Some News...

So... You may have noticed some changes to my blog recently. Such as the addition of a new ticker. That's right!

I'm Pregnant!!

I found out on Tuesday morning and told Jordan later that evening. I was going to try to keep it to myself for a few weeks, but it knew it would be too hard not to tell Jordan and once Jordan knows something everyone he talks to knows it (He cannot keep a secret when it's something he's excited about!) Also there was a circumstance that needed to be addressed and the fact that I'm pregnant went into play with it. So we told all of our family (that we could get in touch with *cough, cough, KYLA* :) ) that night. It was so much fun to tell everyone that Addison is going to be a big sister! My mom screamed and cried (all happy screams and tears of course!)

I am currently a little over 4 weeks along and I'm feeling good. I've started to feel a little, teeny, tiny bit nauseous in the afternoons. I'm going to stay positive and say that it's not going to get worse and it wont' be nearly as bad as last time!

We're praying for a healthy baby, boy or girl!

12 Month Stats

Addison went to the doctor today for her 12 month well-baby visit. She was such a ham for all the nurses; talking and answering their questions with "yea"s and "no"s! So cute!! She is in the 50th percentile for height, 45th for weight and 85th for head circumference (H: 29", W: 20 lbs, 3oz, HC: 18"). Yes, she has a big head. That only means she's super smart!!

The doctor said she was doing great verbally (which Addison demonstrated the entire time we were there) and that she was not at all concerned that Addison's not walking. She's cruising and crawling around enough to be extremely mobile still. It won't be long...

The bad part of the visit was that my poor little baby (I started to write girl, but that just makes her sound so old. She's still Mama's Baby!) had to get her little finger prick to check her lead levels and she also had to get three shots! She screamed and then cried (the kind of crying where she can't catch her breath) for 10 minutes afterward. I felt so bad. And making it even worse was that I had to get right back in the car (without her) and come back to work while Jordan took her home. I so wanted to stay with her to comfort her and cheer her up. She was, of course, fine. I'm sure it was much more traumatic fro her Daddy and I. I told Jordan he needed to take one of his anxiety pills before her next appointment. Haha!

I'm glad to know that my baby is healthy and growing and right on track with her development!

Addison's Big PARTY

Today was Addison's big Birthday party! We had nearly fifty people there and everything ended up going really well. It did rain a bit but only for a short time.

Here's the beautiful Birthday Princess in all her glory! These wallet prints were the take-away favor.

This is Addison's smash cake. And smash it she did...

Here's the big cake. Loved the pink and greens!
We had a big bounce house set up for the big kids. Jordan let Addison try it out before anyone else got there. She was pretty unsure of it.

This is Addison playing in her new Rose Cottage House. My wonderful Aunt Vivian gave this to Addison on Friday for her birthday. She had it already set up for us. She loves playing with all the little pieces and household appliances. My favor part is the birthday cake. It is in 4 pieces that all Velcro together so you can serve them out. Oh, and it even came with plastic paper plates. They are so cute and you can tell they are supposed to be little Dixie plates. Thanks so much, Aunt Viv!Here's the party girl pre-party playing on my bed.

Playing with one of her many presents.

Isn't she just precious! She loves her GranDee.

Eating her dress...?

Again with GranDee.

These are the babies that were at the party. It's Salem (with mommy LeeAnn) and John (with mommy Charlin) and Addison (with mommy me :) That are only 3 and 1/2 months between the oldest (John) and youngest (Salem). We are all pregnant at the same time and in the same innerchange bible study group together. There was one other couple in the group that have a little boy (Tyler) in the middle but they were at the beach.

Here's one of the tables.
She had a piece of watermelon that she was loving!! We had to sneak it away from her.
She didn't know what to think about the candle.

Playing in the cake. Starting out cautious.

Finally digging into it.

And this is the finished result. In the hair and everything.

Here's all the presents. Addison was not interested in opening any of them. She just wanted to play with Conner. See his little broken arm? Poor little guy. Looks like Ellett was trying to play with Conner too! He's such a little cutie!

We had so much fun! Thanks to everyone who helped make this such a special day! We love you!

Addison's Birthday (Party # 1)

This is a long post. with lots of pictures. Here goes:Monday night we had a small(ish) party for Miss Addison at our house. It was so much fun and Addison was such a little ham!
We ate outside on the covered patio even though it was slightly chilly from the rain. We had marinated chicken, salad, broccoli and cheese, bread, banana pudding and pink lemonade cake! We invited my sister, Kyla (the photographer-not pictured), my parents (on the right), my uncle Glenn, Aunt Pat, my cousin Greg, and Jordan's parents (his dad is on the left, his mom couldn't come). And of course Jordan, Addison and I.

