Olivia's Video Debut

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mudder's Day to my Momma and Happy Mother's Day to Mom O. and all of our grandmas. We sure love you guys!

We had a rather boring day at home yesterday - it rained and snowed on and off all day, so we couldn't get outside to play like we had planned. Instead we worked on some laundry and Abby had a royal ball with her dad. She had a great time wearing her lovely Belle dress from "Hannah and Emmy" and we had to peel it off of her to get her into bed last night. Olivia did what she does best right now and slept through most of the day. They are both doing that again right now while Steve mows the lawn and I am working on setting up my new iPod touch (thanks to Steve for picking out a pretty cool Mother's Day present and leaving it in Olivia's bassinet with her this morning).

We had Abby's first successful solo trip to the nursery this morning since the arrival of Olivia. She was very impressed with herself afterward since both Steve and I made sure to tell her how proud we were of her bravery and helpfulness. I'm hoping this will lead to many other successful stays on Sunday mornings. It would look awfully bad for the nursery director to be the one paged back to collect a child.

Excersaucer

Olivia is a pretty strong girl. In fact, she has mastered holding her head up pretty well. So last night Abby and I got out the exersaucer so that Abby and Olivia could play together on the same level. They had a good time. Olivia's little eyes were moving super fast to keep up with everything Abby was trying to show her. And Abby was being most adorable and trying to feed Olivia pretend food. Abby is pretending a lot lately. She will pick nothing up from the floor with her little fingers like she is pinching and then hand me any number of things (horses, cows, sheep, princesses, food, really anything). So last night she was holding her flat hand to Olivia's face and giving her all sorts of wonderful "foods." I hope they continue to enjoy each other this much into their adult lives.

Olivia slept 5 hours again last night, but it was a miserable 5 hours for me because she was gassy and uncomfortable. So... the foods I can't eat list is now up to chili and barbecue sauce. The chili I'm not too sad about, but the barbecue sauce is one of my favorite foods. This is going to be a long, long year nursing Olivia if I can't have barbecue.

Making Progress

Abby and Steve helped me finish moving furniture and putting away baby clothes and things today, so we should be all ready to bring Baby Sister home when she arrives. We even set out the baby diapers and wipes. Abby enjoys helping, kind of... she really enjoys trying to test out Baby Sister's things. She tried to put on some size 3 to 6 month pants the other day. I'm sure you can imagine how well that worked. And based on the sinus pressure and congestion I'm getting (again) I'm hoping Abby will be helping with Baby Sister sooner rather than later so that I can take some real medication and get over this bug faster.

Abby has really gotten into playing with her little people and doll house in the last week. She sets them all up, makes them dance, eat, and do other things that little people like doing. It's fun to watch her imagination working. The only downside is that she often wants Steve or I to "play too" but she doesn't want us to do any more than sit on the floor next to her. For Steve that is one thing, but for me sitting on the floor right now causes my legs to fall asleep within about 2 minutes. And then there is always the challenge of getting back up off the floor. But Abby is too cute to not play with her, so we do it anyway.

Week In Review

We have had a busy week and are looking forward to the holidays next week and some much needed downtime. We've had lots of playing, partying, and cooking this week.

On Monday Abby had a play date with her friend A.J., including some yummy lunch. Abby and A.J. are starting to really get into playing with each other, which as a mom is so much fun to watch. They have the funniest conversations with each other while they are playing - most of it isn't understandable to me, but they sure seem to know what they are saying to each other.

On Wednesday we hosted Steve's office Christmas party. Abby had fun with the assistants and other dentists and even got to help open a present. She was mostly shy, like normal in big groups, but she did let some of the assistants pick her up and did give a few tours to her new friends. And she got to eat some goodies, like cheese and crackers and cheesecake. And we ended up with two animated goodies and lots of packing peanuts (she only tried to eat two of them).

To round out our busy week we went to the Christmas party for the crisis pregnancy center (CareNet Pregnancy Center of the EUP). Abby had fun playing with her friend Sophia from church. Sophia is almost three and enjoyed greatly playing with "Little Abby". It cracked me up since we have another friend who has a baby named Abby and so we are used to calling our girl "big Abby" and their daughter "little Abby". The reversal of nicknames was fun for a while. And Abby was on her best behavior - she really impressed the other ladies at the party. And we were semi-successful on our first cheesecake (it was softer than I would have liked, but since it wasn't baked it had a different texture than many baked cheesecakes). It tasted wonderful though, so that makes us for a multitude of little shortcomings. The next time I try this recipe I am going to put it in a baking dish instead of trying it with a springform pan.

Playing By The Door

Abby stayed with her favorite baby sitter Kitty tonight and they had a very interesting time. Apparently the whole two hours we were gone they spent playing with various toys, books and puzzles, but only sitting next to the back door. Weird...

