Winter Cheer

Adeline has certainly been spreading her winter cheer near and far. We returned home to Maryland for a quick visit over Thanksgiving. Family on both sides were elated to see our sweet girl and how she has changed so much in just a few weeks!

John carving up Julie's turkey masterpiece, and yes that is bacon!

Addie feasting away on her first turkey leg,

a Harding tradition

Addie has been enjoying exploring the world around her. She is always looking around curiously and has begun to get into Mommy and Daddy's things. I guess it's past time to baby proof. She is always on the move. The other day, while doing dishes, I walked in to check on her and I found this little satisfied grin as she stood up using a dining chair.

John's down to crunch time, studying for his finals which begin next week. Addie and I have been spending lots of quality time together.

But to make sure we still get to see our Daddy, we often meet up for lunch and try to have dinner together each night. Here is our Friday night date at the law school-- thai food and puffs.

We love our little girl and at this time of year, are especially grateful for the blessing she is and happiness she brings to us each day.

All grown up

As I have been thinking about all of Adeline's newest accomplishments I am realizing my little baby girl isn't exactly a baby anymore. We are leaving the infant stage and headed to toddler at full force. It's bitter sweet. I love my sweet happy little snuggle girl and a part of me wishes she would stay that way for ever, but at the same time she is learning so much and watching her grow is very exciting.

Where to begin? It seems like the past two weeks have just been a world wind of new achievements. After about a week of inchworm crawls across the carpet, Addie is now up on all fours crawling like a baby on a mission. This girl is fast and always seems to be headed in the direction of food, or anything that might resemble food, like small scraps of paper!

I guess as she quickly realized that she can be mobile, she has set her sights on even bigger goals like climbing up into standing position on mom, dad, couches, chairs, and her bed. We had to lower her crib after discovering her hanging out over the rails during her supposed nap time. She's still climbing up, but now we aren't worried about her taking a nose dive over the side.

Our friendly girl has also learned to wave, never failing to make some old lady's day every time we visit the grocery store.

This week we went on a play date to the park. We've never taken Addie before because I guess I always thought she was too young and she couldn't actually play. She proved me wrong when I put her in the swing, she absolutely LOVED it!! She smiled and laughed at every push.

Addie recently decided to boycott all baby food, preferring instead to eat whatever is on Mom or Dad's plate. So we ran with it and so now in addition to her bottles, Addie now eats 3 table food meals a day. Yes, a little early, but that's what the girl wants. We give her little pieces of whatever we are having whether its rice, noodles, chicken, roast, biscuits. And when those pieces aren't coming fast enough, she sure lets us know about it. We have got a little monster on our hands already!

I guess all these new accomplishments are really taking a toll on her because the other night at dinner this is what happened....

It's definitely making us rethink her 8 oclock bedtime. 7 maybe???

Visit from the Grands

Last weekend Addie has two special visitors for the day, her Grammy Dawn and her Great-Grandma Hunter.

We gave them a quick tour around the UVa main campus including the well known Rotunda and its accompanying lawn. The campus is especially beautiful this time of year with the leaves changing.

We did a little shopping on The Corner then we were treated to a delicious dinner at a fantastic South African restaurant. At home Addie showed off some of her new tricks, like her inch worm crawling. It was a short, but sweet visit and we were all glad to get the chance to see them!

Trick-or-Treat!

This year we were excited at the idea of dressing up our own little goblin for Halloween. Here in Charlottesville there were events going on all week long. Since our little one doesn't have teeth and her momma doesn't allow her any candy just yet, we chose a few events to go to mostly just to see our friends. First we went to a Halloween event at the law school. The first year students (1L's) each set up a booth with candy, crafts, or games for professors' and students' children. I was a little nervous Addie would get her costume dirty before our next party so she wore her plan B costume, a Little Lady Bug.

The next evening we attended our ward Halloween party and Trunk-or- Treat. Addie wore her real costume, a little Piggy!!

She loved helping to hand out the candy to the kids... and even tried to steal a few pieces herself!

On Halloween we decided we would skip out on trick- or- treating this year. Instead we dressed up to hand out candy. We were the 3 Little Pigs. Addie loved playing with our noses.

We were a little disappointed that we only had TWO trick-or-treaters, but we invited a few friends over and made some yummy caramel apples!

Taking a break

Addie will be 7 months old tomorrow. She is talking up a storm! Her favorite thing to say is, "da-da-da-da," much to her mother's chagrin. But just last week she finally started saying, "ma-ma-ma-ma." This chic is so close to crawling! She gets up on all fours with her stomach off the ground and rocks back and forth. She can scoot backwards, but hasn't figured out forwards just yet. Even though she isn't crawling, she manages to move all over the place just fine between the rolling, scooting, and rocking. Yesterday, I found her hanging out under the couch. She was pretty proud of herself!

So unlike BYU, UVa actually has breaks every now and then. It's wonderful! Last week was fall break, 3 days off from classes. We spent our break in Outerbanks, North Carolina with 9 other LDS families in one gigantic beach house. It was such a fun trip! Many of the students came back on Wednesday so they could make it to class on Thursday, like John. But Addie and I decided we didn't have to be back, so we enjoyed a few more days at the beach.

John's been able to stay on top of his studies and made it through midterms in one piece. In celebration of that, he and a few buddies from school competed in the ultimate challenge called Tough Mudder. It was a 9 1/2 mile run up and down black diamond ski slopes with 25 crazy obstacles throughout the course. Some of the obstacles included carrying heavy stumps up a steep hill, swimming through water with chunks of ice in it, running through live wires, climbing up and over a half pipe, and lots more! I can't believe John made it through the entire thing, we were so proud of him! Julie was here visiting us and she whipped out her camera and got a few great action shots.