Monday, December 29, 2008

NOW i feel like a mom

After my poor baby was sick for a few days, she was taking a bath and did something she NEVER does. All of a sudden, there were little brown things floating up in the water. I had the fun of reaching in and picking the deposits out of the tub, one by one.
Two things ran through my mind in that moment...
1. This reminds me of the movie Caddyshack. Wow, I haven't seen that movie since high school. Too bad we own it in VHS.
2. I just picked up poop with my bare hands. I think I just had a rite of passage.
NOW I feel like a mom.


Wednesday, December 24, 2008

cake before christmas






I realized I never really posted any pics from Addelyn's first birthday and wanted to do that before Christmas. She actually had TWO cake celebrations. Not really planned but because of the circumstances, we had a little party for her on the night of her birthday and then again on the Saturday afterwards. My Grandpa Kramer passed away the week of Addelyn's birthday. For me the week of celebrating Addelyn's first year of life was bittersweet as it was spent saying goodbye to my Grandpa. A time of joy and pain right at the same time. Isn't that usually how life is for many people....you celebrate amazing things but at the same time, you experience extremely tough and painful times. My hope and pray in those moments is that God can keep my heart at peace. What do you do in those moments of joy and pain?
And then you see a little girl eat cake for the first time. Talk about putting a smile on your face! This was pretty much her first time of really having sugar (except for when Daddy sneaks her bites of his zebra cakes which are not really sugar, pretty much just plastic. gross...) Her first cake was a yummy one my step-mom got and Addelyn had fun eating it as you can see in the pics above. The second celebration, I made a cake that didn't have much sugar and had bananas and peaches in it. The cake itself was great. The cream cheese frosting I put on the cake- not so great. What can I say? Live and learn. Especially with the baking. That was officially the second thing I've ever made from scratch in my life (and the first one happened within the last few weeks too! Aren't you impressed, ha ha!?) The pictures are a sneak peak of the two parties. On to year two! :)
Merry Christmas to you all....hope you have a wonderful holiday time with your family!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

happy 1st birthday little girl!






Dear Addelyn,
It is absolutely crazy to think that one year has already gone by with you in our lives. I cannot explain to you how much you have changed my world, my thinking, my actions, my heart, my view of motherhood, of parenting overall, of basically EVERYTHING! And all of this in the best way possible.

You already have a very distinct personality. You have had one since the moment you came out. You screamed the most wonderful, ear-piercing scream when Kim (the most amazing nurse practioner/mid-wife that delivered you) laid you on my chest. You used your lungs a lot those first months when you wanted us to know how you felt about things. And you haven't stopped letting us know how you feel! You have a strong-willed personality but also have a great nature. You are a happy girl and give lots of smiles and giggles. I honestly couldn't have asked for an easier baby. (Although we hope the future babes will show you up! ha ha)

You are an active, on the go little gal. You really haven't been a cuddler since you gained head control. This has been a little sad for me because I'd love to cuddle with you but I guess I'll have to take advantage of those sick "I need my Mama" moments or that small window right before bed when you drink your bottle and lean back against my chest. I do love your adventuring side though and I have a feeling both you and your dad will be challenging me to go on more rollar coasters and do more daring things in the future since I am kind of the "safe" one. Of course, your adventurous side has already led you to fall down the stairs, to have bloody and fat lips, and to put things in places you shouldn't (for example- the toilet).

You are already my little reader- oh how you love those books. You even know the sign language for book, which you surprised your dad and I with the other night. We have been using it for the last few months and honestly thought you were ignoring us! It made me realize- you are taking it all in. One of these days you will continue to surprise us with all you know and can do.

Speaking of that, your new thing is to hold my cell phone up to your ear and pretend you are talking. You have a little conversation with yourself and babble into the phone. It is hilarious. I hope to catch it on video one of these days!
Other things you have taken a liking to in the last year- cats and dogs (no, we aren't getting one), cottage cheese, our DVD collection (they have been your favorite toys for months now), and as of the last month or two, pretty much anything you shouldn't get into- you want to play with - aka the garbage.

