Mother's Day! and everything else!

I'd like to start by apologizing - especially to the loyal readers who check this everyday, even though it has been almost 3 weeks since I have updated this!! I'm sorry that it's been so long, and I hope that I post enough that I keep you satisfied, updated, and wanting to come back for more. This could be interesting though, because sometimes I can't remember what I did yesterday let alone three weeks ago!

Let's start with Mother's Day! I had a perfect first Mother's Day. Since Addison's 1 mo. birthday was the Tuesday before Mother's Day, I figured what better day than Mother's Day to do something I love and get some pictures taken! So we slept/layed in bed until about 10:00 before we got up and started getting around. Once we had all of our clothes and props put together, we headed out the door to do a little shopping before our photo shoot. First we tried going to the jewelery store and they were closed, then we tried going to one of our favorite baby stores and it was closed! At this point you're probably thinking, "wait - you said you had the perfect Mother's Day"... It was perfect, I am alive, I have a beautiful baby girl and a wonderful husband. After we want to the second closed store, we went to Babies R Us which was open. We found a few "necessities" or in other words anything we could call a necessity since we love buying things for our little girl. After we spent enough time at Babies R Us we were off to have our pictures taken. Loraine Davis took our pictures at her home. She did an excellent job, and all of the money she makes from taking pictures, goes to her friend's breast cancer fund! What a sweet woman! (See below for more images from our photo shoot) After we were done getting our pictures taken, we went out to the mall, where we spent more money on Addison (the photo above is of her trying on some sunglasses), and I bought three additions to one of my Mother's day gifts (the jewelery store we tried to go to in Ankeny, was open at the mall!). When we were done shopping, I splurged on my sodium restriction and we got Red Robin to go and ate it when we got home (on a side note - this was even more specially when I found out that my favorite burger wasn't going to be offered anymore :)

Chris and Addison bought me two BEAUTIFUL presents for which I am absolutely thankful! The first was a diamond pendant/necklace which was a combination "thanks for having my baby/ Mother's Day gift" it matches the beautiful diamond earrings Chris bought for me at about 15 weeks into my pregnancy. The second gift is a charm bracelet. He picked out the baby carriage and the diamond heart (Addison's birth stone), then let me pick out the rest when we went shopping on Mother's Day! The two red beads represent Chris' birthday and my birthday, along with our anniversary. The last bead is a contemporary sculpture of a mother and baby. Such a neat idea! I can't wait to fill it with charms representing all of our adventures as a family!

The following weekend, Grandma Knepper came down to visit. Saturday we went shopping. I think Addison knew we were shopping and she wanted a new outfit. We weren't in the mall more than 15 min. when Addy threw up all over herself, and of course, the extra outfit for situations like this, wasn't in the diaper bag. It took all day for me to find shoes (my feet have shrunk due to the pregnancy and losing weight) and a few new clothes.

This past weekend we went to Pratt, Kansas for a graduation party. It was an 16 hour drive (there and back). Addison did great! We had a great time at the party seeing some of Chris' family that we don't get to see enough! Addison was starting to get tired of riding in the car on the way home. She started crying shortly before an exit, so obviously we too that exit. I keep telling her dad that she is a natural born shopper, because the exit we took had a country store that had all kinds of Amish goods and tons of cute kids toys! Although we didn't buy anything, we did agree that we would have to come back before Christmas :) She even slept through the night last night after riding in the car all day - hopefully this wasn't a fluke, but rather something she is going to start doing every night - hey a girl can dream :)

Addison's developments over the last 3 weeks include: talking non-stop! (she is her mother's daughter), smiling more often, giggling, kicking her feet, pushing off (if you hold her in the standing position), playing with fabric/blankets - she likes to bunch them up and hold them in her hands, she has even started to pick up some of her larger rattles and shake them and she develops more and more faces and personality every day!

Sorry for the lack of "snapshots" we had to send my camera in for two weeks and Chris and I have been lost with out it!

As far as my health goes, they took me off another medication, they think they have stabilized my medication for my blood clot, and lifted my water restriction.

Hope this gives you all enough of an update on our lives for now and hopefully I won't wait as long next time for a post!