There is a New Fredendall in Town!

Trent and Kesha welcomed their precious baby boy, Malachi Jax, around 11:45 pm on March 2! He was 6 lbs 2 oz and 19 inches long. I hear he has a full head of dark hair and is a beautiful baby! Hoping to get to see him soon and take some pictures! Keep them in your prayers as they adjust to their new role as proud parents. I am just so excited, yay!!!! Little ones are such wonderful, precious blessings!

Boy, oh Boy!

Anastyn is getting new boy cousin today! My brother Trent and his wife Kesha are at the hospital and she is going to be induced. Please keep them in your prayers as they are preparing to welcome their sweet new son! This is their first baby and we are all so excited for them! Can you tell by all of my exclamation points!!! :-D

LOVE the Ponytails!

We are FINALLY able to get all of Anastyn's hair into one ponytail , and I LOVE IT! I still opt for pigtails more often than not because they are easier for me to get in. (It takes a lot of combing, water and smoothing to get all of her hair to the back of her head!) But I love her messy little ponytail. Although, I think it makes her look older and I don't know if I am ready for that yet!

We sure do LOVE this sweet little girl, just look at those big eyes!

See, you think her ponytail is cute too, don't you? ;)

Snowy Day!

We have had snow a few times this year, but with it being soooo cold we hadn't really let Anastyn get out and experience it. One day when I picked her up from Mrs. Norma's (our babysitter), I decided I would let her walk to the car so she could walk in the snow a little. SHE LOVED IT! She liked walking in it, and then stomping her feet so the snow would fall off her shoes. Needless to say, she didn't really want to get in the car that day. So when we got home we put on her snow boots and let her go get the mail with daddy. She loved walking down the driveway in the snow. This is exactly what I love soooo much about little ones, the simplest things give them so much joy... we didn't make snow angels, we didn't make a snowman, or even snowballs...we just let her WALK in this stuff and she was so EXCITED! I LOVE THAT! The joys of discovery and everything being new is so much fun for me to watch as Anastyn goes through this stage of life. Here are a few pictures of her walk in the snow. (Ignore the hair in her face, it was driving me crazy hanging there, but it was too late to fix it!)

She wasn't completely thrilled to be so bundled up, but when she realized we were going outside she was fine with it.

She couldn't stop looking at the snow gathering on her little boots! She was not ready to come back inside, but it was just too cold on her little nose and cheeks. Maybe we will get another nice snow and a fairly sunny day so we can play a little more!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My Funny Valentine

Red Velvet Cupcakes for my Valentine's!

Aren't they so cute!


A girl needs her chapstick!

Potty Training in Progress

For the last few months we have been trying to introduce the potty chair to Anastyn. We would have her sit on it before her bath while the water was running or we would let her run around bare bottomed and try to run her to the bathroom when we could tell she was about to go. Then we bought her some cute big girl underwear. We have had some successes and more than a few accidents. Over Christmas break, Nathan was home for about 2 weeks, so he really worked on trying to get Anastyn to go potty. We bought her a book about going potty and she loves it (A Potty for Me by Karen Katz). She will sit there and let us read the entire book and often ends up going after sitting there a while. More recently she has been showing that she is much more aware of when she goes and will grab her diaper or underwear before or as soon as she goes. So on weekends and in the evenings we have been putting her in big girl underwear and letting her run around and she has been doing pretty well. This past Friday, my mom came up and watched her and said that she ran to the bathroom every time she had to go potty. She had a few small accidents in her underwear, but always held most of it until she sat down on her potty chair. Since then, she has hardly had any accidents and we have had her in big girl underwear whenever we are at home. She always runs to the bathroom when she feels like she needs to go and yells for "DAAA" or "MaMa". We always do the potty dance (while singing " Anastyn went potty, Anastyn went potty) after she goes, and she gets a treat (a bite of twizzlers or Nilla wafers). I am so excited for her and she gets very proud of herself. She also likes to dump her potty into the toilet and flush it down. She even woke up the other night crying and after trying everything else to get her to stop I asked if she needed to go potty, she said "yeessss" so I took her to the bathroom, took her dry diaper off and she sat down and went potty. I put her diaper back on and she layed right down and went to sleep. I honestly can't believe how well she is doing. Soooo.... I guess it is time to start sending her big girl underwear to the babysitters.

