This is what happens when I wait so long to post things......below is a pic of a nasty, nasty virus that hit our house months ago. All I really remember was Addison getting it first, then me and then Melody. It was very short-lived but man there was a lot of puke! Addison had it the worst and we could tell where hers was heading so off to the ER she went. She just wouldn't eat or drink anything and tear production was slowing down (bad sign). Got some fluids in her and made all the difference. Matt was lucky enough to just get nauseous but that was it.
We made our annual trip to the Pumpkin patch this year and let the girls pick out their pumpkins. We figured while we were there we might as well get ours too. Stupid decision. I forget how much these places mark up their pumpkins. We could drive 1 minute down the road and get one for $15 cheaper! I've gotta remember that next year.
They sure had fun. Loved this growing chart out there. Makes me sad knowing that every year they will keep creeping up that chart. Ugh.
Around this time Melody was really into hugging and kissing pictures (of people she loved). It would be so sweet watching her go up to a picture frame of Addison and actually give it hugs and kisses. Love her. Such a gentle heart. She is still my little koala. Just not sure how she's gonna go to Pre-k next year! It's only 2 days a week but I'm sure it will devastate her. It will probably devastate me. She started Speech Therapy about 2 months ago around Feb. We just realized how much she mumbled and didn't like to pronunciate her words. It really wasn't fair to her because we were always comparing her to Addison when she was this age. Addison's speech was WAY off the chart for her age and when we compared Melody to that it just kinda concerned us. Well, her therapist said there is only a mild delay and shouldn't take but a few months to correct. Funny- we didn't know this was how 2 year olds talk! There are videos of Addison at this age speaking in full, very clear sentences with us. Every kid is different! It has dramatically improved and the therapist has said it was probably a bad habit she had formed and just being lazy. Silly girl:) We will be done soon but she really loves going up there. She goes where Addison goes and they have the same therapist and Addison just eats it up. Addison has been paying close attention to Melody's words and would get sooo excited when it was clearer. She would say, "Ahhh! Melody is talking better! It's working!" It was funny cause she thought all she would need was 1 session and then she would be cured. She listened to her in the car that day and was NOT happy that she wasn't speaking better. I had to explain that it would take time:) One of the great things about this is it has gotten Melody use to another adult besides me and Matt. When we first started this I had to sit in there for the session. Then each time after that I would decrease the amount of time I would stay with her. Weaning her off! Now when we go in, I sit for just a second and get her settled into some activities with Liz and then say, "Mommy's gotta go TT". And that's it! I walk out and watch Addison finish her PT. I'm thinking this is going to make Pre-K go a lot smoother for her. It's really worked out well having them there at the same time too.
Y'all LOVE to get in our bed. Y'all just snuggle up and are happy as can be watching that gigantic TV.
Y'all hung out with Lilly one weekend- loved swinging that bat.
Mrs. Charlotte fixed y'all a fun dinner and y'all had the best time. Love weekends like this! Seriously wonder if neighbors can start to become family after awhile. We just love them so much and it's just plain ole comfortable. It's our other set of parents!
Halloween was pretty fun this year. Addison was sooo set on being a black cat. She's been saying this for a very long time now. It's all because of Dora. There is a Dora episode where she dresses up as a black cat and has the face paint and all. Thank goodness we got the costume right. Once Addison sees something and wants to replicate it then it has the chance to be a disaster if you get one tiny detail wrong. It's a very scary thing!
Painting her whiskers on. I was so worried she wouldn't like it or I didn't do it just like Dora!
I'm thinking I did it right and she was very pleased! Whew, that was a close one.
Halloween is always a scary time of year for us cause of the peanut allergy. Our neighborhood is swarmed with trick or treaters and there are peanut candies everywhere! Matt and I really can't relax until we get back home. Every Halloween after we get in bed we always say, "Oh thank God it is over." Seriously it's that scary. We don't want her to miss out on things though so we just modify it a bit.....and keep the epi pens really close. This year we just walked up and down our sidewalks so the girls could see everybody and I kept a bag full of pre-approved candy with me. Every few minutes I would turn around and yell, "Say Trick or Treat"! Then when they would say it, I would give them handfuls of candy in their bags. It worked out perfect! Matt and I got a huge kick out of this. We never had to go to anyones house and check labels on candy bags or anything. I actually went to Bill and Charlottes and gave them a big thing of pre-approved candy earlier on so that we could stop by their house and they could kinda see how it all works. Addison felt the need to feed Melody some candy on our route. Such a little mommy!
I gotta fast forward a little bit to December since we are on the peanut talk. In December we took her to have her peanut levels tested. We were told to do this once a year when she got diagnosed. Every year we just pray that the number goes down. It started in the 70's (I think? Too lazy to look it up) when she was diagnosed and a year later dropped to 13. This year she was at 6!!! Praise the Lord! If you do total avoidance then the number can drop like that. Thankfully we have been able to avoid peanuts since her first reaction. Even though she is down to a 6 now, she is still high risk and can still go into anaphalactic shock. The doc says there's just no way of knowing if it would be a rash or something more serious. Since the number is so low, the rate at which it drops will move slower and slower. Therefore, the doc advises us to enter the desensitizing program. She will start in the Fall and we will have to drive to Dallas once a week. They will expose her to tiny, tiny amounts of peanut at a time and send us home with daily doses to give her. Then we go back the next week and they up the dose and test it out on her. If we go every week, the fastest she can get over the allergy would be 3 months. If we go every other week it could take 6 months. Sooo, every week it is! Just rip the bandaid off and get it over with. The Fall is gonna be crazy busy. It kinda scares me. I'm pretty sure Melody will be making the trips with us. I just can't imagine not having her with me! Good thing we all love that city!