We will begin the packing and getting ready for our trip down for Thanksgiving tomorrow after we attend the funeral for our friend Dan. He was an amazing person and a great example of living the Christian life, even with his medical issues and other challenges. We aren't looking forward to the funeral tomorrow, but we know our friend is in Heaven and is finally healed.

While we are at the funeral, Abby will be playing with her friend A.J. and A.J.'s grandpa (who she calls Apple). I'm not sure how Abby will react, but she will certainly be happier there than she would be at a funeral or staying at Steve's office with his assistants, which was our only other option. And now... on to little people time. Abby is a very demanding task master.

Two New Favorite Things

I have two new things I could no longer live without. The first is my boppy pregnancy wedge pillow (http://shopboppy.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=17&zenid=798c8798fc3a3f9508743805eeaf8624). I'd been trying to alleviate my daily backaches by using a standard pillow, but this magic little pillow was the perfect shape to help support my back from the ache caused by the growing midsection.

The other great new purchase I made this week was a food steamer. Abby and I picked out the Rival model (http://www.rivalproducts.com/product.aspx?pid=2420) at our local Wal-Mart and have been enjoying yummy veggies and meats from it. It has two steaming trays, so we can fix multiple vegetables at the same time without doing the microwave juggle. And the food tasted so much better at dinner last night after a quick trip through the steamer.

Abby's new favorite thing is play-doh. She's played with it at playgroup before, but over the weekend she and Aunt Emily really got into it. Abby especially enjoys cutting and pretting things into the play-doh. We left the play-doh from the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Hodges' house, but we replaced it with our own play-doh 4 pack. On the way home Abby counted the play-doh and then finished counting. I had no idea she knew how to count, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to hear "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, two" from the backseat. We've since had to throw one of her new play-doh tubs away (I didn't think yogurt smoothie and play-doh mix would sit very well), but we are still enjoying lots of creative playing.

Playland is at McDonalds

Steve and I had a biology teacher that hung the statement "Playland is at McDonalds" one day after we were particularly obnoxious the day before. Abby and I decided we would enjoy our local playland and had a lunch date at McDonalds yesterday, just us two girls. It must have been a really slow day for playland, because after Abby finished eating there were no other kids there. And since there were no other kids there I helped Abby explore more of the playland than she had ever seen before. She got to go into the 2nd of 3 levels and rode down the twisty slide 4 times. We had a great time. I got two cute pictures on my camera phone, but I have no idea how to transfer them from phone to computer. You'll just have to imagine Abby in a blue tunnel slide and Abby peering through the window on the 2nd level tower.

While we were at McDonalds we ran into Dr. Anderson's mom, so knowing that she is heading back to Iowa soon and that we had wanted to have them for dinner before they left, Abby and I jumped at the opportunity and had Steve invite them for dinner. Then we cleaned like maniacs and cooked for the rest of the afternoon. But, we had a great dinner, a nice visit, and Abby decided that Mrs. Anderson should be her adopted Grammy. That really made Mrs. Anderson's night since she has no grandchildren. We had lots and lots of fun.

We started our morning yesterday playing Star Wars. Abby loves playing with the toy light sabre we have (don't know why we have it, but we do). She was being an ewok, since she had cute bear ears on top of her head, and was chopping off Maize's legs and ears. They have a lot of fun playing games together. After we played Star Wars we pretended to be bears since she had the ears and all.

Today we've been recouperating from the fun. This morning Abby climbed out of bed and donned a sun bonnet before sneaking into our room (with Steve guiding her and keeping the hat on so I could see it) to wake me up. I don't remember when I last laughed that hard. This girl sure has an amazing sense of style.

Daddy Date Day

Steve had today off, so Abby got to go on a lunch date with her daddy. She also got to have her first official happy meal (I have ordered them for her before and gave her one nugget and some fries and had the rest myself). She ate almost the entire meal! And had some frosty. She has gone from picky pants to bottomless pit in the last few weeks. Most of all she enjoyed spending time with daddy today on his day off.

Abby is all ready to watch college football tomorrow. Last night we made her little people do the sign for touchdown and she was very impressed. We had to make them all do the touchdown before we could stop playing with the doll house. Besides playing with the dolls and doll house, Abby has been doing a lot of coloring lately. She is getting very good at holding the crayons and coloring, albeit outside of the lines. She is pretty insistent that only she and daddy can color in her books. I am apparently not allowed to participate. And for those of you keeping track, Abigail is definitely right handed. And she holds her crayons the weird way that I hold a pencil (resting on the ring finger instead of the middle finger). Guess some things you just learn from watching your mom.

Abby's New Play Space

Abby has been busy using her new back yard, so we have been busy supervising her back yard experiences.

She and Maize have had a good time exploring their new boundaries. They really like going to the farthest corner of the yard and sitting together. Weird, I know.

