Crazy Girl and Yummy food!

Adeline has been hitting her terrible 2's pretty early.... well at least it has seemed like it this week. Also, almost every night she has woke me up screaming bloody murder, and then it takes her forever to go back to bed. About every couple minutes, she has also been throwing a little tantrum about something or another. She is also WHINING, ALL THE TIME. She will just point and start whining. She doesn't even know what she wants and most of the time she is not even pointing at anything in particular. Well, anytime your child acts like this, it is nice to have the excuse that they are teething. I have just thought Adeline was going through a bad stage, and maybe she is. BUT, tonight I felt on the back of Adeline's gums and she just got another molar!! She now has 10 teeth!!! Soooo... I am going to blame this behavior on teething :) I still can't help but to laugh, smile and kiss her all over even when she is being naughty. She is just too cute.

Here are her new teeth

Adeline was really hyper tonight and so I thought I would video a little bit of it because she was being hilarious. Of course when I started taping her, she calmed down a bit


Tonight I made really yummy tortilla soup and a dessert. They actually were both very easy and SO good from Kraft foods. I didn't take any pictures of the soup...sorry. Here are the recipes:

TORTILLA SOUP
for the soup--
2 Tbsp. Italian Dressing
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cans chicken broth
1 1/2 C. Water
6 frozen small boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 can (15oz) tomato sauce

toppings--
4 cups tortilla chips, crushed
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large avocado, peeled pitted and chopped
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Mix dressing and garlic in large saucepan; cook on medium-high heat 1 min., stirring occasionally. Gradually add broth and water, stirring until well blended. Add chicken. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 20 min. or until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from broth mixture; cool slightly. Pour broth through a fine-mesh strainer; return broth to pan.

Shred chicken; return to pan. Stir in tomato sauce. Cook on medium-high heat until heated through, stirring occasionally.

Ladel soup into soup bowls. Garnish with the topping ingredients.

Supposed to make 8 servings. But we were pigs and for us it probably on made about 3. You can count on at least 4 unless you are pigs like us. Mmmm, it's so good.

Here are pics of the dessert...



STRAWBERRY WHIPPED SENSATION
4 cups fresh strawberries, divided
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/4 lemon juice
1 tub (8 oz) cool whip whipped toping, thawed divided
8 oreo chocolate sandwich cookies
1 Tbsp. butter, melted

-shape foil onto outside of 8x4 inch loaf pan. Line inside of pan with shaped foil, with ends extending over sides of pan.
-Mash 2 Cups of the strawberries in large bowl. Stir in condensed milk and juice
-Stir 2 cups of the whipped topping into strawberry mixture. Pour into prepared pan
-Finely chop cookies. Combine cookies and butter. soon over whipped topping mixture in pan.
-Cover cookie mixture with ends of foil and gently press cookie mixture into whipped topping mixture. Freeze 6 hours or until firm.
-Insert dessert onto serving plate when ready to serve (flip up-side down); remove pan and foil. Spread remaining whipped topping onto top and sides of dessert.
-slice remaining 2 cups strawberries; arrange on dessert. Store leftovers in freezer.

October?

I can't believe that it is already October. I keep thinking, "where has the summer gone!" Over the last two days, our weather changed pretty drastically. It was in the 80's and today it was in the 50's. I stayed in sweat pants and fuzzy socks the whole day because I couldn't get warm. It's starting to feel like fall though, and I love that we are finally living in a place with seasons!

Here is a funny video of Adeline teasing Chloe. She loves to go grab Chloes treat bag and chase her around the house with them. She also says "mmmm" when she picks them up and would like to eat them. She cracks me up.


I LOVE this age right now. Everyone says I will say that about every age, and that is probably true. She is so fun right now. Also pretty hard at times since she has a mind of her own, but still fun. She is throwing a lot of tantrums lately, but even when she is completely losing it, I still love her so much and think she is the cutest thing ever.

She is a "mini me" right now. She wants to do EVERYTHING that I am doing. If I am vacuuming, she has to help. If I am cooking, she has to help... and so on and so forth. Tonight we found her with two rags in her hands cleaning off her high chair and also the floor.

Also tonight, she kept standing in front of me and whining while I was trying to cook dinner as she was grabbing onto my legs. So, I put her on the counter and let her hold a spoon so she could try to stir the food and participate. Then, voila, she was happy.


