Tomorrow is Halloween Already?!?

Ahh... where did our week go? Tomorrow night we are hosting a Halloween party for our small group and I don't even have half of my to do list done. For example, we need to get packed ASAP! Saturday morning is going to be busy enough, so we need to have our stuff together. And we need to clean. And we should probably decorate. And we should probably have a way to entertain our guests. Oh... and food. Ahh... What are we doing wasting time on the computer you may think. Frankly, I am thinking that too, but Abby wants to watch Little Bill and she was rudely awakened from her nap an hour and a half early by her dog, so she is nice and crabby. So she is doing whatever makes her happy until I can get her back to sleep.

We also have to make a trip into the office later today to see Steve and all Abby's friends that work with her Daddy. Plus she got the dentists some dental Halloween shirts for tomorrow and we need to deliver them. We will be glad to be in Hastings next week, where we don't have to host anything.

Let's Get Ready To Rumble

Abby assisted me this afternoon with the packing of her bag to go see her great family in Barry County. She was very helpful in making sure that everything from our last trip was out of her bag before we re-filled it with warm clothes to take with us. And, since she was being so helpful, she got to ride up the stairs in her bag, just so she could know what it is like to be a pair of pants or a shirt.

It is COLD here today! Brr.... I think we will be starting the countdown to Florida soon, but January 25th is a long, long ways away. Stay warm!

Snow Way

Abby met her first snow flakes this morning when we went to pick a few things up at Walmart. I don't think she was a huge fan of the cold, so it will probably mean she doesn't like the snow much either. Luckily it wasn't sticking to anything.

We are watching Bailey and Katelyn again, so Abby will have an almost 5 year old girl and a 6 year old girl to keep her company this afternoon. I am going to be tired tonight! And since they are coming, we are going to have to cut this short to get some things, like our clean laundry which I just folded, put away.

Still No Snow

We've made it all day so far with no snow. But we did get another seasonal treat - our absentee ballot. Abby was a big hit at the city clerk's office when we went to pick it up. She was being especially cute for the ladies that helped us out. She was not being so cute when she refused to take a nap this afternoon unless I was holding her or laying next to her. I got her to sleep two separate times, but both attempts to put her in her bed resulted in crying. Oh well... she got her two hour nap and I got to nap a little too this way.

Only 5 days until Debbie and Cody's wedding, so we are getting excited to see a lot of our Osgood family. And not too many weeks until Thanksgiving when we can see almost all of our Hodges family and Obreiter family too we hope. It should be a November full of fun visits and lots of new things. And speaking of new things, Abby has been practicing her tooth brushing form today. She still has no tooth to brush, but that doesn't mean she can't start learning good oral hygiene early.

No Snow Please

The weatherman just said to expect snow flurries today and tonight. We are voting no on that proposal, but if we do get snow anyway, we will let you know. Updates as the day continues...

Eating More Cookies

Abby sure loves her cookies! She doesn't ever turn them down, even after scarfing down a whole tub of baby food. She is sure a character :-)

Abby watched her first Michigan/Michigan State football game, but unfortunately it was not the type of game she wanted to see. Oh well, at least Grandpa Harley's team won. More importantly, Abby got her first light saber at Walmart today. Her dad told her to pick the red one, so apparently she is going to be Darth Vader for Halloween. But I have a feeling that she is going to be a little kangaroo instead and that the light saber will be used in the passing out of candy.

Abby and her dad did lots of other fun playing today and she also got to take a warm bath. Unfortunately our house is pretty cold, so the bath was cut short by shivering. But before she got wrapped up she did have a good time with the tub toys.

Dear Uncle Dan,

Thanks for the cookies!