They also have been on the lookout for all the neighborhood cats and have enjoyed spying on them from the front door. This girl and her dog spend a lot of time together.

Fenced In

We got so busy yesterday that we didn't take time to write about our wonderful new child and dog containment system that was completed in the backyard yesterday. In fact, Abby and Maize spent over a half hour exploring their entire yard before I could get them to even consider coming inside. And when we did come inside Abby had a major meltdown because she didn't really feel like being inside quite yet. This afternoon, if it warms up enough, we plan on doing some major playing out there and will try to get a few pictures of the new fence while it is still shiny and new.

Slide

Abby went down a big kid slide at the playground today all by herself. I'm really enjoying watching her learn to do new things, but I miss my little baby who just loved to be held and snuggle. Now all she wants to do is big kid things. She had a really good time at the playgroup we joined. She got to blow some bubbles (she is not quite ready to do the whole bubble wand thing - she just sticks it into her mouth). She mostly love going down the slide and back up the steps to the slide all by herself. It was a slide designed for little people like her, so it didn't involve any dangerous climbing and wasn't very steep. She had a blast.

Abby is currently cracking me up by feeding her baby fake food. The baby has one of Abby's bib spread over it and Abby says "more" after each bite she gives the doll from the little spoon. It is too precious! She has a very active imagination these days. And she is getting very good at saying "more". Maybe that wasn't the best word to teach her.

Cookie

Abby learned the most important word in a child's vocabulary today - cookie. Now she is set for life. Whatever troubles befall her, she will be able to ask for the world's greatest comfort food. She also learned how to say horse and Bible today. She is a little walking talking machine.

Another amazing development has been her recent transition to imagination based playing. For example, she's been feeding herself fake food and pretending to eat it. Today we also caught her pretending to change her dolls diaper, complete with pretending to wipe its bottom. It is amazing watching her little mind develop more and more each day. And as we watch we wonder whether we will be able to keep up with such a smart little cookie.

We had another full night of sleep, so it appears that we are finally over our illness - and just in time, since I am still feeling exhausted on a daily basis. We will see how the week plays out and will hope that she is still feeling great next week when Abby and I plan to head out to the Blind Sucker River Flooding near Grand Marais, Michigan to camp with my family and some of my mom's family. We are really looking forward to seeing aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents.

Just Another Terrific Tuesday

Abby tried on her outfit from India today. She is still a little to small to wear it, but we still had a little princess party in it. As you can see our stairs are all wood now and they look pretty good. They could use some sanding and staining, but for having been covered with nasty carpet they didn't turn out too bad.
This is Abby pretending that she can't hear me telling her to get down from the shelf. She's figured out that she can climb onto almost everything in the living room and she has been taking advantage of that ability to the greatest extent possible. She's also been on top of the couches, cedar chest, and fireplace surround. We need to work on teaching Abigail that climbing is fun, but is not an indoor activity.
This is Abby's dishwasher box house. She's been having a fun time playing in the box with her chair. We cut two windows into the sides and she loves peeking out of them.
Abby has moved on to a new favorite doll. For a very long time, JoJo the water baby was her favorite, but now she especially loves playing with "Uncle Nate" the doll from Mildred. Nate comes with us all over the house and he even gets to wear his clothes, unlike JoJo.
Someone was having a great time with my sunglasses, right before she broke them into 3 pieces. Guess I can justify buying a new pair now. She thought she was hot stuff in my glasses.

401st Post

Abby has been extra funny this weekend. She is really, really working hard at being the world's best doll mommy. We have been doing extra feeding, pushing in strollers, and we even got out some of Abby's baby toys - the bouncy seat and play mat - for her dolls to use. She is so much fun to watch. I don't know many other 13 month old little girls who love to play dolls and actually take care of them. She really has a great time doing it.

We had snow over the weekend. Luckily none of it stayed on the ground - it just blew around and was pretty. But, even if it was pretty there is no excuse for snow in May. And yesterday was beautiful, but we only got up to 45 degrees, so we couldn't even get outside and enjoy the sunshine. Thankfully today is a new day, and one that is supposed to get into the 60's. And this weekend when we head down to see Great Grandma Lorraine and Great Grandpa Harley is may even get into the 80's. That is sounding like my kind of weather.

And now... back to work on the doll afghan for Abby's babies. I am using up as much scrap yarn as I can. This doll blanket is knitted from Great Grandma Jennie's basic dishcloth pattern, so Abby and Maize shouldn't be able to snag it up and ruin it. We will have to see though... those two play kind of rough sometimes.

May Flowers Please

As we wrap up April here in the U.P. I am hoping that the May flowers are not too far away. It's a gray day up here. Thankfully it's 60 degrees, but not the kind of 60 you'd want to be outside in. Luckily it was beautiful yesterday when we had the home inspection done, so we were able to see a lot and stay outdoors longer than we could have even a week ago.

