Halloween Hangover

We had a lot of fun on Halloweekend. It is a lot more fun with a girl big enough to be excited about trick or treating and understand the idea of going door to door and saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" to each house. Abby had a great time. We had a party and went trick or treating with all her best friends. When I say we went trick or treating I mean Abby and Steve - Olivia slept through the entire costume part of the party. Now the hard part is regulating the candy consumption, since we had quite a bit of leftover candy (I may have overdone it with 4 bowls...).

Olivia is getting quite close to figuring out crawling. She's been practicing picking her belly up off the floor for the last couple of days. She's going to have me running around chasing her soon. And I'm going to need to get my baby gates up before I want to. Olivia's also working on night 3 of the Cry It Out method of sleep training tonight. I wish she could have been easy like Abby, who started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks and never stopped after that. Olivia, on the other hand, has been up once or twice each night since about 6 months (we had that brief interval from 4 months to around 6 months where she slept all night, so I know she can do it). We started Sunday night with the CIO plan. Olivia woke up at 11:45 and after Steve checked on her and put her back into bed she cried until after 2:00. It was a long, long night laying in bed listening to her cry. I hated every second of it, but I hate feeling exhausted even more. Last night she woke up twice, but only cried for 10 or 15 minutes each time, so I'm hoping after another night or two she will have the system figured out and will just put her little thumb back into her mouth and go to sleep.

Abby is still cracking us up. She has been really into barbies and dancing lately, so we had a barbie dance party last night. She had all her barbies lined up around one of Olivia's blankets and they were all taking turns dancing. She also dances at any opportunity (music on t.v. shows, songs she makes up, even the nintendo wii dancing game). I think dance class will be in her future - and I know her dad is not looking forward to all those dance recitals.

Crying In The Car

We didn't even make it into the church building this morning before Abby was crying and pleading with me to let her stay with me in service rather than go to the nursery. Ugh... Luckily, I got her distracted with food and was able to sneak out and join Steve in the church service. Unfortunately, he had decided to sit in the exact middle of the auditorium, which meant I was about 20 seats in from the aisle. Not a good plan for a pregnant woman to be so far from the aisle (and the bathroom). And Baby Sister was not on her best behavior this morning either, so it was a LONG service, even though we were out earlier than normal.

Baby Sister made the flip last night from head up to head down. There was definitely a foot pushing down at the bottom of my belly last night when I was trying to sleep (you could feel it - it was kinda weird). She used the same foot on my lungs this morning during church. I am so looking forward to the point in time when she is too big to do these flips and such. And even more looking forward to having my body back.

Tonight Abby decided to try out a new movie - Snow White. I am so, so, so glad that we aren't spending another evening watching Beauty and the Beast. We definitely needed a new movie for a change. As much as Abby loves Beauty and the Beast, Steve and I are getting to the point where we know all of the words. I'm hoping she'll continue to add new movies to the rotation so that we don't have quite as much monotony around here. And we've been trying to really cut back on the amount of t.v. she is allowed to watch, so that has been helping with our Beauty and the Beast addiction as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't help with the state of the mess in our playroom. Less t.v. directly equates to more mess...

Abby's First Sled Ride

We took Abby on her first ride on the beautiful sled from Uncle Jim and Aunt Ruth. I had no idea how deep the snow in our back yard was, which did not help create a fun experience. Sleds do not work well in mid-thigh deep snow. Sleds also do no pull well when the adult keeps falling into the snow because it is too deep. I finally ended up carrying Abby and the sled to a good spot for pictures and just setting them down. Abby was enjoying her sled until she decided to put her un-mittened hand into the snow. Now this is totally my fault, since I made the deliberate choice not to put mittens on Abby. Her jacket is long enough in the sleeves to completely cover her hands, and knowing that I wanted just a couple pictures I figured putting mittens on Abby would certainly result in tears, which would make for bad pictures. We got tears anyway when Abby decided to lean over and stick her hands in the snow. Burr! So here is the progression of pictures from yesterday's sledding. First picture - happy and smiling because we just came out and Maize is funny in the snow. Second picture - Abby sticking her hands into the snow. Third picture - after we came inside while she was still crying because she didn't like the cold snow. She cried for a good 5 minutes, even after I had rubbed her hands and gave her a bottle. From now on I am just going to deal with crying because I put mittens on her instead!

So there was our first attempt at some outdoor pictures with the beautiful sled. We are going to have to try again later with a little less snow. Maybe in the driveway or something...

The Heater is ON

Boy was it cold this morning when we got up. Really cold. We would think 65 was great if it was outside and sunny, but it didn't feel so great when you are jumping out of a lukewarm shower. So I turned on the heater, but I set it to 66 for now, so I doubt it will get much warmer. I hope the sun comes out today and warms us up. We are going to have to seal the windows and doors for sure.

Unfortunately, yesterday's Daddy/Daughter evening did not go well. Abby's big day resulted in a very, very, very crabby evening. Poor Steve. He said it finally required a ride all around town to get Abby to stop the screaming. Not just crying - actual red in the face, hyperventilating style screaming. But, she woke up in a good mood today, so hopefully we can maintain the better attitude by staying around here and playing with Abby's best friend Maize.

We moved Abby's booster seat to the table so she could join us at meal time. It really improves the quality of time we get to spend at dinner, since she can play with things (including place mats) and see both Steve and I. We really enjoy our family dinners together.