My Little Helper

Addison is such a Mommy's Helper. Over the past couple of weeks she has learned to help me put away the groceries when we get home from the store. I brought the bags into the kitchen and started putting things in the fridge and freezer. Addison was helping so I started putting things in the cabinets. She shut the fridge and went to get more bags off the table. When I opened back up the fridge and freezer to my surprise this is what I found:
Popcorn in the fridge....And this in the freezer...She later went to put PB&J in the freezer, along with Pasta Noodles and Canned soups in the fridge. Need I say More?? :)

Bath Time Fun!

It has been awhile so I figured I would update with a few Bathtime pictures (of Addison, Duh!). Addison is doing great, so far this whole week she has woke up dry in the mornings! A big achievement for her, considering I havent really pushed the whole Potty Training at night thing just yet. It seems as though we have been keeping busy, although Im not sure with what. I have been doing a lot of late "Spring cleaning" and getting things sorted and put away. Chad will have leave soon, so we are trying to plan how to spend his rare time off wisely. A lot we want to do, but so little time.

A bit of a boring post, but here are a few pictures:

Pretty Even in the Tub!Showing me bubbles!Who said Cats dont like Water? Jax jumps in the tub with Addison!Looking at her hair in the tub! Lol She always says "Mommy, Hair Do!" and points to her head wanting me to stand it up.

Easter and a Growing Garden

What a wonderful and enjoyable Easter we had this year! Thanks to our family and friends, Addison was absolutely spoiled with all sorts of Easter goodies, it was like Christmas all over again. I am certain she enjoyed hunting Easter eggs the most and she knew exactly what to do. I must say we hid the eggs for her a couple times that day and even a few times later that week. Yes, Easter had passed, but the joy she had searching and picking up her eggs is just contagious. A few pictures from Easter Morning:Hunting Eggs

Instead of candy in her Easter eggs, she got Money! Even Better!She gets a tad excited about money :)So pretty

As far as our garden goes, it is somewhat coming along. We still only have 2 carrots that have started growing, and what we thought was an onion, may just be something else...However, our green beans have been growing like crazy. In the past week 11 different sprouts have popped up! If all else fails, we might atleast get some green beans from the garden.

A perfect row of sprouts.A close up of one of the bigger ones.

A Quick Look

As promised here are a few quick pictures of our garden taken almost a week ago.
Here is our garden area. We blocked it off with pieces of wood in hopes to keep the dogs from prancing in it. As we go on and our garden gets bigger we will probably end up roping it off or putting some sort of fence up to keep them out. But for now, the wood has worked. The garden looked pretty for about a day, and once all the rain came sticks,dirt and everything else has been blown into the garden. (You can probably see our swamp in the back of the yard from all the rain).Our first Carrot sprout! Since I took pictures we have another carrot sprout popping up, 1 onion, and 1 squash. So far no Green Beans. Hopefully soon we will see some more veggies beginning to grow!

A Gardening Experiment

When we initially moved into our house, our hopes were to build a garden in the Spring that would last all summer. With all the yard work our house required, any hopes of a garden quickly got pushed aside. This year I really didnt want to miss out on that opportunity again. Last weekend we finally decided to get our hands dirty, and take the plunge planting our first garden. Someday I would like a huge garden with lots of fresh veggies, but since this is our first year, we decided it would be better to start off small and learn from our mistakes. Sunday afternoon while Addison was down for a nap, Chad set out to find the perfect spot in the backyard and began digging. I knew when Addison and I went out to help, there would be no keeping her out of the dirt. I dressed her in play clothes and shoes and prepared myself for dirty fingernails. Helping Chad dig was pretty fun, we found a few worms (all of which were so "Yuck") and some rollie pollies which Addison found quite interesting. After about half and hour, Addison resigned to sitting on the side lines in a chair eating a snack (and in the shade of course) while Chad and I started to plant the seeds. We decided to plant Carrots, Onions, Summer Squash (our fav!) and Beans. I had looked up information online and was beginning to get excited to go out and water our small garden during these nice cool days. Florida/Georgia weather decided otherwise. 2 days after planting our garden it started raining and 3 days later it still has not let up. Half of our yard is flooded (Not so much the garden area)so I am keeping my fingers crossed that the rain has not ruined all of our hard work. I am really hoping to be able to produce atleast SOMETHING from our garden! I have been wanting to post pictures, but with the rain I dare not step foot in the mush that has become our yard. Hopefully I can get a picture this weekend and keep everyone updated with our garden progress (or failure??).

