Calhoun had a stay-cation. Meaning he stayed in town with our dear friend Monica while we went on our cruise.
He loves Monica:
He went for long walks (Devil’s Millhopper):
And had fun with a new friend (Matt’s Dakota):
Calhoun still talks of all the fun he had and can’t wait to hang out with Amy and Monica :) Promise Amy he keeps telling us he was only barking because he was scared.
So I have to note some special moments of Sweet Adeline after noting Essie. She is now 3.5 yrs old. She is a doll. So smart. She love books. I mean LOVES books. She reads them to herself, she wants every books she sees. In the doctors office we have to read a million books and if they call us back quickly then we take several back to the room with us. She loved the idea that bryan dedicated “his book”/phd to her.
On the cruise she struck up a deep conversation with Sassy about making bad choices. Asking my Mom if she makes bad choices. She said yes, we all do. Adeline said she does too, but that she tries to make good ones.
I recently asked her what her favorite thing about our family was. I had no idea what her answer would be. She proceeded to say Meme, Papa, Momma, Daddy, Sassy, Grandpa, Andy, Sandy, Essie, Annie, Chad and Calhoun.
Tonight we were reading a book by Margaret Wise Brown “I Like Stars” she quickly said “she also wrote Runaway Bunny”. I could hardly believe it. What a little sponge. We really need to be filling it up with lots of good stuff. Rather than her saying “what the heck” I think we are doing pretty good. I have written down her cubbie verses (Awana class at church) on index cards and posted them on a narrow wall by her room door and she loves to stop and recite them just before bed. I pray it is that she is drawn to God’s word, but it may be to postpone bedtime. Whatever the reason it is all good.
She is very much an extrovert, but is rather shy when we arrive anywhere that has more than one family (3-4 people) there. When we caught up with my family on the ship it took 5-10 minutes before she would show her eyes. She was sooo excited. Give her the time she needs and she comes right out of her shell.
She is the princess of all princesses. She loves them all: Cinderella, Aurora, Bell, Tiana, Snow White, Ariel. She knows all that start with the letter A. She loves to dress up. Every day she does so at least once. Last night she slept in 2 skirts along with her Jam-Jams.
We have some lovely amaryllises blooming and have had a ton of fun watering them, watching the roots grow, then the leaves and now the blooms.
She loves swinging. Papa does the best “under dogs”.
She is a great helper and offers to help make lunches regularly. She throws out many dirty diapers for us. She lets me know when Calhoun has something he shouldn’t. She recently was yelling for me like crazy and then said “Essie hurt her little fingers” in such a sweet caring way. She protects her sister. Some times a little too much protection. But this is probably to make up for the times she pushes, pulls or bumps her to fall. We are now watching Adeline pester Essie as she tries to play with her. Essie has no clue and this is likely what adds to the difficulty in her playing with Essie in that Adeline is more in her way. She loves her ice cream. She has an extensive vocabulary and great sense of humor. She loves her baby dolls, pink blankey (she calls it “fuzzing” when she rubs the blanket between her fingers as she falls asleep).
We have made friends with The Tilley family. Claire (6), Gracie (4), Kate (17mo), their mom/wonderful friend of mine Jill and dear husband Rob. Adeline was asking if they were going on the cruise with us. She also wanted to introduce them to the princesses (I guess a little pride there that she knew them enough to do so, but this was going to be their first trip to see them a couple weeks ago). She also recently asked if she could be a Tilley. Not just go with them, but clearly be one. It was just so sweet to see even at 3 how important friends are in your life. If being friends means taking their name, then I too would want to be a Tilley. Gifts from God to us in the past year. We play with them almost weekly and or minimally see them at Choir which here lately has lead to rolling down a hill and running around outside after. Girl power let me tell you.
My beach bum:
Thank you God for such a sweetie!!!