The home inspection was overall a good thing, with the exception of two major and two semi-major items that need addressed. The wiring in the home is almost all original wiring from 1926, which isn't too surprising. The main problem is that the wiring itself isn't up to code and shouldn't be insulated around. The inspector said the wiring was in great shape and wouldn't be too much of a concern were it not for the fact that there is blown in insulation around it in the attic (a major fire hazzard). So we have a call in to the church to see if they have anyone who will take care of that before we start looking for an estimate on the cost. The roof, which is overall in almost new shape, also had some leaking around a dormer where the flashing was done improperly. Those are the major problems. We'll also have to have 2 cement windowsills replaced and there are leaks in the faucets and some drains, which should be relatively minor repairs. Ugh... So we'll see how the repair and estimate process goes and decide what we are going to do from there. I guess with old houses comes old everything.

Abby is back to being her normal, silly self. She has been playing extra hard with Maize and doing lots of extra eating to make up for her self-imposed fasting last week. She's just right back to our good little lady. She cried instantly last night when she saw her baby sitter Kitty come through the door, but was good and played with her while we were gone. She's got a pretty good memory, since Kitty hadn't been here for at least a couple months. And now, back to cleaning up. I've been doing loads and loads of laundry to catch up from last weeks siege.

Mom's Been Busy

...And Abby has been playing with her dog and her favorite doll JoJo. I decided I'd take advantage of the massive amount of time I spend in the living room with Abby by scanning in all the old photos I have in the house. So far I've managed to scan in 88 during nap time and a small amount of playing with Maize time.

Here is one of my favorites. It's Hannah around age 2 or 3 with the baby goats.

















It has been really fun looking back at so many old photos and remembering the good times. It's like our almost daily looks back at Abby's photos (since she loves looking at herself in photo albums). And we can't wait until Abby is big enough to meet some baby goats or ride a horse or do some of the many, many things I found in the pictures. I am going to be putting the best of the photos onto my flickr page, so you can check them out there.

A Step In The Wrong Direction

We thought our snow was finally melting, but we were wrong. The bare patches that had appeared on our driveway are now gone. It is definitely a step in the wrong direction for us weather-wise.

We are enjoying some good times lately. Abby is playing longer into the evenings and is having a great time with her Dad each night. She still has a lot of fun with Maize and Mom during the day. Yesterday Abby had her first taste of broccoli and actually ate quite a bit of it before tossing the rest overboard to her furry friend.

We are busy, busy, busy this week and trying hard to keep up with housekeeping, blogging, and resting. Tonight we are having dinner out with friends, tomorrow Abby and I have Time Out For Moms and have to take Angel Food orders, Thursday we have a meeting with the MSU Extension office and have to take more Angel Food orders, and Friday we have a little play date, more Angel Food ordering, and bible study. And then Saturday we are off to Hastings so Steve can fly to Portland, Oregon on Sunday. Whoa... it makes my head hurt to think of all the work we are going to have to do in the next five days. On that note I better be getting back to something at least slightly productive!

Our Visit Rundown

As you can see, by the time our trip was over Abby was one tired girl. She did more adventuring and is a lot more friendly than she has been in a long time. So between all the playing, driving, test driving, visiting, and partying, Abby was wiped out. It was perfect for the drive home, which she slept through for the most part. Even after all that sleeping in the car little Abby slept all night (and in her own bed to boot).

Abby got to go see her Aunt Hannah play some basketball and it was really fun. We wish we could have checked out one of Auntie Em's games too, but it didn't quite work out. Before the game started Abby decided to practice her jump shot from way downtown. She was the star of the pre-game show for sure! And she had lots of fun pointing Hannah out as she ran up and down the floor.

We also were able to have a play date with Abby's cousins Connor, Noah, and Jacob. It was really fun! Abby had a good time showing off her new, bigger than ever vocabulary and trying out some new toys.

Heat Wave

Boy is it feeling warm today. So warm we let Abby go out without a hat, just the hood on her sweatshirt and the one on her coat. And speaking of hats, we got Abby a princess hat at Disney to help keep the sun off of her. She wouldn't wear it down there, but she likes wearing it here in the house. What a silly girl.

Abby had a fun lunch date today with A.J. and Madison. It was nice to get out of the house and have a little adult interaction. And then Abby and I went to her favorite place - Wal-Mart. I think she'd better be a pretty satisfied little girl after all the fun she's had today. Besides lunch and Wal-Mart she also got to go to the library and we picked out two alphabet books for her to read with her daddy.

We weighed and measured Abby the other day, just to see how well she was growing. She's slowed down a bit on growing tall (at around 28 inches she's only in the 50th percentile), but she's still holding her own in the weight category (at 22.2 pounds in the 95th percentile). Either way we think she is pretty much perfect. And she's become quite the class clown. Things could get very hilarious around here as she grows up!