Hey Baby, I'm Sorry. Let's Do "Hugs"

I just had to post about Anniston's use of those 3 phrases lately.  It is just too cute not to document because I'm sure it won't last long!

When I come home from work, or when Anniston gets up in the morning or for a nap, I always say to her, "Hey Baby."  Then I give her a hug or a kiss on the cheek.  I didn't even realize I did this so much until one day Anniston randomly comes up to me and says "hey baby."  It's so funny how she picks up on small little phrases and such that you don't even realize you say so much!  It's now become our "thing."  So far, she only says it to me, I guess because I'm the only one who says it to her.  Now when I say it to her she will grin and say it back.  I love how it's our special thing only between us:)

She has also started saying "I'm sorry."  Most of the time, she slightly misuses the phrase.  She will bump into something or hit her head on something and immediately says I'm sorry.  She will drop something on the floor and say I'm sorry.  It's adorable.  I tell her she doesn't have to say I'm sorry to the door when she runs into it but so far, she thinks she does. 

I'd prefer her to say it to me when I lay her down to change her diaper and she starts kicking me (thinking it's funny.)  But no.  Instead, I have to get on to her and tell her "No" (which she does not like.)  At all.  Almost immediately after I say no with my don't-mess-with-me look she reaches up to throw her arms around my neck and says "hugs!"  She is so sensitive when someone tells her no, especially when I say it and she thinks I'm mad at her.  She wants reassurance that I'm not and I guess hugs are her way of saying I'm sorry. 

The "hugs" game gets played at other times, too.  She will be playing with something or reading a book and will run over to me saying "hugs, hugs" right before she throws her arms around my neck.  Then she will do the same to Brandon.  Oh, and also Ruby.  She never leaves Ruby out:)  I personally love the hugs game.  I will take a hug or a kiss from my baby any time I can get it.  I know it won't be long before she is 13 and it will be totally uncool to play the hugs game:(

Anniston- 18 months

I just realized I had this post written and ready to go.....and then I forgot all about it!  Oh well, better late than never!


My little Annie has the sweetest personality- she will give hugs and kisses freely and loves to stroke your hair when she gets tired or sleepy.  Sometimes, she will come barreling at me, full force, to throw her arms around me with the biggest hug.  Gotta love it.

That being said, she can get pretty fiesty and stubborn, too.  She will occasionally pitch little fits here and there when I tell her "no" or she doesn't get her way.  They never last more than a minute or so.  Once she realizes I'm not going to give her what she wants she will stop and move on.  There have been a couple of times she will get mad because I say "no" and she will stomp her feet really quickly and scrunch her face up.  Brandon and I try to keep a straight face but sometimes it's hard:)

She is becoming so much of a girly girl.  I have a small drawer that I keep some of my old and cheap costume jewelry and I let her have free access to it while I'm getting ready in the mornings.  She will stack 5 or 6 bracelets on and walk around with her arm held up because she knows they will fall off if she puts her arm down.  She can even say "bracelet" but it sounds more like "bace it."  Too cute.  She loves to put on necklaces, too, and will get upset sometimes if I try to take them off before she is ready.  What can I say?  This girl loves her jewelry!

We all know she loves to dance.  This girl seriously has a new move every week.  I don't want to wish her life away but I cannot wait until she can start dance classes.  She will have so much fun!  Brandon also plays soccer with her.  Well, really he just kicks the ball around with her.  But she can kick it right back to him!  And then she claps for herself:)  She definitely doesn't have any self confidence issues so far:)

She loves to read.  More specifically, she loves to point to every picture on a page and have me tell her what it is.  One night, I was half doing that and half watching TV.  Apparently I didn't respond fast enough once she pointed at something on the page.  She started fussing and tapping me on the chest until I turned my attention back to the book.  Note to self:  when she points, you must respond in a timely manner:)  Quickly.

As far as eating is concerned, she is all over the place.  One day she is hungry as can be and nothing will fill her up, and the next day it's hard to get her to eat much of anything!  For the most part she does good though.

