Year in Review

I'm copying Tracey by posting a year in review!

January--We had visited the Hostetlers in Wyoming for Christmas, so we were there for a few days into the new year. Adora weighed 19 lbs. 6 oz and started signing her first baby signs. She was just starting to walk a lot.

February--Aunt Kristen came to visit for a few days, and we had a blast at the Fort Worth Zoo. Adora weighed 22 lbs and got three teeth, for a total of eight.

March--Adora celebrated her first birthday with a fun, laid-back birthday party. She was 30" tall. Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw came to stay with her while Jake and I went to Las Vegas for a wedding.

April--We left for a road trip to Montgomery. We visited some friends and Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw along the way in Shreveport. We celebrated Easter on the road, stopping at a church in Pearl, MS that had an Easter egg hunt! When we got to Montgomery, Adora had a fun time at the zoo. We also met for the first time some Bennett family friends who live in Montgomery.

May--Adora said her first word (tickle)! By the end of the month, she could say 17 words. She loved pointing to body parts that we named. Adora fingerpainted me a beautiful platter for Mother's Day. We left Montgomery and headed back to Wichita Falls. We stopped along the way at the Waco Zoo. We took Adora to the Wichita Mountains for her second camping trip.

June--Adora was 23 lbs. 6 oz. and 30.7" tall. She started to sleep through the night consistently (at 15 months!). Aunt Laura came to visit, and we went to Jump for Joy, a bouncy castle place. Adora also got her first professional haircut! Adora colored Jake two cards for Father's Day.

July--We went to Morath's Orchard and picked black-eyed peas. Adora started to get really good at putting away her things. She always knows where everything is supposed to go! Nana, Pop, Aunt Kelsey, and Aunt Sarah also came to visit, and we went to the waterpark and the lake. I found out I was pregnant, and if I asked Adora where Mommy's new baby was, she would point to or kiss my tummy.

August--Adora started showing an interest in the potty and began using it sometimes. We tried a potty training weekend, but it didn't go over well. She won an award for reading the most books in her age group in the Summer Reading Club at the base library--194 books! Her favorite color was white, and she weaned from breastfeeding. We also found out that our new baby had gone to Heaven.

September--Adora started calling herself "Dah-lo." She started going on the potty every night before bath. We visited Parrain and Marrain in Houston when we went to our friend, Sara's funeral. Adora started to do better driving in the car (probably because we got a portable DVD player, and she loves Milo & Otis). We went to the Houston Zoo.

October--We went to Minot for a wedding, visited the Hostetlers in Wyoming, and Jake went to Israel for work. Adora and I both got haircuts from Nana. Adora was an LSU cheerleader for Halloween.

November--Adora started having some good conversations and got pretty much potty trained. Jake and I went to a bed and breakfast in Oklahoma City for the weekend for a much-needed adult weekend, and some friends watched Adora. We had friends over for Thanksgiving and had a blast.

December--We went to San Diego and went to the zoo, the Wild Animal Park, the science museum, and Sea World. We all had fun on the beach, even though it was cold. Aunt Kelsey joined us in San Diego so Jake and I could go on dates after Adora was asleep. Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw visited in Wichita Falls, and so did Aunt Laura and Uncle Scott. Christmas was a small family affair with just us three. It was so relaxing and fun. Adora is fully day potty trained now with few accidents. She still wears diapers for sleeping.

I am sure I left a ton of stuff out, so don't be offended if you're not mentioned. Adora just woke up from her nap, so I'd better go get her. She is taking shorter naps lately, which stinks. I think she is growing up!

So grown up!

This is Adora fingerpainting on the 17th. We thought it would be a REALLY fun thing for her to do, but she was in a bad mood and didn't end up liking it very much.

Adora picked a rose outside and decided to become a flower girl inside!

Adora had been helping Daddy put her new bookshelf together when she realized her crib had a loose screw (it actually did, and she found it herself!).

This is a video of Jake having a little conversation with Adora during dinner.

Potty trained (sort of!)

Adora went without a diaper (except for naps and night) all day yesterday (and today so far)! She DID (yesterday) poop on the floor once, but she DID NOT pee on the floor at all! She went in the potty a lot (maybe about 12 times?) and even asked to go a couple of times. She runs around "bottomless" when we're home, and we put bloomers on her when we went out to WalMart (to buy big-girl panties which she wore today for the first time), Chili's, and Target. She asked to go to the potty two times when we were out. I took our little snap-on potty seat with us so her little booty fit when she needed to go. She is getting sooooooo big.

I'm not sure what to do about the pooping, though--I don't think she knew she was going to go when she went on the floor, and this morning, she had already gone in her diaper by the time we got her up for the day. So she hasn't had any accidents today.

