Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I wanted to take a moment to give you an update on my almost 29 months old (going on 6 years old) daughter. Miss Addison has always been super independent for her age but she reached a new level a few days ago. After announcing that she needed to go to the potty, I began to follow her to the bathroom. My little girl turned around, looked at me, and with authority said, "NO MOMMY, BY MYSELF. "I'll BE RIGHT BACK. YOU STAY RIGHT HERE, O.K! She even had her hand out motioning me to stop! Stunned, I responded "O.K." Making sure I stayed a couple of steps behind, I continued to follow her. When she discovered my failure to follow her orders, she repeated them in a firm and clear voice, "NO MOMMY, GO BACK! I WANT TO DO IT BY MYSELF!!!" After a few moments, I tip-toed to the bathroom door and hopefully whispered, Do you need any help honey? She initially responded, NO! However, after about two minutes she called out, "Mommy, I need help washing my hands." So over the last 72 hours, Addison has reduced my role in assisting with her pottying ritual to that of the hand washing helper. If her step stool had been in that particular bathroom, she wouldn't have needed me at all. Of course Aaron and I are thrilled that she has done so well in the potty training area, but I must admit that we are a little sad that she is growing up so fast and is already telling us to get lost. This parenting thing never ceases to amaze me!

Of course you want a few pictures, so I try not to disappoint. Why lose my HUGE blog reader base?:-) The first picture is one of my favorites taken around Thanksgiving. The second one is her school picture. The last two pictures were attempts to get a cute Christmas card picture. That didn't work out so I'm now shooting for New Years cards! I improved my posting frequency a little bit in 2008, so I'll try to do even better in 2009. Laura (one of my dedicated and patient readers), please teach me how to blog more often!