Her favorites:
Milk- 2%
Strawberries
Yogurt
Turkey
Cereal bars
Oatmeal
Animal crackers
Mac n Cheese
Rice Krispie Treats (specially made for Anniston by her Kay Kay:)  We even sent her this picture one day asking if she would make more for Annie.

Stats:  Weight- 29.7 lbs  Height- 31 1/2"
I am also happy to report that her sleeping is FANTASTIC right now.  The best it's ever been. (Knock on wood!)  I have no idea what happened, but one week she just started sleeping past her 5 am wake up time and pretty much has been ever since.  She was doing great throughout the night, but would just wake up at the crack of dawn and be ready to start her day.  Brandon and I had gotten used to it pretty well, but it sure is nice to sleep later.  She goes down between 7:30 and 8 pm and will generally sleep until 6-7 am.  Some mornings she has even slept until 7:30 or 8 am!  I love not seeing 5 am anymore!!!

Anniston has really taken off with her vocabulary.  She can say (or attempt to say) almost any word I say. The most common words she says on her own are:

Mommy
Da Da
Ruby (and sometimes she will point to other dogs in books or on TV and call them Ruby too!)
Cracker
Paci
ABC
Bye Bye
Hey
No
Elmo
Abby (the character from Sesame Street)
Ball
Kay Kay
Poppy
Allie
Mimi
Shoes
Ice

I put A's hair in pigtails and a ponytail for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  She looked so stinking cute I could hardly contain myself.  She loves for me to fix her hair so she sits still really well.  Her hair has the cutest curls in it and I love it!

And she loves to show you her belly button:

I want Anniston to stay this way forever sometimes.  We have so much fun and she is at such a cute age.  I want to document as much as I can right now so I have it to look back on and remember just how much fun we had!

Annie's Surgery

Yesterday Anniston had to have her adenoids taken out.  I'm really glad we did this because I feel like she will be so much better from here on out.  Her poor little nose has been runny and snotty for over 2 weeks!  We've had a couple more ear infections as well and one of her tubes was clogged.  Poor baby!

As soon as we decided this is what we were going to do, I wanted to schedule the surgery as soon as possible.  Unfortunately, what worked well for mine and Anniston's schedule wasn't the best for Brandon's.  He was able to go with us to the hospital and stay until she went back for surgery, but then he had to be off for a short overnight business trip.  The only reason I had went ahead and scheduled the surgery for a day when Brandon would be out of town is because my sister was off yesterday as well.  She was a MAJOR help.  She came up to the hospital to meet us and stayed with us all day long.  She's such a good aunt:)

Here is Annie before the surgery.  She's always trying to get in someones purse or makeup bag.  Apparently there is always good stuff in there.  Allie's purse was the culprit this time.  

We took Annie's favorite stuffed animal "Pinky" with us.  They even let her take it back with her!

She was NOT happy after she woke up from the anesthesia.  I was expecting that even though it doesn't make it easier.  She was having a fit!  She was crying and thrashing around in my arms like she couldn't get comfortable.  Of course, the anesthesia hadn't completely worn off and she was confused and sleepy and dizzy.  Allie and I actually had to take turns trying to hold and comfort her because she was throwing her arms and legs about so much it was hard to hang onto her.  She was making gagging noises too- which prompted Allie to comment on her dramatics.  Like mother, like daughter she said.  That comment earned her the stink eye:)

Annie cried and cried- we tried everything but she would just not calm down.  Until the nurse came in with a Popsicle.  Her first one ever and she LOVED it.

I'm sure it felt good on her throat.  She put that thing away in, like, 40 seconds flat!  And then cried for another one.  And then one more.

For example:

Once we made it home she seemed to be doing much better.  I gave her a dose of pain medicine to calm her down and relax her in addition to helping with her sore throat.  She started acting really funny and loopy and was being a hoot!  It made me feel so much better to see her smiling.  She did really good the rest of the day.  She was a little clingy towards me and Allie- we didn't mind though:) We had fun playing and reading and watching "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse"- her new favorite show by the way.  The main reason is because of the songs and dances they do at the beginning and end of the show. She loves it and totally gets down.

