Thursday, October 21, 2010

Blogger Repents

Blogger repented for its misdeeds. I am now able to load photos, and ...dare I even hope that... they don't rotate my photos anymore!

So here are some of the things we've been up to!

When the weather was warmer, Adel loved it when I filled her carriage tray with water for her to splash in.

My smiley face!

We went on our first trip to Target. It was lots of fun!

Most of my photos of Gedalya look like this:

So I treasure the ones that look like this: 

LOTS and LOTS of leftover challa from the yomim tovim. Yum!

Adel busy with the iPad. This photo should be used as an advertisement for Apple. LOL.

I realize that there aren't really pictures of Zusha here... I usually try to be fair and include all the kids in my post equally if it's a mixed post... but then I realized... eventually it will even out. This time Zusha got shortchanged. Last time Gedalya did. Next time maybe Adel will. This need for representing all the munchkins equally, the fear of appearing to favor someone more, actually prevents me from putting up posts sometimes if I can't find a picture of someone I'd like to share. So when they grow up, I think they'd appreciate reading imperfect posts instead of no posts at all!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I'm Still Here

What happened to my posting? It went from 30 or more posts a month to less than ten! Well, not to use a cliche, but we've been... busy.:)

We've always been busy, and I've always cut corners somewhere because of it. Now the corner is the blog. :)
It's been kinda hard to blog because of all the changes Blogger is making. I used to upload photos to Shutterfly.com and drag and drop them into my posts. I used Shutterfly because I didn't like how small the images on Blogger were back then. But it was an extra step, so when Blogger raised their image size limit, I went back to uploading my photos straight to the blog.
There I encountered more problems. The new method didn't put the photos straight into the post, but rather kept them in a pop-up that you had to click to open. But if my browser crashed, or the kids closed something, the images didn't get saved. I lost a couple of posts like that and wasn't motivated enough to go search out the images again to rewrite the post.
Now they changed the upload method again, but it rotates all my photos! I have to go to my image editor and rotate the images I want to use to the left- so that when Blogger rotates them to the right, it works out. Whew. That was one more responsibility I didn't need. On top of it all, only one (out of ten) photos I wanted to put in this post actually managed to load.
So here it is. :)

I will switch back to good old Shutterfly and hopefully everything will go smoothly again. :D

In other news, Adi has a few new words:
Down
On
Hello
Hat
Hot
Hug
Finished

Probably more. I have to remember more. "Down" she learned when we were walking outside hand in hand. Whenever I wanted to pick her up, she yelled, "Up! Up!" She wanted to go DOWN, so I asked, "Down, Adi? You want to go down?" And after several times, she repeated, "Dine? Dine? Dine!"

She brings me any shoes she can find and says, "On!" It sounds like, "Ine!"

"Hello" is an old one. She takes a phone to her ear and says, "Ah-woe?" She also forces me to say hello into the phone for up to five minutes non-stop. LOL

Hat... "At!" She loves hats, and if she finds one on the floor (a fire helmet, police hat, yarmulka, or her own outside hat, she will insist everyone in sight take turns putting it on. That's why I am often seen walking around with a construction hardhat  at home.

Hug! Adel is a snuggle bunny, and is giving me hugs as I type. She presses against you and says, "Hock" while patting you on the back. Hugs are often followed by exaggerated kisses. :D

The sign for finished is brushing hands together. She does some approximation of the sign and says, "Nee-new!" Sometimes she also says, "Na moo!" (No more!)


So that's Adel's vocabulary update. I have so much more to write about, but I must run to pick up Zusha from cheider. Hopefully soon I will share lots of photos, news, and everyday happenings!
Oh... one last bit of Adi news. She will be getting orthotics! These are braces that go into her shoes. They are ankle-high, with straps in the front. I'm excited to see what it will do for her walking, because after that initial heart-stopping moment, she has walked on her own two or three times. She enjoys walking hand in hand but isn't doing it alone at all. So we'll see!

Monday, October 11, 2010

It's Really Fall!



So it's really fall, huh? I guess with all the brouhaha with yom tov after yom tov, I didn't really pay attention to autumn creeping up.

In my mind I was still here:





Meanwhile, the rains are falling...

The coats and hats are making their appearance...

 The umbrellas are getting good use...
And maybe the best of all, the colors! The lovely, calm, earthy colors.


Each season has its beauty.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Big Toddler Girl!

It's party time!
All the various Adi parties:

Reaching in... what's it gonna be?
 
It's a book about her favorite animals in the world. Cats!
Cat
It's really cool, with sturdy board pages and some moving interactive activity or another on every page.

More fun stuff!

 

I wanted to get a decorated cake for Adi, personalized and all, but I wanted it to be natural (or as natural as cake can get), without chemical whip and red#40 roses.
So I got a plain cake and cupcake, yogurt, chocolate hazelnut spread, strawberry preserves, caramel and white chocolate chips.
I gave it a fair attempt. LOL. It did come out pretty sad-looking, but it did taste good. Heh heh.

Adi receives her birthday offering.

"What's this interesting specimen?"

"Oh, me, I believe it's something edible!"

*Attempt #1*

"Oh, wait. I think I had my utensil up-side-down. This is better."
*Attempt #2*
 
(This is where Adi gave up and made the sign for "more," meaning I had to help her somehow so she could eat the cake.)
 
"Ah, better. Thank you, Mama, for cutting it up!"

"I love birthdays..."

  

And here is the gorgeous finale to this gorgeous day... our lovely baby girl's birthday party!


Wednesday, October 06, 2010

How Far You've Come!

My dear Adibaby,
I am truly in awe of how far you have come in the one short year between your first birthday and your second. When you turned one, you were not playing with toys, not crawling (couldn't even support yourself on hands and knees), not even rolling over! You were able to sit, but you couldn't get in or out of the sitting position. You were not making any consonant sounds at all.
And in just one year...
you started to transition in and out of sitting
crawling
babbling
you acquired a vocabulary of close to twenty words!
using those words, along with signs, to tell us what you need
pulling up on furnitute
standing up without any support
beginning to walk!
knowing names of body parts and objects
understanding function of objects
chewing your food (not fully there yet, but I'm so glad not to have to break Cheerios in thirds anymore!)
There is a lot, lot more.
None of this was easy for you. You are a determined little girl, and you press on despite the many frustrations at not being able to meet the high standards set for you by your therapists, despite the many appointments you have to endure (poking, prodding, blood tests, x-rays...). You, my little wonder child, are unstoppable!

You just blossomed, my little flower, you. You keep changing, and you keep changing us!





Just a month ago, I wouldn't be able to take any photos of you standing by yourself in your lovely birthday dress. Actually, now I wasn't able to, either. But not because you are unable to do it. Because by the time I get you to stand and step back to get the camera ready, you have already walked to me!

My Toddler

So... we are officially calling Adel a toddler! I posted last year that although she officially became a toddler, I couldn't call her that because she is not really a toddler at all. This year? Well, she asserts her opinions, has tantrums, says several words and actually toddles!

We had several parties for Adel, and we are still not finished! On her actual birthday, Simchas Torah, we had cake and opened one present. With everyone being home, it was the perfect day to celebrate, but we couldn't take pictures... so we saved some of the party for a different day!
On Sunday we got Adi dolled up for birthday photos, opened another present and bought more cake (you think one birthday cake would last more than two days? LOL)
On Monday we had the cake we bought the day before. But more about that later. 

Here is our gorgeous birthday toddler! I have about 20 photos like this, but I will spare you the loading time. Here are some of the favorites... and I'll make a slideshow with the rest!




It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to!

She's Boo!

Adi tells the news!


Pictures to come soooooon!