Adora also has a cold. She is waking up coughing at night. It's really bad. She has a cough suppressant but I don't really know if it works. She has a runny nose, too. We are using this extra time at home just to hang out and potty train. She is doing soooooooo well. I went to the commissary today and she didn't even have to go the whole time!

Well, Adora is climbing all over me and actually climbing onto the desk so I guess it's time to give her a little (more) attention!

Houston Triathlon

This is Adora just before we left to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. She was a little upset because she was READY to GO and didn't want to stop to take a picture :)

Adora helped her Parrain cut the grass. She was a really big help. She also helped pick up all the gumballs and throw them in the bucket.

Jeff and Jake formed a relay team for the Iron Star Triathlon in Montgomery, TX this weekend. Jeff began with a 1.2-mile swim in open water. Jake rode 56 miles on his bike, and then Jeff finished up with a 13.1-mile run.

Adora loves to sit on Parrain's shoulders and be SO TALL! She is even taller than PawPaw here. Jeff had already finished the swim and was waiting for Jake to finish the bike before he began his run.

Jake & Jeff had a great transition between bike & run.

This photo is from soon after Jake finished his ride. Adora was so excited to see her Daddy!

Mom and Jake are waiting for Jeff to finish his run.
Although really tired, sweaty, and gross, Jake still manages to look really handsome.

Jeff still looks pretty good in the last leg of the relay. I have no idea how he can do this.

The guys with their first-year Ironstar finisher mugs after the race.

Adora finally gave in and fell asleep in MawMaw's arms for almost an hour and a half! She was a pretty good traveler with all the driving we had to do. We only had to watch Milo & Otis 1 1/2 times.

This is a video of Jeff at the beginning of the run.

October already?

9/26--This is what you're in for if you ever have a toddler. Adora says, "Mess!"

9/27--While in Houston for the weekend, we went to the zoo, and Adora brushed the goats!

9/28--Mike had some training at Sheppard, so Katie and Warner came with him and were able to visit for awhile. We had a great time, especially since Adora loves babies!

10/3--After a botched camping trip, Adora's hair ended up like THIS--it took a looooot of detangler to get that puppy under control!

10/10-- Michaels had a pumpkin decorating event. Adora loved it for about 30-45 minutes! It was only $5 for the pumpkin, and all the decorating supplies were free. I think her favorite part was putting the "dots" (puff balls) on the pumpkin. She liked naming their colors. We obviously let her put things pretty much wherever she wanted--we suggested that she put the hair, eyes, nose, and mouth in certain places.

Adora and Daddy today before church. Her pigtails were so cute that I couldn't resist. Her hair almost all fits into them--there is just a little down in the back. She also got some new bows so she has matching ones to wear on each piggy.

Adora posing with her pumpkin after church. This is the final product. She loves "bunky" (pumpkin) sitting on the dining room table where she can see him (it?) all the time!

Adora loves animals and making animal sounds! And at the end, she says her name--"Dah-lo!"

Fire Safety Week

Adora with Sparky.

This is how she always is during storytime at the library. She will mostly ignore the story until she decides she wants to pay attention and then will go so close that she touches the reader and/or the book.

I was looking and looking for pictures of Adora from last year's fire safety week so you could see an example of her change in just one year. I cannot believe it has been a WHOLE YEAR since last fire safety week! (Actually, maybe it hasn't, which is why I'm having a hard time finding the pictures that I know I have?!) I'm sure every parent knows, but I cannot explain how weird it is to participate in the same event with Adora one year later. It just brings back memories of how she was back then and how different she is now. I feel nostalgia for the baby she was and joy at the toddler she is. I guess I will settle for posting what was on her baby calendar last October--"You go to sleep at about 7:00 and wake up at about 7:00." "When you only wake up three times a night, it's a great night!" "Crawls--only one 'step!'" (Wow, that one is hard to believe!) "Special Day--1st camping trip!" and "You helped Daddy open his birthday presents." This year's October has the following so far: "I heard you wake up from your nap today--'Hold you, Mommy!'" and "You only had one sock on, so you told me, "Mo mo mo mo sok!" --translation--"More more more more sock!"--

Sizing up the mountain. Wichita Mountains, Monday, Sept. 7, in the morning.

Daddy shows Adora how to climb.

We did it! We climbed the mountain!

Climbing mountains is hard work! Someone needed a break--and a hug.

Semi-family pic--I angled the camera on the table. We are having a picnic after our hike.

You can tell our little girl still likes to kiss!

Adora frequently climbs into the ice cream bucket, but this day, she climbed into her toy bin!

Adora likes this game--Spin & Spin! That's her squealing at the end, by the way.

Catch up with us!

Adora took this extremely flattering photo of me in the Embassy Suites in Ft. Worth.

