A year and a half!

Our sweet little peanut turned 18 mths old today...thats a whole year and a half! I can't believe how much she has grown! I was thinking back to last Thanksgiving that we spent in Tahoe and how little she was and how she wasn't even crawling much less eating solid foods! Now she is running and eating cereal with a spoon and no mess all by herself! She amazes me everyday! Just yesterday Josh mentioned how sad he was because he is actually having to work A LOT lately and goes several days without seeing her and he can't believe how much she had changed in just 2 short days! She is definitely the boss of the house and such a little princess! That girl has her daddy wrapped around his little finger!

Stats and what you are up to now:

• 26lbs
• size 4 diapers
• size 18mth clothes
• size 6 shoe
• LOVE cereal and anytime we ask if you are ready for dinner or lunch you run into the kitchen yelling cereal!
• You can feed yourself with a spoon and fork
• Love to shut doors and can open some
• love to say bye anytime you leave the room....when your food is gone.....when you leave something...you just love to say bye
• you are OBSESSED with Dora the Explorer...but will only watch the parts of the show when there is music playing! You squeal with delight and dance and sing Dora when it comes on
• you HATE shoes and socks and take them off any chance you get
• you are afraid of ALOT...you run and say no and start to cry if there is a large stuffed animal or anything that moves
• you like to say mama and tap where you want me to sit.....you also like to call me "the mama"
• you like to give squeezes
• you dropped your morning nap recently and only take 1 nap a day that is usually 2 hours long
• you got your 4th canine tooth so now all you have left are your 4 two year molars to come in
• you love to chase the cats and will call them both by their names now instead of calling them both ollie
• you like to give your baby sister kisses on mommies belly
• you love the phone and to see videos of yourself
• your most favorite thing to do is read
• you say a lot of words that I can't even begin to name them all....sad, bye, clap, dora, izzy, ollie, mama, dadee, josh, baby, book, dora, boots, map, girl, hi, bye, squeeze, knock knock, nose, eye, bobo(butt), oops I dropped it, uh oh, cereal, please, thank you(you usually say thank you mama to everyone)......

Adah potatah you are growing so fast! I can't believe how much you know and have changed! You make your dadee and me so happy and we just love you to death! God has blessed us with such a sweet and beautiful little girl and we can't wait to watch you grow and learn more! You are going to be such a great big sister next month! We love you peanut!

Here are few pics from my phone...not the best but better than nothing:

Adah noticed today that her toe was peeling and was seriously concerned about it....I swear every time I turned around she was sitting down inspecting her toe! Silly girl!

When Adah and I went to target the other day I found this "painting" book that all you have to do is dip the brush in water and touch the picture on the page and it turns to color!
Adah eating "Cer-al" all by herself....such a big girl!
Adah playing on her Auntie Rachel's computer while we were on a mini vacation with them in DC!
Standing in the back of the car talking into the speakers like they are a megaphone! Haha so funny....where she got that or what made her do it is beyond me! She is so funny!

mmm..mmm...good

Since Josh started back to work this week on a submarine and works A LOT (leaves around 5am and doesn't get home until 8:30pm at the earliest) I have a little bit of time to play on the internet after I clean up from putting Adah down and dinner! I have really been trying to find some new things to cook...I absolutely love to cook but when you have a picky husband and a daughter that is following in his footsteps it makes it hard to find new things...but I found 3 new recipes that I am beyond excited about! I have also been trying to make sure that they are easy to reheat and more importantly good reheated since Adah and I eat before Josh gets home! I made the first one tonight and it was SOOO good! It was a super easy lasagna....I usually make one that you don't have to cook the noodles first but this one has a lot more flavor and some different ingredients! I had to hide from Josh what was in it bc if he knew then he wouldn't even try it! He ate it and LOVED it! I thought I would share the recipe with the ya'll incase you wanted to try it too!

Easy Lasagna

(I found the recipe on this fun blog; click HERE to see!)

Ingredients:

• no cook lasagna noodles
• 28-32 oz jar of spaghetti sauce
• 1 lb of ground turkey
• 1 8oz cream cheese
• 1 cup chicken stalk
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1-2 garlic gloves-minced
• 3 cups mozzarella cheese shredded
• 1 cup parmesan cheese shredded
• 2 tbs red wine (optional)
• 2 tbs white wine (optional)

Preheat oven to 400

lightly grease a baking dish

Brown ground turkey and add in the basil oregano and garlic.

Cook until meat is no longer pink and garlic is fragrant.

Add in spaghetti sauce and let simmer for about 5 min. Add red wine here if you are using it( I didn't and it was amazing but can't wait to try it with). Add salt and pepper to taste.

