Walking Olivia

Olivia has been cruising around things lately and today started walking behind the baby stroller. It's not going to be long before we are chasing her all around this house. I'm not sure if we are quite ready for that new level of activity. I better get my running shoes out of the closet.



We got back last night from our travel around the state. We left Tuesday morning to see Grandma Lorraine and Grandpa Harley for a few days. I love being there with them. I have so many happy memories of times spent at their house as a child and during our grad school years. Abby and Olivia decided to make themselves right at home and had a great time. Abby even told me that Grandma Lorraine had the best toys in the universe, which is quite funny considering most of those toys are older than I am. The girls both enjoyed getting spoiled by their Grandma and Grandpa. Abby didn't want to leave - she told me that I could leave her there and see her later.

We got to do some much needed retail therapy on our trip. Abby has sprouted up, literally, in the last few weeks and now wears size 4. So, we hit the winter sales racks for size 5. I hope that she is still wearing size 5 when next fall rolls around. If not Olivia will be a lucky girl. We got lots of warm shirts and soft pants for Abby to cruise around in next fall. And coffee - mom's best friend. We also got a two screen dvd player for the car. The upgrade to a screen for each little person made our trip home much better. Olivia loved being able to see and hear the movie on her way home.

So, we arrived home to a freshly painted dark blue wall behind where my new cabinets will be installed in the next couple weeks. It looks amazing and it was great to have that get done without having the extra assistance of Abby and Olivia. Now for the big task of keeping them away from the project when it really gets going.

Hello Old Friend

Abby wanted to take a walk after dinner tonight and we wound up down by the locks, since she has a little bit of her Great Grandpa Steve in her and loves looking for the freighters. While we were down there she ran into her old friend - the Rodger Blough. She has some history with the old guy and a very nice picture of the first time they met.Olivia wasn't quite as impressed with the freighters. She slept through our whole adventure. It's too bad since we ended up watching three huge boats on the lower river and saw two pass within yards of each other. We also got to see a little tug boat taking things off the Rodger Blough while it was moving and putting more supplies on. Maybe it was laundry, or food... Either way Abby enjoyed her boat adventure.

Happy Birthday to Abby

So yesterday we were too busy to post, since we had to do lots of fun things with Abby the birthday girl. Here's a rundown of her day:

6:00 a.m. - Abby wakes up and wants to sleep in "mommy's bed," so we make room and go back to sleep.

6:40 a.m. - Steve has to get up for work. Olivia decides to wake up for food. Abby sleeps.

7:10 a.m. - Olivia is still awake. She needs a diaper change, on attempting to change it she refills the new diaper and also soaks her clothes. All the excitement wakes Abby up.

7:20 a.m. - Steve is summoned upstairs because Abby the birthday queen does not want to walk. He carries her downstairs and she opens her presents from mom and dad. She gets parts for her Mrs. Potato Head, a Snap and Style doll (imagine a bigger, chunky 3-D paper doll), an Olivia book, a music c.d., and a toddler laptop with learning games. We spend the rest of the morning playing with the new toys and watching "Abby's news" (read Veggie Tales).

12:45 p.m. - I take Abby and Olivia for a walk in the stroller since it is in the 70's but had rained all morning, so the park was too wet to play. We walked for over an hour. Abby wanted to go see the boats, but just before we got to the locks she fell asleep. She woke up 25 minutes later when I tried to move her from the stroller to the house. She did not nap again.

2:30ish - Abby wanted to watch Beauty and the Beast (you're shocked... I know) so I told her she could only watch it if she laid down on the couch and didn't get off until the movie was over. Apparently this idea worked. I must have slept through a good part of the movie, but she never moved from next to me.

4:00 p.m - Abby and I planted seeds in our garden. We planted pumpkins, corn, and beans. Olivia slept in her car seat in the shade under a tree. Abby and I got pretty filthy.

