New videos

Jason was trying to catch Addie in the act, and as always she decided not to do what Jason intended to catch. Instead, when Addie saw the camera she started saying "Cheese!" a new thing that we taught as we were trying to take family pictures earlier this month.

This is what Jason was trying to take a video of. Addie loves to put on and take off her winter hats. She loves how she looks so much that she does a little dance in front of the reflection in the window.

Happy Anniversary

Today makes three wonderful years of marriage. What have we done in those three years? Actually quite a lot - here's a rundown:

1. Lived in Rexburg, Idaho for WAY longer than anyone ever should (and loved almost every minute of it).

2. Visited Germany, the Czech Republic, and Mexico.

3. Welcomed Adelaide to our family

4. Got Jason through undergrad and the whole Dental School Application process.

5. Moved to Iowa and bought our first home by ourselves.

6. Survived most of another pregnancy (quite an accomplishment with a combination of hormones and dental school).

7. Survived 1st semester at Dental School (and Jason did very well, too).

I love having our anniversary so near to Christmas. What a good time of the year! And usually brings good memories to mind. This will be our first Christmas as a married couple spent as just our little family. We will miss being with all of our family very much and hope that they have a wonderful time even without us there. But, we are actually really looking forward to starting our own traditions and having a quiet Christmas at home.

Ok, so maybe this isn't our first Christmas by ourselves. Our very first Christmas after we were married was spent on our honeymoon in St. George. That was a good Christmas too:

Is that a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, or what? I don't think it was even technically a tree. But we were so snug with each other and the fire. What a wonderful first Christmas!

OK, so maybe this was our first Christmas together being married, but it definitely wasn't our first Christmas with each other. I was going through boxes getting organized for the baby and found these pictures in a scrapbook I made in Young Womens. This is Christmas 1993 at the Dexter house in Centreville, Virginia (where it all began). I thought these were fun.
I'm not sure who the wisemen or shepherds on the floor are, but Kimberly (Jason's sister) is Mary and Michael (Jodie's brother) is Joseph and Jason is someone with a weird hat (his head is in the corner).

Christmas Eve dinner at the kids table. On the left (back to front) Jason, Kim, Paige, Jeff. On the right (back to front) Emily, Jodie, Kevin.

So there you have it: the random workings of a pregnant ladie's mind on her third anniversary right before Christmas. Hope you enjoy making sense of my train of thought and that you have a wonderful Christmas as well!

Blizzard!

Here is how we survived the "blizzard" that came our way this week:

We, of course, had to have some yummy treats. We did a lot of relaxing. Addie loves to cuddle with her dad - this is before we found out he has pneumonia. Hopefully nobody else gets sick!
Addie had to get out and play in the snow, so we got all bundled up to investigate what was going on with all that white stuff. This is as far as Addie got. She walked out of the garage and then turned right around to come inside. The snow might have looked cool, but the wind and the cold made it not so appealing.

Crazy Day

From past pictures, stories, or just knowing her heritage it's obvious that Addie has quite a personality. We love her funny little faces and all the goofy stuff that she does. Today, though was an all-time-low for her attention span. She wasn't bad or more misbehaved than usual, just very distracted and hyper and all over the place. We've been trying to expand her vocabulary and sounding words out so that she can get the hang of them. She and I have been working on 'please' for a long time and today seemed like an all-day session of attempting please. To no avail. She just wasn't into it; didn't even really want to try. Of course, Jason came home and called her 'loco' and within a minute she was making the 'L' sound (something she's never done before) and getting pretty close to saying loco. Anyway, so she ran around crazy all day and even with the very short and late nap that she had, time to settle down was even humorous. Everynight Jason will either read her a book or look at flashcards before she goes to bed. Tonight I couldn't help but laugh as I listened to him try to get a normal response out of her while going through the flashcards and most of what I heard was a high pitched squeal that is her excited/singing voice.

I feel so lucky to have such a happy and fun little girl. It definitely makes life interesting and more enjoyable. The forecast is blizzard weather for the next two days, so we might just both be crazy by the time we leave the house again!

This Thanksgiving we have so much to be thankful for:

Jason is in Dental School and enjoying it.

Addie is growing and learning new things every day.

We are no longer living in Idaho.

The government is good to those who are as poor as we are.

We have wonderful families who love us.

