Funny Adele

My girl Adele is FUNNY. She makes us laugh a lot. The phrases she comes up with, the questions she asks...we spend a lot of time laughing.

I wish I could remember everything she says, or I wish I constantly carried around a pen an paper to record everything. Here are some fairly recent ones that I remembered to take note of:

~One day Adele started singing "Farmer and Henry, Farmer and Henry, hi-ho the derry-o, Farmer and Henry." I questioned her on it and thought about it for a second until I realized she apparently usually sings "The Farmer and Adele..." etc. (instead of Farmer in the dell...)

~Along the same lines, she finally started figuring out that same song better. So we thought. Last night she sang "The farmer takes the cheese, the farmer takes the cheese, hi-ho the derry-o, the farmer takes the cheese" followed by "the wife takes the bagel, the wife takes the bagel, hi-ho the derry-o, the wife takes the bagel".

~Not too long ago we were in the car listening to the radio. A news clip came on about the singer Adele just having a baby and talking about getting married. I turned it up a little to see if my girl Adele would recognize the fact that her name was being said. Sure enough, she was listening intently, and when it was over she said to me very excitedly, "Mommy he said I'm getting married!" (She is already excited for Aunt Rachel to get married in December.)

~Adele has been enjoying her nursery rhymes a lot these days, especially those she knows the tune to. And makes up tunes for the others. Even though she knows most pretty well, she can get confused. The other day she started reciting Humpty Dumpty and finished singing Jack and Jill. It went something like this: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after".

~Adele will usually request to watch a little show before nap and bedtime. We almost always just put on a short you tube clip of a show she likes. It's perfect because she can watch 2-3 shows, 3-4 minutes each, and actually watch less than 15 minutes of TV. She often asks for Mickey Mouse or Jake and the Neverland Pirates. One day she saw My Little Pony and pointed to it so I asked "you want to watch My Little Pony?" and she said yes. So ever since then, whenever she requests to watch a clip of that particular show, she asks for "Mommy's Little Ponies". If David asks her "You want to watch My Little Pony?" she will always respond "No, MOMMY'S Little Ponies!" since I was the one who initially introduced her to "my little pony".

7 months

Henry is now 7 months old.

Not a whole lot of NEW information to report. He's still our cute, active, loud, and chubby little boy.

To elaborate: Henry is now mobile. The crawling is still somewhat slow, unless he spots something he really wants (like food spilled from the table) and then he is surprisingly fast. I've actually also caught him attempting to pull himself up on the table a few times now too...a feat I'm definitely not ready for yet!

Henry is also loud. He is working on pronouncing syllables so we hear a lot of "ba ba ba and da da da" It works well as he hits things to the rhythm of his noises.

He attempts to repeat sounds too. A couple nights ago he was wide awake in the middle of the night and I was trying to get him to go back to sleep by repeating "shh shh shh shh". All of a sudden I heard a noise out of him that sounded like his own version of "shh" right back at me. Smart aleck.

Henry is eating fairly well too, although he would prefer to feed himself rather than accept a spoonful from me. I try to distract him with his own spoon, but he often sees right through my tricks and demands a second spoon.

And finally, we are starting to see glimpses of what life will be like with Henry and Adele playing together. Henry is fully entertained by Adele and loves it when she makes him laugh or sits and plays with him. Adele loves to entertain him...but can't sit still with him for too long. Pretty soon they will be excellent playmates!

Here are some pictures of Henry over the last month:

Spiffed up and ready for church

Enjoying a breezy fall day

 Such a cheeseball

 Chilling in the laundry basket

Feeding himself

Love you Mr. Henry!

Pumpkins

It has been a fun craft-filled few days for us here. 

Sunday night we had a costume party at the church. Having kids is a great excuse not to have to dress up since they are cute enough no one pays attention to me. :) Here is my cute little lion!

My cute little ladybug joined forces with friends who were carving a pumpkin. 

She quickly realized that cutting into pumpkins is messy (that's my girl!) so she enlisted the help of Daddy to paint a pumpkin instead.

The holiday season brings out some sort of craftiness in me that apparently hibernates until fall. When hibernation's over, an obsession for Pinterest emerges. 

After Adele had so much fun painting a pumpkin, I decided to push craft activities this week. Last night we went to Hobby Lobby to build up our craft supplies. We started with these cute little spiders, made from pipe cleaners and googly eyes.

Here is Adele, scared of the spider that just landed on her shoulder. Yes, she is still in her pajamas because craft time simply couldn't wait for trivial activities like getting dressed.

Then we turned one of her small pumpkins into a spider.

Personally, I loved the spider-pumpkin. But Adele wanted to paint another small pumpkin. And craft time was supposed to be for her...

Here she is with her masterpieces. We have one more small pumpkin and I am rooting for another spider for our porch. :)

Craftiness

As soon as we moved into our new house, I knew we needed to get Adele's room set up right away. I wanted it to be her own space - comfortable, safe, with her own things.