Here's my Dad and Aunt Pat. Can you tell they're siblings? They are both wild over Addison.

The birthday girl and her mommy!

Here's "uncle" Greg with Addison. She doesn't look like it in this picture but she loves Greg! And he is totally wrapped around her little finger. He calls her "Girly" and rides her on his shoulders and worries over toys that shes trying to put in her mouth. It's really sweet.
Here's Addison and her Papaw. He is another one of her favorite people!

Our happy little family of three!
Here's the delicious pink lemonade cake and smash cake that my mom made. I thought they turned out so cute!

As we were presenting Addison's cake to her she just kept looking up at me like, "Mom...What is this thing. It's on fire! You realize you are giving me fire?!?"

But then after we blew out her candle and she started sticking her hands in it she realized she liked it. "OOOHHH... It's gooey and sweet!"

Then she started looking up at us with a new facial expression after every time she touched the cake. It was hilarious! See what I mean about her being a little ham!?

Addison didn't destroy the cake completely like I thought she would and she didn't really eat it. She tasted the icing a bit but was not at all interested in the cake.
She only wanted to dump it off the plate and then she wanted to lick the plate...

and put it on her head. She didn't get as covered in icing as I expected, but she got pretty messy.

Then came bath time. She was NOT enjoying her bath. I think she knew that other people were there and waiting for her to come open presents.
She's just to pitiful and although she was screaming and whining, it was so cute!
Once we started opening presents Miss Addison decided to cheer up some.
She definitely enjoyed her audience! See the pile of new clothes she got! The girl will not need any more clothes for a while!

This is my favorite picture of her for the night. This is the new toy that in mentioned in this post. She was speeding down the hallway and I had to run backwards in front of her to catch a picture of her! Look at that huge grin!

She had such a great birthday! Thank you to everyone who made her day special!

The End of an Era

As we approached Addison's first birthday, we started to introduce whole milk into her bottles. The closer May 17th came, the higher the ratio of whole milk to breast milk became. This past weekend Addison took several bottles that were all whole milk and didn't seem to notice a difference at all, which is wonderful!

So what does this mean for me? NO MORE PUMPING!! (Get ready for TMI in the next few sentences...)

I am so pumped (haha) excited about not pumping! I had decreased the number of times I was pumping daily until I was just pumping once in the morning. I did that for about a week then did it every other day for a few days and now I haven't pumped since Saturday. I'm feeling it. It doesn't feel good. I'm hoping that my milk supply dries up really soon because this process is quite painful! I was reading about natural remedies to dry up milk supplies in an article online and it suggested several things (most of which I'm not going to try) one of which is to take a decongestant because it's designed to dry you up. So I'm trying it and hoping that it works. We'll see.

It's been so nice to not have to lug around my pump, pump accessories, and cooler to work and home every single day! It's nice to be able to stay out on the teller line every morning and afternoon without having to duck out to my back office to pump and feeling guilty about lines forming in the lobby. I'm so, so glad that I was able to breastfeed and that I did it for Addison's entire first year, but I have to say that I am so glad that I'm done! ( I just wish I could skip the engorgement phase. My boobs feel like they might explode!!)

Just had to share... :)

Happy Birthday Addison Kate!

Addison,

You are one year old today! I cannot believe how quickly this past year has gone by! You are such a beautiful, happy, sweet, spunky little girl! You're getting so big and starting to do so many things now! You are almost walking, just a little scared to let go and do it yourself. And that's okay with me. I'll let you do things on your own time, baby. You are curious about just about everything now. When we go shopping you like to stick your little hand over the side of the stroller and grab anything you can reach. Then you just grin up at me when you reel your new treasure in. I love you so much more than I could ever convey in words. I never imagined how much I would love and care about you. How I would ache for you when we are separated. How I'd miss you when you are in the next room sleeping. How much joy I would get out of simply watching you explore and figure things out. You have given your Daddy and me so much happiness and joy over the past year, I can't wait to see what's in store for us over the next few years!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

I love you so much!

Smith Girls Rocking the House!

My mom's sister, (my Aunt) Cheri and my cousin Zach came into town a couple weekends ago. While they were here, We had a Rockband party at my house. At first Mom and Cheri were taking turns on the microphone, singing... But we finally convinced them to try the guitar. And they both did very well. Much better than I did the first time I tried to play, that's for sure.

Here's Cheri rocking out! (on a side note: If you look really closely to the dinning room wall in the background, you can see my stripes that I've been talking about for months. Love it!)

All of us pretending to play/sing for the camera.

You gotta love this picture! That's my cousin Greg being crazy! Fun times!