We love each other and enjoy being together.

We know the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and know that we can be together forever.

There are so many more specifics to be thankful for, but this covers most of it. I have been thinking lately about all that we have and am overwhelmed by how blessed we are. We really couldn't ask for better family and friends who support us and give us the encouragement we need when we get sidetracked by those rough times that end up not mattering so much in the end.

This week we are particularly grateful for the time we were able to spend with some of our family in Washington DC. On Wednesday we flew out there to spend Thanksgiving with my sister Emily and her family. We had so much fun. It was the relaxing, no-stress Thanksgiving that we all wanted and needed. Emily's husband Ben is doing some training in Washington before they head for an assignment in Mexico, so we were glad we could take advantage of them being so close (at least in the same country). Addie had an absolute blast with her only cousins. She and Jack made everyone tired with thier running around and endless energy. And she was just so cute with the 'bebe' Thomas. She was constantly trying to share toys and food with him and give him kisses. She was gentle for the most part until she started to point out where his eyes were.

We all got a good laugh at the cheerios on the bum. What you can't see is that she's probably trying to feed some of them to Thomas.

Adelaide and Jackson. They had the most fun piling up the blankets and pillows and jumping from the couch onto them.

Addie and Thomas.

Oh, yeah - another wonderful thing about our trip and a big thankful for: this was the first trip we've taken that Addie was able to put herself to sleep each night just like at home!!! Hallelujah!

Helping in the kitchen

The other day Addie helped me make some brownies. She's getting very good at helping, and always wants to be involved with whatever is going on in the kitchen. Which is why there are so many dishes in the background of the picture - she knows how to unload the dishwasher, but thinks thats what you do everytime it's open. So, we rinse and stack our dishes on the counter and then put them in all at once while she's distracted or asleep. Anyway, these cute pictures are her being our little helper . . .

and this is the very next morning. This is why there is a lock on the pantry . . .

which obviously got left unlocked. I turned around to find cornstarch everywhere. At first I was upset, but she looked so funny all covered in it and I love the little footprints.

This year Addie dressed up as Abby Cadabby for Halloween. For those of you who don't know, that is a character on sesame street (which Addie absolutely loves). I found a couple costume pieces at a consignment shop and rearranged them into what you see. The stem on my head is actually part of one of the costumes as well (as we were getting ready and I was about to throw away all the scraps I had the idea to make myself into a pumpkin; Jason just laughed).
She wasn't sure about getting in the costume until we showed her what she looked like in the mirror and she got excited.

A front and back view of the costume and of her hair - it's hard to tell but it was both pink and purple.

And at the end of the night, we had to get the color out of her hair so it wouldn't get on the sheets and it turned the water (and the tub) pink. It's not very clear, but it really is pink.

Pumpkin Time!

We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening last night. Addie was very excited about it and we had a great time!

A Wonderful Day!

Well, yesterday I turned 27! I still don't feel like I'm really that old - it's very strange. Anyway, I had a great day thanks to my family. I don't usually look forward to birthdays because I've had some pretty terrible ones. But I think that my outlook is beginning to change because I haven't had a bad birthday since being married to the most wonderful man in the whole world. Jason always does such a good job and this year was no exception. Of course this year, he was at school all day and it was just me and Addie, but she woke up in a good mood (those haven't been consistent lately with her molars coming in) and we had a great day together. My family sent me some awesome presentsWhen Jason got home we dropped Addie off with friends and went to dinner. We went to a place that likes to embarass people with birthdays with the sombrero and singing and clapping and it was fun and really good food. But mostly it was nice to have some alone time and a real date with my husband. We might have even figured out the whole name dilemma. Does that let you know how little time we have to talk; that one dinner alone and we've been able to solve something we've been struggling with for a couple months?

And, no we're not going to tell what we've come up with.

Since I actually got dressed decently for the day, I thought we could take a picture of the progressive bump. It didn't work very well and this is the best one we got.

I just love fall and I'm so excited to be in a place where it actually exsists the way I remember as a kid. That hasn't happened in several years. For those of you in Utah or Idaho, I am very sorry. Especially those in Rexburg, I know those 3 days that are not either winter or summer are quite lovely, but it's just not the same. If you've never experienced an autumn on the east coast you are missing out (this is just a personal opinion). Anyway, I love the weather and the trees and everything about this time of year. It could be that it means the start of the time with the best holidays (halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) plus 75% of my immediate family's birthdays are in the months from Sep-Dec. Whatever it is I like it!

