Three years ago she came into our lives and changed everything. Time, for the most part, has flown. Every now and then it has crawled. Each moment has been worth each struggle.

What a cutie. I can't stand it.

Three candles on her tiny little cake.

And of course she blew them out!

And now, a comparitive study from the past three years.

Shortly after birth.

Her first birthday.

One year ago.

Tonight. (Yes, she's wearing the same shirt as last year.)

Crazy, isn't it?

Bath time!


It's been a while since we posted any pictures of Jadyn during bath time. I took a few during Tuesday night's routine festivities.


Sticking extremities under the running water is a favorite pastime.

She posed a couple of times for me.


There are times she wants to use the cup and pour water on herself, as evidenced below.

'I help you!'

This afternoon, Jadyn and Daddy went outside to play with her bubble-blowing lawn mower give Daddy and opportunity to start working on the back yard's leaves. She offered to help, so he gave her the plastic-headed rake while he used a metal one.
Here she is positioning her rake.
The raking subsided after a few minutes and the outdoor activity turned to leaf tossing, as illustrated by this and the next two pictures. At least once, she said something to effect of "pretty colors."

Below, Jadyn decides it's time to zip up her jacket and concentrates now on this work.

Miss Manners

Jadyn has really good manners for a two year old. Sometimes too good. For example:

Me: Jadyn, let's go, it's time to change your diaper and go nite-nite.

Jadyn: No, thank you.


Oh well, at least she was nice about it.

Fun with Jadyn!
In this the final installment of National Blog Posting Month on Jadyn's Web site, we find Jadyn doing some pretty cool stuff today.
First, she said the word "Mississippi" after recognizing a Mississippi State emblem on a shirt Daddy was wearing.
Next, we see she helped Daddy with some laundry by moving the basket around some on her own (These shots were only moderately staged; she'd been moving the basket around in various ways by herself.).


Finally, we see Jadyn pretend to talk on Daddy's cell phone. Later, when she was playing with a toy phone, she pretended to call Mommy and said "Hi Mommy. (How are you or What are you) Doing?" She also was pretending to talk to a friend of the family.


We've had so much fun posting stuff (almost) every day this past month! We hope you've enjoyed it. We plan to keep updating the blog regularly, though probably not daily. Thanks for joining us during NaBloPoMo!

Cuz Ya Gotta Have Friends....

I remember when taking my daughter to a play date basically meant she had someone to crawl around on the floor next to. But now she's 2 and in preschool and suddenly mentioning names of people I really don't know. Connor and Sabrina and Austin and the like. Who are these people and why is my tiny daughter talking about them?

I gotta get a grip before the teens hit.

Miss Manners

We have been working really hard on making sure our toddler practices good manners. She fully understand please, thank you and excuse me, and often says them at appropriately without needing to be reminded. But now I feel like it will be important to show her the reason behind the good manners. Not just because polite society demands it. Not only because she's half yankee and living among southern belles. Not even so that folks will "ooh" and "ah" at her advanced articulation. (Though I admittedly get a big kick of out that one.) But most importantly because using manners shows that we value other people, and we (as Christians) are called to do so because Jesus values others, and we should emulate all His qualities.

Now if I could only get the please to not sound like whining on the verge of a tantrum by the 4th or 5th time she says it while asking for ice cream.

Playing hard to get at age 2?

Those who spend time around Jadyn see that she's normally an extrovert. She often calls out the names of people she approaches even before she reaches them and waves to strangers. But her interactions with non-related men can only be described as intermittent. Sometimes, she'll pull away when a man approaches or won't call out the person's name. Sure, we want her to remain safe in her interactions with the opposite sex but we still want her to be friendly with those who mean her no harm. So, I guess we'll just have to teach her that it's rude not to nice to people are just trying to be nice to you.

Three Favorite Sayings

1. Mine! (We never say that word so I blame it on Mother's Day Out.)

2. No! (Ok, so yeah, she's heard that one from me. A lot.)

3. Wassat, Mama? (Natural curiosity is a good thing, right?)

A new direction with hats?

From the child who wouldn't let us keep anything on her head earlier in her life, we bring you this.
She decided last night that her Elmo Easter basket would make a great hat, and she's right. But I think it will be quite some time before the conditions are cold enough here to warrant regular use of it as such.

In this photo, she also appears to be holding a comb which came as part of a care kit for a new baby doll.And here's another for good measure.

Elmo: The Birthday Party

Yes, today Jadyn turns 2. We had a big party yesterday, so today we're playing with all the new loot. I wax philosophical on my own blog, so here I'll just post the pictures that everyone is really here to see. As you will plainly see, Elmo was the theme.

ELMO: The Birthday Cake

ELMO: The Cupcakes

ELMO: The Pinata

Drinking from Elmo: The Sippy Cup

The shirt says, "This is my birthday shirt."

It's a long way up...

...but she made it!

This is our favorite picture from the whole day.

"OH NO!"

We had Jadyn's "school pictures" taken at her Mother's Day Out program. Today the pictures came in (I promise I'll post one as soon as I get it scanned in) and while she looks adorable as always, she's not smiling. She sort of has a confused look on her face, like she can't understand why the photographer is telling her to stand there with her hand on the tree.

So tonight I put one in a frame and showed it to Jadyn. At first she was a few feet away and was excited to come see it. But she took the picture, got a good look at it and said, "Oh no!" It was like she was disappointed with how it turned out. We just couldn't help it, we both busted out laughing!

Appparently she's already concerned about how she looks in pictures.

The "letter H" mystery solved
I put our dog up one night this past week and noticed this odd-looking piece of plastic in the corner of his box. I leaned down and took a closer look. It didn't take long to realize what I'd discovered - this missing letter H!
Two theories arise - Jadyn very well could have been holding it when she went by his box to splash her hand in the water cup, something she loves to do, and it dropped out of her hand.
Or, he tried to use the piece as a form of drawing attention to himself - diverting it off of Jadyn - and he just forgot he had it and dropped in the corner of his box.
Nevertheless, the whole original set is in place.
And we now have a backup just in case.

Brought to you by the letter 'H'
Amanda and I want Jadyn to learn how to speak properly, despite the culture in which she resides and my tendency to mumble in my native Southern accent.
We don't want it said of Jadyn that she is among those in this region who think "head" has two syllables - "heyad," for example. At the same time, I hope she grows up with an appreciation of and reflecting both her Southern and Northern roots.
She has one of those Leapfrog toys which uses magnetized letters and attaches to a device, applied usually to a refrigerator or other metal appliance. When the letter is attached, a young child's voice comes on and says what the letter's sound(s) is (are). "'B' says 'buh,'" etc.
She got it for Christmas and we did a great job of keeping up with all the letters - for about a week.
On Thursday night, I did an inventory and found "H" missing.
We hunted in every logical place for H and couldn't find it.
We decided to buy a replacement set and it should be on the way soon.
"H says ... 'huh,'" I think. I don't remember.
But after we get it back, I hope to play it enough where I won't forget it.