Is there anything cuter than belly buttons and big kid underwear?

18 Months

Anastyn with her friend Hannah, and Hannah's mom, on her 18 month birthday.

Anastyn turned 18 months old this month! Quickly, her stats at her check-up were 19.5 lbs (2%) and 30 inches (I will have to look up that percent). She seems to be right where she needs to be as far as milestones go. Still small, but I think she is just going to make her own little curve on the graph. She has 12 teeth and loves to have her teeth brushed with the little finger brush. She also has been using her potty some. She has gone #2 about 3 times in her potty, but she doesn't like to pee in it. She has only gotten a few drops in there. She loves to sit on it and read her potty book though, so hopefully we can crack down soon and really work on training her.

~She LOVES our shoes!!! ANY SHOES. She is constantly trying to take the shoes off of our feet so she can put them on her feet. Or she will get them out of our closets. She also likes to put on our socks, which I need a picture of because it looks hilarious. She loves her books more and more now. She finally sits still long enough to get through the stories. And loves to look at a book while she is in her carseat.

~She is always learning something new these days. She tries to repeat most things that we say and has picked up a few phrases that she likes to say for most everything, like...

"one mooore" - as she holds up one little finger (she really puckers her lips when she says more) . She is constantly saying this about everything, especially if she liked it. Like "one more" snack, or "one more" time being tossed in the air, " one more" story, "one more" drink...I think you get the picture! I need to get it on video, because it is so cute... it makes me smile so big everytime I hear it!

"no-no" - has become fairly popular, but she really only says it when it is needed.
"yessss" - she thankfully knows this word, and uses it appropriately so we actually her yessss, more than we hear no-no. That might change, but for now, I like the yes'.

"bye-bye" - which is usually said quite emphatically

"I love you" - which is sometimes said very sweetly and sometimes very loudly

"good day" - every day we leave her at Ms. Norma's, Norma says "have a good day", to which Anastyn says "good day". I love it!

~Anastyn can point to all and says (or repeats) some of the following body parts: head {head}, hair (rubs hair), forehead, ears {eaerss}, eyes {eyeess}, eyebrows {eyebow}, eyelash {lasssh}, nose {noose}, mouth, teeth (shows teeth), tongue (sticks her tongue out), lips (puckers), chin, cheeks (puffs up her cheeks and points to them), neck {neck}, elbow {elbow}, arms, wrist {wrist}, hands {hands}, fingers (wiggles fingers), belly {beyee}, belly button, knees {knee}, legs, feet, and toes.

~She knows all of her articles of clothing and likes to point to them when asked "where is your ...(ex. shirt)"

~She knows her right from her left. If you tell her to give you her right/left foot or wave her right/left hand she is able to do it.

~She knows lots of animal sounds and says them when she sees those animals in books or in person. She has learned tons of new words lately. I won't put them all here but I am writing down a list so I can remember how she says some of them. I love to hear her when she talks. It is such a sweet sound and she tries to say everything that we do.

~Our new bedtime routine is one that I want to remember as well. Either Nathan or I will pick her up and say "time for bed, give me a kiss". She gives whoever is holding her a great big kiss and hug and then looks at the other person and starts to kind of squeal... she is waiting for the other person to try to kiss her so she can turn her head away from them. She thinks it is sooo funny, so every night one of us chases the person holding Anastyn and we pretend we can't catch her and then when we do we give her a great big kiss. It is so much fun and I love to hear her squeal and then when you catch her she laughs sooo hard. Such a sweet sound to our ears! Also, once we put her in her bed, she lets us get about halfway across the room and then she stands up and puckers her mouth and makes a "mmmmm" noise so we will come back and give her another kiss. Then we say "night-night, I love you" then she responds with "niiiight-niiiight" (sounding a little southern) "I ya you".

~She loves to kiss the pictures that we have sitting around the house, especially the ones of her self. She kisses the blankets that are in her bed every morning before she gets out of her crib. And her piggy of course gets kisses as well. She is such a loving little girl. I can not think of a better feeling than having your child's arms wrapped around your neck and getting a sweet little kiss from their puckered lips. Melts my heart!!!

~I could honestly go on naming the things I love about our sweet little girl, but I will stop here for today though. Now go give your babies some hugs and kisses! ;0)