She has the sweetest way of saying “thank you” and she says it all the time. She has not been the best sleeper. But I can say we all slept through last night. So we will take that as a win to the sleep bank! She has the clearest “Mommy” call. Especially when she is being put down and night and doesn’t fall asleep immediately. She loves pushing around the baby stroller, with just about anything in it. She pushed elmo, babie, barbie size princesses, blankets, you name it. She has a sweet silky lovey that she has grown attached to in the past month or so. I was hoping for anything to help her sleep. This may or may not be working. She loves oatmeal and can say so. If she sees a bagel she asks for that too, even if she has already eaten her oatmeal “otme”, “bayl”. She loves her Calhoun. Though Adeline called him “Ka-Coon” she seems pretty clearly to call him “hoon”. She loves to do anything her sister is doing…. even “bad choices”. She pour tea and coffee like a champ. She even stirs in my sugar. She says “up” if you are trying to take a snooze on the couch. She knows when she wants her window on the car “up” or “oun”. She has the most infectious smile and eyes that light up any room. She is now freely giving out kisses. Before she would lean in for you to kiss her on the forehead. She loves the doll house Martha and Bill gave the girls for Christmas. She spins it round and round and caries the people and furniture around. She really likes the animal noise puzzle Aunt Annie gave us for her birthday. This puzzle is cool until it is freaky… you turn out the light or the TV changes from bright to dark and if any piece is not in it it goes off making the animal noise not in place (cow, mouse, any of the 10). So the sounds Essie loves to hear when she puts the pieces in place cause some quick glances at the oddest of moments. Essie rings the door bell EVERY time we come home or come in from walking Calhoun. She can ask for “milllk”. She has just about given up communicating with signs. A sad milestone for me. However, I can still remind her to say please with a quick jester. So she still knows them. She can same “ovie” for movie. Isn’t that sad. But after a few car trips she is hooked. And her big sister watched Cinderella so much I think today she said “cinella”. I almost didn’t want to acknowledge it. She say “ehmow” for elmo. And for a minute I thought a baby elmo was going to be her lovey, but that was only for a night. She is not as good of a variety eater as Adeline. But maybe we haven’t been serving them right. Today she ate broccoli dipped in ketchup. Who knew! She is great to warm up to folks she doesn’t see everyday. She went up to my Dad and practically crawled up in his lab. She once stood at our front window and kept calling for “meme” and then after a while started calling for “meme and papa”. We had seen them often the week before and I guess she was going through a withdrawal. She loves her teachers at Sonshine Day. She has them wraped around her pinkie. She has been parroting us around the house and apparently them at school. Ms. Becky was amazed when she said “clean up boys” after she did. I even heard her say “urple” when someone was showing her a purple pen. This has ramped up Adeline investing in her by trying to get her to say every word. Imagine where Adeline got that idea. She seems to like it though. These two sisters are adorable. Kisses are often shared. Adeline is very good at sharing and Essie is working on it, but really does surprise me how freely she will share. Baby dolls go back and forth by the minute. Pom poms are always shakin’. Today there was a lady exercising on the TV and Essie even started kicking her feet around. She can sing the key words to Jesus loves Me, Isty Bitsy Spider, Row Row your Boat, Patty Cake, Happy and you know it, and some others I am forgetting I am sure. She says “appy” so sweetly. She loves taking pretend pictures with our pretend camera. She tells everybody “eese” for cheese. She has other words too like ball, ock (for rock as in the rocking chair), play, hold you (that melts my heart and I have to admit I trained her on this on – she learned it very early on to get picked up), goo goo, GO, NO (she use to say this sweetly, but I think that the sister influence might have changed the delivery of this one), YES (with a big ole head nod), please, juice/shoes (they sound so similar you have to guess sometimes on what she wants),
“eese”
giving and getting kisses on our cruise:
so grown up
just looking up at momma
Essie loves hats:
Just so cute
Safety first and so independent:
The oldest picture of the bunch, but thank you Aunt Sissy for the warm and matching JamJams… even for the sweet babies! Perfectly fitting the girls to the floor.
Angel sleeping: 
Sisters having fun:
Thanks to God above for giving her to us and for giving us so many people that pour love into her life. She can help but ooze out sweetness!
The girls were thrilled each day with some mailbox excitement the past 3 days. They got cards from Meme and Papa that had gum and stickers, Sassy and Grandpa’s had stickers, and then came Aunt Sissy's embroidered post cards.
Thank you God for all you have given us. Thank you for all the wonderful people in our lives that show us love, show us a glimpse of You through the love and care they pass on to us. Thank you for our family ever so dear. Thank you for time to enjoy these and all that you have created. Many have no clue just how much they mean to our little family or to each one of us individually. Do we thank even thank God for giving them to us? Today I do. And I hope to show love and care back to show love to these and to God for all that has been given to us. As faith without actions is dead, saying “I love you” is meaningless unless followed with action. There are so many I am indebted to for the rest of my life for the actions of love poured into me and my family. I am blessed beyond measure. I hope and pray that I will show love to my wonderful husband and sweet girls, family, friend, coworkers, neighbors, and many that need it more than I know and maybe haven’t met yet. I pray our family be a family that shows love. I know we have the perfect example in Jesus.
We had so much fun with Sassy & Grandpa, Andy and Sandy on our Christmas cruise to Cozumel!
When we arrived due to the stroller, we used to board, we got to take the elevator and see the ship at a cool up close – down low kind of view. Adeline said wow it almost reaches up to God and Jesus. When asked how we were going to get on she was sure we would walk on even if bryan was saying we would swim. She was very unsure right up until we got there. She was very excited that we were going to be sleeping in beds on the ship. When we got to our room she was even more excited because she was going to be sleeping with bryan and I. It was a tight fit b/c we needed a pack n play for Essie. The ship provided it of course. We unpacked everything into every possible spot and settled in for some fun after catching up with the fam.
We had so much fun catching up with everyone!
Adeline loved the music:
She also on the last night loved the Gauchos – cowboys she called them. We went back to see a puppet show we missed for the second show and ended up staying through the Gaucho performance again… mesmerizing.
Adeline on fancy night as we headed to the buffet dinner. Notice the lip gloss, gloves, extra fancy pink skirt and she has on play high heals. Everyone in the dinning room loved it! She twirled the whole way.
Fun at the beach:
Fun on the ship:
Thank you Andy and Sandy for the cool hats:
We all love Sandy-pants… but especially Addy-pants!!!
Mom and Dad – I can’t believe I didn’t get any pictures of you with the girls. I scooped this one up from Sandy’s facebook page.
The girls had a blast. Adeline sleeps with her fancy socks. She is saving the special Hello-Kitty treats. We have eaten up the Animal Crackers. Thank you for loving on us so well. I would say this is the best Christmas trip ever! Thanks for organizing it Mom and thanks to all for going along!!!
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