5:30 p.m. - Steve comes home from work and we ask Abby where she would like to go for birthday dinner. She picks Taco Bell - nice. We enjoy dinner, come home for ice cream and watch Shrek. Around 8:30 we go upstairs to put away all the laundry I managed to get done yesterday (4 whole loads). Abby goes to bed around 9:30.

Other items of interest - Olivia is now 10.3 pounds says Nintendo Wii. She is also starting to hold her head up on her own and is super close to intentionally smiling. She loves checking out Abby. Also, Grandma Mary, Grandpa Scott, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Emily and Carson are coming tonight. Abby is pretty excited... it is going to be a long day of waiting for her.

Manly Man & Girlie Girl Playdate

Left to right: Abby (Little Abby), A.J., Maddie, Abby (Big Abby), and Mackenzie

Last night Abby, Steve and I hosted a Manly Man and Girlie Girl play date for Abby's friends and their parents. We all had a great time and Steve and his friend Trevor did a little work on the plumbing. We took a chance to get a picture of Abby and all her friends before Mackenzie and her parents move to Kalamazoo - they are sure a cute bunch of little girlies.

Since today was a beautiful day (although a little chilly at only 67-ish degrees) Abby and I took advantage of the nice afternoon and walked downtown to get ice cream and eat it while watching a big freighter go through the Soo Locks. Abby is finally starting to recognize that the huge thing in front of her is a real boat, so it is a lot more fun. She had a great time pushing her stroller around the park at the Locks as well. I got lots of strange looks from people who just saw me and the empty stroller and couldn't see her walking behind it pushing with me. Oh well... she was happy and that makes me happy.

I've gotten the morning sickness down to just evening sickness, which is nice, but I'd still like to be done with it. It would be really nice to go to sleep without feeling icky. Abby and I are going to take a big nap this afternoon (I hope) after all that walking.

Terrific Tuesday

Abby and I have had a lot of fun on this lovely day, except that she only took about a 30 minute nap, so I'm sure we will be paying for it later this evening with a great dramatic meltdown right before bed. Such is life with little girls...

We are getting closer and closer to getting things with the house all figured out. I now have at least one official estimate for the electrical repairs (and a second on the way) and I should have two roofing estimates in the next few days as well. I just can't wait to move into the new place and get to work making it ours. I have 72 little perennial seeds planted so that I can start my flowerbeds. I am so excited about the possibility of great flower gardens. I just was out back and noticed a lot of new things coming up that I had planted last spring and left for dead (like some peonies that never came up last year and lilies that didn't make it up either). Whoever is here next should have some pretty blooms out back to enjoy. They'll just have to fill in the gaps with some annuals or start more perennials of their own.

We took Abby on a long walk last night around our little downtown area. She pushed her own stroller the last block and a half. She is really into pushing shopping carts and strollers right now. She was trying to push from the very bottom axle, but that would have meant practically crawling, so she had to settle for pushing from the basket. Abby had a minor meltdown last Friday at Wal-Mart when I made her ride in the cart rather than walk on her knees so that she could push the cart from the bottom rack. What a nut...

Miles and Smiles

We've been out walking because of our lovely weather of late. Abby has been walking too - tonight she pushed her own stroller a whole block on the way home. We thought about jumping in for the ride, but figured the stroller wouldn't support us. Tomorrow is supposed to be another lovely day, so we will be back out pounding the pavement.

We put another 12 photos from yesterday and today on Walmart.com in the same album - these 4 are just a small sample. Hope you all enjoy :-)

Orange You Glad I Didn't Eat the Peel?

Abby found some tangerines today that we got in our Saturday delivery of Angel Food. She is super smart and right away knew that the tangerine was one of her favorite foods (she loves, loves, loves citrus fruits). She did all of this finding while I was busy chopping peppers and onions for a pot of chili. I was very surprised when I had a little tug on my pant leg and saw that Abby had chewed through the tangerine peel and had gotten part of the fruit in the process. What a little smarty pants. I peeled the tangerine for her and she gobbled it right up. But not before I got a picture of her damage.

