Hugs

Last week we were all sick. Little A had another ear infection (the 5th one this year, although it may have been 6; we can't quite remember). I had a bad virus that went around, and Allan got the virus too, although more mildly because he hopped himself up on airborne (that stuff is so nasty, but it works). And my poor mom had pneumonia for the second time this year.

We took A to the doctor so we could get some antibiotics for her and got her weight, and then I measured her a little later at home. She is 31 and 3/4 in long and weighs 22 lbs 4 oz.

And she looks absolutely adorable in overalls and pigtails. They make her look way too much like a little girl though. It makes me sad. We need another baby.

Because we were all sickies we watched a way too many movies. Mostly Winnie the Pooh. A enjoyed wrestling with the pillow and snuggling the afghan my Grandma made for Allan and I when we got married. She has officially adopted the afghan as her own. She is especially thrilled when we let her sleep with it. It's amazing how just putting that blanket in her crib will calm her right down.

I did manage to get our food storage room organized and work on some memory books for little A and her birthmom.

Little A loves to crawl into the center of her toys in the mornings. She nuzzles in and plays for a while and then starts tossing her toys around, because the bigger the mess the more fun it is.

We had some really good snuggles this week. She likes to sit in between me and the couch with the blanket and pillow over her. I have to be super close to her though. So close that she is really squeezed in there. If she's not squeezed in then she is very unhappy.

Little A pooped and peed in the potty! Hooray!!! I was giving her a bath one day after dinner when she started pushing. I pulled her out as fast as I could and sat her on the little potty we bought for her and she went! (I was SO grateful for that potty in that moment!) I read some stories to her about going potty in the potty. She was very proud of herself. Since then she's gone in the potty once or twice a day. She goes every time I put her on. She is pretty timid about things so we are going slowly. She still isn't to the point where she tells me she has to go.

Allan worked really hard and got some baseboards put in! A's room is finished and he has done most of the hallway and half of our 3rd bedroom. He did a really good job! He also got the basement ready for painting! We had the Elder and Sister missionaries over to help us paint and got over half of it done. We would be finished, but we ended up having to do a double coat. We are so grateful for all of the help we had! We are hoping to finish it up this week, and then we can focus on baseboards throughout the whole house. 

When we were feeling a little better I took A out for a walk. She headed to the rocks that are by the nursing home. She LOVES rocks. She had a ball sitting in them, picking them up and showing them to me. She went on a walk with Allan a little earlier in the week as well and met one of our neighbors dogs. This girl really loves dogs, except when the lick her, or when they drool on her. We stopped by to talk to K6 for a minute one day and her boxer, D, came over to say hi to little A. A was freaking out she was so happy and then D shook his head. Drool flew everywhere. A went really still, got this disgusted look on her face and then turned and walked away. K6 and I laughed so hard.

Little A loves to tear up Kleenex. While I was cleaning up after lunch one day she discovered the Kleenex I'd stashed in the diaper bag for church. She had a ball tearing it up and having the occasional taste. She was very upset with me when I cleaned it all up.

Dance classes have started up again! Yeah! I took little A this week, and she had a lot of fun. It took her a little while to warm up to everything, but once she did she enjoyed it. One of the little girls saw that A was holding onto my finger to walk. She offered A her finger and then walked/ran around like that for a little while. That is what helped A warm up. After that she felt like she had a friend. Little A holds on really tight so after a little while the girl ripped her finger away and shook it. She had this pained look on her face, poor thing. A kept trying to grab her finger, and the girl kept pulling away. They were still friends though. A liked walking across the balance beam the best.

We had a little play date with K6 and P. P and A are so funny. They are always so excited to see each other and then either fight or ignore each other. P will often tell little A "no, it's mine, don't take it" and A usually isn't doing anything, lol. Then A cries, P gets in trouble and has to apologize to A. K6 told me that on the way home the other day P pretended to call A and she said "A, I sorry. I so sorry." Ha! So funny! At the end of the play date little A started crying because I took her out of the swings and P immediately started apologizing to A thinking she had done something wrong.

We had to take little A to get her ears checked by a specialist because she has had so many ear infections. It went really well. She was actually really comfortable, which is very unusual for her. It made me wish he was our regular doctor. While we were waiting she made friends with a little old lady in the waiting room. She eventually gave the lady a great big hug. She cried while the doctor looked at her ears but settled down as soon as he was done and then crawled around the room while he talked to us! He told us that she certainly meets all of the qualifications for tubes, but there isn't any emergency or anything and really it's up to us if we want to do it or not. He also said that he feels the main concern for her is how frequently she's been on antibiotics. So, we are thinking about it.

We went to the Temple and took A with us. She had a blast walking around the visitors center and the temple grounds. Mostly though she liked to show her shoes to everyone. She would run up to anyone that went by and lift up her pant leg to show them her shoes. Most people didn't notice, but the few that did really made her day.