Since I dont have any pictures of our garden, I will substitute that with pictures of Addison, of course! Here are a few from a couple weeks back.

The quality of this photo is not the best, but her devilish little smirk makes me laugh.

20 Months Already

This month Addison reached the big 20 Month mark. I am amazed at how quickly time has flown since her birthday. In less than 4 months she will already be 2! Time sure is flying. Addison is doing so well. She is the sweetest, smartest little girl I have ever come across (I may be a bit bias) She is still as sweet as pie, but she can have a fiery little temper too! She is able to communicate very well, and I can understand pretty much everything that she is saying (or atleast a word here and there). She can say pretty much everything now. She has learned so many new words over the past couple of months. Some of them include: morning, milk, chair, snack, book, shoes, teeth, please, yum, bye-bye, hello, hi, potty, poopoo, panties, Maddie (Yaddie..that one always makes me smile), Cooper, Jax, butterfly , Oh Well and so many more that I just cant think of. Although no two words have ever melted my heart more than hearing her say "Wuuuvvvv Youuuu!!" Yes, she loves me. I tell her I love her multiple times a day, and a few weeks ago she finally said it back. I have never heard anything sweeter. She now tells me everytime she leaves a room, "Bye..Wuvvv Youuuu!" and everytime I just want to shower her with kisses. My favorite parts of the day are when just out of the blue she comes up and kisses me. She wont accept them anywhere else but on her lips. No matter how slobbery, snotty etc...she just has to have a kiss on the lips and wont give up until she gets one! It is the most rewarding thing in the world. I have been blessed with one sweet little girl!

I am learning that pictures these days are becoming harder and harder to come by. Getting her to sit still, and look at (much less smile at) the camera is becoming quite a little task. She has a mind of her own these days. It was so much easier before she started walking. Sorry for the lack of pictures and quality, but I hope to get some better shots this weekend. Here is my 20 Month Old:

Eating some Kiwi

Dr.'s Apt, Zoo's and Pigtails, Oh My!

We have had a busy couple of weeks! Last week Addison had what was supposed to be her 18 Month Checkup. Because we were so busy last month, we were a little behind on scheduling her apt. Her last checkup was in October when she was 15 months, she was 21lbs and 29" long. Boy, has our little girl grown! Chad and I always like to bet on her height and weight, we were both way off. She is now 23lbs and 33 1/4" long! Apparently she had a major growth spurt. The Dr. was so suprised at how much taller she had gotten. It explains why all of her pants had become capri's. As of now she is in the 25% for her weight, and the 75% for her height. He said she is alittle on the small side, which makes me laugh because that girl eats like a horse. He was also completely surprised that she was already potty trained. I was a bit surprised myself, with him being a Dr. I figured he would see this often, but apparently not. He was very excited that she has been doing so well. She is definitely ahead for her age.

Last week I was finally able to put Addison in some pigtails without it looking silly. It was exciting for us because Chad and I think she looks so darn cute with them. She secretly likes them too!

Maddie Did It!!

Chad also happened to have Monday off for Presidents Day. We decided to put Addison down for an early nap and head out to the Jacksonville Zoo for the afternoon. It was such a nice day outside and we had SO much fun. Addison loved seeing all the animals. She can make almost any animal sound now, so she was obsessed with showing us what animals make what sounds. She was an angel the whole day and even took 3 potty trips while we were there. The day was going smoothly until Chad dropped our Nikon Camera lens cap off the boardwalk and right next to the leopard cage...(dun, dun, dun, dun...) I made him go and find someone to help us out. Luckily we were right next to the leopards and Monkeys so Addison and I stayed behind and had fun watching the Monkeys while they retrieved our lens cap. Reason #97 why men shouldnt mess with their wives toys. I took control over the camera the rest of the day:) A few pictures...

The Elephants where Addison's absolute favorite. The leopards came in a close 2nd, probably only because we were watching them so long while Chad was off getting help ( I still love you Chad!!) Addison is making her elephant noise with the full arm motion and all (of the elephants trunk).

Here is where Chad dropped the Camera cap. Right next to the vicious African Leopard. The most rare leopard species of them all (well,atleast thats what the zoo keeper told us while we were waiting. Again, I love you chad!).