I had to go back to work today but thankfully my mom and grandmother came to keep her for the day so I wouldn't have to use any time off.  She is doing so much better than I expected and I'm looking forward to some fun days this spring and summer WITHOUT runny noses and ear infections!!!!  Bring on the warm weather!  

Date Night & Weekend Projects

The "project list" over here at the Medling house seems a mile long but Brandon and I were able to knock a few of the small ones off the list this weekend.

First, we needed an organized way to store all of our coupons.  I do like to carry the coupons that I use when out on a regular shopping trip with me in my purse, but we also have a lot of restaurant/entertainment/home improvement coupons that I don't want to lug around with me all the time.  I found a super cute magazine holder at the $1 section at Target, paired that up with some file pockets, used my awesome label maker and voila!

Happy dance that our coupons are so organized!  I also labeled and organized the coupon holder that I carry around with me in my purse and, since I was on a roll, made another one for receipts:

Yep- I totally had a good 45 minutes of fun with my label maker!

I'm also working on organizing the shoes in my closet.  I tried really, really hard to clean out as many shoes as I could.  As I tell the hubs, I'm aware there are some shoes I haven't worn in over a year. But they are so, so cute still and it's possible I might wear them someday.

Anyways, I was fortunate that the closet in our new house came with these awesome built in shelves- perfect for my shoes!!  I'm in the process of labeling them all now.  I ran out of labels, but you can see how it's going to look:

I still have boots that are in the other shelf in my closet, so that will be next!


I also lined all of my kitchen cabinets and drawers with pretty liners:

And found a fun pattern to use in Anniston's cabinet:

Just, ya know, a little bit of happy when you open a drawer or cabinet!


In between all the organizing madness, we took some goofy pics:

Brandon and I also had a date night Saturday night.  My SIL and her twin girls came over to watch Anniston for us while B and I enjoyed a couple of hours out by ourselves.  It was glorious and Anniston had a blast playing with her cousins.

Sunday morning we spent some time working on our spare bedrooms and then headed to church.  After a huge brunch with B's mom and Nana, our tummies were full so we headed home to nap.  And nap we did!  I blogged/internet shopped for about the first hour of A's nap, but then I snuggled up next to her in our big bed and fell asleep too.  By the time we woke up, all we had time for was a quick trip to Target and then back home to eat dinner.  Fabulous weekend!!

Getting Settled

We are finally settling back into a normal routine!  We are no longer living out of boxes- most everything is unpacked and (for the most part) where we want it.  A HUGE thank you to my awesome, wonderful parents for helping us so much during this past month.  We could not have done it all without their help.  They have driven into town the last 4 weekends to help with Annie and to help us unpack and get organized.  Thank you Mom and Dad!!

Yes, there are still things I want to buy and organizing I want to do, but all of that will come with time.  This past weekend we focused on "hanging."  We My Dad and Brandon hung pictures and curtains all day long.  It is really starting to feel warm and cozy and like HOME!  I'm loving it.

My cousin was also home for the first time since starting military school so my aunt, uncle, grandmother, and other cousin all came into town to see the house and visit with us.  We ordered out Mellow Mushroom and all gathered in my new kitchen to eat and chit chat.  Can I just say now how much I LOVE my new kitchen?  We ALL ate in there and didn't feel as if we were on top of each other like we would have in my old house.  It was pushing it to even get 4 people in my old kitchen comfortably. It was so much fun to have people over for the first time.  I can't wait for more get-togethers here!  I promise pics will come soon!