Love,
Abby

A Safe Seat

Sometimes when we are getting ready to head out the door we have to put Abby in a safe place while we put our shoes on. If we had bothered to put our laundry away in the past few days we wouldn't have found this great safe place for Abby to wait for her turn to get bundled up. Yay for procrastination :-)

Pretty Pumpkins

We found another pumpkin when we were cleaning Abby's closet yesterday afternoon and we think it is much cuter than the one her Daddy helped her carve the other night. But, our new little pumpkin is getting too small for our big girl so we are hoping she doesn't grow too much in the next 8 days or she won't be able to wear her pumpkin suit on Halloween.

We also found lots and lots of clothes that we needed for Abby to wear since she is too big for a lot of the things we had out. She outgrew the size 6-12 months stuff from Baby Gap, Old Navy, and Gymboree, so a lot of the really adorable Christmas things we have she is now too big for. Bummer. Luckily the one dress I actually picked out and bought by myself is one size bigger, so she will be able to wear it this holiday season.

Abby has been doing lots and lots of playing with her dad when he gets home from work so that she can have more playmates than just me. Last night while I was doing dishes they must have been doing something really fun ~ there was a whole lot of laughing going on.

Caught!

We caught this zebra hopping around at our local children's consignment store. And since it was on the list of things I had planned to buy Abby for Christmas, we bought it (for like 1/4th of the price). She's a little small to use it now, but boy will it be fun in a few months :-)

It is COLD here today! The sun is out, so it looks deceptively nice, but when we went outside we were shocked by the cold weather. Brr... But on the bright side, the sun is warming up our living room, which is nice. We really need the sun to shine on our futon cover and dry it out since our very bad dog chewed up Abby's bottle on the futon. As if I needed more cleaning to do.

Abby still doesn't have that tooth. We know it is in there somewhere, but it just doesn't want to come out. One of these days we may have a tooth to report, but for now it is staying inside the gums where it is warm. Even without a tooth Abby managed to down her first cheerio yesterday. It was an orange Fruity Cheerio ~ which happen to be my favorite variety. I don't think Abby was quite as impressed with the cheerios as I was, but she's at least learning how to eat solid things.

Abby Had A Little Lamb

Thanks to my love of Bath and Body Works hand soap and their promotion over the weekend, Abby is now the owner of a little black lamb that we got free with our soap restocking. It was a good deal for everyone. I got my hand soap for $2.40 a bottle, which is practically as cheap as soap at Walmart, and Abby got the free lamb.

Our new lamb, Big Black, is super soft and Abby has already decided he is her favorite cuddling buddy. She's been playing with the soft fur on him for the past two days straight. Luckily we have a few specialty stores up here in Sault Ste. Marie or we'd all be going crazy!

This morning Abby tried a yummy new baby food (and not just new to us, it's a new release). Our breakfast this morning was blueberry pear oatmeal. It smelled really good, so I'm sure it tasted much better than a lot of her usual fare. She even did a pretty good job of eating for having just sucked down a whole bottle.

This afternoon we are going to start planning some raised gardens for our back yard. I am going to try and kill our backyard bamboo by burying it under a raised garden with a solid bottom. We will see if this works or not. Either way we will hopefully have a good place to raise some yummy vegetables next summer!

Monday, Monday

Ahh.... it's Monday! And not only is it monday, our weather stinks. Cold is one thing, but cold, wet and gray it unacceptable as far as Abby and I are concerned. It makes the day seem so much longer and makes us sleepy. Luckily Abby is her usually happy self, for the most part. She keeps Steve and I smiling.
Abby is back on her great sleeping schedule after those few silly days last week. Last night she slept from 10 pm to 8 am. That is exactly the kind of baby I signed up for! She is spoiling us rotten with all her good behavior. And yesterday she sat through the whole church service with only two "yells." This was the first time making it through the whole service in the last 3 weeks. We were really impressed. Less than two weeks until Abby gets to visit her Hastings friends and family - it is going to be so fun! And now... back to baby afghan making. So many babies, so little free time...