Fish! (Or in Addison talk "Shish")

Just a Quick Video

This video is about a Month old, I took it while Addison was still Potty Training and I thought I should share. I will apologize in advance for her eating while taping. Like me, she is obsessed with looking at my camera's and seeing the images on the screen. Thus, I had to distract her with a cracker :) Enjoy!

All Grown Up!

I am more than pleased to announce that Addison is officially Potty Trained! Yes, we are so excited for her! We started PT 10 days ago. The first few days were long and tedious with some minor bumps in the road. She had used her potty many times before, so she knew how exciting it was to go peepee in it. She just had to learn to control "the urge". On day 5 she literally woke up, and it just clicked. Since her 5th day of PT she has only had 2 accidents! I dont expect her to be accident free for awhile. I know during the next couple of months she will have accidents, and thats okay. It is a learning process and she is still in the early stages. Although she hasnt had any accidents for 3 days! We cut diapers cold turkey, so she has been in panties for the past 10 days and she is always so excited to put them on. Im sure they are much more comfy! One minor problem we have is that she wont say peepee/potty yet (but she does say Poop!), so I have to take her to the potty every so often. Usually if she dosnt go in the first couple of minutes then I know she dosnt have to go. But usually she has gotten good at going as soon as she sits down. I just look forward to the day where she can communicate better and be able to inform me when she needs to go. The only other difficulty we have is that she dosnt like to poop in the potty. She will and does, but once she realized what she did she kinda freaks out. She starts crying, and in between wimpers she says "Ewwwie" and "Yuck, Yuck!" she dosnt like it being in her little potty. I have learned I can tell her what she did until she is completely finished (I learned that the hard way!) She wont even help me flush it, but she is better once its gone. What can I say? The girl dosnt like Poop!

We are SO proud of our Big Girl. She is only 18 Months and is already potty trained. We are so amazed at how quickly she caught on and learned. She is the smartest little girl and it always amazes me how much she can learn. I am such a proud Mommy right now! I have such a beautiful, intelligent, fun and most of all healthy little girl. Every Day I fall more in love with her. She has got quite the personality and makes us hysterically laugh daily. Oh, she can also count to Two and Three. Thats right, no One, just two and three. I am pretty sure I heard her say four today, or it could of been my mind playing tricks. We are working on One, but atleast she has Two and Three in the right order! here are a few pictures for your Potty Training enjoyment...

Reading books on the pottyTrying to show off her pantiesThis is alittle bit better. She picked out the Elmo Panties all by herself!Getting ready for bed. She's Such a doll!
And Just because she's Pretty :)

We're Expanding!....And an Update

We are officially announcing that we are expanding our family! Now before you get too excited, we are not planning on adding anymore kiddos into the mix for awhile. However, we decided to adopt a feline companion :) Yes that is right, we recently added a little kitten into the Snell Clan. We picked him up Friday from the local Humane Society and Addison is smitten. He is a great little kitten (he is 12 weeks) and has adapted well into our crazy household. So far the dogs have done great with him, other than constantly following him around and sniffing him. They act like they are such tough little dogs, yet everytime he turns to try to play with them they run the other direction. He is a very cute and cuddly little guy, he puts up with Addison well. She tries to be gentle and does well for the most part, but sometime she squeezes him a little TOO much. Here are a few pictures of our newest addition, Jax:

On another note, it was great seeing all of our family and friends while were in town! Thank you all for making our trip enjoyable. While in town we took Addison to Sea World and Disney and had such a great time. I think she enjoyed Sea World a little bit more since she loves animals so much. We will definately take her again soon! Chad has had leave the past couple of weeks and it has been SO nice having him home. His first day back is tomorrow and I must admit it will probably be a bit odd having him go back. We have gotten into somewhat of a funk of having him home all day. We have been selfish with him:) Addison is doing fabulous. She is doing so many new things, I probably couldnt even type them anymore. She is saying new words daily. She can also make just about any animals noise there is. She has gotten so big, and looks like such a big toddler nowadays. She hasnt looked like a baby in awhile, but I think I have just been hanging on to what baby I have left of her. She is so much fun though and we always have such a great time with her. She has thoroughly enjoyed having Chad home so much as well. I dont have too many recent pictures of Addison but I will post some soon!

Chad made Addison into a "Baby Burrito"

I thought this one was cute of Addison. She was romping around on the bed with Chad and I just loved her facial expression.