Our New Park

Our county was recently voted as having the best park system in the whole of the USA! I used to bitch about the fact there are no sidewalks anywhere, but it doesn't matter when we have such amazing parks. Even if we won the lottery (not that we are likely to as we don't play it) I wouldn't move from this area and I love the parks and schools so much.

They opened a Alexander Park a couple of months ago and as I get bored with going to the same parks all the time, we have been going there recently. Jaden and Kirsten cycle and Nicolas and Adison ride in the stroller and we do 3 miles each morning and then the kids get to play on the playset.

It looks as if I never take pictures of Jaden and Kirsten, but Jaden is at the age where he refuses to be photographed and I've given up begging, and Kirsten keeps pulling silly faces, so it's hard to get cute pictures of them to post.

The inability to walk is no barrier to Adison, she manages to pull herself up on everything and climb all over the playset. Kirsten is a great example to the kids as she is always hanging or flipping on something! Nicolas can hold on to the rings on our playset and flip himself over backwards which amazes me as I could never do that.

Most of the time Adison is content to swing and watch what is going on, especially if Kirsten is swinging next to her.

My Baby Angel!

Adison is now 13 months and an absolute delight! She is starting to get some hair and it's very blonde and has a curl to it. It's still not long enough to put anything in it.

This was after her bath so you can see how thin her hair is, but it's quite long.She pulls up on everything and will walk behind her baby walker or the shopping cart I got for her at the consignment sale but she still can't even stand by herself. As with the rolling over, I'm sure she could do it, she just chooses not to!

She is a really good mix of me and Adam. She used to look a lot like Mom but she hasn't for the last month or so. She has Adam's mouth and ears but her eyes are definately mine. She looks so serious at times because of her brow line, but she gets cuter all the time. I love her nose the best. It is so little and cute and a perfect mix of the pointiness of my nose and Adam's slightly wider nose. I kiss it all the time!

Nicolas always had something in his mouth and a cord of some sort draped around his shoulders and Adison is just the same. As long as whatever she is chewing is small enough to be poohed out, I don't worry too much. She's never choked on anything and as our whole house has bits of Star Wars lego all over from Jaden, I'd spend 1/2 my life taking storm trooper heads out of the kids mouths!

I can honestly say the only thing Adison does that drives me crazy is she throws her sippy cups on the floor as hard as she can. Either the top falls off and spills milk all over or the thing in the lid comes out and milk drips on the floor. Both are equally annoying, especially if Leo gets to the milk first, licks it all up and then vomits (which thankfully only happened once but of course he vomited on the rug, not the floor- evil dog!)
She still only has four teeth and no sign of any more. She has had the bottom two for about 3 months now but her top two only came in about a month ago. She still has no middle top teeth so she looks so funny as her teeth interlock! I can't get a really good photo of them but you can kind of see them in the picture above and below.

She is trying really hard to tallk and babbles all the time. I'm trying to make the time to sit and teach her words, but so far Mama, Baba (for Dada,) more and milk are the only ones she says clearly. She knows cows say 'boooo' and sheep say 'ba' and we are working on lots of other sounds too. Nicolas starts preschool in September so I'll have her all to myself Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so that's when I can really do the one on one with her. Nicolas is just too demanding at the moment and will answer for her.

Baking Cookies and Cupcakes

When Mom and Dad were here they bought me a stackable cookie cutter in the shape of a bear. We finally got around to making cookies and Nicolas and Kirsten loved it.

Adison hung out on the couch and created all kids of chaos in the background. I can't wait until she is big enough to help too.
As usual there was a big mess, but 5 minutes set up and 10 minutes clean up and the baking, decorating and eating of the cookies took at least 2 hours!!

Leo was in attendance to lick up any crumbs and dream of a whole cookie falling on the floor for him!
This bear looked more like a pig but the possiblities for making animals are endless.

Nicolas loves his panda so he wanted a panda cookie.
I made Adison a little butterfly so she wouldn't feel left out which she really enjoyed.

I think Nicolas enjoyed the cookies most, and as they were so big, one was more than enough!

When the kids were playing at the neighbors one day and Adison was having lunch, Nicolas and I made the Thomas cupcakes that Mom and Dad had brought over.
It amazes me what kids can do if you train them properly. Nicolas loves using the mixer and he can crack and egg, so basically he can make a cake at the age of two! I still need to check he's holding on to the bowl as he tends to let go and if the mixer is still on, that can be a problem!




He's always so proud of himself when he's cooking.

The cupcakes came with a little tube of icing which he loved because he could be precise with where the icing went. Usually I can't be bothered to get out all my piping bags and nozzles so when we decorate cupcakes or cookies it's usually with icing spooned onto them, but he liked to put the dots of icing in just the right place. He wasn't convinced that he could eat the ricepaper pictures though!
These are two videos I posted in the wrong place, but as it takes so long to download them, I'm not moving them! The video below was from the playdate where my friends son played music for the kids. Adison loved it and if you look closely you will see that even at 10 Jaden isn't too 'cool' to sing along!

Nicolas loves having conversations on the 'phone' to Daddy and Granny and Grandpa. It is rarely actually a phone, usually just something that looks kind of like on, in then case it was the remote control for the TV. The usual subject is how big his wee wee was or how big the tower he built was. I love how he still talks about Mom and Dad so much and they are such a big part of his life, even though he sees them so rarely.

