Dear Miss Manners...

Abby has been working hard on her table manners. Sometimes they work and sometimes an entire animal cracker gets jammed into her mouth (and then hangs out of her mouth while she gums it). She is, unfortunately for Maize, getting much better about not sharing her food with her dog. That is a very big step!

We are still home alone until 10 or 11 tonight, so Abby and I are headed off to bible study by ourselves. We also have to remember to bring the bacon and sausage for our weekly potluck dinner, which is breakfast foods tonight. And the birthday present for Abby's friend Madison who turned 1 year old today! Wow... I am going to be making several trips to the car. And we are going to start that car early - it is less than 10 degrees outside today. Brr....

Home (Almost) Alone

Abby and I are hanging by ourselves tonight while Steve is down in Lansing for a dental conference. But do not fear, we have an extra guard dog tonight to help keep us safe. Actually... we are dog sitting for a friend, so Maize and Jessie are having a dog slumber party and Abby and I are chaperoning them. And since Abby enjoys dogs it works out well for everyone, except maybe me who has extra dogs to watch and no one to help entertain Abby so I can wash dishes and such tonight... That must mean we need to go out for dinner and Abby would especially enjoy watching kids at the McDonald's play land.

Anyway, Abby has one Christmas outfit that is not a beautiful dress, so she wore that the other day and we took some Christmas tree pictures. She is mostly trying to figure out how to get the candy canes off the Christmas tree and then how to get the candy cane taste into her mouth. Luckily for us she can't get the wrappers off, yet. Today Abby was working really hard on crawling on her hands and knees and I was working really hard on taping her, but she is a ham and quit trying as soon as I turned the camera on. She also pulled herself into a standing position all by herself, but then she let go and took a nose dive right into the side of the couch. Ouch... I guess it's a good thing that we have hard skulls - Abby's seems to get a lot of use lately.

Hopefully by tomorrow we have some great crawling footage. If not you can just imagine this... Abby on her hands and knees, followed by Abby extending her legs straight up (think triangle, since that is what she looked like), followed by a second attempt to get on her hands and knees, then bouncing up and down on her hands and knees, but all with no forward or backward movement...

Breakthrough

We have had the first definite use of a word in reference to something! Lucky for Steve it was him. Today when he came home from lunch and looked around the corner into the living room he got a shout of "dada" and some excited arm waving. It was really, really cute. Too bad I wasn't taping it... Abby is going to be a daddy's girl for sure.

We also had a first yesterday - Abby's first freak out moment over something she saw on t.v. We were watching Pinky Dinky Doo (if you haven't seen it, avoid it), which is one of the few shows Abby will concentrate on, when a dinosaur came on the screen. Now you would think a girl who loves to roar and growl would appreciate a dinosaur, but not this girl. She went into hysterics and we had to shut the t.v. off, even though the dinosaur wasn't on anymore. Poor kid... I guess we won't be watching Jurassic Park with Abby anytime soon.

Our high was supposed to be 10 degrees farenheight today, so you downstate friends and family "suffering" with 20+ degree weather can just remember that you are at least 2 times warmer than we are here...

Jen's 10 Reasons Why Living In the Soo is Just Like Camping

1. It's an old house - I am washing dishes by hand, just like when we camp.

2. Again, old house, cold - sleeping in our bedroom is about as warm as a tent in the fall.

3. Bathing - shower no bigger than a camp shower or an old iron tub, just about the same as camping only with a little more consistent (sometimes) hot water.

4. Smells - did we mention that we've had skunk spray twice behind our house in the middle of town?

5. Shopping - when Wal-Mart, K-Mart and JC Penney are the high end shopping in town (and the best for about 200 miles), you are basically "roughing it"

6. Security - old house, unsquare doors... probably can't withstand repeated kicks. Hardly better than our tent.

7. Food - when the only option for reliable sit down service (that isn't a bar or stuffed to the rafters with roadkill) is Applebee's, you mightas well eat at home. And with the improved camping stoves, my at home cooking is basically the same as my camping menu.

