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I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

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Happy Birthday Autumn @ 4 years old

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I simply snapped this picture while you were waiting for Poppy to come over for your birthday to give you your presents, but it’s a new favorite.

It shows off your personality perfectly.

You are eagerly waiting for presents, because you have zero chill. Yet, you still look cool and fun. I think it captures your free spirit.  You won’t let us do your hair but you need to have sunnies around at all times for style and for the sun that bothers your eyes. The TV sometimes bothers them too, so it’s cute seeing you wear them in the house when you first get up.

I think you barely go a day without wearing something related to Disney, but it’s just so cute how you love the princesses just as much as you love Mickey and the Roadster Racers. But we don’t tell Disney Jr how you are also in love with Paw Patrol and Shimmer and Shine. shhhh, your secret is safe with me!

You are insanely smart. You easily identity colors, shapes, letters, colors, animals, and so much more. You are quick to point things out, and eager to continue to learn more and more.

However, you do not enjoy playing by yourself. You would be happy to watch youtube or TV allllll day if we let you (we do not!) but the moment the TV is off you are like “but who is gonna play with me?!?!” Dare we suggest that you color by yourself or create some play-doh masterpiece by yourself. HOW DARE WE?!?!? You think its much better that we draw something super complicated like Sophia the First with her horse and rabbit with the sun shinning that you immediately color in vs using the very coloring book that you want us to replicate.

I love how caring you are with Hunter. You are a wonderful big sister. It’s so fun to watch you with him. I know that you will continue to do a great job of holding him, helping him get toys, and helping me out with him. We just need to work on you not being so loud around him, or me.

There are moments when my frustration with you is ripping my head up when you are not patient or really, really loud, but those moments pass quickly as you have me quickly cracking up with some exaggerated expression or response to me. I know I should take you seriously when you roll my eyes at me, but it’s the cutest thing ever. Omg, when you nail being sarcastic… perfect!

I keep catching myself seeing you in the future, like in the picture above. There are these moments when you are looking so mature and I see you 10 years in the future and it breaks my heart and excites me at the same time. I don’t love how fast.

I am looking forward to everything this next year brings.

I love you so much!

Love,

Mom

__________________

Currently…

you love “teacher beans”, carrots in chicken soup, but not the chicken, Doritos, making smoothies with me, rice, pasta, hot dogs, waffles, peas, corn, coconut water, and any excuse for “sessert” even when I tell you we don’t have dessert every day, it’s a special thing. You don’t like sharing food. We can play around pretending to steal your food until you don’t think it’s funny anymore and are like “cool it guys, it’s MINE!!!!!!”

symnastics (gymnastics) is your favorite thing. classes on Tuesday night make your week. You can do headstands against the wall with little effort. Your cartwheel needs a lot of work, but we can’t tell you that. At least your enthusiasm is 110%

You battle us at bedtime. You really shouldn’t be napping so long during the day, but it is what it is since you are at daycare, since it makes bedtime a struggle when you aren’t too tired, but need to bed to have enough sleep. And you sneak into our bed most nights, esp. since Hunter was born.

You weigh about 29 pounds. You generally wear 3T with some 2T and 4T in the mix as well.

Owl is still your favorite stuffed animal, but not the original owl since his eyes got beat up in the washer/dryer and you do NOT like them. You won’t let us wash this owl so I keep spraying it with monster spray (night time essential oils) to keep it smelling fresh. Also, I hope the oils will mellow you out at night too

“What did you say?” you say that in the cuuuuutest way when you missed what we said. It’s kinda excited and confused and all just one word at the same time.

You are not a cuddlier. Well, only when you know we will kick you out of our bed and then you want to cuddle. sneaky! And you still don’t like covers either.

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Dear Autumn @ 1 month-

  Autumn 1 month_04

December 2013

Dear Autumn-

You are 1 month old today. I still can’t believe you are here, let alone you’ve been here for a month. The month has just flown by.

I look at you and I am overcome with happiness. It’s a joy that comes from you making me a mom, a moment I’ll never forget. Your dad announced to me that you were a girl and right then we knew our little Autumn Olivia had arrived. This was a moment we happily waited for as it would change our lives in the most amazing ways.

When we found out you had an omphalocele it was like a punch to the gut. It was impossible to think of you being sick and having to struggle when you were first born. We just had to take things one day at a time learning more and more about what was going as you grew inside of me. Thankfully, as time went on we learned that you were healthy and that you would just need to face one surgery to correct the omphalocele. Still, that just seemed impossible to me. How could you just be born and need surgery so soon after? But that is what we were facing so we just trudged on waiting for the day to meet you and figure out more about the omphalocele.

Thankfully, when you arrived the Dr’s said the surgery was going to be ‘a piece of cake’ and you would do really well because you were so healthy. Every day when you were in the NICU you would reach another milestone and amaze us. You really shocked us as we were able to take you home just 7 days after you were born, instead of the month that we were warned about. So incredible!

And since then you have been delighting us with your growth, healthy appetite, strength, and beauty. You have been steadily been putting on weight (7 lbs 0oz at this mornings appointment!), much to my delight since it makes all the work related to pumping all worth it.  You have been eating more and more each week and are now around 3- 3 1/2 ounces each feeding. Oh man, you can be so hard to burp though! Your dad will have better luck getting you to burp at times. We are just happy to see that your cheeks and belly are filling out. Oh those cheeks, I just love to kiss them. And every now and then I love to sneak a kiss on your mouth which you open in response.

You definitely have my mouth, ears, and toes. While you have your daddy’s eyes, long lashes, and chin. We love your brown hair and how soft it is. We are hoping that it will grow in with a bit of a wave like your dad’s when his hair is long. We shall just have to wait and see that, as well as what color your eyes end up being as they are a striking dark blue now with a lighter blue ring right around your pupil.

You don’t really like tummy time but do well with holding your head up when we have you perched up on our chests and shoulder. You have become more and more observant to the world around you as you look around at Kemper or family who has visited. You’ve had some fussy days and nights but for the most part are pretty mellow. But when you are unhappy or hungry you really do let us know. You will wail and wail until the bottle is in your mouth and then, just like that, are happily gobbling it down. You actually do more yelling at us than crying, as you scream ‘ahhh’ vs ‘wahh’. You are a noisy sleeper and eater as you grunt and click all the time. Daddy jokes that you sound like a dolphin.

This month has been filled with so much joy that we can’t wait to see what the next month brings as you grow bigger and bigger each day and develop into a beautiful little girl.

I love you so much.

Love,

Mom

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