Adora conked out in the car on the way home from Castaway Cove. She usually wakes up when I get her out of the carseat, but not this time! She took a late 30-minute nap and then had a hard time getting to sleep that night.

After Castaway Cove, since Adora took the nap, she had a lot of energy, so we took her to Jump for Joy where she loved sliding down the big slide on her tummy.

This is at a birthday party last week. The two girls in the swings were celebrating their birthdays. You can see how Adora wants to get on the big girl swing.

Potty bust

So, Adora woke up at 7:30 or so this morning and had seven misses and no hits before our ice cream social at 11:30, so we called it quits, and she wore a diaper. More troubling is that she sometimes fights being put on the potty now, so I guess she's just not ready. Maybe we'll try again in a couple of months!

Adora won a prize for reading the most books in the summer reading club at the base library--194 books!! She got, among other toys, a big baby doll that she looooooooves. That might've been her favorite part of the day--getting to hold Baby on the way home from the ice cream social :)

Potty training at 18 months?

I know it sounds crazy, but Jake and I are trying it, at least for a couple of days. Here is a link to the method we are using:

http://www.babycenter.com/0_potty-training-in-three-days-or-less_10310078.bc

If that doesn't work, you can go to BabyCenter.com and in the search type in "potty training in 3 days." It is supposed to be for kids ages 15-28-months-old. The average girl in the US gives up diapers at 36 months! But before 1950, most children in the US were potty trained before 18 months. And even today, most European, Asian, and African babies are potty trained by age 2. So I guess it's not really so weird. It seems to be a disposable diaper phenomenon.

Today was day one. Jake took today and tomorrow off of work. What a waste, you might think! Well, the waste would've been if he hadn't taken these two days. He gets three days off for making a 100 on the PT test, and he is about to retake in October, so time was running out to use these days (at least theoretically. He hasn't been able to figure out if anyone actually keeps track of PT pass days.)

Adora will still sleep in a diaper for now. She woke up this morning at about 7:15 and nursed. I put her back down but of course she didn't go back to sleep :) She called for us a few minutes later, and she had pooped in her diaper. At 8:30 she peed in her high chair (a lot!) and none in the potty. At 10:30, she peed a little on the floor and then a little on the potty. She napped in a diaper and peed in it. When she woke up, she pooped on the floor and then a little in the potty. Then she peed a few times on the floor a little bit and then in her high chair a little bit and then a lot in the potty. A hit consists of any amount of pee/poop in the potty, so she had three hits today and seven misses (any pee or poop not in the potty or diaper). Not as stellar as we'd hoped. We are going to try again tomorrow and see if we see any improvement. If we don't, we are going to call it quits for now, and we plan to try again in a couple of months.

I'll try to update tomorrow night!

Videos

This is Adora at Jump for Joy. It's obviously difficult to walk in these inflatable things! (P. S. These videos are in reverse order from very recent to June.)

This was way tamer than she had been doing for Wheels on the Bus just minutes before. She gets mesmerized by the camera and doesn't perform as well when it's on. If you listen really closely, you can hear her say, "Wow!"

This is Adora bowling. She gets a little excited at the end. She had a lot of fun for about seven frames and then wanted to sit in the high chair and have a snack while Jake and I bowled the rest of that game and another on Father's Day.Here is Adora hiking/sleeping the day before Father's Day. We went to Turner Falls near Ardmore, OK for the day. It was insanely crowded, but we were having a really good time until we figured out we lost the keys. After an hour and a half of looking for it (we only have ONE car key, and the car was locked), we visited the police station, where some kind soul had turned the keyring in. Thank you, whoever you are!Here's Adora playing DDR at The Plex when Aunt Laura was out visiting.

No pictures

So I haven't downloaded pictures to my computer in forever. I mean, forever. But I am up in the middle of the night again and thought I might post a little bit about Adora anyway. Below are a few random things that pop into my mind.

She checks me, Jake, and other babies for poopy diapers. She comes up to me and pulls the bottom of my shorts up a little bit and says "No poop!"

She likes to weigh herself on my scale whenever she's in the master bathroom. FYI, she weighs about 24 pounds.

She likes to bring out her popper (we call it her vacuum) when I vacuum and help me.

She can climb into her high chair herself if it's even slightly pulled away from the table.

If I'm on the phone with someone and I say, "Bye!" 90% of the time, she will say it right after me.

She shakes her head no to actually communicate "No" to me.

Sometimes, she walks around saying, "Happy, happy, happy!" over and over again.

She is a good mama--she gives her babies hugs, kisses, puts them down for "ni ni" (sleep), lets them "watch" while she eats, and gives them drinks.

