Shirts with buttons..... oh boy

Addison was getting over a fever one day February and so I had my mom watch her in Ames while I went to work. Addison work a button up shirt. Big mistake. She spent all day taking it off and putting it back on again. She kept telling my mom she was hot and she needed to take it off. It was NOT hot in her house. It was cold. haha! I had to stop and get groceries on the way home. The Ames Fareway has those ridiculous carts with the car on the front. I caved and let her do it. I told her "only this time, only in Ames, and only because the store was pretty empty". She wanted to take her coat off because she was hot. I told her to leave it on. Next time I looked at her, the coat AND her shirt were off. Ugh. Crazy kid!!
By the way, that cart was ridiculous to drive around. Not doing that again...... ha!

I love that this is one of her favorite outfits :) She is so adorable! It was one of Makena's dresses. We are all dressed up for a sad reason though, Ryan's Grandma Lents passed away in February. We were going to the funeral this day. It was a really nice funeral. Although I didn't know her that well, it was nice to hear all the nice memories and stories told.

We were at a church for the whole day, Addison loved the chalkboard. We had been texting with my cousin Erin, so Addison wrote an "E" for Erin :) Her letters are getting better!

More swimming lessons

Another week at swimming lessons! She knows her days of the week and knew that every Thursday she had swimming lessons. She looked forward to this day every week! It made her finally quit asking if she was going to dance lessons on Wednesdays :) I love this swimming suit too.

Each week she is doing better! She was swimming with a noodle in this one. They also worked on her backfloat. She struggled with that one a little, she didn't want to put her ears under the water. 

It was really good for her and Ryan to do this together. Or should I say.... it was good I was not the one in the pool with her - ha! I am definitely a push-over and a worry-wart. So if she told me "I'm too scared to put my face under" I would probably cave and not make her! Or it would be really hard for me to dunk her. Ryan is able to push her harder on these kinds of things. They had a few points where they battled on doing things, but for the most part he could convince her to do all the things they asked!

Girls doing flips

This was the end of February and this girl has been waiting a long time for this night!! We went to an ISU gymnastics meet. We had free tickets to one in January but of course there was a big snow storm. And there were only 3 home meets. 

She does enjoy the music and watching the sport..... but her eyes get real big when she sees her dad coming around the concourse with a Clone Cone :) 

She went to quite a few basketball games this year and was watching all the other fans walking around with Clone Cones. We told her we can only get one when we go to gymnastics (or "watch girls do flips" as she knows it). 

She was so very excited! They always give me the cone, but she took a couple bites and discovered she might like that part too. Ha!

I was enjoying all our activities and adventures this fall/winter as I knew things would soon be different with a little one! Addison loved all the activities as well and has decided she loves to "go somewhere". She doesn't care where, she just likes to go.

She spent a lot of time in Ames and at Hilton this year cheering for Iowa State. We have started to have the college talks with her (never too early, right?). We have the LegaCy books that we read her about Iowa State. She now tells us that she is going to go to Iowa State and cheer for the Cubs. Because she hasn't been to the Cubs before. Ha! 

Addy Mark

An updated photo of Addison's birthmark, or her "Addy Mark" as we have called it. It is definitely faded and more flat than it was when she was under 1. But we are guessing at this point it won't go away like they said it could. That's okay! 

Addison really really wanted to wear a certain pair of pajamas. I told her if she could find them she could wear them :) 

Addison had to go to the doctor with me because she was getting over a fever and couldn't go to school. Of course, it was the day I had to do the 1 hour glucose test. So we had to sit in the waiting room for an hour. The doctor gave her a sucker so she was one happy camper. She had recently learned what suckers are..... we made it till 3 1/2 years old. Ha!

She thinks she is pretty cool to have her own chapstick. Ryan is addicted to chapstick and is constantly putting it on, so Addison thinks she is just like Dad. :)

Valentine's Day

Addison didn't really know what Valentine's Day was before the day, but she sure enjoyed the day and has talked about it ever since! We went to Target to pick out what treat she was going to give her friends. She chose the Rice Krispie Treats (we were not at all surprised!) So Ryan wrote the names on the treats on them. Addison insisted that Ryan wrote "To Addison From Addison" She loved it. Every time she eats one now, we have to write on the wrapper for her. Ha! 

She was so excited to show us her box and all the treats. They made their own boxes out of Kleenex boxes. I was pretty happy I didn't have to do it this year :) She loved sorting all her treats and telling us who they were from. She talks about Valentine's Day a lot now. It's May and she is making a Valentines card for Ryan :)

Swimming Lessons!

We decided we better get Addison in swimming lessons this past winter. She is 3.5 and we hadn't done lessons. We lucked out and found affordable lessons in Altoona. There are not many options so I was pretty happy! 

