You look just like me in one of my baby pictures here!

This month was busy for you, once again. You celebrated your first Christmas, New Year’s, and your brother’s birthday. What a month! We celebrated Christmas by getting up early that morning and letting Kael open almost everyone’s presents. He got you your first baby doll, and you smile when we push it and it says “i love you i love you i love you!” You slept through us opening our presents, but you woke up just in time for church, and the festivities at great grandma’s and then at memaw and papa’s house. You were spoiled, as usual, and have a wardrobe until you are in 18 months!

Sleeping through your first Christmas morning.

First Christmas!

You’ve learned so much. You talk all the time and it’s the sweetest little voice. You’ll put your hands together, in a prayer-warrior way, and smile and just start jabbering. You are mimicking us with your coos. You mimick “I love you” sounds and “mama” – but you only say “mama” when you are mad! I adore how you are communicating with us so early on. I can just stare at your sweet face for hours.

You are a whopping 12 pounds and just over 24 inches long. I have to leave most of your 3-6 month onesies unsnapped and none of your jeans stay on your waist. You are tall and skinny.

First day at daycare.

You started going to daycare on December 27. I am still sad about this, but it’s getting easier leaving you every day. You haven’t had any problems there, and the main teacher just loves and loves on you, so I know you are well taken care of.

You are still nursing full-time with bottled milk away from me. I’m also okay with daddy feeding you a bottle here and there so I can take bubby out. I’m so glad this has worked out so well with you. You are a perfect little eater and I’m so happy that you love nursing as much as mommy does.

Staring at your great grandpa

You are very attached to your mommy and daddy. You will go to others, but not for long periods of time, unless of course they are going to feed you. I think this is super sweet and I love it.

You love our nightly dance parties, but I’ve realized recently that you are a fan of rock and roll, particularly ACDC. You smile when a song comes on and love to be bounced and danced with.

You are finally getting the hang of tummy time and it’s now productive! You hold your head up high, push up off your chest, and wow – “I can see the world!” is what your eyes say. You have found your hands and have started grasping objects and staring at them intently. This morning you even started to take it from one hand to the other and then dropped it. You love your Bumbo and are sitting up really good in it already.

Precious baby girl

Yes, I keep you in a bow every day. Even though I know it comes off your head as soon as you are at daycare, you still wear one there and wear one often times at night. You look cute in them, so I might as well.

You are sleeping good still. It’s so weird. On the nights you sleep horribly you still only wake up 2 or 3 times. Usually you sleep from 10 until 3 or so, eat for a few minutes then fall asleep until I wake you at 7 to get you ready for daycare. You’ve developed your first cold (so much for that whole breast milk makes you healthier!) and it has made you quite congested, which means you wake up wanting to be held more. That’s okay with me. It’s not a surprise to me that you have a cold though. Every day I pick you up every child in your class has a runny nose, a cough, and there was one confirmed case of RSV. Eek! I’m praying you don’t get anything worse than what you have right now.

Productive tummy time the day you turned 3 months!

You are a sweet baby, Adalynn Rae. I love you more and more each day. I love staring into your eyes and wondering what you are thinking. I just can’t take my eyes off you. I want to soak you in every day and not forget these baby moments. You love bath time. Which is just awesome because I love giving baths to my kiddos. It’s my alone time with each of you and I love it. One day this month all four of us piled into our big jet tub and we loved it. You were safe in mommy’s arms while daddy and bubby raced dirt bikes along the water. I love dancing with you, holding you, and watching you smile and coo at your big brother.

You love to smile!

You love to smile, sweet girl. You also started laughing this month. You don’t do it often, but when you do my world lights up. You can make me smile even in my darkest hours, Addy. Thank for you for that.

This is what most evenings look like in our household. Of course, I'm usually right there with everyone!

You have been the perfect addition to our family. You’ve moved in, made your presence known, and we each love you so very much.

Thank you for coming to us.

I love you,

Mama

Enjoy the pictures!

You are three.

And full of all sorts of attitude! Three is so big. It’s hard to believe you started off as just a tiny baby, so much like your sister, and in just three short years you’ve transformed into a little big boy.

This year was full of changes for you.