Miss Anniston is LOVING all the extra space to play.  She has been so funny here lately- running around the house and talking like crazy!  Her vocabulary has just exploded these last 2 weeks!  Some of her new words include:  Poppy, Go, Bye Bye, Elmo, Cracker, Ruby, Ball, Abc, and Uh-oh.  She started saying "Abc" because she LOVES the alphabet song.  She has this bucket of foam alphabets and she absolutely loves to play with them.  She will take them out of the bucket one at a time and hand them to me so I can tell her what letter it is.  She calls the alphabet letters her "Abc's."  It is so stinking cute!  She is growing up so fast!

All photos taken by my sister, Allie.

Friday night Allie came over to take some pics of Anniston out in our front yard.  Anniston and Ruby loved running around the yard.  It is so nice to live in a cove.  We never played in the font yard at our old house because we lived on such a busy street.  We then all went out to eat at our new favorite restaurant in our neighborhood, Mellow Mushroom.  Anniston was full of energy and personality:

Sunday we tried out a new church close by our house.  We sat up in the balcony in case Anniston got fussy but she actually did really well.  She read her books and ate a snack and started dancing when the music came on!  Ha!  Good thing we were sitting in the balcony!

We went to Target later that afternoon and now that she has learned to say "uh-oh" she wants to say and apply it all the time.  She would drop things out of my shopping cart just so she could say "uh-oh."  It was cute the first 3 times.  The last 15?  Not so much.

I have to post one more pic of Anniston and her new princess vanity.  I went to a consignment sale a couple of weeks ago and scored this for $27.00!  I have a vanity in our new bathroom and so Anniston always watches me get ready in the mornings.  I got her this so she could sit at her vanity and we could get ready together:)  She loves it and she looks so cute sitting on it beside me in the mornings.  She will blow dry her hair along with me and sometimes I give her one of my makeup brushes to play with while I do my makeup.

That's about all I've got for today.  Gearing up for a great week ahead and another weekend off!  Yay!

What's Been Going On...

This post will be random and choppy because I have so many different things to talk about.  For starters, I have been super busy (as always) but that's not the main reason why I haven't blogged in awhile.  The real reason?  We have been without cable and internet for 10 DAYS!!!

I mean seriously- how do you function when this happens?  And why is this the SECOND time this has happened to us in the last couple of months?  And why does it take Comcast 10 DAYS to get out here and fix it?

Because they are idiots, that's why.

I will spare you the horrible details of our many, many interactions with Comcast over the last several days.  They have probably red flagged us in their system.  Let's just say this:  Start of college football season + no cable= VERY cranky husband.  I almost felt sorry for the Comcast people that had to speak to him on the phone.  But then I thought about not being able to shop/blog/etc because of no internet (for 10 days!!)  and I quickly lost all sympathy for them.

Anyhoo- now that we are back in business our lives can return to normal.  Brandon is watching a soccer game, I am blogging, and all is right with the world again:)

In all seriousness, we didn't really miss it for the first couple of days.  Anniston has been keeping us so busy and we got a lot of things done around the house.  Then 5 days went by and then it became a different story...

Brandon and I went to stay a night in Tunica a couple of weekends ago and my parents came in town to stay with Anniston and Ruby.  We had a great time.  We shopped at some outlets, ate some great food, watched some football, and slept, slept, slept!  It was glorious.

To say that Anniston has been keeping us busy is quite an understatement.  She is walking all over the place now!  She's walking so well and loves to go from room to room, taking stuff out of drawers, pulling things off of shelves, etc.  She can have a room torn up in a matter of seconds!  I'm so proud of her walking!  Allie and I went and got her first pair of walking shoes.  They look so cute on her and  I think she likes them!

The invitations for her 1 year birthday party have been sent, the photographer has been booked, and our doorstep has a package of party supplies on it almost every day.  Things are really coming together.  I absolutely cannot wait!!!

We invited my family down this past Sunday for a little get together.  We were going to watch football and have snacks but that football thing didn't quite work out because of the Comcast idiots.  We had a good time playing with Annison and eating yummy snacks anyways!

I have so many pictures I've taken over the last couple of weeks but I'll try to only post a few...

Anniston in her new shoes...