Eventually, Henry will also be in that room. I'm not totally sure how, since they seem to wake each other up if they sleep in the same room...but eventually they will share that room. Though Henry's crib is set up in the room, he sleeps in the pack 'n play (or in my bed) in my room for the time being.

I have been very excited to do some painting in the kids' room. I wanted something fun and colors that tied together the crib bedding (green and brown nature theme) with Adele's bedding (blue striped).

I came up with this:

I'm thrilled with the way it turned out. I love the bright colors. And thankful I have a father-in-law who not only enjoys painting, but is also really good.

So then I wanted to do something in their room with the alphabet. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like a good nursery/toddler thing to do. After doing some pinterest-ing, I found these free printables that I absolutely fell in love with. (http://www.thehandmadehome.net/freebies/)

I printed them on shiny thick paper, cut them out and rounded the corners, and taped them down to this foam board that I found at Hobby Lobby. After framing it in with ribbons, they were ready to go.

And here is the final product. I love how the muted colors of the alphabet go well with the brightness of the room.

Perspectives

I'm not sure I've ever realized how much complaining and gratitude go hand-in-hand. Or rather, where one is present, the other is absent.

When we complain about something, it highlights the fact that we are not grateful for the current situation. And when we are grateful, we surely aren't complaining.

And I REALLY never realized how much this has to do with perspective.

Last night I went to a small gathering where a girl shared her story. Like me, she has an almost-7-month old baby boy. Unlike me, her pregnancy was full of complications - bleeding, hospital visits. And the result of it all was a smiley, happy baby boy...who has spina bifida. The gal who shared is an exercise fitness instructor. Her husband is equally as active. The two of them spend their free time rock climbing, bike riding, hiking, etc.

As the girl shared her heart with the rest of us, she spoke of real emotions like anger, confusion, resentment, fear, and most of all, sadness. The sadness was first for herself and her husband, but now her sadness extends to her son and for the difficulties he will face and obstacles he will have to overcome.

There was not a dry eye in the room when she finished sharing.

Of course, her story didn't end with her son being born with a disability. She continued to talk about her love for her son and the small signs of hope he shows with the progress he makes.

One thing struck a chord with me.

Perspectives.

This girl strives to live a life of gratitude. It was inspiring. She talked about how tough it is to hear people complaining about the amount of playing time their kids get in sports, when hers will not ever participate in regular sports. Others complain of even smaller things, and her son may never even walk.

However, his girl said as tough as it is to hear people complaining about what seems like trivial matters to her, she has realized she can't blame them. Or change them. They don't have her perspective. They don't know what her situation is like; they don't have her perspective on life.

Instead, this young mother spoke of all the things she was grateful for. There are many people who can't even get pregnant. Others who know the heartache of a miscarriage. (And, she joked, some who simply want a date!)

Gratitude vs. complaining. She has chosen to be grateful.

I know that my perspective in life is unique to me. My hope is that I can use my perspective to reflect an attitude of gratitude, and not one of complaining.

Pretend birthdays

Since February, Adele seems to think that just about every other day is her birthday. I'm not totally sure where it came from, but I did think she'd grow out of it by now.

Often her birthday pops up in conversation when she's particularly happy. She'll mention the fact that her birthday party is coming up, or that she had a birthday yesterday, or that later today it will be her birthday. She's usually 4 years old at that birthday party too.

Adele is starting to figure out that in November she will turn 3 years old...but that hasn't totally stopped the comments of today being her birthday.

The birthday even pops up in random conversations at the grocery store. Last week we passed another mom with her young daughter in the cart. The little girl and Adele struck up a conversation about birthdays after the mom and I figured out that her daughter just turned 3 and mine was almost 3. The other little girl invited Adele to her birthday party (which took place a few weeks ago). Adele responded by saying she too was having a party "today" (I explained it would be in November) and that she is "4 years old" (I had to clarify she would be turning 3).

It's especially confusing for her when it really is someone else's birthday. This has happened many times since February - it will be a family member's birthday and we'll call them to wish them happy birthday, and Adele will expect them to wish her a happy birthday in response. If that person doesn't happen to wish her a happy birthday (obviously), Adele gets a sad face and says to me "but so-and-so didn't wish me a happy birthday" and I have to explain to so-and-so that it's Adele's birthday today too.

Last week, David's parents came to visit. Since we won't see them again until Christmas, they brought birthday presents for her and we held a "pretend birthday" for Adele last weekend. Adele was thrilled to have cupcakes and have people sing "happy birthday" to her and open gifts.

Today we finished off the last of the cupcakes and Adele waited to eat hers until David and I agreed to sing her "happy birthday" again. And when we started to sing, she stopped us and asked for a candle to blow out at the end of the song.

That girl loves her birthdays.

Here are some pictures of the pretend birthday and a few others of our time with Nanny and Popa Hille.

Getting ready for her gifts

Blowing her candles out

Trying out her new birthday gift

Helping Nanny paint her bedroom

 Popa teaching Henry to crawl

Reading books with Nanny