Melody wore the Lady bug costume that Addison had 2 years in a row! Melody could care less and was sooo happy to wear that thing around. She sported it with pride! They were so darn cute together. Addison's glittery slippers really made the outfit- oh and her gorgeous, long blonde hair. Love that hair! She loves to girl anything up and accesorize whenever she can.
Addison had her first field trip way back in September/October. It was interesting. Here's my opinion on field trips for 4 year olds. I think they're stupid!!! WHY take these tiny kids on field trips! They don't care! AND then they say that 1 parent has to be there- it just kinda made me mad cause alot of these moms don't have their other child on their hip ALL day and could just breeze through it all. Not me. Melody on one hip, Addison on the other side holding my hand while I try to drag her along to keep up with everybody else. Lots and lots of dirt fields. Like, our cars were a weird clay color at the end of it all. We went to the cotton farm. So, they picked the cotton and put it in their bags and took and class picture and all. Then we went and had a class snack (which I have to provide Addison with her own) and then one of those over achiever moms pulls out her homemade snack for each kid and precedes to hand it to me in front of Addison and I have to kindly decline it(because of the allergy). Addison saw the whole thing too. It is such a tease. It's just hard. Days like that are really hard.
But we did it and I think they both had a good time together. I'm sooo glad they are this close in age and are such good friends.
Pickin' cotton.
Speaking of school, Addison is reading now. Can't remember if I have already blogged about it. Like, you can pick up a brand new book at the store she's never seen and she will start reading it out loud. Pretty amazing for a 4 year old! She's been doing this for atleast 6 months. She also counts to 100 with ease. She's just really loves to learn and is constantly wanting to feed her brain. She loves learning new things and stores it away for life in her little computer aka brain! In our city we have Magnet schools- you have to test into them and apparently it's really hard. Even though we are holding her back next year, we decided to test her for Magnet to see how she scores on the test. We did this so we can have an idea what to do next year. We shall see!
Sister adding to the collection.
Seriously, that dirt is nothing like I have ever seen. Almost like clay but when the wind blew it was just everywhere. Shoes were brown after that one. Believe me I wouldn't have put a dress on Melody had I known it was like this. We would have been in Walmart clothes.
Class pic. See how happy everyone was?
One thing Addison LOVES this year is clowns. I have a big time fear of clowns and I'm pretty sure that's why she likes them! She loves to put together outfits that kinda look like clown outfits. She does a great job at this considering we have no clown costumes! We have ordered her a clown horn and a "cloth" as she likes to call it. It's more like a powder puff that she saw on a Dora episode where she was a clown. She HAD to have a "cloth" like Dora so Matt looked it up and found on on ebay. She approved it and then we found out it was in Bangkok. That's right. That sucker took over a month to get here but it was so worth it!
She also loves geckos, lizards, and spiders. Very into insects and crawly things! She is sooo ready to be a grown up. She talks about it all the time. I always tell her not to grow up too fast and she says,"I will!" She's just so ready to be able to do certain things that I tell her she can only do when she is a certain age. I wish she didn't want to grow up so fast! I guess every kid does though:(
The virus eventually hit Melody. Poor thing. She got over it really fast though!
All layed up in bed. We each had a puke bucket. Blah:(
A quick visit to the ER. They gave her this bear and she really ended up liking it!
We all know Addison LOVES Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Anytime a holiday rolls around I always try to stop by there and get their pumpkin, heart, or tree doughnuts for the school snack. This is my way of ensuring Addison gets to eat what all of the other kids eat at snack time. AND I get points for being the cool mom that day:)
She was being sooo patient. They can't touch their snack until they sing "God our Father". Can you imagine the self control?!
I was pretty proud of those pigtails! Of course they didn't stay in longer than 10 minutes but they sure were cute!
They love our blow up pumpkins outside. It's a big attraction with the kiddos in the neighborhood. We randomly have families walk by and get in our yard with the pumpkins for a photo op!
Papa brought this shirt to Addison- saw it and thought she had to have it! It turned out to be a great sleep shirt!
Sweet sister love.
I think it's hilarious that she always puts her hand under Melody's chin like that. It's like she's showing her off or something!
They were pretty pleased with eachother.
She refused to smile right here! Just wouldn't happen. Maybe she was channeling a Dora face or something:)
Oh, now this was her signature move. Those are cat paws she's holding up. Dora definitely did this move.
I'm pretty sure this was before school one morning. They got to wear their costumes and they have a carnival thing that day.
Check out my little poser in these next pics. She was seriously proud of that costume. I felt like it really matched her personality too. The antennas and all!
Notice how she has that leg thrown out to the side. She's workin' it for sure!
When we got home we let them go to town on the candy. It really wasn't a ton and I just wanted them to experience the fun of eating the stuff since we didn't go to anyone's house (other than Bill and Charlottes).
Ya, they were pretty happy. Very serious about their candy.
Melody is super lovey when she's sick and I'm thinking Totsie enjoyed every bit of it!
She's still my laundry baby. Everytime I put clean laundry in the chair or on the floor, she will fall into it and just lay there. I love it:)
Love these pumpkin patch pics.