So, there have been some pretty amazing sunsets lately and I wanted to share this lovely scene. It's from our front window. So pretty.

A video!

I've tried to upload videos since we moved, but haven't been able to until now! Yeah! I thought this was so funny. Jason got an application on his i-touch of flashcards for Addie and she loves to look at them. She also has become very talkative lately. We have no idea what she is saying, but she does and she can ramble on for a long time. She's even tried to help Jason with his studying. The looks she gives him as she "reads" his notes or textbooks looks like she's saying "I've got it, you can ask me anything." She's a pretty funny girl.

Some fun pictures

Sporting the apron that my Grandma Dexter made for and sent to Addie - she actually has gotten rather good at helping in the kitchen.

Climbing into a basket in her room.

Getting really into sharing mom and dad's dessert. And she's wearing one of my shirts which she found going through the laundry and had to wear.

Trying to sit in an empty wipes container . . . and how it turned out. She wasn't upset, just kind of layed there for a minute trying to figure out what went wrong.

Looking super cute for church in a dress that someone bought for her (but I don't remember who, sorry).

On top of the table. Have you noticed a pattern of climbing? - it's all the rage in our house. On this particular morning I was making breakfast and came around the corner to find this. I thought the funniest part of this experience was that right after this picture she got the car keys out of my bag and pressed the alarm button and got really scared of the alarm going off in the garage. Climbing up on tall furniture into precarious situations: no problem. Strange beeping noises that she has caused: terrifying.

Our goofy girl

Addie is a wonderful and happy little girl - most of the time. When she's tired or not feeling well, she can be cranky and whiny with the best of them. Last night was one of those times. We were trying to have Family Home Evening, which she usually loves because of the singing and we read from the Book of Mormon Stories book. Plus, she loves being with both Jason and I which happens less and less since Jason's been getting busier with school. Anyway, as we were trying to get started, Addie pointed to the TV and wanted to watch Elmo. We told her we weren't going to watch Elmo and that we were going to sing a song (yeah!). It did not work. She started to cry and whine and scream as if something horrible had happened. We tried everything to distract her and I even took her into her room to calm her down, which worked a little but when we came back out she pointed and cried at the TV again. So out of frusteration, I said "Do you need to go to sleep? Do you want to go to bed?" She immediately calmed down, looked at me and nodded and then pointed toward her room. So we got her ready for bed and she went to sleep - at least a half hour early. And Jason and I had Family Home Evening by ourselves, which mostly involved winding down from the whole experience.

IT'S A BOY!

It's official - not only are we having another baby, but we found out today that it's going to be a little boy! Yeah!! We are so thrilled!! He's due at the end of January, so he and Addie will be about 19 months apart.

Free Fridays

Our local mall has some pretty neat stuff in it including a children's museum and a carousel. Addie and I would spend a lot more time there to get out of the heat (or the rain like last week) if the cool things weren't so expensive and if Abercrombie didn't make half the mall smell so bad it makes me want to throw up. Anyway, on the last Friday evening of every month, the carousel and the museum are free. We end up always forgetting when to go, but this time we remembered and had a lot of fun. There were Mormons everywhere and it was good to see people from our new ward as well as our old ward and we had a lot of fun. We were a little late and weren't able to spend too much time at the museum, but we got some good pictures of Dr. Gonzalez.

Can I help you?

Shoes

Why are all kids shoes made for the kids that have really skinny feet? Addie has never had skinny feet. Even when she was born I was so sad that the many newborn booties and shoes that were bought for her never fit. We squeezed some of them on to get a picture and then quickly removed them. Her feet aren't necessarily very wide from side to side, but thick from bottom to top. Well, since she's become quite a good little walker (and even runner when she wants to escape) we decided it was time to get her some real shoes. When trying on the cute little girl shoes that are everywhere, I have to get 2 sizes too big to actually fit on her cute little feet. So, instead of some little sandals or slip on sneakers that are just so adorable, we had to resort to these boring tennis shoes. Oh, well. She's still the cutest.

Here she is with the cowgirl slippers that Grandma Dexter bought her last year. They fit now and she likes to dance around in them.