She can climb into her stroller by herself and does this when she wants to go for a "walk." (Obviously the words she says are in quotes.)

She loves to look fancy. She puts on her Mardi Gras beads and runs to me to show off.

She still loves to read, and I think she might win the prize for most books read in the Summer Reading club at the library if I can find two of the sheets we filled up of books she read.

When she wants to color, she walks over to the crayons and paper and says "CCCCCCCC" (hard C).

She can make all sorts of animal sounds, including, but not limited to the sounds of ducks, bears, alligators, elephants, chickens, and cows.

She has developed some fears--the doorbell, my old cell phone ring (I had to change it, but the new one bothers her sometimes, too), and some others that I can't think of right now.

She climbs a lot more. The other day I found her standing on top of her changing table, but that hasn't happened again. I hope we don't have to move her into a toddler bed any time soon.

She's started screaming every single time we try to wash her hair. I don't know what this is about, but it always gets food in it, so we can't even skip a day.

She got another molar so now she has 12 teeth.

She'll be 18-months on the 1st!

She says "milk" when she asks to nurse, but it sounds like nap, so we had a really hard time figuring out if she was saying milk or asking to nap for awhile, but it's definitely milk.

Enough for now, time to try to sleep!

Hostetler Visit/Swimming with Reagan

Jake's mom, dad, and two of his sisters came to visit July 3-7. We had a lot of fun at LETRA and Castaway Cove. Adora really got to know her aunts and Nana and Pop. We're so glad they came out.

Reagan came over today for a swim in the pool. Man, does she like to splash! Adora doesn't like water in her face. They had a really good time sitting together and laughing at each other. When Reagan's shoe came off, Adora tried to put it back on :)

Mom, don't freak out about this. Adora LOVES games like this. She is just a wild girl!

JCP photos

Go to https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0737105618JCP
and the customer name is melanie hostetler.

Music Video!

My brother, Jonathan, made an awesome music video starring Adora. She is just so loving!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNQXfcuMXKQ

I am not a painter

but here is my painting that Laura asked me to post.

Dinner tonight

Adora was eating dinner tonight in her high chair, like usual. She was playing with the puddle of gravy I put there for her to dip her broccoli into. She started saying, "Tickle, tickle, tickle!"--she was tickling her gravy! Jake said it's the funniest thing she's ever done :)

Aunt Laura's visit!

Smelling the "flower" at a water fun day at home before Aunt Laura's visit.

"Uh oh," what happened, Mommy?

Aunt Laura's sunglasses are SO COOL!

I look so grown up in Aunt Laura's headband!

I kept diving off of Daddy's back when I was riding on it, so he played horsey on me!

Playing on the equipment at The Plex.

Look at me all by myself!

I can slide all by myself, too!

I'm too busy to stop to pose for a picture!

Finally, at home on a DDR machine.

Adora's first professional haircut

Adora's 15-month statistics

23 lbs. 6 oz, 30.7"

These are both above the 50th percentile! Big girl!

This is a video of Adora's sweet, sweet voice! She has been performing on the webcam recently. She can point to her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and bellybutton. She even says bellybutton--ba ba eeeyuh! It's so cute. She has lots of words now--outside (OT-sssss), down, baby, bye bye, mama, dada, etc. etc. etc. I think it's about 25 words in all. I have a list somewhere and would take the time to look them all up except she's been napping 2.25 hours (WOW, the usual is 1.5), and I'm afraid she'll wake up any minute

We went on a camping trip the last weekend in May. It was so fun! We went on two hikes, one to the top of a mountain. Adora didn't sleep very well, but since she was sleeping with Mama and Dada, she could just roll over and nurse when she made a peep, so she took full advantage of that.

Speaking of sleeping, our little one is finally sleeping through the night! She goes to bed around 8 and wakes up around 7 to nurse and be up for the day. These times are fairly variable, but it's nice to pretty much know that she won't be waking me up in the middle of the night.

Adora also got a molar today! So she's up to 9 teeth. This one is the one-year molar on the bottom right.

What else is new? We played Ring Around the Rosie today, and Adora loved it! She laughs when we all fall down :)

I'm not sure what we were eating here, but it was obviously messy :) I love putting Adora's hair in pigtails, and I guess she's a little more amenable to it now than she used to be. Jake's favorite is two low pigtails in the back. Then, I use a bobby pin to pin the front hairs to the side, but she's started yanking the bobby pin out, so I may have to wait until her hair is longer and it all fits into the bottom pigtails to do that more often.

This is Adora and Preston! They met for the first time in Baton Rouge May 15 or 16, and then we went to Preston's home in Houston a couple of days after that. Adora LOVED the "be-be."

Ok, I hear her--she's awake! 2.5 hour nap, I got SO much done!