Addison Kate is 15 months old!

Our big girl! Addison Kate turned 15 months old this week, it shocks me every time I have to say how old she is. She is turning into quite a little ham and really enjoys making the family laugh and dishing out kisses like they are going out of style.

Addison's favorite two things are being pushed in her swing and having books read to her, over and over and over. She also reads her books to herself now which is pretty funny to listen to, she points to each page and says, "Ohbe, Ahbe, Ohbe, Ahbe." Favorite food is definitely cheese and she is so cute when she asks for it, she looks up at us with her big blue eyes and gives us this big smile and says, "CHEEEEEESE." And then as she is eating it, "MMMMMMMM."

Addison is talking more and more everyday and is saying about 30 words right now. I think my favorite is still the classic, "uh oh" whenever she falls or drops something. Also, when we hand her something like a cup of milk or a book, she says "Tanks." (Thanks) and it just sounds so cute. Being the third she has learned to be pretty self sufficient at times, after she does her business and determines it's time for a diaper change she will bring us her container of wipes and a diaper and say "diaper, diaper." Funny little girl.

God is Great!

Been meaning to get a picture of Addison in her onesie. I bought this as a surprise for Stephen. A Cubs reference of course but she is our true little miracle on Addison Street. I don't know how Stephen managed to sneak his favorite things into two out of three of our children's names. Luke, of course referencing Star Wars' Luke Skywalker and now Addison, the address of Wrigley Field and his beloved Cubs.

Daddy is home from Ohio and his very scary ICU stay. This will now and forever be referred to as "The Ohio incident." Thank you for all the prayers, we definitely felt the love and support.

"God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us." Ephesians 3:20

We are thankful we have our loving Father at work in our lives, with all the craziness and unknown lately, we would be lost without his guiding hand. God is Great indeed!

Kayak down the Bayou

Last weekend a few mom friends and I decided we could go kayaking down the bayou, funny because none of us had ever kayaked before. We thought it would be a fun substitute for our normal Girl's Night Out. In the planning stages it was more like 7 or 8 mommies but alas, only the four of us were brave enough :)

We are woman, hear us roar! This is the beginning of our three hour paddle trip, we were still full of energy in this picture.

Out on the bayou, we ended up paddling about 8 miles total that day. The trip was super relaxing and fun. We got to catch up with each other (granted we didn't have a cocktail in hand) and our guide was so informative about Mississippi wildlife. I highly recommend the trip and will definitely do it again.

The three little monsters, sorry I hadn't taken pictures in awhile. This was it!

Look how long Addison's hair is getting! She is looking so old now :(

Germany!

For the enjoyment of my loyal readers, this blog is about to get a lot more interesting! We are headed to Europe, Germany specifically. Steve is being deployed to Germany for six months to do CCATT missions again. As a family we decided being together is our primary concern so the children and I are tagging along. Watch out Germany, here we come! We will be living near Ramstein Air Force base but we will not be living on the base. We are excited to be able to travel a bit around Europe and experience all sorts of different cultures. Passports have been obtained, airline tickets have been bought and German lessons have begun (umm, kidding obviously). The only German phrase I am trying to learn is 'Ich verstehe nicht' which translates to 'I don't understand.' Definitely will be a very helpful phrase for me, don't you think?

Love and Marriage

One of our wonderful babysitters got married this weekend and we were lucky enough to be included in the fun. It was the first wedding the children have attended so they were very excited to see Emily "be a bride." The girls.

The boys.

Emily and Josh and the kiddos.

One of our other favorite babysitters, Ashley was a bridesmaid in the wedding. Stephen and I were hoping we could leave the kids there with Emily and Ashley and have a date night out on the town but no dice.

Easter Celebration

Easter morning, up bright and early to see if the Easter Bunny came!

Every Easter morning it's the same shot of Amelia holding an Easter basket with rollers in her hair.

Amelia reading Addison a new book the Easter bunny brought her.

Addison was excited about all the eggs she found :)

All ready for church to celebrate our Savior rising. Luke and Amelia were running around the house shouting "Jesus is alive, Jesus is alive!"

Easter dinner at the Countryman's. God Bless Vickie and David who have four grown children of their own, all out of the house. They invited us, the Ethridges and the Grahams over for Easter dinner, that meant 10 children under 7 years old. Sillyness was had by all. Happy Easter!

Quick Visit and Coloring Eggs

My parents stopped through to visit us for one day on their way back up to Wisconsin. Grandpa wasn't feeling well but we couldn't miss the opportunity to take Grandma Nancy out to Horn Island. It was hard to tell who was having more fun, my mom or my kids!

Cute daddy and cute baby, I'm a lucky momma.

Grandma Nancy and the kids showing off some of the friends they found. Grandma is holding a hermit crab ( I think they found 8 or 9 this trip) and Amelia is holding a "glowy." I don't know if that is the right term for it but that is what my friend Cynthia calls them. They are like little jellyfish but they don't sting. Amelia loves them, they gross me out. We also had three giant stingrays following us all around the beach, really close to shore. It seemed as if they were curious to what we were doing. We also saw to dolphins swim really close to our boat right as we were leaving the island.

We had the whole island to ourselves. It was an awesome, special day. Glad you got to share it with us mom!

Beach bums.

Here's a picture of Casper the Ghost with my mom, oh wait that is me :)

Today I realized, uh oh tomorrow is Easter and we haven't colored eggs! So we got right on it before Stephen had to go to work. Addison dropped one egg in the bowl and then decided she rather go on her swing.

Luke colored about five eggs and ditched us for the swings too.

I know Amelia looks like a poster child for "Feed the Children" but we were all still in our jammies and she just happened to wear this Native American tye-dyed shirt last night. Yikes. Amelia was a trooper and she colored the rest of the eggs for us.

Hooray, the finished products!