready to leave. We took him to Micky's Frozen Yogurt in Andover so he could get some ice cream for being so brave. He picked chocolate with chocolate chips, chocolate candy bar stuff and chocolate syrup :) He is his father's child.

We finally got home around 4:30pm. It was Nick and I's anniversary, so we debated for awhile whether we should still go out. We finally decided to have my mom watch the kids at our house so we could still go out, but be with them through the night in case Tommy had any problems. Right before we got ready to leave, Tessa started running a fever. Being the good mom I am, I doped her up with ibuprofen and we got the heck out of Dodge. I felt a tiny bit guilty, but at that point, we were ready for a break from the ridiculously crazy week we'd had. We had a great dinner and saw a hilarious movie. The kids were both sleeping when we got home. They woke up the next morning in good moods and no fevers.

Then Sunday came. We went to church, but as soon as we got home, I realized Tommy felt pretty hot. Like, REALLY hot. His fever was 101. We kept giving Tylenol and ibuprofen and the fever stayed under control. He went to bed doing okay, but woke up screaming at the top of his lungs around 3am. I went to check on him and he asked for a drink. When I gave it to him, he took the tiniest sip and started crying and saying it hurt. I looked in his mouth, but couldn't see anything, so assumed he was just tired, so I got him back to sleep. The next morning, the same thing happened. One drink of water and he was flipping out. I looked in his mouth again and it was covered in red bumps and blisters. Saddest thing ever. He couldn't even hardly eat a popsicle. I took him to Brooke's because we had both missed a lot of work. I was hoping Tylenol would help, but every time I called to check on him, she said he still wasn't eating or drinking. Nick took off again (thanks honey!) and took him to the doctor. They gave him a steroid, a new antibiotic and Tylenol with codeine. We started all the meds Monday night and it was like we had a new kid. I was SO thankful we had gone ahead with an appointment. The poor kid was miserable.

The blisters stayed for a few days, but didn't seem to bother him after the first day. It was truly an answer to prayer. I was so worried about the little guy. Praise God, since then we've managed to stay fairly health and avoid any major catastrophes. I try to thank God constantly  now for our health and protection. Even when my kids have lots of hard stuff going on, I know someone else has it harder and that's a true motivation to try, Try, TRY to be grateful for every circumstance in life!

THAT girl

Sometimes, things happen in life so repeatedly that we start to have a false sense of reality. I am very, VERY guilty of that. If something happens more than once, I start to think, "Of course! That's the story of my life--why WOULDN'T that happen today?"

At work, it seems like we go days without any problems and then all the sudden, every patient shows up 20 minutes late. And it happens like that for 4-5 days at a time. And in those 4-5 days, I get so annoyed and frustrated and it starts to become my reality that other people have no respect for OUR time because they show up late, causing US to run late and I get mad. Because that's just what happens in my life.

Or my kids are angels a few days in a row and I make good snacks and think of fun things to do and we live in pinterest-world and I think I'm mom of the year. And then the next week goes horribly (think Table Rock) and I forget about the good week and live in the reality that I'm a bad mom and my kids are going to grow up to be snotty and rude teenagers because I have no idea how to discipline them, lose my temper more than I should and canNOT get my son to poop in the toilet!!! Because that's just what happens in my life.

Or Nick and I have a week full of long evenings together after the kids sleep and a date night that has great conversation and then we have loooots of dessert (you know what I'm sayin when I say "dessert"..............uh, brownies, of course!! Get your mind outta the gutter!). But then the next week he's on third shift and we hardly get to see each other and I start feeling distant and like we haven't spoken in a week and it becomes my reality that we're fighting over nothing and both so sleep deprived that we're a little delirious. Because that's JUST what happens in MY life!!

But I read a book recently called Unglued. And it's really made me stop and think about the thought process of, "That's just my luck" or "Yup, I'm that girl that annoying stuff always happens to." Why claim that for myself? Out of our mouth comes the overflow of our hearts. And my heart sometimes lives in some very false realities. When I pronounce that over myself-- 'of course every patient is going to be late and rude today' or 'my kids are crazy because I'm just that crazy mom that can't control them' or 'my husband must not be in love with me anymore because we're not making out every second of every day'--I'm just asking to set myself up to fail.

