Adalyn: 10 Months

This month Adalyn has started to change from a baby to a little girl.  She has mastered crawling and boy can she move.  She continues to be a great eater and sleeper and a lot of fun to be around.  Adi has developed a tasted for classical music and is our little Mozart.  She loves to dance dance, especially to classical music.  She is really building her vocabulary, her favorite words are dada, momma, bird, book and fant (elephant).  We are continuing to use sign language with her and she seems to like being able to communicate with us.  Adi mastered holding her breath this month and now loves to swim underwater, as long as someone is holding her hands.  She is a little fish.  Adalyn's Great Grandmother visited this month and it was so special to watch the two of them play and spend time together.  And of course, this little jet setter, racked up a few more miles and celebrated turning 10 months on the beach in Phuket, Thailand.  She loved the ocean but loved eating sand even more!  Here are a few pictures of our sweet girl! Enjoy.

Almost crawling at the beginning of the month

Focused

Our little play mat destroyer

And a super happy girl, on the beach!

We also had a professional photo shoot this month.  Adalyn was quite the subject.  Here are our favorite photos from our time with Henny.

New Zealand Part IV: Rotorua

After our amazing visit to Hobbiton, we headed a bit further south to Rotorua, the culture capital of New Zealand, where we learned about the Maori culture, explored the redwood forest, saw the blue and green lakes, and met back up with the Foxes. We enjoyed our time here, riding the Luge and going to the AgroDome.  Enjoy a few of our pictures!

The Blue Lake

Adi riding in her backpack 

Beautiful hike through the NZ Redwoods.  Adi loved it so much that she passed out!

 The Foxes joined us in Rotorua and as luck would have it, our hotel was across the road from the famous Luge track.  Let me say it was AWESOME!  Just think about riding in a small sled on wheels down steep and curvy roads and then riding a ski lift back to the top.  Just awesome.  It was too bad that we went in the evening because Eric and I could have rode the luge all day.  Lucky for us, someone was unable to ride the luge (pregnant with TWINS) so Adi was taken care of.  Eric and Leon also had too much fun racing down the track resulting in some sweet road rash on Eric's leg and as we told Adi, "Daddy ducked up his leg"  She thought it was the funniest thing ever, and so did I!

 

Nikki practicing! 

Dinner with a gorgeous view of Rotorua after we closed down the Luge

Chillin in the Gondola back down the hill

Eric showing us how its done

The next morning and several applications of Neosporin later, we packed up and headed to the AgroDome to learn about Adi's favorite NZ animal, sheep.  It was a fun morning and the girls loved it.  Also, someone may have milked a cow on stage...

 

 

After this trip Adi could say sheep!

And after a great time at the Agro Dome we headed an hour further south to Great Lake Taupo...stay tuned, more pictures to come.

New Zealand #3: Hobbiton

It's' rare that I'll dedicate an entire post to one event on our blog, but this is an exception.  Eric and I are both Lord of the Ring fans and couldn't pass up an opportunity to visit the Hobbiton movie set on our drive south to Rotorua.  This tour was awesome! A must do for everyone who visits New Zealand, Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fans or not, it's a must.  We spent two hours touring the set of Hobbit homes, learning about the filming of the movies and enjoying a beer at the Green Dragon.  A picture perfect afternoon, spent in Middle Earth, seriously, Go! Even our little Hobbit enjoyed herself! 

 

 

 

 

 

Two out of the three of us are short enough to be Hobbits...

 

 

 

The youngest visitor at the Green Dragon

 

 

Hobbiton!

Another amazing afternoon and after a few quick hours we were back on the road to Rotorua.  Stay tuned!