This month
has been an absolutely wonderful month.
It has been so much fun to have Ben home so much more. We have had the family time we have so
desperately been needing, yay!
"Fishing" with Daddy at the pond using sticks
Ben finished his last grad
school class, though he officially doesn’t graduate until May. He also handed over all of his leadership and
collateral duties at work, which means all he has to do is teach and grade
now. Like I said before, this means a
lot more Hubby/Daddy time. He has been
so much less stressed and has enjoyed spending a lot more time with his
girls. His job search is at a bit of a halt
due to a hiring freeze at the company that is very interested in him. We are praying for good news mid-May, but he
is also continuing to send his resume to all his contacts and apply.
April has been an eventful month
for Ben and one last exciting thing was that he celebrated his 28th
birthday. It was a bit of a two day
affair involving an eating contest burger at Matt’s Burgers the day before,
then a date sans Alethea involving delicious local food at Husk followed by
from scratch strawberry cheesecake that I made.
Alethea had so much fun talking about Daddy’s birthday saying “Happy
beht-day Dadday” and “Dat Daddy’s happy beht-day bag?” She was so excited to
give him his present (protein shaker bottles and money toward new bball
shoes). I am so thankful the Lord has
blessed him with 28 years and looking forward to many more with him in our
lives.
bday cheesecake
Husk date
Posing with Daddy and his triple bomb burger
This month has been less involved for me involving a lot of the same old
things. I am still cooking up a storm
while I still have the time and I am beginning to get the house ready for Baby
D. I have definitely been staying busy
and enjoying a lot more solo runs because Ben has been home in the afternoons. One special thing this month was having a
small baby “sprinkle” with a few good friends.
Thanks to Anna it was a perfect little celebration and I got an Ergo,
clothes, and a few baby basics. To top
off the evening Anna and I had a chance to hang out for a few hours after the
shower and chat sans kiddos and it was wonderful. Definitely a rarity and such a treat!
posing for Mommy's bump photo
favorite cooking creation #1: from scratch strawberry pop-tarts
favorite cooking creation #2: from scratch cinnamon roll cheesecake
Alethea is still working on being a jolly green giant, lol. She is up to 37.5inches (up almost an inch in
the last month) and 29lbs 9.6oz for her 26 month stats. I think
she has been adding some longer naps on occasion to accommodate this growth,
which I have been very pleased to enjoy.
Although, she has started into a bit of a phase where she takes forever
to fall asleep. At naptime she is
fussing and asking for us to come back or talking to herself and at bedtime she
lays in her bed quietly for the most part, but is often still randomly talking
or singing sometimes an hour after going to bed. Not sure what the motivation is for all of
that, but she doesn’t seem to have any ill effects from it thankfully.
This is what happens on the way home from the grocery when she
plays for 1.5 hrs in her bed instead of napping
She is also moving into a stage involving a ton of curiosity. She is constantly asking “What’s dis/dat?”
and asking other questions to affirm her understanding of her surroundings. I love this new stage most of the time, but
at times it can be a bit exhausting. I
am amazed at how much more she is learning every day and she never ceases to
amaze me with her grasp of concepts that I don’t even remember ever teaching
her. She is definitely in the sponge
stage and absorbing everything around her.
"What's dat?"
"What's dis?"
Her speech is continuing to grow exponentially it seems. She is speaking in longer sentences with each
passing month it seems though, if she gets overly excited about what she is
saying, she might take an eternity to get the sentence out, lol. I am very impressed to see how great her
understanding of directional words has become.
She uses words such as “on top”, “unda-neath”, “inside”, “outside”, and
many more to describe where things are.
We hear a ton of these words on a daily basis because she loves to
describe/narrate her surroundings. She
is even beginning to grasp her numbers and letters some and understands what
they are for. One of her favorite things
to do is point out “lettees” on our shirts and often times she is correct with
identifying them and it is very common to hear her counting “1, 2, 3….8, 9, 10”
or saying “A, B, C, D….W, X”. She will
say all the numbers and letters when repeating after us, but only portions of
them on her own. Definitely not concerned
because I know she will know them all in due time.
My artist
Oh yah, and she can climb way to well
One of my favorite things she has started to verbalize a lot lately is “for
you/me/Daddy/Mommy”. She loves to say “I
get wa-wa for ….” and then hand it out to whoever is in the room. It’s also so cute to see her get excited when
someone does something for her and she says things like “Daddy sing songs for
me, Mommy!” I love seeing her excitement about life and how much she enjoys
sharing it with those around her….even if sometimes it can be a bit loud on the
volume scale, lol.
Using her food cans as "wa-wa" cups
"Here go Daddy. Dis for you!"
My little songbird is continuing to develop more and more of a love for
music. She requests “dance” music in the
car which usually ends up just being K-Love or occasionally we rock out to one
of my Glee CDs. It is also a frequent occurrence
to hear her waking up by singing songs in the morning and then she comes into
my room to cuddle/talk or sing my ear off, lol.
Some of her favorites that she loves to sing/have sung to her are “Skin-a-marinki-dink-e-dink
, I luh you….unda-neaf da moooo”, and “God so big…stars hanny-work too”. She gets really into songs with motions and
her Daddy and I love it!
She has also become quite enamored with looking at herself in the
mirror. We have a mirror on her toy
closet door and she will intentionally walk over to it just to see what she
looks like while laughing, whining, crying, screaming, etc. I love this, not only because it is super
cute to witness, but I also know that it is giving her a visual example of the
different emotions she is experiencing.
It is her childlike way of developing self-awareness. She also has been known to dance and make
faces at herself in the mirror which entertains her for quite some time and
often entertains Ben and I as well.
Oh the many faces of Alethea
Sheer joy looking at herself in the phone camera
I have also loved seeing her excitement about her friends. She absolutely loves going to “play friends”
and when we do she talks about what she did with them for days/weeks. Whenever she gets to stay with a friend while
I go to an appointment, she always comes home telling us about what she did
(even with the mommies) for days. It’s
pretty hilarious at times to hear her perception of what happens. For example, after she stayed with her friend
Reese while I took Ben to the doctor for his surgery, she frequently said “Mommy
take Daddy dockee, A-la-la play Reese’s housey….Reese’s mommy pick A-la-la up
and kiss boo-boo.” She has even asked
many times since if that is where she gets to go again when we are leaving the house
to go somewhere. So sweet that she loves her friends, and their mommies, so
much already!
April brought lots of sunshine into our lives and I know life is only
going to get more exciting over the next few months. Only one more full month as a family of
3! So thankful that God has provided us
with such a busy, fun, and exciting, yet restful month of April!
She did help cheer Louisville on to win the NCAA Championship in Men's Bball
And one last dose of cuteness!
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