Sunny Days!

This week has been amazing!! The weather has been beautiful and I'm positive that it played a huge factor in the great week. Super dad Jamey put up Addison's new play set ... in about a day Seriously! I attempted to help towards the end of the project, but it always works out better when I'm just there for moral support! :) The whole area looks fantastic...he has done such a great job in our yard. Addison has been SO happy this week too because every day after school she has gotten to swing on her very own swing and slide down her slide and play in her clubhouse! She has told us for weeks that she "can't wait for her playground" and she would say "I'm SO excited!!" Seeing her play on the playground makes me realize even more how fast she is growing up and changing. I was pushing her in the swing one day and she said "mommy, push me high!" Me- "addy I'm pushing you high Addy- "no mommy, that's not high, that's very slow and I'm a big girl!" OK!

That is one blessed little girl, she has the most loving family that she could ever ask for! In the same sense, we are more than blessed to have her!! Here's a look at our past week enjoying the sunny days!

LOVING IT!

Daddy pushing Addison and Tina swinging on the "big swing"

Standing over the fire pit that daddy made....hands in pockets of course!

The week goes by so fast!!

I have so many "drafts" in my blogspot these days! It seems like by the time I get around to finishing it, it's already 2 weeks past due! I wanted to post pictures these but I'm going to keep the blogging short. Enjoy! :)

Halee, Jayden, Lucy and Addy at Jayden's birthday party!

What a sweet girl!

Peace!

Mommy found a good deal on bows!

Green baby on St. Patrick's day

Jayden's party was SO fun! Addy had her 1st gymnastics experience...and her 1st real nose bleed!! Poor thing~ We were doing front rolls on the wedge (which she loved and did really well!) and she got spooked and walk right off the side of the wedge, falling onto the spring floor FACE 1st! She was a real trooper though.. she cried a little but I think it mostly scared her. She made a full recovery and was right back at it!

We had a moment

So, American Idol obviously makes it known to the world that when you have a "moment" it's really good..so this weekend I'm glad to say "we had a moment" :) Here's our story...

The last week was pretty crazy around the Hopkins house. Last Friday Addy had to go to the dr and she was diagnosed with strep throat/scarlet fever. She was fine in a few days, but it was still really scary and I'm sure horrible for her. This Friday rolls around and once again she is holding her mouth, not eating and having a low grade fever, ALL of the signs from last week's episode. Jamey kept her home Friday and I had planned to go to Monroeville after work on Friday so I stayed true to the plan and after I got off and relieved Jamey so he could go to work :( we set off. She slept the whole way and we got there and basically went straight to bed. Saturday her dr. (Dr. Sooooooong as she calls him..haha) called in a different antibiotic and she seems to feel a lot better today. We had a great visit down in LA. Rhiannon and I went and saw Amy and Laney for the first time. Laney is such a doll and I'm super glad I finally got to see those 2! In the mean time, Ashlee, mom and Addison bought everything available in Wal-Mart! That child is so spoiled, BUT I know for sure that the Wal-Mart trip made a lot of people happy that day...so why not? While we were in Monroeville a few different funny things happened that I wanted to share. Addy and I were going to bed Friday night and she had hardly talked all day until this point. She was talking about everything and I just couldn't tell her to stop! She was telling me all about what we were "going to do in the morning!" In a really familiar voice! Then she just looked at me and said "I love you mommy" and gave me a big kiss! wow...MOMENT. The next day Ashlee, Addy and I were in Ashlee's room and for the 1st time, Addy looked at my little curio in the corner and said "BARBIES!!!!" Ashlee and I just looked at each other and we knew we were thinking the same thing. That was the 1st time, out of all of the times she has been in that room, that she has noticed the barbies! ....MOMENT. I feel like she's growing up so fast.. it's so hard to understand what that saying means until you have a child..or maybe a niece or nephew because I think they realize it as well! :)

What a sweet face!! See her "boo-boo's" from the scarlet fever?

Little hippie chick! Peace!!

Sweet, happy, beautiful... the list goes on and on!

The Barbie moment! :)

Addy & Mommy time....

GO TIGERS!!!!!

Granddaddy with his girls!

Addy & sissy
Grammy & Addy

Hello Spring, Is that you?

Well, it might not be spring just yet but we enjoyed the weekend just the same. Sunday was one of the best days I have had in a really long time. We played outside all day!! It was so fun to see Addison play and enjoy the sunshine. She rode on every outside toy that she has and I even caught a ride in the Mustang! I am so anxious to have this beautiful weather on a daily basis.

I forgot to add this one from my previous post!! We bought the best things at Cracker Barrel, rocking chairs! :)

Here we are relaxing on the porch! This is where you will find me every day, once the weather warms up!

enjoying the SUNSHINE!
Addy and sister all ready to go!