This year has been amazing. I can't believe you aren't my little baby anymore- where did the year go? I pray and hope that as the years go on that you will know how loved you are. By your parents, extended family, our friends and church family, and most of all, by God.

We love you Addelyn! Happy Birthday!
Your Mama (and Dada too...)

P.S. I big thanks to our friend Ashley Schrage for taking amazing one year pics! These are just a few of the MANY great pictures.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

turkey, slides, trees, and bubbles

The last few weeks have held some fun moments for our family. I made my first turkey ever when Mark and Addelyn and I stayed home on Thanksgiving. You can see the pictures below which were taken for proof. :) I was actually a little grossed out as I touched the raw bird. The smell got to me a bit. I also forgot to take out the little packet of nastiness that was inside the bird. I found out later, those are the giblets! Whoops. And who knew that a "gravy packet" came along with the turkey. It was a packet of red juice. Gross, I did not use it. Does anyone use it? I'd be curious to know. The experience was good for me. I think I'll do it again...sometime.


Before


I forgot to take a picture of the turkey before I started to carve it! Whoops! It turned out well though. We really enjoyed it. (You can even ask Mark, he would agree!)

Slides.....the fun of going down on your tummy! We spent a night in the Twin Cities with our good friends the Hansens. The guys went to the Vikings-Bears games and we did a little shopping and hanging out at the hotel. We also went to an indoor park, which you can see the kids enjoying above. The indoor park was amazing, they even had an area for babies. It was a fun little get-away for all of us.



The latest thing that Addelyn likes to do while she eats is put her hands in her hair. Needless to say, this makes for a messy eating time.


Addelyn had bubbles in her bath for the first time the other night. She wasn't totally sure what to think about them because there were SO MANY! (Daddy put a little too much in...whoops!)

Finally, this weekend it was time to put up the Christmas tree. Our tradition the past few years has been to break out the Christmas music and decorations and work together to put up the tree. As you can see, Addelyn helped too. We listened to Amy Grant Christmas music (this has been my favorite since high school) and decorated the tree. I absolutely loved the moments with my family. No, we didn't go out in the snow and cut down our own (more power to those of you who do)! I'm thinking someday we will be the real tree people. Or maybe not. Time will tell. For this year, I love my artificial tree. :)

She wanted to eat the bulbs. Of course, if you come to our house, you'll notice that the tree is only decorated on the top half. Oh the life of having a curious little one that is into everything!


This isn't the end result. I guess I didn't get a picture of that. Whoops....more again soon!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

these are the days to remember

I need to blog for my own sake. My memory is terrible and I want to remember this first year of Addelyn's life in as much detail as I can. I sat down today and started writing in the albums of pictures from her first year. I realized how soon I can forget the little things that I never wanted to forget! So I'm going to try harder to blog and to journal and to keep track of the little things. We'll see how it goes!

Last weekend (Saturday, November 22nd) to be exact, Addelyn took her first steps. Well, these were the first steps that Mom and Dad got to see! I'm thinking she may have taken a few at Ilenes but Ilene is just too sweet to really give me the details. Ever since then, day by day, she has gotten more daring and as of today- I've seen her take about six steps in a row before falling hard onto her padded little bottom. She especially loves to venture around our sectional. She is almost running around it, with her one little hand holding onto it. Then every once in awhile- she gets daring- and lets go and takes a few steps. It is fun to watch. I also watch with a bit of apprehension as I know that within days or weeks she will be even faster and into more things than before! Nothing is safe!

Addelyn has a new cousin, Trae Thomas Hoskinson. He arrived on November 10th to proud parents Matt (Mark's brother) and Nicole. We drove to Cherokee last weekend to see them. He is a little sweetie and it was great to spend some time with the crew. Addelyn wasn't too interested in Trae but did pat his head a few times- she had more fun watching Ty (age four) run around. I wanted to hold Trae forever though. I can hardly remember when Addelyn was a little cuddly baby. In fact, was she ever a cuddly baby? Nope, once she had head control, she didn't want to lay her sweet little head on me at all (even in the middle of the night). Sigh.

