She is Walking!

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Wordless Wednesday...technically not wordless ;)

Germanfest 2010

Addy and my cousin, Ryan aka "The Bavarian Beast"

10 months...a few days late!

on monday, miss addy mae turned 10 months old! how is that even possible?!

this girl is into everything and all over the place! she still isn't walking, but i feel like we are getting close! she crawls with a vengeance and is pulling up like a champ. her cruising skills are being perfected as well. she has even started cruising one handed! just in the past week or so, she has started to stand on her own--pull up and let go of whatever she is holding onto. she manages to stay up for a few seconds!

one of her favorite things to do is play outside with her bubba, duke. i make it a point to take her out in the backyard every evening after dinner and let her crawl around with him. it is also one of my favorite things to watch! it doesn't matter how tired she is, she will find a reserve of energy somewhere and get after it!

let's see...what else. she eats just about everything plus she is still nursing. she is definitely becoming a chunky monkey! she LOVES daycare! dusty takes her in the morning and says her feet start kicking in the car seat as soon as they pull in front of the house. and apparently, i'm not such hot stuff anymore either. when i pick her up in the afternoons, she gets super excited to see me, crawls toward me, but quickly turns around to keep playing with all of her friends. we have also started to see a temper (no idea where that comes from...hehe!) emerge from our little one and she is not afraid to let us know exactly what she likes and doesn't. we are working on that. ;)


another new development is that she is becoming a daddy's girl! it is super sweet to watch her light up when dusty walks into a room. and this rough and tough motorcycle ridin' hubby of mine turns to mush when she smiles at him.
it is crazy to think that i am already working on plans for her first birthday! hard to believe she is almost 1. love this little thing so much. how did we get so lucky?!

Before I was a Mom...

Before I was a Mom,
I never tripped over toys
or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not
my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind
and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child
so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night
watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because
I didn't want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of
having my heart outside my body..
I didn't know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond
between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night
every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
the joy,
the love,
the heartache,
the wonderment
or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom

Wordless Wednesday

just call me blondie ;)

i did it. i went back to blonde. i haven't been any kind of close to blonde in about 5 years. it used to be the only thing i did to my hair. i wanted a change of pace so i did it! i'm still adjusting...dusty loves it and kelley says i look much younger! so far, nothing but good reviews. :)

you be the judge...

Flashback Friday!

Nascar at TMS--April 2007

Thoughts for Thursday

I came across this article in Parenting magazine and this section really stuck out to me...it is so true. Motherhood changes everything.

"...But just because a mom isn't pondering politics and art or the latest dire reports on climate change doesn't mean she isn't using the best of her mind. All the time I wasn't reading books or watching the news, I was thinking --about how to give my children boundaries that would make them feel secure but not thwart their natural sense of adventure; about how to foster curiosity and kindness and gratitude and good humor; about how to help my kids feel connected to the world but not entrapped by worldliness. Without realizing it, I was getting a crash course in human development and social interaction.

Don't mental activities of this kind count as real thought? Of course. It's not the kind of thinking that lends itself to lively cocktail -- party banter, though, so it's easy -- especially in the early months -- to think that motherhood requires you to check your brain at the door. Maybe that's why we all berate ourselves at times ("But I used to read The New Yorker!"). What I've learned in 11 years of motherhood is that real thinking, the deepest kind of thinking, often has nothing to do with current events -- "news" that ceases to be new, or sometimes even noteworthy, by the end of the day.

What a mom learns by knowing a child from its first tiny flutter is nothing less than how a human being is formed. Motherhood forces us to understand, if only so we can teach it to our children, what really matters in the small space we each have between birth and death. And the easiest way for me to learn this lesson is by living in deep, penetrating kinship with other human beings -- by living, in other words, in a family."
-By Margaret Renkl

Happy Easter!

close to my heart...

most of you that know me know that autism is something extremely close to my heart. i have the privelege and honor to teach children living with this spectrum disorder. cool part about it is that these children have touched my heart and taught me more than i could have ever imagined!

april is autism awareness month. today is world autism awareness day. light it up blue. :)



how am i "lighting it up blue"? well, for starters, we proudly wore our blue today--addy and me. and as soon as dusty gets home from work, he will too! ;) in addition, i created a bulletin board in the hallway of my school dedicated to raising awareness. its the fourth year in a row that i have done it and i am super proud! (i hope to add a picture of it later in the week) my goal is to make the awareness child friendly--i want the students in the building to see and read it and understand that "those kids with autism don't just belong in that special classroom in the back of the building." very successful and famous people live on the spectrum. people such as dan akroyd, steven spielberg, bill gates, and bob dylan.

won't you light it up blue?!
http://www.lightitupblue.org/

Flashback Friday!

Dusty and me when we were dating...I think we had been dating for only a few months! Crazy thing is that it has been 5 years since we met!