Playing in her nursery...

Riding her new toy that Poppy and Kay Kay brought her...

Walking around at our family get-together this past Sunday...

Being extra cute for her Aunt Allie to snap a picture...

Allie and I this past Sunday...

Meeting Uncle Rusty

One of my very best (and oldest) friends drove to Memphis today to meet me and Anniston for lunch.

Rusty and I have known each other since the 6th grade!  How crazy is that?  He is pretty much my best guy friend and has always been like a brother to me.  We graduated high school together, went off to separate colleges, and ended up getting accepted to the same pharmacy school the same year!

As we prepared for our move to Memphis to start pharmacy school, we really didn't know many people that would be in our class so we decided to live together and share the high priced rent that came with living on Mud Island by the Mississippi River.

Best. Decision. Ever.  Let me tell you girls how nice it was to live with a guy (and a clean one at that!) We got along great and had a lot of fun times.  Some of the best memories I have are our "taco nights", watching Fear Factor (remember that show?), and having all night study sessions.  I remember one night our first year that we stayed up practically all night to study for a Pharmaceutics exam.  We had a BioChem exam earlier that day that prevented any of us from studying for the Pharmaceutics exam until 5 pm that night!  It was mostly memorization so we thought we could put it all in short term memory and memorize it all in one night!  We went through 3 or 4 bags of popcorn that night.  By about 2 or 3 am we were so exhausted  and tired of studying we could barely remember any of the things we had studied!  We did well on it though and it was nice to have a study partner to stay up and study with you all night.

Our fourth year of pharmacy school, Rusty had to go to Knoxville, TN to do his rotations while I stayed in Memphis to complete mine.  I moved to a 1-bedroom apartment and I sure did miss my roommate!  He lives in Jackson, TN now and we try to meet up whenever we can.  I wish he still lived in Memphis. I had a lot of fun visiting with my old friend today and catching up and I'm so glad he finally got to meet Anniston!

It is so crazy how time flies....

Me and Rusty in 7th grade....hold your laughter please:)

12th grade...

 High School graduation '96...

Pharmacy School...

Pharmacy School graduation '07...

Uncle Rusty and Anniston 2012...

I'm lucky to have such a great, old friend- we've been through a lot together and I'm grateful we still keep in touch!

A Little Trip Home

Anniston and I drove to Jackson, TN today to spend part of the day with my family.  It's been almost 4 months since we have made the trip and this was the first time I have driven with her by myself.  I will admit I was a tinsy bit worried she would get bored or restless and start screaming her head off while we were on the interstate and it would send me into a panic but really, I knew she would do fine.

She slept about 75% of the time and when she woke up and started squirming I quickly plugged in my iPod so we could jam out to "I'm A Little Teapot."  We only had to listen to it about 5 or 6 times before we reached Jackson.  Considering I did not want to throw the "I'm A Little Teapot playing iPod" out the window before we got there I would say it was a successful trip!

We met my mom at her work so she could show Anniston off to all her co-workers.  They've all seen her before, but it was when she was just a month or two old.  She is such a little ham- and so good natured.  She let anyone and everyone hold her and when someone would smile and talk to her she would just grin right back.  We also went to see my aunt Nancy, who works there as well and then we all headed over to her house to meet my grandmother for lunch.

We played hard after lunch so she would be good and worn out on the trip back.  They were all amazed at how much better she is pulling up now.  She is able to keep her balance better now and has gotten faster at pulling herself up.  We all had a lot of fun playing with her.

Playing peek-a-boo with Kay Kay...

Tickle fest on the couch with Great-Grandmother and Aunt Nancy...

Ooh, I love these bright, shiny buttons and necklace you have on....

She was definitely worn out after all that playing.  We stopped by my dad's work on the way out of town, and she had already fallen alseep.  I woke her up (slight mistake!) so my dad could see her thinking she would fall back asleep on the way home.  Nope.  She squirmed and fussed until I finally pulled over about halfway to Memphis and gave her a bottle to relax her a bit.  She finally fell asleep right outside of Memphis.  All in all- it was a very good trip.  She did very well for so much driving back and forth in one day!