This may be boring for some of you, so you can skip through this part if you want. I just need to document what Adeline is doing right now.
*
We taught Adeline how to sign just over a week ago and she can now sign:

Please
More
All done
Ball
Can fold her arms for prayer
blow a kiss...not sure if that counts as a sign
*
The animal Sounds she can do:

dog
cat
fish
horse
bunny
Bear (sometimes)
monkey
*
She Can say:

Ma ma
da da
doggy
shoe
kitty
thank you
night night
no (na)
Chloe (she hasn't said this in over a month. I think she forgot)
uh oh
*
Some of Adeline's favorite things:

outside
collecting rocks
holding chloe's leash and taking her on walks
chase chloe
her blankie
babies
carrots
doing tripods
climb stairs
play with shoes and put them on
play with jewelry
splash in chloe's water bowl
visiting our neighbors
cats (I hate cats)
loves to bark, she can hear a dog from miles away

First Day of School

No, no, Adeline is not starting school yet.... Abe is! Today is Abe's first "official" day of AFIT. I am kind of sad, because he has had a pretty laid back schedule, and now he is going to be gone a lot. I guess even though he has had a lot of free time, it's not like we have gone and played or anything. Abe has been living in our basement trying to get it finished. Sometimes when Abe isn't home, Adeline will go to the basement door and start pounding on it and say "da da!". I think she truly believes that Abe LIVES in the basement.

Here is Abe's first day of school picture all dressed in his blues. He didn't really want me to take it, but I insisted that we document :)


Talking about our basement, here is the latest progress:



We have all the sheet rock up and we have been mudding and taping. We still have a couple more rounds of sanding and mudding and then on to the next step!

On Friday night, Jackie, Brian and Tillie came to visit from Cincinnati. We had some pizza and then we all went to Young's Dairy in Yellow Springs to get some ice cream. They also had some pumpkins out, so Tillie and Adeline ran around the pumpkins and liked playing with them. We also got to see the animals there. They have cows, goats, a pig, sheep, chickens and a big turkey. Tillie didn't seem scared at all and she loved it. Adeline on the other hand has been scared of the animals lately. Hopefully she will get over that. Here are some pictures of our fun night.

I did it!

I did it! I ran my first 1/2 marathon yesterday (13.1 miles). Abe's sister Roni came into town on Tuesday so that we could run the USAF (united states air force) 1/2 marathon together. It was so nice running it with her and to have someone to keep me motivated. It seemed like she didn't have any trouble running the 13.1 miles, just another run. In fact, she was even dancing to her music the last couple miles. I just needed her to give me some of her energy. This was her 4th 1/2 marathon this year!

The first 7-8 miles I felt so good and we were running just over a 9 mile pace. But then I did something I shouldn't have... I ate a gel pack to boost my energy. At mile 11 I was pretty tired and so we decided to walk for the first time... just for a couple of minutes. At mile 12, I had to make an emergency bathroom break. I don't think my stomach like the gel pack so much. We ended up finishing in 2 hours 18 minutes (about a 10 min, 38 sec mile). Of course I am mad that we ever walked a couple of minutes now, because I probably wouldn't have had to go to the bathroom and we would have finished in less than a 10 minute mile pace. Oh well. All in all, I feel pretty good about it and we had a great time!



The first day that Roni was here, we went to a park nearby. There was a pretty big slide that is built into the side of the hill. Of course Abe made Adeline go down it all by herself. Who knows if she liked it. She just had a serious face on the whole time and never cracked a smile. But when Abe would take her to the top, she would try to go down again. There was a bump in the middle of the slide that I thought she may fly off of because she was getting some pretty serious speed. She was a good sport and she didn't get any injuries :)



We are sad that Roni left this morning. We miss you already!

Remnants of hurricane ike

So Hurricane Ike decided to come this way and rip through our back yard. The winds were up to 60 Mph around here and a bunch of large trees and branches are now all over our backyard. I am happy that none of us got hurt and that all our windows are still intact. Our neighbor had a tree go through their window. We are lucky that we still have power, because apparently most people in our town are without and the School District is closed tomorrow. These trees are so big that we are going to have to use a chain saw to help clean up the mess!