We are still working on focusing with the camera for an awesome coming around the door photo. I'm still not sure what the deal is, but the camera always seems to focus on something other than sweet Abby. At least I keep getting her to do the posing - one of these times the camera is going to get the focus right and we are going to have a home run.

Other than eating tangerines, peel and all, and walking through the doors, Abby is becoming a walking machine. She has almost totally forsaken crawling and just cruises around here like she owns the place. She is really steady for only having a few weeks under her belt. She is also becoming quite the mommy to her dolls. Yesterday she was sharing her sippy cup with her dolls during the day. When we went upstairs to get ready for bed she insisted on going up the stairs all by herself and did so one handed so that she could bring JoJo up with her. I tried to get her to give me the doll so that she could crawl up with both hands, but she would have none of it. Today she fed part of her snack to her dolls, and also part to her best buddy Maize. She is growing up and learning a lot. And with only 15 days or so until her birthday, she is leaving babyhood behind for girliness.

Stair Climber Version 2.0

Here she is - walking and climbing up and down the stairs, thanks to her dad's great teaching.


Also, if you visit the website www.stevenwhitephotographicart.com you can now see Abby and Jack's bunny pictures! You have to choose portrait art and then select the client tab and enter the password "Hodges" (the H must be capitalized). They turned out super cute in spite of all the crying over the bunny!

Stair Climber

We have more video, but Blogger won't upload it. Err.... (insert angry face here)...

Slip Sliding

If I had bothered to watch the forecast (or if Abby had let me), then I probably wouldn't have been so surprised by the 6 inches of snow and the white out conditions we had yesterday. Or the ice. I met the ice yesterday, we got up close and personal. Abby, luckily, landed on top of me and so my back and elbow took all the hits. Abby didn't even wake up for the big crash.

We are approximately 1/2 way through our terrible busy patch. What a lot of work! The bad weather kept almost everyone inside yesterday, so our Angel Food ordering didn't go so well. I don't blame people for not wanting to drive through drifting snow!

Abby has recently discovered her ability to get into her dad's video gaming chair. It's a little rocker that sits directly on the floor and she loves sitting on it, standing on it, and crawling all around it. It also gets her about 4 inches closer to catching her rascally dog Maize. Yesterday Abby also started spontaneously walking for fun (rather than just walking a few steps from the couch to Steve or I). She was taking big long walks around our living room and around the health department. Hopefully we will catch her on video soon!

Pepsi Please

We are really behind and have no good excuse. This weekend seemed to get away from us and we sure didn't get things done like we planned. Oh well... it was fun. Abby got her 6th tooth yesterday. She now has 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. Quite a set of choppers they are and they are very good at biting and eating.

Most of our blogging dysfunction this weekend is due to Abby's new found love of the computer. If it is out she is trying to mess with it, pushing the buttons, pulling out the power cord, and in general being a little bit of a pest. So, that limits my ability to distract her with toys and get things done on the computer, which may cause quite a problem with all the Angel Food things I have to do this week. Abby's very favorite thing to do is open the cd-rom drive and smash it closed. Obviously not a good choice.

Abby's also pretty into pop cans. We may have to start pouring soda into a cup because she is like a heat seeking missile when it comes to pop cans. She found a closed Pepsi can this weekend and went crazy for it. But since she's already cut her finger 3 times on open cans that were left within her reach, we have got to find a better toy for her to play with.

In the last week Abby also began playing a newer, rougher game with her dog. It's a mild form of wrestling, with lots of kicking by both Abby and Maize involved. Maize will lay on her side and kick her legs at Abby while Abby, who is standing, kicks back and her. Then Abby laughs and Maize wags her tail. Apparently I am not enlightened enough to understand the joy of kicking and being kicked by your pet dog. Oh well...

And on a final note, Abby walked all the way across the living room at our Pastor's house last night. We had a nice visit with them and we were super proud of her long walking skills.