P is for...

We were so busy with letter P! We read two books on penguins and did a fun fingerprint activity. Each page had a sentence such as, "Two little penguins diving in the water." So Addie would put two fingerprints in the water and I would add the beak and feet (love the black ink mustache in the picture). We also did another penguin counting activity and then we got ready to have some lunch. Addie earned a free pizza from our library, so we took advantage of her coupon! Later that night I made pesto chicken pasta and a peach pie! I love my pesto chicken pasta and concocted the recipe when I first moved in with Kevin. It's been on the dinner rotation ever since. It's super easy and I thought I'd share the recipe, so here it is...

1 bag/box of penne pasta (I love Trader Joe's organic whole wheat penne pasta.)
2 chicken breasts
1 7ounce container of pesto
3/4 cup of olives
1/2 cup of sundried tomatoes
1/4 cup of pine nuts
butter
garlic powder
parmasean cheese

I boil up the noodles, while the chicken (lighted seasoned with garlic powder) is being grilled on the bar-b-q. Then I chop olives and sundried tomatoes. Next I sautee the pine nuts in a little butter, just until they're a light brown. And after dicing up the chicken I mix it all together with the pesto and serve with parmasean cheese on top!

O is for...

O is for Oregon! Goooooo Ducks! Right?! Already got that covered. My mom likes to tell the story of when she was driving Addie and all of a sudden, from the backseat, she starts yelling Oooooooo! My mom didn't catch it at first, but they were driving by Autzen Stadium. 

Today, O stood for owls and oatmeal. It was a simple day. Addie dug for her letter of the day, ate oatmeal, read Owl Babies, colored her O page, and then glued (and ate) CherriOs on the owl's tummy. 

Bay Area Discovery Museum

  Today we went to an UH-mazing museum! It's about an hour away in Sausalito right underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Each building had a different theme and I didn't quite capture all of the buildings nor did we get to all of the outdoor activities, because World's Greatest Mom dressed her child for 85 degree weather! See what the other children are dressed in in the picture below... then there's my child. Nice job mom!

The "Wave Workshop" Building.

The Curious George exhibit, this room was adorable!

Stopping for a little lunch break with views of the Golden Gate Bridge. 

This building was called the "Tot Spot." It was complete with fun water beds made out to be ponds and much more.

This building was called the "Bay Area." It had great "underwater" tunnels. A boat with lurs to fish and other fun stuff.

Addie is always drawn to these train tables. This is where we probably spent most of our time. It was an enormous train table!

N is for...

Letter N! How appropriate to read The Napping House, since napping has been a bit of a challenge for us lately. Addie really liked this book, she's been toting it around all day! I printed off some characters from the story, one set of characters are awake and the other asleep. Then we practiced putting all of the sleeping characters on one bed and all of the awake characters on another. Next I played the CD version of this story and we acted out the story with the characters.
After this we did a very tactile activity! (I used to do this one with my Kindergartners.) I cooked noodles (without olive oil, so they'd be sticky) and Addie placed them on the letter N. She loved this and I let her play with the noodles for as long as she pleased. And tonight we'll eat nachos with nectarines for dessert!

M is for...

We kicked off our Monday with letter M! We read If You Give A Moose A Muffin, then we did a counting activity with muffins and a plate. I wrote down the number of muffins on a laminated picture of a plate, with a dry erase marker, and Addie counted out the amount of muffins and put them on the plate. This is pretty challenging for her, she wants to keep counting and is just starting to understand that when the number says 5 you stop on 5. And for breakfast, we ate my favorite Trader Joe's magic muffins, then after swimming lessons we split a milkshake! I also had plans of taking her to a children's museum, but they are closed on Mondays. Oh well, we'll just have to go on letter N day!

Two Year Check Up

Addelyn Ann was a brave girl at her two year check up! She did very good for our wonderful pediatric nurse practitioner, Andrea Wyndom, whom I love! Andrea has been seeing Addie ever since she was two months old and it was almost surreal bringing her in for her two year check up. 

Addie measured 36 inches in height and 33 pounds in weight. She's in the 93rd percentile for height and 96th for weight; so she's very proportionate and above all, healthy! She got two shots (chicken pox and hepatitis A) and she did so good for the very worst part...the blood draw. The results came back great and we no longer have to worry about the questionable lead result she had at nine months.

Update on saying goodbye to paci

After about forty-five minutes of pitiful crying, I got her out of her crib and we skipped a nap all together. Then we got ready to go to her two year well-check up (which I'll post about later) and she kept talking about pacis for baby "Ainen." I grabbed the birth announcement off of the fridge and explained to her once again. She clutched the picture and held it all of the way to her doctors appointment saying, "pooooor baby Ainen." Too sweet.

That night Kevin and I got her ready for bed and gave her lots of praise for being a big girl. We put her down in her crib and listened to her sing, read books, and jabber for about the thirty minutes and then she was out! Not a single tear! I so wanted to sneak in there and take a picture but I was too scared to wake her. So I took a picture this morning.

So proud of our baby girl, who is jabbering away right now in her crib and I'm hoping she'll be asleep in a few minutes for her first nap without paci.

Bye Bye Paci

As I'm writing this, I'm listening to my sweet baby girl sob for what is comforting to her. She cries as she sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (the last book we read) and then she stops for a little bit and starts crying again for her paci. It is a pitiful cry, the one you know you can instantly fix, if only you could do the easy thing. I knew this day was going to have to come, and I also know that someday I'll look back on this and wish weaning her from her paci was the biggest task at hand, but frankly I'm having a hard time fighting back tears myself.

