Go Colts!

Adele just told the Saints to "go bye-bye"...totally unprompted!

"Two" Big!

Adele turned two last Friday and we've been celebrating ever since!

She is completely into showing us just how "big" she is!

She has learned to:
Open the refrigerator door...
Take the milk jug out of the refrigerator...
Open the milk...
And sometimes get some milk into her mouth!

She also has figured out how to...

Climb through the rails on the banister on the stairs, therefore bypassing the baby gate...

She also sleeps in a big girl bed, and has figured out that at naptime (and sometimes bedtime) it is more fun to:
Open all of her dresser drawers...
Put clothes on and take them off all by herself...
And remove her diaper...
She can't put a diaper back on by herself yet, but she sure can make a mess with a dirty one!

She also learned how to get out of her bedroom even though she can't quite reach the doorknob.

I went to the store and bought some doorknob covers. I laughed when I read the instructions and they said something like, "Remove from door once child has learned to defeat the product." Not quite 24 hours later, Adele somehow learned how to defeat the doorknob cover. She's only done that once, so I left them on for now...

It seems that our big two-year-old is a little too big for her own good...but we wouldn't have her any other way! And so far, except for a few messes, she hasn't caused any real damage-especially to herself, so I guess we just have to be sure to keep an eye on her at ALL times!

Adele-isms

Several years ago, a parent of one of my students introduced the term “Gropp-isms”-terms that her son brought home from school from my classroom. My favorite was that I apparently said (during one of MJ’s scandals, no doubt), “Michael Jackson is not appropriate in second grade” or something-what I’d meant was that it was not okay to sing MJ songs and grab your crotch while in line, but somehow, weeks later when MJ came up at said boy’s dinner table, he made sure to announce that Mrs. Gropp said that he (Michael Jackson) was not an appropriate topic of conversation. As much as I’d like to sit here and embarrass myself about the silly things I’ve said as a teacher, this blog is about Adele, so I think I’ll change gears and share some recent “Adele-isms”

She has recently started talking quite a bit. It’s tough for most people to understand her, the kindergarten teacher in me is recognizing that she drops initial consonants, especially s’s, can’t pronounce k’s, etc, but mostly, it’s just cute listening to her talk! Here are some Adele-isms, and their translations:

A-na Tate! (With a long A!) Anna Kate-she ALWAYS says it with enthusiasm!
Ah-et (Target)
Ninner (Dinner, or lunch, or breakfast for that matter)
Aah None (All done)
Tay Here (stay here- a new favorite at bedtime!)
Del tome (Adele wants to come too)
A-leh-lah (Cinderella)
Laless (Princess)
Bapa (Grandpa)
Momo (Gizmo, memaw and bapa’s dog)
Doh (go)
Per Less! (Polar Express)
Too too (Train, choo choo)
Atch (watch)
Aah ah-lat (or something like that: Hot chocolate)
Ah-lat Milt (Chocolate milk)
Ah-ee (sorry-usually followed with “Mommy”)
Del (Adele)
Bow (Bowl)
Ee Tartul (Be careful)
Poon (Spoon)
I-no (I don’t know-an immediate response to EVERYTHING!)
Baper (diaper)
Boppy-(still working on this one, sometimes it means Barbie, sometimes happy,
sometimes, ???)
Mer (More)

I'm sure there are plenty 'mer' but I can't think of them right now, so I'll just have to add them later.

Ringing in the New Year at the Children's Museum!

We decided to try out the Children's Museum today. I figured it would either be extremely busy, or nearly empty. As it turns out, we were lucky, the crowds were pretty small, which meant Adele could really have space to explore!

We took her last winter, too, and it's amazing how different she is in just one year!

This time she was VERY interested in the trains (Polar Express is one of her favorite movies right now-we watch it at least once a day, it seems!)





Braving the "Yule Slide" with Daddy:



Carousel:

Playing with Memaw:

In the Mirror Maze:



Checking out the cutie in the mirror:

Water table in Playscapes:

She could pedal this with her hands all by herself (and could go forward and backward)!

Taking a little rest:

Indy Car Driver Adele:

She loved looking at the Barbie dolls, but was absolutely the cutest while acting as a receptionist:

Wrestling a 'gator in Egypt:

In Other News...