While meat sauce is simmering, bring chicken stock to a boil and add in the cream cheese.

Reduce heat to low and whisk cream cheese as it starts to melt and it will turn into a liquid/paste. Add white wine if using(again I didn't use it but I'm want to try it). Add salt and pepper to taste.

Put 1/2 of the meat sauce mixture in the baking dish. Sprinkle with 1 cup of mozzarella cheese. Cover with a layer of noodles.

Pour white sauce over noodles. Sprinkle with next cup of mozzarella. Add another layer of noodles over top.

Put remaining meat sauce over noodles and Sprinkle the last cup of mozzarella on top and top with parmesan cheese.

Bake 35 mins until brown and bubbly.

Let sit 10-15 mins.

Hope you enjoy as much as we did!

Free from Shutterfly!

Thanks to my BF Rachel I found out about this awesome deal that Shutterfly is offering for bloggers right now! If you go HERE and enter you too could win 50 free photo holiday cards from Shutterfly!

I can't wait to hear back and get started on my Christmas cards!

Headed South!

Well not quite the south but it will do! Two weeks ago we packed up our things in Connecticut and headed south on 95 to Virginia! This will be our new home for the next 6-9 months. Josh is back to a boat(submarine) and they are currently in the shipyard in the Norfolk area of Virginia. He is going to be the Engineer (Dept. Head) on the Tennessee! Once they are out of the yards it will head to its home port of Kings Bay, GA....and will make it our 4th move in 2 years or less and it keeps getting harder and harder each time! Leaving friends....Adah leaving friends.....and not to mention adding a toddler and soon an infant to the moving mix.....whew....I get exhausted all over again just thinking about it!

Adah had changed SOOO much since my last post! Her vocabulary is AMAZING! She is one talkative little girl and from the time she wakes to the time she goes to bed I swear she never stops talking! She is super independent, demanding, and HAS to have HER way! She is really into throwing, dropping or knocking things over and saying "oops! I drop it!" We try to teach her that when she does it on purpose it isn't an "oops"! Her other FAVORITE thing to do is yell for JOSH! That's right she doesn't call da-da anymore just JOSH and SCREAMS it! She will lay in her room or anywhere for that matter and yell for JOSH! I must admit it is one of the funniest things EVER! We are having so much fun with her and love how much and how fast she is learning! We are really afraid however that she is NOT going to welcome her baby sister with open arms! It will definitely take some work for her to adjust to ma-ma giving attention to someone else!

Our newest little peanut will be here before we know it! I have already been told by my new OB here in VA that I am not allowed to travel cause they want me near by and coming in every 2 weeks for safety since I had mild pre eclampsia with Adah. The new doctor did do a sonogram last thursday and she looks perfect. She is measuring right along with my due date so hopefully she won't gain too much wait between now and then! :) I go to the doctor again to tomorrow to meet one of the two delivering doctors in the practice and once I meet both of the doctors (one male, one female) I get to choose who I want to be my delivering doctor! A plus (in mine and Josh's mind) is that this office doesn't let you go past 40weeks and so once I pick my delivering doctor they will go ahead and put me on the schedule for and induction btw 39 and 40 weeks! I know some may think I am crazy for being excited about being induced but I know how horrible it is bc I was induced with Adah....plus being so far from family and being in a new place with out your close friends it is better for planning purposes....not to mention Josh will actually be working so it will be easier for him to take time off to be there! I kinda hope she comes before 39 weeks but at least she will be here by her due date and the first of the year when Josh gets SUPER busy with work! I know many keep wondering and asking but NO we do NOT have a name for the sweet little girl yet! We have been so busy and haven't discussed it much lately and honestly it is my fault because I am the one that doesn't like any names this time around! Josh has a name he likes but it is too close to being popular for me and I just don't like common/popular names! Hopefully she will have a name before she is born but who knows!

Here are a few pictures from Halloween last night:

checking out the candy in her basket

Ready to go get some candy!

admiring the cookie she got to decorate! Of course it has her favorite on it....candy corn!

She was not going to smile for anything!

Sweet little lady bug face!

We let her eat half of the cookie...to say she loved it is an understatement!

serious about her cookie eating

This one made it in by mistake...but this is Adah's last morning with her 4 best friends! They moved to Hawaii and boy does Adah miss those 4 sweet girls!

making sure mom and dad didn't take any of her candy!

Thanks to these 2+ hour naps Adah has decided to take I can get a lot more done around the house and on the computer!

Please continue to keep my grandfather in your prayers....he had a pretty bad stroke a little over a week ago and is still in the ICU recovering!