And I'm tired of doing that. It is my goal and mission to start proclaiming God's word over my life instead of letting little thoughts that Satan plants in my mind become the truth that I live by! I don't want to be THAT girl that always blames luck for the things that happen in my life. I challenge you to do the same!!



 

Catching up

So, it's been awhile. A long while. Whoops. For some reason, I feel guilty about not blogging. I don't know who exactly it is I feel responsible to, but I feel like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing when I'm not blogging. But it felt good to not worry about it for a few weeks too!

This is all random, so try to follow along, mmkay?

1) One of my best friends had a baby. And he's SO cute!! I spent a weekend waiting for that stubborn little man to come out. But it was worth every  minute! He's the most handsome little boy with the cutest little face!

2) It's finally "facebook official" so I'm proud to announce my other best friend is pregnant! 16 weeks already. She found out right before Father's Day. And I knew just by looking at her. Literally. We work together, so there's no way she was keeping that a secret for long :) I can't wait to meet her little lady (I'm convinced it's a girl, although there's no proof yet). She finds out September 19th and I'm trying to convince her to fake a health problem so she can get a sono a little sooner, but she's not going for it. Whatev. I guess we'll have to wait until September 19th to start shopping for that little baby!!

3) Tessa had her one year check up and it went pretty well except a few things. Which I would LOVE to have prayers for :) The doctor saw her walking and commented that she's pretty bow legged. Which I had noticed, but didn't think much of. It's not a huge deal at all and he wasn't like....SUPER concerned, but he said we need to keep an eye on it. It's not just that her legs bow out when she walks, but her femurs seem to be growing a little curved. He said if it's not correcting soon, we will need to "have a look at it again." So prayers that they straighten out! Also, she has a lip tie. The side effects of that aren't anything drastic, but it can cause tooth decay, language delay and is currently causing a huge gap in her teeth that won't grow together until the lip tie is fixed. He looked at it at the appointment and said to go see a dentist in the next few months, but then he called me on my cell phone after I left his office and said he'd done a little research and felt like we needed to get it taken care of pretty quick. So we're going to an oral surgeon on September 6th for a consult. The surgery to correct it is super easy, but they have to sedate her, so that makes me a little nervous. I know, I know.....tons of kids get sedated every day and I know nothing will go wrong. I just don't like thinking about it. But we'll know more details after the 6th.

4) Tommy is (mostly) potty-trained!!! I was off work for 3 days in August while Brooke and Michael went to Jamaica (lucky ducks) and we stayed in the house for three days until he started pottying in the big boy potty! He still won't go number 2 in the big boy potty, so if anyone has any tips on that, PLEASE feel free to share! But he tells us when he has to pee and hasn't had ANY accidents during nap or bed time. We're loving not buying diapers!

5) Nick and I are going to be celebrating our 5th anniversary on September 6th! I can't believe it's been 5 years already and I can't believe it's only been 5 years. Sometimes it seems like the time has flown and others it seems like we've been "us" forever. So lucky to be married to him :) And I love that anniversaries are good excuses for date nights!

6) I'm working on eating healthier. I started last Sunday and have lost 4lbs! I know it's so worth it to not eat junk, but man it's hard!! I've been praying for God to make me hate sweets! So far, He hasn't changed that about me, but I trust it will happen soon!

7) I've had the shopping bug lately. I just went through Tessa's clothes and let's just say she's set for winter. I think she has a different outfit to wear everyday for two months. Literally. But everything I buy is Goodwill, garage sales or something somebody has given us and it's all so cute!! I can't wait for her to start wearing them all!

So lots of stuff happening lately! Of course as soon as I start to write about how  busy I am, I can't think of one thing I've done in the last three weeks! But trust me when I say we haven't had very many spare moments. I'm aiming to do better about writing consistently so I don't forget the best days of my life!

At one year old....

Tessa Grace,

At one year old, you are:

*22 lbs

*30 inches tall

*in a size 3 diaper (I think we're reaaaally close to size 4)

*wearing a size 5 shoe (big feet!)