My Sweet Princess

I just wanted to post a couple of pictures I took this past weekend- seriously, could she be any cuter?

This is her standing up in her playpen.  She no longer cares too much about playing in there- she mostly wants to practice standing up and looking over top to see what I'm doing!

A Cake and A Tooth

Yesterday was a great day because:

#1- I've been at my job for 5 years as of yesterday.  In honor of that, my store managers surprised me a cake and a card! When they came back to the pharmacy with the cake I looked around thinking that it was one of my tech's birthdays and I missed it.  I guess I hadn't realized yesterday marked my 5 year anniversary!  It was so nice of them and we all got to enjoy a fabulous cake the rest of the day!

#2- Anniston has gotten her first tooth!  I came home from work last night and asked Brandon if she was as cranky last night as she was yesterday morning.  He said no but that she had really been gnawing on stuff more than usual (our fabulous sitter Kristi alerted him to this.)  I brushed it off as a "teething spell" that we seem to assume she goes through although we had yet to see a tooth!  We changed the subject and then about 30 minutes later Brandon just randomly tells me that she has a tooth.  WHAT???  "Why didn't you tell me that before?" I asked him.  "I wanted you to be surprised in the morning, but I couldn't hold it in any longer" was his response.  How cute.  Since she slept all night (yippee!) I didn't get to check until this morning and she most definitely has a tooth coming in.  I could see it and feel it!

She has been in a GREAT mood this morning.  She actually slept past her usual 5:00 am wake up time.  Of course, I woke up then and was suspicious that everything was okay, but I dozed for a little while longer.  About 6:15 we heard a crash from the nursery and we panicked.  Brandon raced in there only to find her standing up in her crib and her humidifier laying on the floor.  The little stinker had reached over and pushed it off the table where it sits next to her crib!  Thank goodness she was okay.

This week has started off great and I only have 3 more days of work until it's vacation time!

My Little Cheerio Eating Puller-Upper

Forget crawling- all Anniston wants to do these days is pull up- on everything.  She is going to give me a heart attack one of these days and I have a feeling this is just the beginning!  I can't leave her side for one minute when she is down on the floor because she will find something, anything, to pull up on.  She is still very unstable and cannot last long standing up so I have to be right beside her for fear of her falling and hurting herself.  She has already had one little bruise on her forehead but so far hasn't cried or gotten upset any of the times she has fallen or bumped her head.  She's one tough little girl.

This weekend is the St. Jude Classic golf tournament in Memphis.  This is a really big deal for the city because #1- tons of famous pro golfers are in the city and #2- it supports St. Jude!  Brandon has a friend that works the tournament so he came in town for the weekend.  Brandon's been busy hanging out at the golf course with him and taking him to some great BBQ restaurants.  I'm not at all into golf but it is scary how much I know about the sport and most of the popular players- I blame it on having to hear Brandon talk about it all the time!  I will say that my favorite player is Rory McIlroy- Brandon and I both love him! I also love saying his name- it's just fun! I'm so jealous that Brandon got to watch him play in person this weekend!

My mom and grandmom were nice enough to come into town Friday night to pick up Anniston and keep her while I worked and Brandon went to the tournament.  They had a lot of fun keeping her and seeing her pull up on everything.

Anniston is now a Cheerio addict!  So far she hasn't been all too interested in real people food.  She makes a horrible face with everything I've tried to give her.  I decided to try some Cheerios the other day and she LOVED them!  She even really "chews" on them.  We went to dinner with a friend Saturday night and I gave her some while at dinner.  She would fuss and fuss if I stopped giving them to her.  She was chewing on them so much my friend asked, "Does she have any teeth?"  "Nope," I said.  "She's just gummin' them!"  I think she likes to think she's being a big girl by eating and chewing like Mommy and Daddy do!  Ha ha.