Happy Jack O'Lantern

Our pumpkin is now a happy, smiley faced jack o'lantern. First I had the terrible job of gutting the pumpkin. It was gross. And it was cold, even though the pumpkin spent all day inside to get warmed up. Abby and Maize both wanted to get their hands on the pumpkin guts. Abby was successfully blocked, but Maize got a few mouthfuls out of the pan. Steve got to carve Abby's pumpkin for her. Abby and I drew the face on it first so that he would know what it needed to look like. It was only his 2nd time carving pumpkins (that he could remember at least). Abby watched her dad use the sharp knife to cut out her pumpkins face. Maize used her trickery to steal both the eyes that were cut out and ate them up. What a silly dog.
Abby had a great smiley pumpkin when we were all done with one tooth, since it is her first Halloween. And we gave her pumpkin dimples, since Abby has a dimple and she thinks it is pretty cute.
Happy Halloween a few weeks early. If you happen to be in Sault Ste. Marie and drive by our house you will probably see this big smile looking out at you.

Pumpkin Carving

We are carving Abby's pumpkin tonight. Check in tomorrow for pictures from her first pumpkin carving experience. So far Maize has tried to eat the pumpkin guts and stole the cut out from the eye ball.

Back to work...

Return to Sender

Abby starred in this photo collage that we sent out yesterday to her aunts, great aunts, grandmas and grandpas, and great grandmas and grandpas. Someones came back to us with the address totally gone. We used cheap address labels from the dollar store - I would not recommend trying them since the ink came right off. So, if you think you are missing one after a week or so and you meet the above standards let us know so we can resend it to you. Hopefully they won't all be coming back with the same problem.

Happy Friday from the growler and her family!

The 6th Month Celebration!

We had a party at dinner for Abby's 6th month last night. Abby and her best friend Maize shared some yummy strawberry cupcakes. When we say shared we mostly mean that Maize stole Abby's cupcake crumbs off Abby's lap, the floor, and the table when we were too busy with the camera. Abby didn't really like the cupcakes since they crumbled too much before she could get them into her mouth.



Here's a special video from last night after the party.

Play Date!

Abby had her first play date yesterday with a little person her own size. She had a great time playing with A.J. Thankfully we had no hitting and no crying, except for whimpering when Abby needed to take her nap. They were so cute playing together. A.J. and I had fun after Abby went to sleep too. She is to cuddle and like twisting my hair, but not pulling it. But, I wouldn't trade any baby for my Abby.

Today is Abby's 1/2 birthday! She is officially 6 months old. We are hoping to have a fun dinner with her Dad tonight to celebrate. Abby's poor Dad didn't get home until 7 o'clock last night and boy was he tired after a long day of work, so he and Abby have a lot of playing to catch up on tonight.

We have to go to the store today to pick some things up, so I bet she will try to sneak in a half birthday cupcake or two. We even made her a half birthday crown last night out of our old Burger King crown. She is going to be super cute wearing it.

They All Fall Down

The leaves that is. We had a windy, rainy night and now our backyard is covered in leaves. You can't even see the grass in some spots. Yesterday we had quite a few leaves down on the ground, so we tried to do an Abby photo session, but she was all out of smiles unless Maize was around, and when Maize was around she was right in the way of a cute picture. Oh well.

Still no teeth, so Abby's still been having some random crying fits and ornery spells. But honestly, even with a couple of fits per day she is still the happiest and mellowest baby I've come across. She's pretty serious a lot of the time, but she also has a slight attention hound habit. We had dinner out last night and she was waving her arms all around and smiling at anyone who would look. That was accompanied by giggles and chatter. It was pretty funny. Abby also ate her first french fry. She is getting good at chewing so if something is pretty squishy she can manage it with some supervision. She's not quite ready for crispy McDonald's fries yet, but she can handle the steak cut ones. Although french fries are probably not going to be on her regular menu once she is big enough to crunch on real veggies.

Today is our moms and preschool playgroup and then AJ is coming to play, so we are going to be busy. Hopefully we will have a fuss free day. Yesterday was good except when she woke up crying during her afternoon nap. She wasn't even awake when I first got to her, so I'm sure it was a bad dream or something. She has a few of those where she cries out in her sleep. She must take after her dad who also talks and walks in his sleep sometimes. Maize barks in her sleep too. I am surrounded...



















