Addison with Santa

Today I took Addison to her childcare facility to get her picture taken with Santa. Dodie is on a girls only week-end.. She sat on Santa's lap and the photographer took a couple of shots and then she started crying.. Addison stopped and sorta smiled and that is the one posted..

Addison' chair

One of the gifts Addison got for her 1st birthday was from my mom, and Addison-size chair... She loves to sit in it and it is pretty funny how she does it.. Since is not tall enough to get onto it, she goes in forward first and then turns herself around.. For the first couple of times and when she turned herself around and was sitting "normal" Dodie and I would clap and say good job... She would then get off and start the whole process over again..

Halloween

Hopefully everyone had a Happy Halloween... We found a reasonable costume so Addison went as a dragon this year.. It turned out to be a pretty good costume because it was a little bit cooler...

Picking Out a Pumpkin

Couple week-ends ago we went and picked out a pumpkin. We had to buy two; one to crave and put on the front porch and the other one for Dodie to decorate and bring to Addison's school. We walked around the place and found two that fit our needs.

Addison's First Birthday

What a great weekend we had a couple of weeks ago for Addison's first birthday celebration. Charles mom, Kathi, came down from Chicago and we had plenty of family and friends that joined us.

We had a cookout in the afternoon followed by cake and ice cream. My family came over a little early because Gina and Dan and the kids had come up from Savannah and we wanted to spend time with them and celebrate Kailey's 20th birthday.

Addison of course is one so she enjoyed having all the people around and towards the end got a little tired. When it came time to blow out the candles and cut the cake she was all smiles until she looked up and 30 something people were surrounding her and then she cried. After she was reassured, she gladly ate the cake and loved it.

Everyone was so sweet and generous and she has enjoyed all the presents received. We still need a bigger place to put it all!

Since the party, she has moved up into a new classroom at school, the Young Toddler classroom. In this room, it functions more like a class rather than a nursery. They have circle time where they read books, go out on a playground for toddlers, sleep on cots and eat regular food at a little table. She seems to love it.

Its just hard to believe all the changes in the first year and how fast it went!

Addison's 1st Birthday

Amazing it was a year ago today Dodie was in the hospital giving birth..Sometimes it feels like a year has gone by; sleeping downstairs for the first few months, late night bottle feedings, changing diapers, but other times I am not sure where this last year went. Dodie left for Denver this morning so we woke up Addison a little early and celebrate and opened a few presents. The big day is going to be this Saturday..

Getting ready for Addison's 1st b-day

It has been a little bit since we have posted anything. It has been nice that Dodie has not traveled this month that much, so we have been able to get some things done around the house. The other day we went to pick up some party decorations from Party America. Can not believe it is going to be a year in a couple of weeks.. Time flies..

Cabin

Last week-end the family went up to Dodie's moms cabin.. It was a long week for Dodie the previous week she was in Texas on Wednesday and then New Jersey on Thursday and Friday.. The river was a little cool but felt perfect after a long hike... Addison has been walking so I need to get out video camera so I can capture and post it...

Vacation

We had a great time on our trip to Daytona Beach last week for vacation. We stayed in a friend of the family's house that is 3 blocks from the beach. The house has a pool too!

It was a great week, the weather wasn't too bad. Probably about the same as in Atlanta- high 80's/low 90's and every afternoon it rained and cooled it down for the evening a little. A couple of nights we went out and had local seafood. One night we went down and sat on the beach and watched the sunset and then there was a full moon.

Addison really enjoyed all of it. She was racing around the house crawling from one room to another. She loved getting in the pool in an infant float we bought and she loved the beach. She played in the sand as well as walked and sat in the ocean. The one thing that was a little weird was that the ocean was so cold. It was 72 degrees. For Florida in mid July this is cold.

One day we drove to Orlando and went to the Holy Land Experience, which was somewhat of a replica of Jerusalem and then one day Charles went golfing for the day while Addison and I hung out at the beach and pool. It was very relaxing and of course we are now already back in the grind of everyday life...

To See the Photos that we took go to this Picasa Album
https://picasaweb.google.com/charlesptech/DaytonaBeach?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCM-x5qukkZ3GbQ&feat=directlink

Happy 4th of July

Hello all and Happy Indepedence Day..We had a nice morning hike and are debating whether to go out and see fireworks because the thunder in the background..Attached is a picture from Friday at Primrose..All the kids get dressed up and parade in front of the building..

Gift for Father's Day

For father's day the child care facility were we take Addison during the week,Primrose, made me foot and hand print..Look at the little hand and foot..Nice and unexpected gift..

May is Flying By!

Its hard to believe it is already the 3rd week of May. Its been a blur for me. I've had two business trips (in the same week-crazy!) and the time has been flying by. Charles has been busy holding down the home front.

Meanwhile Addison continues to get bigger and is just a bundle of energy. She has two bottom teeth now and is trying to figure out how to crawl. She sits now and is trying to figure out how to move. She loves to hand if we are holding her hands or in the exerciser so who knows she may skip it altogether as I did and start walking.

