18 Months Old!

18 months old!

Who needs toys, I will play with anything I can find!

I am running a little behind on this post, but wanted to share it anyway... I cannot believe that my child is 1 1/2 old, but it is true! How time flies!!! I have decided to tell you some things about Abby in celebration of this milestone.


Busy bee - this pretty much describes her activity level. She is constantly in motion whether it is pushing her baby around the house in her stroller, pulling things out of my cabinets, chasing the dogs around the house, climbing up on everything still and just in general busy!


Animal Sounds - her latest "party trick" is performing all of her animal sounds. She can make sounds for cow, horse, monkey, rooster, sheep, snake, cat, dog, & duck.


Night Night - this girl loves her bed and loves to sleep. She often goes to her room, tries to climb into her bed and will squawk and squaller until you put her in there ... all the while shouting "night night."


Outside - Abby loves to be outside. She will go to the door and say "out" and bang on the door. She is her father's child for sure! We try to go outside a couple times a day during the week, but when daddy is home on the weekends they spend LOTS of time out front working in the yard, digging, running and getting dirty.


Talking - Abby has really been talking quite a bit since she was 12 months old, but in the last month her vocabulary has really increased. I have noticed in the last couple of weeks that she is starting to put two words together. Although I will say that it is very obvious that she wants to say so much more than she is capable of ... she tends to get a little frustrated at times.


House work - well we are hoping we have ourselves a little worker bee. She loves to help me put clothes in the dryer, vacuum, she will help pick up her mess from the day and she likes to use her spoons and bowls to do a little "cooking" in the kitchen. We are looking forward to some child labor! :)



Snack - a.k.a. Nack, this is one of her favorite words right now. She loves to go to the pantry and open and close the door yelling at me "nack, nack." She likes goldfish, peanut butter crackers, animal cookies, raisins and various other crunchy things.



Books - this girl is a reader already. She loves to read! Abby often will sit on her own and read books, but she also will bring books to anyone she can convince to read to her. Right now she is big into interactive books - anything that has flaps or things to feel are a big win!

Barf Fest 2008 & Halloween!

Well as you can tell by my title we have had a not so great week! It all started Monday night (while Nathan was out of town for work) and Abby started barfing around 1 am. Oh yes, so much fun! She and I were up all night with her barfing about every 30 minutes. It was awful! Of course we stayed home together on Tuesday trying to recover. On Wednesday morning I woke up not feeling so good, but was set on going to work since I had missed Tuesday. Well I barely made it to work, stayed about an hour and was headed home for my own barfing party to begin. Abby seemed to be better Wednesday which was good, but I thought I was dying. I haven't been that sick in a long time. Just when I began to think we were getting better Wed night ... around 11:30 pm Abby wakes up to round 2 of the barfing. Ohhh, here we go again. Luckily Nathan was home by then, because I seriously thought I was going to die. It is no fun when you are sick to have to clean up your child's barf. Oh the laundry we have done here in the last week, not to mention the can of Lysol we have gone through. By Thursday morning I was calling my mom saying "HELP!" Renee & Marsha took care of us all week - Thank you both, we wouldn't have made it through without your help!
So all of this brings me to Halloween. We are still not feeling 100%, but we are feeling some better. Abby actually had 2 costumes that were given to her by her sweet cousin Kendal. So she sported each of them briefly on Friday. She wasn't very interested in the costumes or the trick-or-treating. I guess we will have more Halloween fun next year. As for Nathan he has yet to get the barf bug, which is great ...let's hope he doesn't! He found himself a last minute costume for Halloween ... He is the Asbestos Ninja!

Our little Bumble Bee ...

Our Little Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader ...
And ... the Asbestos Ninja

VOTE!

Hey I want to encourage everyone to vote! This is such an important election, it is very important for all of us to excerise this right. Nathan & I did early voting this weekend and it was super fast and child-friendly (since it wasn't busy). Early voting is still available all next week, and then of course you can vote on election day as well. Anyway, just want to encourage you to vote!

OU/TX Weekend

Last weekend my family came into town for the big OU/TX game. My dad, brother, sister-in-law and I all went to the game on Saturday, and my mom stayed at the house with Abby. It was a great game and a fun time, but sadly it didn't end so great ... as OU lost to TX. SAD! Oh well, like I said we had a great time anyway.
Abby and mom had a fun day as well ... they went to the Owen's farm nearby and explored their pumpkin patch.
It was a fun weekend and we are so glad our Oklahoma relatives came to stay with us for a change! Oh Nathan went hunting with friends so he missed all the fun, but I think he had a good time on his own.

I LOVE playing outside!

I am so cool in my Uncle Zach's boots!

Reading with Aunt Whitley before bedtime.

A Fun & Busy Weekend!

We had a fun time this weekend ... went to the Fair with Nathan's work on Friday and then to the Arboretum on Saturday.

The Fair has become a tradition with Nathan's work. His company takes their entire company (30ish pp) to the Texas State Fair each fall on a Friday morning. It was lots of fun. Abby really liked the all the animals in the children's zoo. She of course was trying to climb the cages to get in there with them. My favorite part were the little piglets. They were so cute, running around playing chase. Very cute, like puppies!

Then on Saturday we had our class from church fall party at the Arboretum. Right now the Arboretum is all decked out with pumpkins. It was very pretty, and we had great weather! We had a scavenger hunt first, they divided up the families into teams. Then we all met back for a picnic lunch. It was a good time.

By the way ... we noticed this sign AFTER we let the kids play on the deer. Ooops....

Climbing!

