First Birthday Tomorrow!!!

It's hard to believe that exactly one year ago today I was in labor just about to have a small, sweet baby girl. What a difference a year makes! Abby has gone from 8 pounds to over 22 (we will get the official weigh-in on Friday at her 1 year checkup). She can walk, is starting to talk, feeds herself, and is a wonderful friend to Maize and her dolls.

Abby took her birthday money from Great Grandma Jennie & Great Grandpa Steve and her gift card from our friend Erin and went to Wal-Mart this morning. She picked out a dog groomer little people set and we also found some new Dr. Suess books, since they are her favorites. And she also got new t-shirts and socks since she has outgrown her 18 month sized onesies. What a huge girl! She also got a Crayola color wonder set, so she should be able to color without wrecking any of our things. We can't wait to test them out and show off Abby's art skills.

It's a great day in the U.P. today - almost 60 degrees! So nice that we will probably take a little walk when Steve gets home. Maybe we'll even have a little birthday dinner downtown for Abby tonight since our tomorrow is going to be busy. But we have to make sure that we have enough time to make the birthday cupcakes for Abby to enjoy tomorrow. We are planning to share the extras with her Dad's fellow employees. For now I'd better get back to playing - Abby is climbing her chairs trying to get to the coke can on the end table, could be dangerous!

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.