This morning was our 20 week ultrasound. It looks like Miss Adele will be having a baby sister! Miss Anna Kate looks healthy and strong. She was a little bit stubborn, and it took a while to determine that she is, indeed a girl, but I already had that mostly figured out after the antics she pulled earlier this week!

I've been having contractions for about 2 weeks now, and on Monday they spaced out at just about 3 minutes apart! I didn't feel like I was in labor, but they were definitely more painful than braxton hicks-to me they felt just like the ones I had when I first realized I was in labor with Adele. I called the doctor, and she sent me in to the hospital. Of course, once I got there, the contractions pretty much stopped (I had been cleaning at home, versus laying down on a bed in the hospital). They sent me home after about 45 minutes, but I was put on full bedrest until my appointment today. Even after following doctor's orders all day yesterday (I didn't do quite so well on Tuesday) I had 13 contractions between 5:30PM and 11 last night...and that doesn't count any that I had during the day, before I started counting.

Fortunately, the doctor today doesn't think that the contractions are actually "doing" anything, so I'm off of bedrest (thank goodness!) but she said that this is my "new normal"...so, I guess I can expect them to continue all the way until May-yikes! Daddy says that I have the pain tolerance of a mosquito-I don't know about that, but I do know that 4 more months of contractions (even if they're not all that painful) doesn't sound very exciting to me! I AM excited to be able to play with Adele again-just 2 days on the couch (with Memaw and Bapa here to entertain her!) was miserable! I just love my little girl too much to stay on the couch!

Christmas, 2009

Better late than never, right?
Posing for Daddy:

Wearing last year's Santa hat (it's a bit snug!):

Helping Grandma hang ornaments on her Advent Calendar:

Here she is in front of the snowman she built with Daddy (using almost ALL of the snow in the yard!):


Presents!

in LaPorte, Adele scored a new kitchen from Grandma and Bapa, pans and a magnadoodle from Tim, Laura and James, and a glow worm and NEW CLOTHES! (such a girly girl...) from Greg and Missy. (Thanks to those new clothes, she can now say Uncle Greg and Missy's names!) Here she is laying on her new kitchen...she couldn't wait to get it out of the box!

Decorating cookies with Grandma and Bapa (We did things a little bit backwards since we visited LaPorte before Christmas this year...)


Looks like Adele was a good girl this year...Santa thought so, at least!


Coming down the stairs on Christmas morning! She looked over and said, "Adele's car!"-it was TOO cute!

She didn't even wait to move the other presents out of the way!

Showing off her new kitchen:


Since we were on break, and since Adele climbed/fell out of her crib on the Thursday before vacation, we decided that it was a good time to switch her to her toddler bed. She spent one night in it before we headed up to LaPorte to celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Bapa. Then, in LaPorte, her whole schedule got off. She ended up napping in her crib when we got back to Indy, but on Christmas day, we tried the big girl bed again. She initially played in her room, but after a few minutes, it got quiet. I went upstairs, and this is what I found:

Playing in the snow on the deck:

MORE presents with Memaw and Bapa!

Potty Training, take two...or three...or...something!

Adele was doing pretty well with potty training this fall, then in November we all had a terrible stomach bug. It lasted 8 days (as opposed to 24 hours) in Adele, which pretty much put a damper on her potty training. Then we had DeeDee's wedding, and we were actually GLAD not to worry about potty training during that whirlwind weekend!

Since then, Adele just hadn't shown much interest in potty training. That was fine, after all, she's not even two yet, but tonight she POOPED IN THE POTTY! She was rewarded with a sucker (way better than a jelly bean!) and got to call Memaw to brag.

Now isn't that Just what you wanted to read about when you checked in on my blog?

In other news, she LOVES "little bean" and last night shoved her face into my belly, "kissing" it for several minutes after brushing her teeth. Tonight she tried to feed "little bean" some of her water (right through my belly button, of course!) but she won't help us come up with a name...argh!

We find out if it's a boy bean or a girl bean on New Year's Eve, so hopefully the name game will be easier after that! For right now, all I care about is finding out what to do with the closet full of Adele's clothes that no longer fit...do I sell them or wash them, fold them and put them in a dresser??? It's driving me especially crazy, because I've been "nesting" (or maybe "purging" is more like it) lately. I can't believe that I have an entire closet of clothes that no longer fit a toddler!!! And easily over half of what she wore her first year of life was borrowed (and is already returned) so WHERE did all of those clothes come from??? (Memaw?)