Happenings...

Addie started to stand on her own this week, but can only do so for about 10 seconds. If she catches you watching her, she will immediately drop back down or cry. Addie rediscovered her push walker and has had a blast walking around. She's getting better at following commands. She will fold her arms to pray, sit, stop when I say no (most of the time), retrieve toys, come to us, and give hugs and kisses. I'm working on her repeating what I say (Addie, can you say Doggy? etc) and she was doing really well the other night (7 in a row) until I made the mistake of asking her to say cookie...

Addie asks me for cookies all day long and if Jarom leaves the package anywhere she can reach, they are as good as gone. Yesterday Jarom left the oreos on the coffee table but sealed the package and went into the other room. Wouldn't you know it, while I was in the kitchen, I heard her messing with the package, so I came in and she had them open and was chowing down as fast as she could. Her technique is to eat all of the icing, then the cookie. I introduced her to my all time favorite fruit...clementines. She ate 2 by herself the first night after dinner... I guess she loves them too! She eats them as fast as you can hand them to her.

Here is a picture of my Christmas tree! I put some unbreakable ornaments near the bottom and Addie thinks it is so much fun to pull them off and bring them to me. She is really into putting stuff into other things and I am constantly finding cheerios in my purse, craft boxes, and other slightly odd places. She puts my jewelry in all different parts of the jewelry box, and stuff (food, coins, whatever she can find) in her ball popper toy. Jarom bought her a duck bank that quacks when you put coins in it and so now she loves for you to hand her change. She works so hard to get the coin positioned right so that it will go in the tiny slot and laughs when it rewards her with a quack. She loves to take every bit of food off of her plate or out of her bowl and put it back in. I'm trying to work with her on cleaning up after herself, but for some reason she just isn't getting it... Jarom seems to suffer from the same problem... hehehe. Her bracelet fetish has turned into a ring fetish as well. Now she beelines for my jewelry box when I am getting ready and first puts on the bracelets, then puts the rings on her fingers and thumbs. Such a little diva!

Addie has been hugging my neck really tightly the last week or so, I love getting her hugs! She also started scribbling...err...drawing. I tried to get her to draw at the beginning of November and she just looked at me like I was stupid, then I accidentally left a pen on the table this week. Addie was on the table in her bebepod while I was cooking and I look over and she has scribbled all over my tithing settlement paper and the table. So I flipped the paper over and she went to town. I let her have the crayons at Phil Sandovals when I had lunch with Kristi and she held a crayon in each hand and colored with both hands at the same time. Now she draws on whatever she can find whenever she can find something that will make a mark. I am seriously going to have to invest in some of those markers that only work on paper.

The other morning at 5:30 AM my cell rings so I quickly answer, seeing it was Uncle Bob, before Addie woke up. Bob always said he'd call us if the weather got bad because 1. we don't have a weather radio and he does (and he lives next door) 2. we sleep through the tornado sirens every time, so I assumed it was the weather. Nope, he woke up because his cat threw up, so we went out to his laundry room (off of his carport) and my dogs were running around outside loose. He was able to coerce them into his yard thankfully. So once Jarom got up he went and checked our entire fence and there was not a single place where they could have gotten out. The gates were both shut and latched, and its over a six foot fence so there is no way my fat dog Ana would have made it over. They must have been out for some time though, because my flower bed out front was dug up. Isn't that weird? I'm so glad for our sake that Bob's cat woke him up!

And lastly, Addie sat in Santa's lap at our ward Christmas party and didn't cry! I did bribe her with a candy cane, which resulted in a huge sticky mess, but it worked.