This month we also got the opportunity to see family on my side. My cousin, Teresa, her two kids, William and Sophia, and my aunt Maria came to visit. Teresa and her husband and kids live in Houston, TX and Maria just moved to Spain (where she is originally from) this year. They took a road trip and came up to Iowa. It was so much fun to hang out with them. The kids are growing so quickly- Sophia is three and William is two. They have TONS of energy. Addelyn was entertained by watching them!

Addelyn also experienced Chucky Cheese for the first time during my brother, Tanner's birthday party. I'm hoping Chucky Cheese doesn't exist once Addelyn is old enough to care. That probably would be on my list of least favorite places to go so I'm hoping she won't beg me to have a party there someday. Is that horrible of me?

Here are some pics from the last few weeks of our life! Enjoy!

William, Addelyn, & Sophia at Great-Grandma Lois Stewart's house

The new game...peekaboo where Addelyn is the one that "hides."

She loves Daddy's hats!


Grandpa Dar and Grandma Kathy


Awww...the whole crew!

Trae Thomas Hoskinson
Born November 10, 2008

Friday, November 28, 2008

smoke alarms?

Okay, this is just going to be a weird post. I am warning you now. As I laid in bed the other night, I started thinking about my daughter, fast asleep downstairs. I usually do my best thinking when I am wide awake in bed and Mark is fast asleep (usually if I drank any caffeine and can't fall asleep.) Recently I can't drink caffeine after 5 p.m. or I am UP! I have a little list next to my bed to make notes for myself or add to my To Do list. I should just get up but somehow that makes me feel like I'm going to be more tired the next day so I instead lay there and wait for sleep to come.
Sorry that was a sleep tangent. Back to the purpose of this post...I started thinking and realized that I have never once checked the fire alarms in this house since we have moved in. What if a fire started downstairs? Would we even know before it was too late, especially with Addelyn's bedroom so far away from ours? Do we have fire extinguishers anywhere in the house? Gosh, I think so...not sure though.....
These thoughts made it to my list to check in the morning. I considered doing it right then and there but realized Mark and Addelyn wouldn't probably appreciate the alarm testing at midnight. Yesterday we did some testing of the fire alarms (which I realized are definitely not located in some VERY important rooms like the kitchen and in the basement near the furnace). Some of the alarms had no batteries. Some were dead.

Glad that random thought passed my mind. I think the Diet Pepsi at night is a good thing for me once in awhile. Keeps me on my toes....

Saturday, November 15, 2008

the life of an eleven month old....

Hard to believe Addelyn is almost a year old! To best give you a picture of what Addelyn is doing these days, here are some pics and explanations from the life of an eleven month old.....
She doesn't like to sit still and smile for these monthly pictures. You should see all of the pictures that were taken trying to get ONE good shot with the paper included. She loves to play with these little colored balls that she is trying to eat in the picture. They can be found in random spots, hidden throughout our house. Her new realization is that small things fit into larger things. I often can't find my eye drops, my cell phone, and random items and will find them in shoes, baskets, toy bins, etc. I love to watch her development and realize that this is part of her learning of how things work!
She is starting to look like a little girl, not a baby. Need I say more, just look at this picture?!

It is fun to watch her with other babies and little kids. She often plays by herself but is usually very interested in what other kids are doing. She will crawl right up to them and often pulls herself up, using their bodies. Or the other little ones will do the same to her. She will pat their heads, babble, and often scream. Wonder what goes through her mind? And the minds of her little friends?
In this picture above, Kacey, one of my best friends from college, is visiting with her son Grayson. He is about seven months older than Addelyn and is a little sweetie.

She is cruising along the furniture quickly. She isn't walking yet, but sometimes takes a daring leap and lunges from one thing to another. She is a quick crawler so often finds it is much easier to crawl from Point A to Point B. She does like to stand for a few seconds at a time without holding on to anything. She will stand there and laugh and laugh. She thinks she is pretty cool. :)

She smiles a lot and laughs a lot. So much joy!

