Merry Christmas

This is the first Christmas Addie has started to understand what the Holiday is all about (from a child's perspective anyway).  It was so fun to see her really get into present opening, talk about Santa Clause, Reindeer and the most fun of all is the Chipmunk Christmas CD, which we listen to in the car pretty much everyday!  I was really excited for her to start learning the fun traditional Christmas carols, but looking back, Chipmunk Christmas is not a great way for a 2 year old to learn the words!  Although she was actually able to master Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman, we get requests for those songs on a fairly regular basis!

Addie opening presents at the Muckenhirn's, she was probably the most excited about her candy cane, which you can see she is clutching in her hand and refused to let go of!

Present from Aunt Rachel, a book all about counting!

Addie is never intersted in stopping to pose for a picutre, as soon as we pull out the camera she will yell "Smile" but doesn't actually smile or look at the camera, so sometimes it is an effort to catch her sitting still and actually looking at you!

Present from Uncle Dave, industrial size tramopline that literally takes up half of the downstairs living room!  Can't wait for summer to move this out to the deck and let Addie jump in the fresh air, but she does love it and gets in a few minutes of jumping every night. 

Her favorite quote while jumping is "Look at me, I jump really high!" So funny, she is like 2 inches off the mat!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

So the Little Miss was lucky enough to have two birthday celebrations this year!  Since Addie's birthday is on November 28th, she is always going to be competing with Thanksgiving.  We first celebrated at the Muckenhirn's and Addie was pretty excited about her ice cream cake, which ended up creating a little mess on the table cloth, but that is what two year olds do, especially ones that enjoy sweets as much as this one!

Out of all the nice presents that Addie got for her birthday, she probably had the most fun learning how to blow the party favors, once she figured this out, she was all about showing off her new skills!  Although she was pretty rough on them, most of them ended up with chewed off ends, which of course means that she was able to ensure she got all of them to herself!

The next celebration was at Nana's house with Auntie and Jade.  We stuck with the traditional birthday meal - pizza!  Although we probably get more excited about pizza than Addie does, she would have been just as happy with "Ogurt," which she requests for every meal, every single time we ask her what she wants to eat!

Since the first piggy bank that Addie received from Nana on her 1st birthday ended up broken into multiple pieces on the floor, a perfect 2nd birthday gift was another piggy bank - but this one is indestructable, even for Hurricane Addie!

She struggled a bit with the quarters as the piggy bank is one that keeps track of the money, as it needs to be able to read each coin that is put in, and the quarters usually need a little extra strength.

Mike likes to call this Addie's "I-pod" as it had a little radio type thing attached to the book that she likes to carry around and put up to her ear like a cell phone and listen to all the fun songs.  Her favorite being "Twinkle."

She was pretty proud of her big girl cake, and was actually able to enjoy it this year (she was really sick last year and did not have the true "first cake" experience, but she has made up for it this year!)

Diving into the cake and ice cream and picking the little sugar dots off of the frosting (fun for kids, not so much for adults).  Addie had a wonderful 2nd birthday, and thanks to everyone who made it special!!

Science Museum

Addie and I were excited to be invited to go with Sarah and Emilia to the Science Museum as they had 2 extra passes with their annual membership - it is good to have friends in high places! So we headed out on a cold Saturday morning to check out the exhibits and have some indoor fun. The girls are to the point where they will engage with each other for a bit, but then will be off running and doing their own thing! Oddly enough, they sort of ended up in matching cute red outfits!

Addie checking out the ice fishing pole - just pull on the pole and up comes the fish to the top of the ice - this was a fun one to do over and over!

The girls were very excited by the boat races, in fact Addie was so enthralled that she refused to leave and explore the other parts of the exhibit until I physically pulled her away while she was kicking her legs and crying............mini public temper tantrum.

Extreme concentration and focus on getting the boats properly set up!

On our way out of the museum there was this neat little ball that would collapse and expand to the point that Addie could get right in the middle of the action!

Before we headed home, we stopped at CiCi's Pizza for some lunch, which was quite an experience, it actually felt like we were in the middle of a Saturday Night Live skit! However the girls thought it was great and had trouble focusing on the goal of eating, they were so busy trying to entertain each other.

Thanks again for a fun day!

First Haircut!

Addie was starting to grow a mini mullet, so we decided it was time to take her for her first official "real" haircut. Apparently the trim that I gave her didn't count, maybe because it didn't look so hot! So off we went to KidsHair in Edina, they are a little spendy for the little amount of hair that is actually being cut, but they have lots of distractions and obviously are used to squirming toddlers, so we thought this would be a good place to start. In reality, it probably would not have mattered much as to where we went, because Addie just sat their with a petrified look on her face the entire time - haircuts are scary! No hair washing needed here, a few sprays of the water bottle and we are good to go!

Addie checking herself out in the mirror, "Don't I look pretty?"

As you can see, there is not a lot of hair to work with in the front, we are still waiting for that to fill in........

The hairstylist did let Addie put in her own hair product, which is the only time during the whole ordeal that she cracked a smile.

I did not get a good "before" shot, but I can tell you that it doesn't look all that different than the "after" shot pictured above. The only real difference is now the back is even and is a little closer to the length of the hair on the sides. Although Addie was partial to her braid, a $20 braid, who knew it could be such fun?