Note the pink potty in the background. He has a blue one for when we are out, but at home we use Nicole and William's old potty! I hope it doesn't give him hang ups when he's older!!

Jai's Birthday and Playdates

I few weeks ago life was so crazy and stressful that I thought I'd lose my mind. As a result I took Nicolas to his friend Jai's birthday 20 minutes before the party ended as I got the time totally wrong!

I was so sad because it was at a petting zoo and the kids would have loved it and some of my favorite friends were there too, but at least Nicolas got to ride a pony and pet some of the animals before we had to leave.

Nicolas just loves animals so it makes me sad that we don't have the money to go to England as he would be in heaven with Grandpa's animals. Whenever Mom tells me about the things that my nephew William likes, it's always something that Nicolas would adore and I wish that we lived across the farm yard from them and Mom and Dad, and the kids could all grow up together. I would miss far more things about my life here if that happened so I just have to hope that the memories we will make with the kids when we do visit will make up for what they miss out on.

At the end of the summer vacation we got to go to several playdates with MOMS Club. I hardly ever get to go to there events, so it was great to catch up with everyone. I thought that Jaden and Kirsten would be bored but they really enjoyed themselves and were very well behaved and sweet.

My friend Lesli's son did a music playdate and it was wondeful. He played the guitar and had all the kids up and dancing and singing. I've got a video to post later and even Jaden is singing along in the background!

I would love to get Adison involved in a music preschool of some kind as she is far more musical than Nicolas and bounces along to any tune she hears. She definately has the Woodall rhythm!

My friend Gina's little girl Ella is a day younger than Adison (I had so many friends who where pregnant at the same time as me which was wondeful!) and she combined Ella's birthday party with a playdate. She had a paddling pool in the yard and we all got to hang out and chat while the kids played.

Adison was more interested in pulling herself into the chairs rather than playing in the pool. She may have no interest in walking but she can climb on anything! Yesterday she climbed all the way up the back of our playset onto the top and then tried to go down the slide. I sometimes wonder if Adam has a regressive monkey gene in him somewhere as all the kids climb! I've never seen him climb anything, but I've seen plenty of photos of him and his brother's 20 feet up trees when they were little though.

Berkeley's 1st Birthday Party

My friend Caroline and I have both been so busy over summer that we've hardly seen each other but we celebrated Berkeley's 1st Birthday with her.

Adison and Emerson.

The party was at a play place that had all kinds of activities for the kids and they both loved it.

I love seeing the differences between the babies. Berkeley is shorter than Adison but she looks much older because she has hair and is walking. I've never been one to care whether my babies were doing what they were supposed to at a certain age (except with Nicolas' speech), and I really don't care now. Adison is longer than the babies her age, but because she's bald and can't walk she looks like a giant baby, rather than a toddler. I actually really enjoy the fact she is still my baby.

I worked at the consignment sale at church this week and got all sad when I saw all the baby clothes that I'd never need again. If we didn't have four already I'd definately be ready for another, but Adison is so special to me that I wouldn't want her to be anything other than my littlest baby.

Nicolas is still obsessed with pressing buttons but as he gets older he can actually work things. He knows how to navigate around all his favorite games on the computer and if he was better with his letters he could probably log onto thomas.com as well!

Nicolas and Adison enjoyed the pizza and cake at the party and getting to explore.

The birthday girl Berkeley who is a week younger than Adison.

Swim Team Awards

It shows how long it is since I blogged last because swim teams seems like a distant and stressful memory! They had an awards ceremony in the middle of July and the kids got trophies. I couldn't go to the ceremony as Nicolas was sick, but Adam was very proud of them both.

We made keepsake boxes last week so now they have somewhere to keep all the special things they win or make.

I'm about to sign them up for soccer so we'll see how stressful that is!

Potty Trained and Building Towers

It has been five weeks since we started potty training Nicolas and it took 3 weeks before I was confident he was done. He was great for the first 3 days with no accidents, but he wouldn't pooh in the potty. Then he started to have accidents during the day. Adam felt that because he was in diapers for naps and at night, he just forgot what he was wearing. So for a week every nap time and every morning I was washing wet sheets and shampooing the carpet where he'd slept behind his door and weed on the floor - his room smelt revolting!!

After the first week with no diapers at all the accidents stopped and he was poohing in the potty. It took another couple of weeks before he was totally dry at night, but now he's been dry at night for over a week and only had one tiny accident last Saturday.

When I potty train Adison I will just go cold turkey with no diapers from day one. We are now working on standing up to wee as he still sits down and uses the potty not the loo. It has been easier than I thought, but took longer, I thought he'd be done in a week, but he's the only child of his age who is dry through the night too out of his little friends, so I'm proud of him.

His little bottom is just so cute in underwear. I love the fact that when he's running around in his underwear in the house I can imagine what Adam would have been like at the same age. They are both the same shape and so I get a glimpse into what Adam was like as a little boy growing up in our house.
My friend Julie gave Nicolas a box of wooden blocks ages ago and he was never interested in them. Will and I spent hours as children playing with blocks, so I was kind of disappointed. Then all of a sudden a couple of weeks ago he found the blocks in the closet and now all he wants to do is build towers. Even Jaden and Kirsten will build towers and gates to rooms with him. If he doesn't want to go down for his nap he'll call through the door "I build huge tower for you Mommy", in the hope that I'll open the door to look!