She loves meal time. She does pretty well with her sippy cup these days. She also uses the sign language for "more" and lets us know when she wants more. We will ask, "More green beans?" and if that isn't what she wants she will shake her head no. It has been great to be able to communicate with her about her food likes and dislikes. Right now, our biggest struggle is her love of cottage cheese. She could eat it non-stop. We don't feed it to her all of the time but she saw it on Mark's plate the other night and wouldn't stop whining because she wanted it. It is pretty funny. We have learned that we need to feed her everything else first and end with the cottage cheese if that is on the menu for the night!

She is into everything and anything, especially the things we don't WANT her to play with. Here she discovered the pads and tampons when I left her alone for probably two minutes. I had to laugh. She also loves taking the toilet paper off the roll. The garbage is fun too. I am curious to see how the Christmas tree will work this year.


She LOVES her new scooter from Grandma Stewart. She thinks she is pretty cool when she rides on it. She is pretty slow going forward but can fly backward! Sometimes she waves like she is in a parade.

She is sleeping well these days for the most part. She goes down around 7-7:30 p.m. and sleeps through the night and wakes up anytime from 4-6 a.m. for a bottle. She then will sleep until 7 or 8. Mark and I truly enjoy our sleep so we're thinking we have a child who feels the same. Hopefully this lasts!

That is about it for eleven months. We can't believe how quickly time flies. I look at our little girl and hardly remember what it was like to rock her in my arms as a little baby!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

trick or treat



For her first Halloween, we took our little pumpkin around to visit her grandparents. She hated the hat so we were missing the stem on the pumpkin most of the time! She still looked pretty cute. We went on our tour of Iowa (or so it felt) and stopped in Perry, Ackley, & Steamboat Rock. Addelyn of course came home with much more than a bucket full of candy (you know how it goes when grandparents get involved!)

Monday, October 27, 2008

the hoskinson hotel

Our fall days have been filled with visits from friends who live both nearby and around the country. A friend of ours had surgery and stayed with us for a few days. We also had our friend come from San Francisco to stay. Last week my high school small group spent the night for a good ole' slumber party- complete with lots of food and scary movies. We also had friends over for dinner and friends over to carve pumpkins. Addelyn has had lots of fun hanging out with everyone. It has been a busy household but well worth the time we have gotten to spend with people we care about very much!

We took advantage of the great weather this past weekend and enjoyed some time outside with Addelyn. I hope that wasn't the last of our warm fall days!




Our friends Jon and Bridget came over the other night to visit with their little girl, Addison. Addelyn and Addison are three months apart and it was fun to see them together. We decided we will have many nights ahead of the couples hanging out and the girls playing together! Addison is such a cute little blondie!
*Jon and Bridget were the ones that suggested that Mark and I date each other- which sparked us hanging out after we hadn't seen each other since college. We will forever be thankful for that! :)



Markus, our friend from San Francisco (originally from Germany), came to visit and stayed with us last week. He is an amazing guy and it was so much fun to have him here with us. He is a missionary and is on staff with Youth with a Mission-http://www.ywamsanfrancisco.org/ in San Francisco. Markus and I did a Dicipleship Training School together in college and he ended up going on staff with YWAM. It is pretty cool how that connection turned into the opportunity for our youth ministry to take high school teams out to San Francisco (which we have been doing for the last few years.) Markus has made a ton of friends in Iowa now and may even come live here someday. This is his third trip to Iowa already! :)

Our family with the finished pumpkins, whoops I showed you the finished product before the carving...

Our friends Kilra and Aqualya came over to carve pumpkins with us last weekend. Each girl picked a stencil to use and worked hard on carving. They did an amazing job. Mark and Addelyn and I helped a little but they did most of the work.

Addelyn helped by chewing on the pumpkin pieces.

As you can see, Addelyn really didn't care much about the pumpkin carving activity! She was more interested in grabbing the little pieces of dirt and dead ladybugs off of the ground (and mom kept busy trying to keep them out of her mouth!). Oh the mind of a baby....