You mastered the tricycle you were given for Christmas last year in just a few short months and moved up to a big dirt bike by the summer. You love that dirt bike so much. You’ve ran papa over on it several times. You love to go to the park on the somewhat warm-winter days we have now and play on the toys and ride your bike. It has scared me, but I’ve learned to let you go and let you test your limits. I’m right there to help if you ask. Please always remember that, sweet boy. I’m always here if you need me. If one day you’ve found you’ve went too far and need help getting out, I’m here for you.

We moved to Ozark and you started a new school. This was hard on you at first. Though, I think it was harder on me. This was all quick and sudden, but I think you have adjusted well in the 7 months we’ve lived here. You’ve settled in nicely and have found a new friend, Olivia. According to the teachers you two are inseparable. You and the ladies. At Ms. Kassie’s, church, and now at your new school, you always are quick to bond with the girls.

You are a big brother!! You are a wonderful big brother, Kael. You love on your sissy and have taken her in just like me and your daddy. I couldn’t be more proud of you for how well you have adapted to her taking over the house the past few months. You are becoming more the center of attention again as we are now getting back into our old routine of me with you Saturday mornings – just us, taking two children to school, baths for two, and story time together in the floor of your room. It’s taken a few months to get here, but I’m happy with where we are as our family of four. It’s a balancing act, and you have done very good while we are learning. Thank you, sweet boy, for showing us patience.

You are potty trained. You still have accidents here and there, some days there are none and some days you go through 4 jeans in a matter of hours. But overall you are trained and no longer wear pull ups. You wake up dry 90% of the time and are very quick to say “Look! I’m DRY!” of a morning. You even wake us up in the middle of the night to go potty. You are so big!

We celebrated your big day by giving you what you wanted. White milk (so weird when there was chocolate!) and an orange for breakfast. Chick Fil A for lunch, with a water (at your request – weird once again!). Looking at toys at Toys R Us for a (long) while. You had a gift card for Christmas so you picked out a power ranger and dirt bike. No matter how many dirt bikes or power rangers you have, it’s never enough. You love them! Then to Chucky Cheese to play with the toys. It is always fun to see your brilliant smile amongst the children there. Running, carefree, and loving every minute of it. We ended the long day of fun with memaw and papa. Daddy and I fixed homemade cashew chicken, rice, and noodles – covered in cashews - just like you like it. And to top off the perfect evening, you had a chocolate ice cream sundae, covered with chocolate sauce and cherries. You were very sweet while we wished you a happy birthday. Holding your hands and smiling at each of us.

You got to open one present from us and one from my parents. You loved your train and dinosaurs. Your birthday party isn’t until January 14 this year, and no doubt you will be spoiled then. You keep trying to go into the guest room to see what toys are hiding behind the closet door.

Sweet boy, this year was so fun with you. Watching you grow and learn and thrive is something I never grow tired of. After we say our prayers of an evening, I will stay an extra few minutes each night just to stroke your hair and breathe your wonderfulness in. Knowing you a part of me. That I created YOU. Well, I don’t know that there are words to exactly portray how that feels. Every mom knows it though. It’s … love. That’s the simplest way to put it.

I can’t wait to see what happens in this fourth year of life with you. Will you start soccer class? Will you show an interest in writing? Will you continue to show an interest in letters and numbers, as you have just recently started to do? What will you learn? Where will we go on your crazy adventures? Where will we go on our summer vacation? Will you teach your sister how to walk? How to talk? You are already teaching her how to say “mama” as you no longer call me mommy. It’s one of the sweetest things you’ve started doing lately.

No matter what you do, where we go, or what you learn, I am glad that I’m your mom and can be there right beside you every step of the way. Leading you, guiding you, walking beside you, and following you at all the right times.

I love you sweet boy. Forever and always. Oodles and Oodles and Noodles.

Mama

Enjoy the recap in pictures of your third year.

Addy was the victim for my first photo shoot. Love her. She got pissed after the third outfit change, and it turns out her bare pictures are some of my favorite. ha! I use picnik.com to edit the pictures, just in case any one wonders. It’s free to do some of the edits and the more awesome edit tools are for the premium membership, which is just 25$ a year.

Enjoy the pictures. I do believe these will be her “3 month pictures.”