Christmas 2009 Part 1

Here are photos from our Christmas trip home to family, part 1. The first few photos/videos are from celebrating their birthday at grandma and grandpa Downs. They are followed by pix and videos from Christmas at Oma's Enjoy!

Best Weatherman

Vote for Best Weatherman
Last week, we found out that Dale had been nominated for best weatherman here in Huntsville. For being on television for not even a year yet, this was a big accomplishment for him!
Show your support by visiting the site below and voting for Dale!!!!
http://blog.al.com/breaking/thebest/index.html

Early Birthday with Oma

Over Thanksgiving, we decided to let the kids have their birthday with Oma while she is in town. We have agreed that with their birthday so close to Christmas that it is fine right now to spread it out. These kids will have so many gifts between the 19th of December and the 26th that they won't know what to do! So, allowing them to get some early was a good choice!
From Oma, they got a kitchen set with lots of dishes and food and a train table with lots of train accessories. These things have kept them busy all weekend! Now, if they can only learn to pick up all the dishes and toys when they are done, we will be happy :)

Alex is quite the cook! He will make you just about anything you want!

Turkey Day 2009

THANKSGIVING 2009
We decided to stay at home this year for Thanksgiving. So, our family has taken turns coming to our house. Over the holiday, mommy was fighting strep throat and a bad cold. The week before, Alex had been in the ER for a double ear infection, strep, and conjunctivitus in his one eye. However, we still had a great time this Thanksgiving!

As all family can agree with now, getting pictures is not an easy task these days! Addie and Alex are EVERYWHERE and it is so hard for them to hold still at the same time to get a perfect shot. However, we tired our best!

Fall Festival

Fall Festival 2009

Whew! I think that we are all beat after a very busy day.

This afternoon, we went to a fall festival with the kids. It was great as they had a special area designated for toddlers. Addie and Alex loved jumping!!!!!!!!

Addie loved the duck pond and Alex liked digging in for treasures in the sand.

We had planned on staying later in the afternoon for trunk or treat. However, the kids were just too tired and I was not going to push them. Looking forward to this event next year!

Feeding the Ducks....

Today was a beautiful fall day here in Huntsville. We spent the day with some friends celebrating the good news that we received this past week. For the past 9 months, daddy has been working part-time. However, we found out this week that he will be starting full-time on the 1st of November. Our friends took us to lunch to celebrate! Then, we all took Addie and Alex to the park to feed the ducks. I am so thankful that they were there to help us chase the kids. There is no way that we could have done it without them! Whew, I am tired just thinking about all the running around we did earlier today. To end the day, we went to a fall festival here in town where Addie and Alex had a blast. Stay tuned for those pics.

Here is Miss Norma. She is our adopted mom here in Huntsville. We met Miss Norma through Addie and Alex's school. The kids LOVE her and we are so glad to have her as part of our family!
Miss Norma and Mr. Tom with Addie and Alex at the park. We should have taken this picture when we first got there as by this time, they were ready to be set free and continue playing!

Told ya, Addie was all over the place! She could have cared less about feeding the ducks. She was all about running the grounds.

Mr. Climber himself. He was so tired from running that he decided that he needed a break!

Funny picture... Why? Well, this was when we first got to the park and the kids were actually holding our hands! After about 2 minutes, they were done with that!

Catching Up....

When we went home to St. Louis a little over a month ago, Daddy went and talked with the first graders at the school where mommy used to teach. He taught them the tornado dance and all about severe weather safety. While he was talking, the kids had a blast playing in another first grade room. They were the hit of the day!

From the start, Addie helped herself and hopped up into this little girls lap and started using her supplies. Does that surprise you?

Candid Shots

Finding time to take pictures these days is still quite difficult.

However, every now and then we are able to grab a few shots.

Keeping Addie and Alex out of all of our decorations has been rather interesting. Addie is in love with the scarecrow bear that you see in the picture below.

But, for the most part, all she does is kiss it :) Christmas will be interesting. I don't know what daddy is thinking as he wants to put up a few trees.

Apple Picking

APPLE FUN 2009

Another hard part about moving to Huntsville has been not having a place to pick apples.

A few weeks ago, we finally thought that we had found somewhere to take the kids. However, when we got there, we were told that they do not allow you to pick apples from the trees. We were very disappointed. However, we made the most of our trip!

Here are some images from the trip to the apple orchard! Both Addie and Alex LOVE apples!

They had a blast running up and down the orchard! It was hard though to watch them all the time as they were wanting to eat apples off the ground...

Trip to see Old Grandma

About a month ago, we made a trip back to St. Louis due to a death in the family.

This trip was jammed packed with appointments, visits, and lost of activities!

Here are some pictures form our trip to Old Grandma's house!

Alex was too busy eating cookies to be in the pictures.

We are so happy to have the barn and the blocks at home with us now to play with.
Old Grandma was so glad to have the kids over!

Daddy's Dream

With living so close to a home town airport, Addie and Alex have come to LOVE airplanes!

We can be sitting in the sunroom, and they will just go crazy watching the planes out the window.

A couple of weekends ago, the airport had a fly in. Daddy had to go and do a story for work and was able to go up in a plane! Mommy stayed very busy chasing us around, but Daddy had a blast! Here is a picture of Daddy before take off!

Visit to Big Spring Park

Addie and Alex love going to the park. We have an awesome park here in town that the kids just love. There are days where you can drive by the park and they will ask to see the ducks. Even from as much as a mile away, they know their route very well! When we visited the park a few weeks ago, here is what we saw next to some shrubs.

