Happy First Birthday Addison Joy

One year ago today at 9:16 PM and after 36 hour of labor our "Blessing" Addison Joy Grant was born weighing in at a whopping 9 pounds 7 ounces and 22 inches long (read here about Addison's somewhat dramatic arrival story). I cannot believe it has been one year, during the year it seemed like it would never end, but now that it is here it has flown by!!!

I am not writing her one year post today, just want to wish our precious daughter a happy birthday!

Addison: Happy first birthday! You live up to your middle name so perfectly and we are so thankful for you everyday. You brighten our lives everyday with your smiles, giggles, silliness and crazy little animal faces. We are so proud of you already and love you very much!

3 Days Old

11 Months

11 Months

Illness Strikes The Grant Gang

Oh man....have we had a bad run of luck with illnesses lately but honestly I am thankful that they were really all very minor!

It all started on Wednesday March 16 when I came down with the WORST stomach virus EVER. I wont give details, but it was so bad that after all night of being sick I wound up in the ER with TWO bags of IV. Sheesh. I guess nursing and being sick like that will dehydrate you.

The next day I was still feeling blah, but started getting a headache and a bit of a cough. I did not think much of it until Addison ALSO started coughing just a tiny bit. Over the next few days Addison and I both started getting some congestion. By Tuesday March 22, Addison was wheezing so we had to take her to the doctor....Wednesday the doctor confirmed she was wheezing and needed to be on breathing treatments every 4 hours. AND he said she should NOT be in childcare for a week or so. Well normally that is not a big deal for us since I stay at home with her. During church she is in the nursery but missing one week is not terrible BUT...this was consignment week. What is consignment week you ask? Well it is a children's/baby consignment sale at my church benefiting a local pregnancy center and I am on the leadership team. That means, Addison is supposed to be in childcare for two days solid...and I found out the NIGHT BEFORE. Oh man I was stressed. Luckily everyone was able to step in and help me out at the sale and Matthew got home an hour early both days. I felt terrible being away from her when she was so sick :(

She took her treatments PERFECTLY...I am not exaggerating, she did not even move, it was so sweet.

All the while, I was neglecting my ailments which proved to be a bad idea. By Thursday I was so stopped up I could not breath...but of course I was too busy to call the doctor, until MONDAY. And by Monday MATTHEW was sick too!!! AHHHHH...so we all piled in the car Tuesday to head to the doctor. Matthew and I both had bad sinus infections. My doctor said I should never wait two weeks before coming in next time.

I am pleased to report, Addison is 95% back to normal, just a bit of a cough still.

Matthew is MUCH MUCH better now that he is on medicine and feeling better too!

Me? Ehh...I am allergic to amoxocillin so....there arent many antibiotics I can take to help with a sinus infection. Needless to say, I am still under the weather but honestly...I am THANKFUL I do not have a stomach virus anymore! WHEW...I hate those things!!!!!

Here's hoping we are all healed by Addison's First Birthday Party Sunday!!!! YAY!!!

Cookies Please

Addison has been blowing us away with her communication skills; she signs and speaks SO much already! I made some cookies for a church function the other night. I picked up a cookie to taste test them of course and then preceded to sit down with Addison to play. Well she was every interested in what I had so I decided to let her give it a try. I gave her ONE bite and she wanted more naturally, but alas I said no.

About 30 minutes later I picked her up and brought her in the kitchen to show Matthew the dress her grandma Grant made. She saw the pile of cooling cookies (which she had not seen me pull my cookie from), pointed at it.....said "eeee", gave the "eat sign" followed by the "please" sign. And repeated. We could not believe that a) she made an entire POLITE sentence with sign language and b) that she even knew that was the cookie she was eating earlier.

Of course we had to recreate it for the video camera, she did not do the eat sign here but for a recreation this was pretty good....so check this out....

Please ignore my haggard appearance...remember I am still sick.

Push and Ride Fun Outside

Santa gave Addison a push and ride for Christmas, but she has always been a little hesitant around it. Well the first kinda warm day here, we decided to enjoy the sunshine by testing the push and ride on the sidewalk in front of the house. I was admittedly nervous about the concrete, but I KNOW she has to fall and learn sometime so I kept a safe distance. Well, Addison LOVED riding on sidewalk--I think because it was much easier to push herself and she could go FAST.

Since this outing, we have taken her outside several times to ride around and she seems to get more and more endurance. It is a great way to burn energy, which she has TONS of now!

Waiting to go play outside....and playing with the light saber in the mean time of course

Good thing it is not a real one!

I just thought this one was sweet. She held onto this leaf the whole time we were outside.

Deep in thought...thats our scientist :)

Testing out the push and ride on the grass first....just to see if she would climb off

YAY!!!!

This looks like an advertisement :)

National Zoo

On March 20, 2011 we decided to take a trip to the National Zoo. We have been once before but she was VERY young; since she can make so many animal noises we knew it was time for another trip. D.C. is such a cool place to live because we have SO many exciting things to see and nearly all of them have free admission and the National Zoo is one of them!

I will let the pictures speak for themselves, but the Ape house was the best because every time she saw one, she did her signature monkey face, it is THE cutest face!!!

Riding on the metro to the Zoo

Still not tired of the self portraits

She's already checking things out

She was grinning like this the ENTIRE time she as on his shoulders

And when she would get tired, she would rest her head on his

She is excited to see the elephants

She is making the elephant noise here...see the elephants in the background?

My favorite, the monkey face in the ape house!

She would do this face every time she would see one...and sometimes wave her hands like crazy with excitment

King of the national zoo

We had a blast, I cannot wait to make another trip back there soon!!!