A Wonderful Weekend

We made it home last night after a wonderful weekend visiting family and friends in Hastings. Abby had some great birthday parties (3 of them) and enjoyed her first Easter egg hunt. We have lots and lots of pictures, which are going to be posted on our flickr site, since it is much faster than posting them here. Here's one of the pictures of Abby eating her second birthday cake. She mostly just picked the M&M's off the bunny's bow tie.

Abby got fun gifts and we got a new baby horse. She still needs a name, but we are pretty sure she is the most beautiful horse we've ever had!

Happy Easter!

The Easter bunny stopped here this morning and let Abby have her Easter basket early, especially since she was not feeling very good at all and we needed a new book to read. So now we have a new Easter book and a touch and feel bunny book. When Abby isn't feeling well she really wants to be held and have books read to her. She loves reading books - especially the same one over and over and over. I know at least 3 of the books by heart. Hopefully Abby's teeth come in soon because we need a break from the fussing, runny nose, and general whimperish behavior.

We are all packed up and ready to go - and Abby is shoving a new book into my face, so I'd better get back to reading (or just quoting) her favorite book.

Update

My jaw is back to normal (-ish). Not that it won't pop out again in a day, a week, or a month at some random time when I'm least expecting it. It took both Steve and I about ripping it off for us to get it back into place.

Abby is currently laying on top of Maize, who does not seem to be too thrilled about being a pillow. She has a little runny nose, but doesn't seem to have any other symptoms, so I'm pretty sure it is just from getting teeth into her little mouth. I hope she never has the jaw problems I've suffered with for the last two years.

We are doing the last load of laundry so that we can get to packing our bags for our Easter trip! We can't wait to see our family and friends :-)

Dislocation

Abby must have punched me in the mouth while we were taking our nap yesterday because my jaw has been dislocated ever since. The jaw dislocation unfortunately isn't a new phenomenon for me - the first time it happened was about 7 weeks into pregnancy and it has happened regularly since then. It just normally is something that Steve can ease back into place. Unfortunately that wasn't the case this time, so I am on a soft food diet and waiting to see if it can resolve itself in the next few days. Plus, when Steve did try to manipulate my jaw back into place last night it sent Abby into hysterics - she must have thought her dad was trying to kill me or something because she wouldn't even look at him for a good 10 minutes without crying.

Abby and I thought about watching the Spartans last night, but we were too tired and fell asleep before halftime. According to SportsCenter we probably didn't miss a whole lot. They still had a good season, so Grandpa Harley and our other Spartan family and friends can at least be happy about how far they got. Unfortunately our Maize and Blue didn't do quite as well, but we are still very proud of their performance.

Today we have the big job of deciding what outfits Abby should take to Hastings to celebrate Easter and her first birthday, which is a week from tomorrow. She has grown up so fast! And she has so many cute outfits to choose from - this is going to be one tough decision. And now, back to playing dolls - Abby is at this moment trying to swaddle them to put them to sleep in the bouncy seat. She is going to be a wonderful babysitter someday.

Abby Loves Shopping

Abby was a busy shopper this weekend. She bought Easter candy, some yummy snacks for herself, new pillows for her second bed (also known as mom and dad's bed), and some cabinet locks. Oh... and she also tried to buy this house, but we are still waiting to hear if her offer was accepted. She tested all the closets while we were there and we had some help from a local friend to make sure this was not going to become a money pit. So, maybe in the next month or two Abby will be having her first room that she can decorate any way she wants. There are more pictures of the house on my flickr page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jd_jeno/.

Today Abby and I are going to enjoy playing inside and looking at the nice sun outside. It is deceptively beautiful. Lots of sun, but only 28 degrees. And we have to prepare our snacks to watch Michigan State play for the national championship today. Even though we are definitely Michigan fans all the time, we will cheer for the Spartans tonight. We may even let Abby wear her MSU bib.

The Girl Who Loved Her Dolls

These are from yesterday and too cute! We spent most of the day caring for 9 of Abby's favorite dolls. They even got to play with Abby's toys.

13 Days

Abby's birthday countdown is on :-)

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.

No Internet Worms Here

Apparently we were not victims of the internet worm, or maybe we were and we just don't know it yet. Either way, the computer is still working and Abby is still trying to play with it.

I slipped covered an old chair today - the quilted one from all the pictures. I'm not 100% happy with the result, but I am about 90% okay with how it looks, so we're just going to leave it at that. For an old $5 garage sale chair it's been through a lot. And considering I made the slip cover from scratch without a pattern, I think I'm doing pretty well. I just need to hem the bottom and then we will be ready to photograph it (with Abby in it of course).

So it is again April Fools Day. There was no white pony in my driveway this morning. I didn't even have the energy to try and trick any of you today. Abby already used up all the tricks in this house when she woke us up at 1:15 this morning and then continued to cry intermittently (both while awake and asleep) for the rest of the night. It was the first night in months that Maize did not wake me up, so of course Abby had to make sure I didn't get any uninterrupted sleep in.

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.