Abe just planted this Crimson Red Maple Tree yesterday (bad timing), but he survived the strong winds! Good thing...he cost a pretty penny.

On Friday I drove down to Cincinnati and met Jackie ( a High School friend) and her baby Tillie at the Children's Museum. It was fun seeing Jackie and catching up on life. I loved meeting her little girl Tillie as well. She is such a doll. Her and Adeline act so much alike, and I think they kind of look alike too! Here is a picture of the two girls. Of course they both wouldn't look at the camera!

So tonight Adeline was playing so well by herself. I love that she will do that now. At one point, she was very quiet, so I looked over at her and she was just sitting in her little chair holding a wrapper. Immediately I knew what the wrapper was from. At church earlier, Abe ate a chocolate chip granola bar that had melted quite a bit. Well, he threw the wrapper in Adeline's little bag and she found it tonight. When she saw me looking at her, she stood up and ran away from me so I couldn't take it from her. She was loving it. She would smash the wrapper on her face and lick as much chocolate off as she could. She had chocolate all over her hands and face. What a cute little girl.

Our Basement-- Our Little Munchkin

Today has been pretty lazy and relaxing. Abe and I didn't get out of bed until 10am. He doesn't have to go to school until 11am, so it has been very nice. I am going to be sad when he actually has a "normal" schedule. After the 2 hours that Abe actually has to go to school right now, he has been coming home and working his butt off trying to finish our basement. So far, he has made pretty good progress. He framed the entire basement (including a closet we added at the end of the room), put the recess lighting in, wired the light switches, and installed all the outlets. Today we are going to finish insulating the basement and then hopefully we can start on the drywall. It will be nice when it is finished!

Here are a couple pictures of our basement before we did any work:


Here are some pictures after Abe did framed and did the electrical in the basement:


We will post some pictures when it is finished!! Abe has to start his program at the beginning of October, so we are trying to get the majority of it done by then.

Alright, on to our little munchkin. This girl is hilarious.

ADELINE LOVES...... to put anything and everything on top or over her head. One of her favorite things is to go in our bathroom and play with all of my necklaces. She will put as many as she can around her neck and walk around like that. It's pretty funny.


It's funny how Chloe and Adeline are alike sometimes. One of Chloe's favorite things is piles of clothes. It doesn't matter if they are dirty or clean. She will carry them around, play with them and make a little nest and lay in them. Well, Adeline loves that too. I had a big pile of laundry this week and Chloe and Adeline were having a hay day in them. Here is a picture of Adeline enjoying the laundry pile.


A couple new things she's done this week:
-She says "uh oh"
-When you tell her not to do something, or she knows she's not supposed to do something, she shakes her head side to side...sassy little thing. Adeline is not allowed to go in the laundry room because that is where Chloe's food and water is. Adeline would A) eat chloe's dog food and B) pour her water out. So we try to leave the door closed. BUT, when the door is open, she will run over there as fast as she can and move her head from side to side before running in. I can't help but laugh. -She also learned how to take her pants off all by herself. How??, I don't know. I just found her running around this morning with her arm through the leg of her pants.

Let me introduce you to the cutest girl I have ever seen....

Adeline is the cutest little tweefie. My dad was in town this weekend for a "work trip". He chose to take pictures at the Utah vs Michigan football game so he could come and stay with us. On Saturday, my dad and Abe drove to Michigan to go to the game. They had a blast. I would have loved to go, but Adeline would have never made it. It was a 3 hour drive each way, a couple hours early to the game and then the game. They didn't get home until about 1am.

It seems like Adeline has been getting bigger and learning new things every day. She is starting to learn new words. The other day she said "Chloe", three times. Funny how her first real word (besides mama, dada, baba, doggy), is the dogs name. And she said it so clear and perfect. She also says "done" once in awhile when she is in her high chair, "night night" and today I swear she said "shoes". We will see if she forgets these, or if she keeps saying them! Other than that, she just says dada all the time.

We found this amazing sunflower field close by our house (thanks Sassy for the recommendation!), and so we went and took some pictures. They turned out amazing and Adeline looks so cute!! Thanks dad! Now we can possibly use these for Christmas cards :)


Here are a couple--






Adeline loves Grandpa Smart!