*in mostly 12-18 month stuff. You can still fit some brands of 12 month stuff, but not much

*OFF OF FORMULA!! Woo-hoo!! Daddy is super happy about that. He hasn't had to buy any in about a month.

*done with bottles!! Another woo-hoo!! I was really worried about that transition because you seemed super attached to your bottle. But we started giving you a sippy full of milk every night before bed and you have done just fine.

*ALSO done with your paci!! That happened on accident on 7/29/13--just a few days after your first birthday. I forgot to give you a paci to take to Aunt Brooke's, but she said you went to sleep okay without it. So we decided to stop from then on. And you did AWESOME!! I was also worried about taking that away, but in usual Tessa fashion, you did great! You haven't been any fussier and you're still sleeping fine.

*a momma's girl. You love to do what I'm doing, when I'm doing it. You got a plastic make up kit for your birthday and you like to play with it while mommy does hers every morning. You like to be right at my heels while I'm cooking. When I leave your sight, you cry and cry like I'm never coming back. But I always do :)

*getting so independent! You are going up stairs very well by yourself. Unfortunately, you're just dying to go down them by yourself, but you're not so good at that yet. Daddy had you and Tommy outside last week and he went into the chicken coop to get eggs and when he turned around, you had climbed the ladder on the swingset and were getting ready to go down the slide. Talk about a heart attack!! That's like, 8 feet off the ground! You're too brave for your own good!

*falling asleep in your crib by yourself and sleeping through the night. I was falling asleep with you because at the time I enjoyed it and you fell asleep very quickly. In the last few months, however, you started wanting to play or touch my face or watch TV instead of going to sleep. We were both getting frustrated because the process was taking about an hour every night. So we finally started putting you in your crib and letting you cry it out. We realized quickly we should have done that in the beginning because the first night, you cried for about 10 minutes, then 2nd night it took about 5 minutes and then you haven't cried since then. You're the easiest baby ever!!

*in love with drinking out of a water bottle! You always find them in the house and bring them to me and grunt until I open it and give you a drink. And you think you're pretty hot stuff when you do it!

* not eating near as much as  you used to. You used to be a bottomless pit. Now you're getting a little ore picky. You eat less and not quite as much of a variety. But you're still a pretty good eater overall!

*super into clothes and shoes. I love it! The other day, you carried one of your shoes to me and grunted and then sat down on the ground and stuck your foot up. I put your shoe on and you took it off a few minutes later. Then you wanted it back on AGAIN. I told you I wasn't going to put them on and off and on and off. And you picked your shoe up, grunted and launched it at my head. Nice. I can see we're going to have some interesting shopping trips in the future :)

*still kind of a tomboy, even though you like girly stuff. You're always in dirt, riding the 4 wheeler, running around naked or digging in the trash. You have no problem being dirty!

*saying a few words. Your favorite is to yell, "MAMA!!" You also say bubba, dada and you say baba, but it means drink. Whenever you're thirsty, you say baba over and over until we get you a drink!

*napping usually once a day, from around 2pm to 4 or 5pm. As long as it stays quiet, you're good for at least a few hours.

*SO ornery! I've been catching you more and more trying to get your brother in trouble. He won't even touch you and you start screaming like you're in so much pain, when in reality, all he did is take his toy back or look at you the wrong way :) You also like to grab things you know you shouldn't have and run away as fast as you can. You LOOOOOVE that game.

*a heartbreaker. Mommy and Daddy are head over heels for you, little girl! So is your bubba. You have us all wrapped around your fingers. When you cry, it's just so stinkin sad! And when you laugh, it's the cutest thing. I'm not gonna lie--disciplining you is hard :)

*giving really big, really wet, open-mouth kisses! It's kind of hilarious and kind of disgusting. But you give those kisses everything you've got!!

*really sensitive. When you're doing something naughty, all I have to do is give you a look and you hang your head and start tearing up (which also adds to making it difficult to discipline you!). You get very upset and your feelings are hurt. You getting in trouble is harder on me than it is on you!

So glad we made it through the first year, sweet girl! We love you!