The weather here in Atlanta just turned hot. As usual Spring is not very long. It has been in the 80's and was actually in the 90's last weekend. We are already counting down the days until a vacation, we are going to Florida in July.

Here's a couple of photos and a quick video. I threw in one of Willow so it's not completely all Addison.

Ready for mommy to be Home

It has been an exciting 3 days but we are ready for mommy to come home. She left Monday morning for a conference up in Chicago and will be home in a couple hours..

Happy Easter

Well we just got back into town about an hour and a half ago. We had a great weekend down in Savannah visiting my sister, Gina, Dan and the kids. It was a perfect spring weekend down there, and Saturday we sat in their big park downtown under all the big old trees with the spanish moss while they had an Earth day festival.

We also had some great seafood and the best fried chicken that Gina made. This chicken took 2 days to make, so I don't think I'll making any, any time soon.

Meantime, Willow had a great weekend with my mom and apparently enjoyed the luxury of going in and out at her leisure into the back yard. We must get a fenced in backyard!!!

We hope this post finds you well and enjoying the Spring.

It has been a while

It has been a while since our last post, the pleiss family has been busy. We enjoyed a visit from my aunt Judy, a couple Sundays ago. We are getting ready to go to Savannah for Easter week-end to visit Dodie's sister.  This past week-end Dodie and I enjoyed a night on the town thanks to Dodie's mom who watched Addison Saturday night..

St. Patrick's Day

Hope everyone is wearing green today and is going to have a good day...Thank you Gina and Dan Scarboro for my special outfit..

New Orleans

We went to New Orleans last week-end. We left from work on Thursday afternoon and stayed overnight by Mobile, Alabama and then made it to New Orleans around 11 am Friday morning. In the morning we would walk around town with Addison in the baby bjorn and then in the afternoon with her in the stroller. We had some good food; shrimp po boy, red beans & rice, bread pudding, and jambalaya. The weather was perfect; blue skies and in the 70s, and by the time we got home we were all tired..

Addison's Photos

These are some of the 3 month professional photos we had taken of Addison. Hard to believe that was almost 2 months ago!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope everyone had a happy and loving Valentine's Day..Instead of going out to dinner and fighting all the crowds Dodie and I decided to go to the see The King's Speech..It was a pretty good movie and Colin Firth did an excellent job of portraying King George VI..

Thank you Beth for providing the beautiful Valentine's outfit..

Addison first attempt at "solid" food...

We started feeding rice cereal to Addison in the morning and at night..As you see from the pictures it has been quite an experience trying to feed her "solid" food. She does not get the hang of swallowing yet so for now we usually wash it down with some formula...Also last night it was nice, Dodie and I had our first little date night with one of Dodie's friends watching Addison...Our church, NorthPoint Community Church, had a Married event featuring Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott..It last about 2 hours and we both learned a lot about communication styles and Love talk..

February Already

Hard to believe its already February. Hope this finds you staying warm. One week we have cold, rain and sleet like this week but last week it was in the 70's.

Addison turned 4 months old and it feels like we have been taking her to the Primrose preschool longer than a month. The lead teacher in the infant room is "Mrs. C" and she's great. All the teachers have already said that Addison is one of the happiest babies in there. Since Charles and I are working next door, we can stop by and see her during the day from time to time.

Other than that, we have all been battling with colds, Addison and Charles are still coughing. Its horrible to hear an infant cough because there is little you can give them. We just have the humidifier set up in her room.

We are making plans to go to New Orleans in a month. Charles has never been so we are looking forward to the trip. Its about a 7 1/2 drive from Atlanta.

Addison continues to lift up her head and these days she loves to "stand" when you are holding her up. She's also been playing in the Exerciser at both home and school as you can see in the video.

Getting the Sniffles

It has been an interesting week..Seems like Addison got her first cold..We heard her breathing heavily on Monday and she had a temperature of 100.3and Dodie and I thought we were in for a rough night..She ended up sleeping the whole night and her temperature went back to normal in the morning..Her nose is starting to run more so we will continue to monitor her the next couple of days..

Back at Work

Dodie and I are finally back at work.We had Mon, Tues, and Wed off due to the icy road conditions.On Wednesday we tried to get to work, struggled to get out of the driveway, finally made it out of the driveway but by then it was noon so we decided it was not worth it.Also today is Addison's first official day at Primrose School at Bentwater, we dropped her off before work. I am sure we will be checking on her throughout the day, one big advantage of having her pretty much right next door.

Better Late than Never Xmas post

Dodie, Addison, and I had a great time spending time with my family up in Chicago over the Christmas holidays. When we got up there they had 2 feet of snow on the ground and it snowed a couple more inches Christmas eve night so it turned out to be a very white Christmas. We brought Addison's stocking up there and opened it on Christmas morning which she was not interested in but stared at all the beautiful lights on the tree. On Monday some of went sledding and then on Tuesday my mom invited a bunch of her friends over for a little party.