Here's some snip-its of our journey, saying goodbye to paci...

It all started about 6 months ago when we started weaning her from her paci during the day. Today we decorated a little bag for the new baby next door.

Addie took her newly decorated bag on a scavenger hunt for all the pacis in the house.

She was quite enthusiastic about it.

Then we knocked on the neighbor's door and left the pacis with Baby Aiden's Grammy.

She did a great job handing them over and didn't even hesitate.
Kevin and I were proud parents, but sad for her because we knew what was in store.

When she got back to her bedroom, she found a big girl present!

She got a pillow pet, which she calls her pig pillow. And...

a turtle, which lights up and puts stars on the ceiling.

L is for...

For letter L, we read two adorable lion-themed books. Roar! and Rory and the Lion. Addie colored her L paper and then we made a lion! She loved this craft, especially the painting part. Tonight, we will dine on homemade lasagna!

K is for...

On letter K day, Addie ate kiwi with her K toast. I read her Counting Kisses by Karen Katz and with a little inspiration from the Totally Tots Blog, I downloaded a template of a cube, then made shrunken copies of the pictures from the book and glued them on. Addie rolled the dice and we put kisses on the paper doll. She had fun pointing out where the kisses belonged on her body too.  

J is for...

We actually did letter J, before letter I, because Daddy wanted so badly to go with us to the Jelly Belly Factory. We were so happy to have him along for the crazy Jelly Belly tour, which happens to be about five minutes from our home. 

For letter J I also found another great unit, that some amazing mom put together and so graciously put on her blog to share. After I printed it out and made some tweaks, Addie matched jelly beans with shapes and colors, counted out her jelly beans (in the ice tray) and had her first taste of jello. What is that stuff anyways?! So reminds me of my childhood. 

I is for...

I was so excited for letter I because I found this incredible ice cream unit at spelloutloud.com! It was complete with a sorting mat (teaching hot versus cold), matching shapes activity, an activity to teach the order of big to small, and my favorite...ice painting! I mixed food coloring with water and laid toothpicks in the ice trays (to serve as a handle), froze them overnight and in the morning Addie and I ice painted! Later we made our own ice cream, which turned much better than I expected.

I also thought I'd take a little video of what keeps me motivated each day.
What a great summer!

Sunny Sunday

I'm feeling particularly grateful on this sunny Sunday and thought I'd take a moment to write about my gratitude. If you would have asked me ten years ago today, what I hoped my life will look like in ten years, this would be it! I'm living the life I love and I'm so incredibly grateful for it! I love-a-love-a-you Kevin and Addie Widmer!

H is for...

It's your turn letter H! We read My Hands! by Aliki and used our hands to eat H toast with honey, and honeydew melon. The hat she has on in every picture was her choice. I thought to take the birthday hat off when I reached for my camera but then thought, why not capture the true essence of Addie. Plus...h for hat! How did she know that?! Ha! Ha! We did some hand painting (and other parts of our body as well) and went on a nice little hike! How's that letter H!?

G is for...

For letter G...we picked strawberries from the garden, to put on our granola parfait! We read three different books about gardens, colored and later that day we went grocery shopping! Not actually planned, it just so happened we were out of groceries on letter G day.  

F is for...

This morning we started off with the book Feathers for Lunch, and for her activity I cut out and laminated some birds with a little wing/pocket, then I showed Addie to match the feathers with the birds. Next we counted how many feathers each bird had and talked about which bird had the most and which bird had the least. Then after a little coloring and breakfast, (no I didn't make French toast) we showered and took off for the city. Addelyn and I had our first venture to the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39. Addie got to see lots of fish, among other creatures! And for lunch...yep, you guessed it, fish and fries!  I always think that must be so confusing for kids to see fish and then be fed fish! Like chicken. At least we don't call burgers, cows.

E is for...

Today Addie ate E toast with a side of eggs. We decorated eggs, colored her E paper, read An Extraordinary Egg, and of course we kicked it off with a treasure hunt for the letter of the day! I've also been playing her little video clips from a wonderful website, I used in the classroom. Love starfall.com!

To the Beach!

We had a great Sunday, just relaxing at our favorite beach!

Loving the waves!

Picnic lunch

Napping with Daddy.

Playing tag with the waves.

Happy Second Birthday Bug!

 On this very special morning you and your mama headed down to Starbucks for a special treat. I watched you saunter in behind me with your little purse, filled with all the things you thought a purse should have. You sat like such a big girl drinking your juice and eating your pink donut, while you tried to engage the patrons in a game of peek-a-boo. I wish I had brought my camera that morning, but I surely didn't forget it later that evening, when we took you to your first movie and then to dinner and ice cream at Fenton's Ice Cream Parlor.

We love-a-love-a-you Addelyn and had a great day celebrating the best day of our lives...your birthday! 

Going to see Cars 2, you're first Disney movie!

You were a little nervous walking into the dark, loud theater.

Daddy brought you popcorn, then the previews started and this is how you sat all the way through the trailers and about 50% through the movie. 

For about the next 25% of the movie you wanted to bounce back and forth in between our laps and for the very last quarter, we just called it good and left. Not too bad, for your first movie!
(Good thing Daddy didn't have any boogers for this picture! Ha! Ha!)

Blowing out your candle!

Double spooning it!

Our Fantastic Fourth!

Fourth of July 2011, was one hot weekend! So we headed to the delta to play in the water.

That evening we headed back home, to BBQ some tri-tip, play Mexican Horseshoes and watch the fireworks from the marina.

What a great celebration of our nation!