Ryan and Addison are checking out the lessons before us. Addison hadn't done much swimming so we weren't sure how lessons would go. She has never gone under water or put her face in. Since I was 6 months pregnant and didn't have a maternity swimming suit, Ryan got in the water with her :) But really, I was late to most lessons coming from work. 

She really did pretty good! She loved the "free swim" time more so than doing what the teachers said. They had these little rubber duckies that the kids would throw and then had to swim and go get. She did not do well with putting her face in. The teacher dunked her and she did okay with that but told us she didn't want to do it again......

She struggled getting in the water from sitting on the ledge. So we had to practice on her bed :) They had a little platform under the water so she could stand on it. But she was still pretty scared getting in the water. You can see she has a little backpack thing on, that's her life jacket they have them wear. We told her she has to learn how to swim so we can go to Florida. :) That helped! 

Trip to see the KC Julius'

We go from sledding one week, to playing golf with no coat! We went to KC the first weekend of February and it was around 60 degrees. 

We drove down on a Friday night and got there around 9pm. Addison went to bed at 11:30pm and was awake at 6am. In a good mood, ready to go. This kid is crazy!

We were going to a hockey game Saturday night, Nolan hates getting in his car seat so Addison was singing Baby Shark to him.

At the hockey game - clearly Nolan wasn't as happy as Addison - ha! He is an active little boy who does not enjoy being contained!

Addison likes Cooper from a distance. She is still a little freaked out by him. Landon was having Addison give him a treat. She set it on the floor and had to tell him to stay.... then "release". She must like Cooper a little bit.... she tells us when we get a dog she is going to name it Cooper :)

Saturday night, she went to bed at 11pm and again was up at 6am. In a good mood. Can't complain then!

Went home Sunday around 1pm. Addison was asleep before we got out of Landon's development. She was one tired, happy little girl! 

Ok, let's go sledding for real this time

One Saturday morning it was in the mid-30's and a perfect day for sledding. So we took advantage of it on the little hill in the backyard.

Addison absolutely loved it! 

Ryan counted off as if he were on a bobsled team and launched her. The sled was a little too lightweight and she crashed. Ha! She didn't care one bit. We were a little surprised :)

We were more surprised when she said she wanted to go down on her stomach..... and she liked it! She did it quite a few times. She actually would go down the small hill and fly all the way across our yard into the neighbors (it's quite a ways). We got a few days of sledding in this year, hopefully for her sake we get more next year!

Let's go sledding!

I was walking on the treadmill one night and when I got done, Addison asked if she could try. So I put her on and turned on the treadmill. She looked like a deer learning to walk at first, but she eventually caught on. Ha! 

Addison had a fever for a couple days so I stayed home with her. She was starting to get over it (or so I thought) so we ran to town to do a few errands. It was forecasted to snow a few inches, so we stopped at Fleet Farm to buy a sled. Addison had gone sledding at school and had been begging us to go. We found out at school, they used cardboard as sleds. But I figured we could buy her a real sled (it was on clearance for $6- haha). So I let her pick which one she wanted out of the 4 options left. She was pretty excited! 

It was super windy and cold, but we bundled up to go try out the new sled the next day. As you can see in her eyes, Addison was not feeling great that day. But she said she wanted to try. It was so windy, she walked out of the garage about 7 steps then went right back in. 

She was 100% satisfied sitting on the sled inside the garage. Fine with me! We were maybe in the garage 8 minutes then went back in the house. Don't worry, we did get a few chances to use the sled this past winter and spring. 

There is a monkey on my car!

Addison was pretty excited to go out and help Ryan shovel the driveway. She insisted on wearing her dress scarf outside. She also likes her stocking hat from Parker. Ha! 

We were having dinner at Lauren and Jason's house one night and we looked out in the 4 seasons room and saw this. We told Addison there was a little monkey on her car. Haha! 

These two are two peas in a pod! They have such fun playing together. They take turns copying each other. 

Addison loves to help me clean. This night, I had her wiping down the woodwork. Any time she sees me get a bucket of water or a rag, she drops everything to run over and help. She gets worked up if I'm cleaning and she's doing something else (like eating or taking a bath). I then have to wait for her. I hope her love for cleaning continues.......

This kid cracks me up. She picked out her jammies one night and chose the Cubs ones. She tells me she loves the Cubs. then we were picking out her outfit for school the next day and she chose her White Sox jersey. She has only wore this jersey once if even at all. So it was unusual that she chose this shirt. Figured out later she only chose it because of the buttons, but it still made me laugh. 

She is constantly telling us this spring "I really want to go to the Cubs, we have never been there before". And I swear, she's saying this with no prompting! Ryan told her we will take her to the Iowa Cubs again if they have a season this summer.