The title of this post pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks at our house. Abby is VERY into climbing right now. Ever since we went a couple of weeks ago to the Galleria play area she has been climbing on everything!!! She has attempted climbing in and out of her bed, into and out of the bathtub, up the cabinets, on top of all her toys, onto the beds, on the shelves in her closet. You name it and she'll climb it ... she is wild! I have tried to capture as much of this as I can in pictures to prove to you that I am not exagerating. She is having a blast, and the more I tell her not to do ... the more she does it and laughs! I will not be surprised if we end up in the ER with a broken arm, leg or gashed open head. She is 100% her father's daughter ... no fear!

She even climbs up on her slide to watch a little Einstein!

So pretty much these days I spend most of my time trying to keep her from hurting herself. Crazy!

Life in general has been good for us lately. I am in the process of changing positions at my company so that I can continue to be part-time and have more flexibility with my schedule. I think it is really going to work out well for us. Abby is doing so good at Mother's Day Out on Tues & Thurs. I think she really is enjoying it!

Nathan & I celebrated 4 years of marriage last week. Wow, how time flies! My parents came in town to keep Abby, so we went out for a nice dinner and even stayed at a hotel Friday night. It was great! Then Sunday, Marsha kept Abby and Nathan & I got to go to the Cowboys game with his dad and sister ... it was fun, even though they lost. We had a great anniversary!

First Day of School!!!

Abby had her 1st day of "school" today! She is going on Tues & Thurs to Mother's Day Out at Waterview. I think it went pretty well. They had good things to say and I think with time she will get more comfortable about sleeping there and all of that. Needless to say it was harder on me than her. She did cry a little when I left her, but I cried before, during and after! I don't know what was wrong with me! We have never taken her anywhere before so it was just different. Anyway, I think she is going to like it and hopefully will learn a few things and make some friends. Above are a few pictures from this morning!

Sleeping Beauty!

So Monday Abby refused her afternoon nap for the babysitter. Well, when Nathan got home he was wanting to go for a jog. So he took Abby in the jogging stroller ...and this is what he came home with!

It is only 6:15 pm at this point, but the girl is TOAST! Hilarious! We laughed and took her picture. Then had mercy on her and put her to bed. Too funny, it just never ceases to amaze me how kids can sleep anywhere.

On another note we had some our college friends out at the lake this weekend. It was lots of fun! We had 8 adults and 6 kiddos (under the age of 4)! It was wild, but fun. We really wanted to get a group photo of the kids, but as you will see below the kids were not really happy about this! So the moms and the kids tried, but even still not very many good shots. Here are a few funny ones and then the only "good" one I got on my camera.

Back in Blog Land!

Hey - well sorry for the lack of blogging lately. Work was super busy for me the last month - we just had a great show the first week of August! We had over 2,000 people at our show in Dallas. Now that things are sort of slowing down at work, our personal lives have gotten busy. I guess it is always something! :)

Miss Abby is getting so big ... she is so busy and learning new things all the time. We just had her 15 month check up last week. Here are her stats ...

Height: 31 1/2" (80%)

Weight: 20 1/2 lbs (20%)

I think she doesn't gain any weight because she never stops moving!!! She is burnin' those calories.

And the talking has really picked up as well. She now has about 15 words in her vocabulary. For those of you who haven't been around her since the talking began you need to know that her favorite word is "uh-oh." Oh my goodness I bet she says it 500 times a day!!! Even when it is not an accident she still says "uh-oh." For example ... this little mess here ... not so much an "uh-oh" since it occurs several times a week!!!

Organizing her room ...

Super sweet Abigail after church one Sunday!

Abby & Daddy

She is very proud of her new nap mat ... which she will use

at Mother's Day Out starting in a couple of weeks.

Oh so hot Texas summers ... she still LOVES to be outside!

She spends lots of afternoons in her little pool in the backyard.

And She's Off ...

Well Miss Abby is officially walking! She has been taking steps little by little for about a month now and just in the last few days it has really picked up. She is all over the place. You'll see in the video she still sits down every so often ... I think she hasn't built up her leg strength yet. But it won't be long till she is running!
You will also notice all of the "talking" she is doing in the video. Last weekend she started telling me "no, no, no" and pointing at me when she said it! Umm I wasn't ready for that one!
Oh and then there was this ...
The other day we had gotten home from Wal-Mart with our groceries. I put Abby inside to play while I unloaded the car. I get all the bags inside and think ... hmmm I don't see her. Well I found her outside on the deck playing with the leaves. She had used the doggie door all by herself!!! Good girl!!! I of course was laughing b/c I knew this was bound to happen, but I tried to be serious when I told her "no, no" and pointed to the dog door. Hmm wonder where she learned to say the word "no?"

Silly Abby!

This is a fairly new thing Abby has started doing in the last week. She tries to climb into her bed, so I put her in there and then ...

May & June

May and June were pretty busy around here. We have been doing lots of things ... here is a recap.

Park:

We went to a pretty park with Mel and her kiddos one day. We fed the ducks, had a picnic and walked around a little. These are some large bear statues that the kids climbed around on.

Lake:

We were at the lake for Memorial weekend with the Holms and Youngs. Good times were had by all!

Kendal's Party:

Kendal had a very fun birthday party at the Scottish Rite Hospial park. It is a really cool park and perfect for a party. They even had a tattoo artist there ... so Abby got her first tattoo!

Roseola:

Abby had Roseola last week! Yep, started on Monday with a fever and no other symptoms. She felt miserable, it was pitiful. Went to the doctor and they said ... well it must just be a virus. Nothing we can do for that! So by Wednesday fever is gone, she is feeling better, then the nasty rash began to show up. It peaked by Thurs afternoon when we went back to the doctor to find out that she did infact have Roseola and yes, there was still nothing they could do. So lovely! I'll spare you the pictures ... it looked awful. By Friday afternoon she was back to her old self! Crazy!