Going to the park next time will not be this easy. On this trip, they sat very well in the wagon. Now, they are all about walking!

Fancy Fairy

In August, Addie had a few opportunities to have her picture taken at mommy's work. We do promo shoot pictures to show our clients what sets will look like for our Limited Editions. It is always a nice way to get current pics of the kids :)

Addie made a beautiful fancy fairy. You should have seen her getting her hair fixed and jewels put on her face! Such a big girl now!

School Days

August 12th, 2009
Addie and Alex had their first day of school today.
Even when I was staying at home with Addie and Alex, I knew that around 2 years old that I would put them in school part-time. So, I did a lot of research checking out places here. The place that I wanted to send them was on a HUGE waiting list, but I went ahead and took the chance. I have stayed in touch with them over the past year and this fall, they had two openings for Addie and Alex !
I took them to school on Wednesday and daddy met us there. They did as expected. Addie ran right in and Alex was a little hesitant. I am thankful that for weeks before they started that we took them there several times to check out their classroom and of course the play ground!
The first day was not as hard as I anticipated it being and DEFINITELY not as hard as what people told me that it would be. I truly feel that having confidence in where we are sending them has made the transition so much easier! We could not have them enrolled in a better program!

This chalkboard in the classroom has lots of magnets. Addie ran right for it!
Even the first day, she started acting like she owned the place! She knows right where everything is at and moves about like she has been there for months!

Alex is still investigating! Anxious to see how he does this week!

Imagine that, needing to sit in the ELMO chair on her first day :)

The kids had their 2nd day of school on Friday.
Both of them ran right in the front door. Alex was still a little hesitant at first, but did great! From what I understand, he whimpers for a few minutes and then finds something to play with. When I picked them up on Friday, the 6 kids in the class were sitting watching a video. But of course, as soon as Addie saw me, she had to get up and start pointing everything in her classroom out to me! Looking forward to a great week!

Both Addie and Alex LOVE shoes! However, they do not leave them on their feet for more than 30 seconds. I don't know how they will do with having to wear tennis shoes to school. The other night, I came in the front door and put my shoes next to the door. Before I could even turn around, Addie had them on her feet and was trying to walk. Considering that they are flip flops and she knows how to wear them, I think that she is pretty smart!

Remember the play-yard that we used to have for the kids? Well, for the most part, it is not being used anymore. We are still using pieces of it to block off the fireplace and other areas of the house. But, we had to take it down when the kids learned to tag team to get out of it! Now, we just have the kitchen and the hallway blocked off with gates :) However, Alex has started trying to figure out how to open them as you can see in this picture.

Always wanting to watch ELMO!

The other day, my friend Brandy came to watch the kids while we went to work. Ms. Emma is so cute! I think that the kids had a great time sharing their toys with her. Good practice too for Emma, as she will be a big sister this winter! Thanks Brandy!

Bath Time Fun!

With Addie and Alex being into everything and wanting to ride in the wagon several times each night, they are filthy dirty! It is so funny to watch them splash each other in the tub. We have had a hard time getting them not to scream when pouring water on their heads to wash their hair. Any tips?

We have had a lot going on at our house over the past several weeks. Therefore, it has been hard finding time to update the blog. However, I am going to try my best to update it more often. I think that if Addie and Alex would sit still for more than 2 seconds that I would have more pictures to post and update more freequently :)

Trips with Oma and Another First for Addie

The past few days Oma has been in town with us and we have gone on a couple of day adventures. The first day we went to see some waterfalls in northeast Alabama. We went and saw Desoto Falls and Little River Falls. We also saw Little River Canyon. There are many more falls in the region but due to the recent dry conditions many were dried up. We will have to go another day after recent rains.

Today, we went to the Tennessee aquarium where we saw fish from all over the world. We also saw some penquins with one being a 3 week old chick. We had lots of fun. Thanks for the good times, Oma.



The other BIG news of the day was that shortly after arriving home after the aquarium Addie said she needed to use the potty. We have been trying to teach her this for the past couple of weeks.

Adorable Ballerina

Addie participated in a promo shoot today at Bookout Studios.

It was so much fun!

Alex wil hopefully have a turn of his own, very soon.

However, for now, enjoy these beautiful pics of Addelynn.

Thanks Heater for the AWESOME pictures!!!!!!!!

PS: Please leave me a comment with your favorite!

4th of July

Happy 4th of July

We hope that everyone had a happy 4th of July!

The holiday was rather uneventful for our family.

Daddy had to work and we agreed not to get the kids off schedule by keeping them up late. Therefore, the kids were in bed before the fireworks even started. However, earlier in the day, we were all decked out in our Cardinal gear to visit daddy at work.

Get this.... Addie is wearing an older outfit of Alex's. She is still so petite.

Guess tht next year, she will be able to wear the one that Alex has on.

Enjoy!

Addie loves to climb on the couch and watch Bradyn lay outside in the shade.
Awwwwwww, dakota! Yes, it is a dog tha looks like Dakota, just 20 times the size.

I love my puppy!

Both Addie and Alex are addicted to wipes right now. They will be the cleanest kids in town!

Wonder why you don't see many pics of them together, its hard!!!!!!

Go Cardinals!!!!!!!!!!!!

More Updates:

Addie and Alex now think that they are big kids.

They do not like you to feed them. They MUST feed themselves.

We think that it is so funny that they love to eat lemons. Yes, they do!

Both of them now LOVE to sit on the potty chair. Nope, they have not gone yet.
But, they will have the cleanest teeth in town as that is their reward.

I know, some will say its too early, but if they want to sit, fine with us....

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