At story time this week A took a real liking to the story lady. Afterward while I was looking for books, she walked (that's a big deal right there because she will usually only walk to me) to the story lady and hugged her legs. The lady picked her up and little A wrapped her arms around her neck as tight as she could and wouldn't let go! And now the story lady is absolutely in love with her, ha! This cute girl really knows how to wrap someone around her finger. It really was adorable though.

After church on Sunday little A snuggled me while I read the Ensign, and later while Allan was reading the Ensign she came over and flipped through a different Ensign with him. She loves the Ensign. I'm not sure why, but she  loves to flip through it.

"Chicken"

Labor day started out nice and relaxing. We just hung out in the living room as a family in the morning until A went down for her first nap. I really enjoyed watching Allan and A play together. A is really getting into wrestling and has started trying to get Allan. It is the funniest and cutest thing to watch. She is always full of squeals and giggles when they wrestle.

Allan got all of our doors hung up and the door knobs put back on! I have been celebrating all week! It is so nice to have doors and door knobs again!

That night we went to the park and played. A loves to play in the wood chips and climb up and down the steps of the play set. We took her down a slide, and she burst into tears. She really hates slides. I went down one a little later, and she burst into tears again. After that we decided we'd just stay away from the slides. There is another part of the playground that has swings, teeter totters, and merri-go-rounds. We headed over that way and decided to try the teeter totter. A HATED it. It really scared her. And, it didn't help that she had seen the swings and was extremely determined to go over to them. We headed over, and she sat contentedly in the swing for the rest of the evening.

Little A made her first craft. There is a craft at story time every week. I tried to do it once before and she had no interest in it. She still has no interest in it, but while she was eating the cheese stick the librarians had given all of the children I traced her hand and made the craft. It was rough going since she hates to have her hands touched, but we did it!

We played with some friends at the park after story time too. She had a lot of fun and was completely exhausted when we got home.

A has discovered a new game. She likes to throw the couch pillows on the floor, walk over to them and face plant into them! Ha! Then she likes Allan or I to grab the other pillow and make a little A sandwich (squeeze her in between the two pillows). She thinks this is the best game ever invented. We have played it several times a day every day this week. If we are busy doing something else she will play it by herself (minus the sandwich part). It's been nice because it helped her start playing by herself a little bit again. And it's just super fun to hear her squeal and giggle. Now whenever she sees the pillows she bursts into giggles.

Allan and I were making dinner one evening. While I was stirring something on the stove she got into the pasta, found the macaroni, pulled it out and screamed with delight. She then tried to give it to Allan and I until it was time to eat. This girl LOVES her macaroni.

Our microwave died this week so we headed out to the nearest city to get a new one. While we were there we went to Panda Express to eat lunch. We went there last week too and little A fell in love with their Orange Chicken. When we pulled up she got super excited and started waving her arms and legs all around. Then she yelled "Chicken!" Ha!

Last week all she would eat was the orange chicken. She refused to eat anything else. This week though she discovered the chow mein. She was so excited about the noodles that she would grab a hand full in both hands, squeal and wave it all around, and then stuff the handfuls in her mouth! She made a pretty big mess. We left them a nice tip.

We had looked online to make sure someone in the city would have a microwave the size we needed, and it said that Home Depot had one, unfortunately when we got there, they didn't. We ended up buying one at Walmart and got home to find that it was .2 inches too big. So we called around that night and found one in another nearby city and went to get it the next day. Allan dropped me off at Hobby Lobby and took A with him to run the errands. While they were shopping A walked through the stores saying "Mom. Mom. Mom" over and over again while looking for me. She was SO happy when she finally found me in Hobby Lobby, she refused to let go of my hand. She makes me feel really good about myself. :)

I braided A's hair for the first time. It's been long enough for a long time, but she is so wiggly, and I am so bad at braiding hair, that it has never worked out before. However, we have been watching the Winnie the Pooh numbers and letters episodes while I do her hair in the morning. This keeps her still long enough for me to get her hair up. She was so enthralled with the counting that I decided to try a braid. It took me forever, but I finally got it. 

Allan finally got to get his garage organized. He has been wanting to do this since before we moved into the house. ;)  For our date this week we went out and organized everything. It looks really good and now we can see what we've got and what we are going to need. We wrote a nice Christmas list while we were in there too, ha!

Today in church little A was playing with someone behind us. She would snuggle into my shoulder, then peek up, and if the person was paying attention she would grab my hair and hold it up to show it to them. Funny girl.

I taught my Valiant 8 class for the first time today. There was one boy. Poor guy. The first thing he said to me was "Hi. You look nice." We had fun and he enjoyed some of the lesson, but that class time was FOREVER. A lesson goes by really fast when there is only one little 8 year old boy. We played almost 20 minutes of hangman.  Hopefully the girls will be there next week.