8. Dirt - We have a yard, we have a dog. Our floors are probably cleaner in the tent camping than in here...

9. Noise - Old house, paper thin walls and windows, we can hear it all and some of it is not good.

10. All of the places we wanted to visit on our family camping trips are now a stone's throw away. Mackinac Island - just about an hour, Tahquamenon Falls - a hour and a half, Lake Superior - 20 minutes...

Here Are the Christmas Cards!!!

We have sent out the first set of Christmas cards, so one of these four fine photos should be making it's way into your mailbox really soon. And if it doesn't, that means we didn't have your address! If you do want to print yourself some extras all the photos are at http://photos.walmart.com/groups/abbyschristmasalbum, all you need to do is enter the code "holiday" and you can print photos of Abby to your hearts content. If this works well we may put other pictures of Abby up to share. So while you are waiting to see which of the four fabulous photos is in your card, try to take some time to relax and enjoy a wonderful time of the year!

Clean Teeth, Tired Mommy, and Jumping Beans

Abby had to brush her teeth after all the candy canes she tasted. Good thing she likes to brush her two little teeth. She even got to use a Crest SpinBrush to get them super clean. We had to document the teeth cleaning since we documented the candy eating. That way no one gets the wrong idea about what the dentist around here does to ensure Abby's teeth stay beautiful!

Abby is wired today for some reason - she has had no candy, no sugar, and only the normal baby food (plus she tried baby food chicken). Her poor jumper is going to be worn out by the time she is done with it. And the unfortunate thing is that I would really like her to have a nice nap this afternoon instead, since she woke me up at 4:30 this morning. Maybe all this playing will make her sleep really well tonight! On top of the lack of sleep, my coffee maker has decided to be worthless and somehow, no matter how careful I am, half the coffee grounds end up in the pot. There is nothing worse than crunchy coffee. That may be on my Christmas list, or maybe I will just give up drinking coffee all together. After all, I did make it 2 whole years before having a cup a few weeks ago. But a hot drink on a cold day is a good thing... what a dilemma!

That being said, I think my jumper is almost jumped out, so it is probably back to changing diapers for me. Have a wonderful Monday - we are going to enjoy watching the snow fall (again) tonight.

More Birthday Fun

Here are a few more pictures of Abby and her Daddy having a great time on his birthday! And we now have a beautiful, soft Douglas Fir Christmas Tree in our dining room. Abby really loves checking out the ornaments that we put on the lower branches. We made sure they were all Abby safe since they have already been chewed, grabbed, and thrown.

Abby also got her first lick of candy cane, but her dad quickly told her she couldn't have any more. She liked what she tasted though and tried to steal mine later on. Apparently starburst strawberry candy canes are on Abby's wishlist for Christmas :-)

Happy Birthday Mohawks

Abby tried to talk her dad into getting a birthday mohawk when he went to get his haircut, but he went for the traditional style instead. That didn't stop Abby from sporting her own mohawk. We tried to get the picture, but her hair is a little too fine for it to capture well on the camera.

Here's another picture that didn't make the Christmas card cut. We are still waiting on the ones that made the cut to come back from being printed, so we aren't going to get the Christmas cards out for at least a few days. By tomorrow I'm sure we will have a few lovely photos by the Christmas tree, which Steve is picking out while I type.

And speaking of Steve, he loved the birthday presents Abby and I picked out for him. He's got two great warm sets of pajamas, a new sweater, and a new video game. Plus there is college football and he didn't have to work. I think that adds up to a great birthday in his book!

Big Helpers

Abby and her friend A.J. were big helpers today while she accompanied me and some other ladies from our small group to Christian Freedom International's store to help make some holiday gift baskets with items from around the world. They had so much cool stuff - we probably came home with more of it than we needed. We especially loved the handmade baby sling, which was apparently really comfortable since Abby fell asleep in it while I was making bows and wrapping filled gift baskets. We both had a lot of fun.

And now for the planning of Steve's birthday festivities. Since he had to get up at 5:30 this morning to shovel our driveway and scrape off both cars, I'm sure part of his big birthday plans includes sleeping in as late as possible. I'm sure Abby and I will be happy to oblige him and probably make him some breakfast in bed :-)

Happy Weekends!!!

Side Note...

We are glad that Abby loves her new straw sippy cup, but it has had an unanticipated effect on our daily routine. More liquid intake equals more output... I'm sure you know what I mean.