Dirt Hills and Beauty Queens!

What in the world could I blog about with the title above, you may ask!? Well this weekend I witness my little girl go from one end of the spectrum to the complete opposite end. Miss Addison Reese Hopkins was in her 1st beauty pageant! The Pell City Band Boosters had a Valentine's pageant to raise money for their band and Mandy, Shaunda, Jess and I decided that it would be fun to let the girls enter the pageant this year! I talked it over with Jamey of course and he said he was fine with entering her as long as it did not turn into the "toddlers and tiaras" kind of thing. I'm pretty sure that's every daddy's worst nightmare! I assured him that it would not be that way for us. We ended up borrowing a beautiful dress from Mia and Jaime Ramer and Addison stayed true to her sweet self. The week before the pageant was crazy! It was snowing we had registration, I was sick... UGH! Addison and I did a couple of walk throughs in our living room but that was about it. Mr. Jimmy and Mrs. Judy came over one night to visit and we tried to get her to practice but she became a "ragdoll" and wouldn't do anything. I thought for sure that this was never going to work. Saturday finally arrived and most of the family was in town for the big show!! I was a nervous wreck, mind you that it has been almost 10 years since I have graced a stage! haha. Before going out, I kept telling her over and over, "just smile REALLY big and hold mommy's hand and you will be fine. Addison and I walked on stage and it was like she was in the zone more than any of us could have ever imagined! She was a natural! I couldn't really tell exactly what she was doing but when I saw the pictures I was amazed. She really smiled and looked at the judges the whole time! She did her walk and then we went out for the group judging. Addy was such an angel the whole time we were there.... and she did not have a nap that day! They finally decided to do the "crowning" and I did not know what to expect. She clapped for all of the winners and then they called out the queen "Addison Hopkins!" We were all SOOO excited. They gave her the trophy, flowers and her crown and she held them up like "look what I have!" It was so funny. I'm so glad that we ended up doing the pageant, because we had such a good time. I'm not sure that we will do any others, but this one was definitely fun. The rest of the weekend was spent trying to recover and relax. Jamey spent a lot of time outside with her since it was such nice weather. This brings us to the "dirt hills". The empty lot next to our house has HUGE hills of dirt that are left from building all of our houses. Jamey and Addison decided it would be fun to climb these huge hills and I had to see this for myself! Addy is so brave and willing to try whatever and she did it! She climbed right up all of those steep hills by herself. I didn't have my camera at the time but I'm going to try to capture this on film soon!

Winter Wonderland

Wonder if this cold weather will ever go away!? Ha We had a few more snow days this past week. The 2nd time it snowed, I was really impressed! I could not believe how much we actually ended up getting. I have not seen this much snow in a really long time and we had so much fun playing outside in it. Addison has been talking about making a snowman lately, and boy did she get her chance! She and daddy then took full advantage of the snow and pelted mommy a few times with snow balls! I felt like it was my payback for being so mean to Ashlee during the last snow storm we experienced! haha
No worries though, we had a girls against boy fight and of course we won! :)

We also celebrated "Love Day" as Blue's Clues called it. Addison and I made pink cupcakes and they were very YUMMY! Daddy had to work this weekend so we made sure to put a few in a container with valentine candy for him to take to work. I didn't think about the fact that he was taking pink cupcakes into his job... probably should have! HA He didn't seem to mind and I think he thought it was cute. I love that there is an isolated day that makes you stop and think about how much love you have for others. I used to think it was a "blah day" or whatever but I wish that I would have realized then that really you should celebrate not only your significant other on this day but also your amazing family and friends that you love. I guess that is just one more thing that Addison has helped me realize. Y

She makes me laugh!

http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad53/abbyhopkins/?action=view&current=100_1272.flv

Pretty girl!

Here we are walking out into the snow!

http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad53/abbyhopkins/?action=view&current=100_1288.flv

And ....the snow ball fight!

http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad53/abbyhopkins/?action=view&current=100_1298.flv

Loving the snow!

Breakfast at Addison's

Love love love playtime! I love playtime even more when we can go outside BUT since it seems like it will never warm up again, we are making great use of our garage! I've been really thankful for the garage before...but now it's pretty much my favorite part of the house. I don't have to get wet when it rains, the car is warm in the mornings for us, and Addison has made it a HUGE playroom. Ok, enough about the garage... sort of :) We were downstairs playing one morning and Addison opened her own restaurant! She cooked all kinds of food for us to eat for breakfast. After the first few meals, I started to recognize a lot of things that she was doing while cooking. I decided to video this and share with everyone!

http://s921.photobucket.com/albums/ad53/abbyhopkins/?action=view&current=kitchen.flv

(we're working on getting the last syllable in words... "microway".... and when she says HELP... well, you can imagine what that sounds like!)