18 days until we get to visit our friends and family in Hastings. Yipee! Abby and I are glad that Steve doesn't mind when we take extra time to visit family when he can't. He's the world's best dad.

Wearing Glasses

Apparently Abby is back to being cool with people wearing glasses. Weird. I did let her watch me put them on and take them off several times this morning. Then she decided that she wanted to take them off me. So, long story short, I am wearing the contacts again today since I can't see out of the lenses with all the slobbery finger prints. She is quite a character.

We are having another little friend over for a play date tomorrow. Abby's friend AJ, who is in our small group, is coming by while her mom is out for an appointment. We should have lots of fun with AJ since she is just a few months older than Abby. But that also means I've got some cleaning up to do today so that it is safe to play on our floor.

Here are a few more pictures from Mackinac Island. These two were taken at Arch Rock. We had such a wonderful time exploring the island and enjoying God's fall artwork on Saturday. We are already planning our next adventures, especially the ones to warmer climates this winter!

Our Silly Sunday

Abby's been a silly girl today. First, when I was getting ready for church I decided my eyes would rather wear glasses than contacts. Abby did not approve. In fact, she cried when she saw me and cried every time she saw me again, even without the glasses, for the next hour. She would not give it up. Then, at church she was wild and laughing and noisy in the sanctuary, but as soon as we got to the nursery she was as quiet as a church mouse. She didn't even really want to play with the cool toys. What a girl...

She took a 3 hour nap today after all yesterday's adventures. It was a nice break for us - Steve watched the Lions lose again and I read a book. Then we all went outside and planted tulip bulbs for next spring. Overall a good day even with our morning silliness. Back to the routine tomorrow - Steve doesn't get Columbus Day off since they get some Native American holidays instead. Abby and I are going to work on some baby afghans and do a little cleaning. Wishing you all good weeks!

Some Mackinac Magic

Some New Pictures

This is a happy girl wearing size 12 months pink pig pajamas ~ thank you to Aunt Hannah and Aunt Emily for getting Abby these really cool jammies. Abby is still spending a lot of time chewing on teething rings, but those little teeth don't want to come through quite yet. Hopefully sometime really soon. Abby is now wearing both 9 month and 12 month sized clothes and we've packed up all the littler stuff and all the summer gear (except for a few 12 month sized outfits in case we get our stuff together and get down to see Great Grandma and Grandpa Hodges this winter in Florida).

We had a crisis yesterday ~ we used up all the bibs except the Michigan State bib. We really didn't want to use it on our little wolverine, but we did need something to catch her drool. She had to yell "Go Blue" when we put the MSU bib on. Also... someone needs to let the engineering department at MSU know the real dimensions of a baby's neck, since we had to tie the bib in a knot to get it to stay up. We got right to work on the laundry and by lunch time Abby was back in a pretty pink bib. Now... we don't want you all thinking we hate Michigan State, since it is the great university that Great Grandpa Harley, Great Great Aunt Barb, and Great Aunt Denise went to. We just love Michigan more is all. And we really do cheer for the Spartans against any team except Michigan. But at Abby's tender age we can't afford team loyalty confusion. She'll understand when she is older that you can love Michigan and still like Michigan State sometimes.





























And... it is fall and Abby has her first pumpkin to carve into a jack o'lantern. We aren't going to get to it this weekend, but probably by next Friday it will be carved into a two toothed baby pumpkin. Abby likes her hard, orange buddy. Unfortunately the photographer couldn't get her to smile this morning without being silly, so the photo isn't centered quite right. And... Abby has a new trick she is trying hard to master. She is now waving all the time, but we haven't quite mastered waving on command. Coming soon though...

Now off to a fabulous Friday. Tomorrow Steve is taking us on a color tour to Mackinac Island! One of the dental hygienists in the office has some inside connections, so we should have a great day.