Sick Baby

Abby has a little bit of a fever and is feeling weird today. I'm not sure what she got into, but I'm sure our super busy day yesterday didn't help. First we had to go help make pasties for a church fundraiser, then we had to go do Angel Food with Steve at the tribe, took a quick nap, back to church for pasty making and then Abby and I came home at 7 pm. She crashed after that and didn't wake up and stay awake until 9 am this morning. She was up for a little bit around 11 pm and again at 6 am, but both times she just wanted a drink, a hug, and some tylenol. I love that she is an easy baby to deal with, even when she is sick.

We were going to go down and have a great time playing with the Randalls, our friends from dental school, but since Abby is sick we decided that we'd better lay low today. We will have to make our trip to Wal-Mart for milk, but other than that we are going to do a lot of nothing. We need a day to rebound after all that busyness yesterday!

Beach Baby

Abby and I went to the beach yesterday - she went swimming in the Upper Saint Mary's River at Sherman Park. She even went underwater 2 times and asked to do it. She is getting to be a much more confident swimmer. And since it is in the 80's again today we are heading back to the beach at dinner time to meet friends to swim and play.

Steve finished grouting our half bathroom's floor last night, so once we get it sealed (in 3 days) then we can get the new toilet and sink installed and be back to business in the functioning bathroom department. Just in time for Abby to move her potty seat into the new bathroom. We need to finish some touch up painting and such, but that part is easy compared to the floor demolition and laying new tile.

Abby keeps learning new words - yesterday she said uncle along with I'm sure many other things I hadn't heard before. And then the good old "no way" when Maize tried to steal her food. She is quite a character! She spent so long yesterday trying to catch the puppy that kept coming up on our porch. She sure loves dogs. Fortunately for her dad she was unable to catch that puppy.

Berry Blue

Abby helped us pick blueberries by sitting in a bunch of bushes and eating them as fast as she could pick them. She was very helpful!

Abby has been enjoying the fruits of Grandpa Scott's labor in a very literal way. She has been eating tons and tons of fresh Up North blueberries every day. She loves blueberries now, which is another thing she learned while camping. She would never eat them before, but now I think she could live off them.

Today is supposed to be a really wonderful day, so Abby and I are going to head out to the beach after her nap time. I'm hoping she continues to like the water and sand as much as she did while camping. If not, at least there is a nice playground at the park with the beach. I'm betting she'll have fun!

Abby learned two phrases in the last week that she has been saying a lot - "no way" and "go away". We've been working on teaching her when it is okay to say these new things. So far she knows that it is okay to say "go away" to the dog and "no way" when she doesn't want something. Other than that we don't want her using the new words too often. She also rediscovered nose picking - gross!!!

Potty Success

Abby successfully used the potty again today! Once she gets to two or three successful uses a day we will be wearing big girl underpants during the day :-)

Floating On A Boat

After she got over hating her life jacket, Abby decided that riding on a boat was pretty fun. She especially liked when Grandpa Scott showed her how to drive the boat and she spent a lot of time practicing driving while we were anchored for the fishermen. She also tried some fishing, but we didn't catch anything with her "Dora, Dora, Dora" pole - she sang Dora three times each time we got the pole out.
She had a lot of fun on the boat. She enjoyed checking the pail for the fish that were caught and practicing saying fish and counting to three, which was the most fish we ever had in the pail at once. Abby can count to three now, thanks to Grandma Jennie for helping her learn that. The only problem is that she can't say one yet, so someone else has to start the counting for her.

Along with the fishing and boating, Abby had a good time swimming in the Blind Sucker River, which we camped along. She jumped right in with her clothes on at least once. She is getting really confident with water. She even righted herself after she tumbled in while walking in knee deep water. She got totally soaked, but didn't even cry.

Today we are still working on cleaning up and unpacking. It is a load to do with a super helper. Hopefully by the end of the day we will have the laundry done.

Dirty Girl

Abby has a new found love of dirt. Two weeks ago I would have been telling you how much Abby hated being dirty and that just a little sand on her hands would send her into a fit. Now, she knows how to dig in it, how to fill a pail with it, and how to bury her dolls in it. She also thinks my pant leg is the best place to wipe her hands. She had a wonderful time camping. We enjoyed lots of snuggling in our tent at night, boat rides, watching geese, and especially getting snacks and treats from Grandma Mary, Grandpa Scott, Grandma Great Jennie, and Grandpa Great Steve. We had so much fun that Abby cried when we starting taking the tent down and deflated the air mattress.

We put the first part of our pictures on Flickr and will keep posting them there. We have lots more storage space there. It was a great week. We did a lot of nothing.

Sneak Peek

Feeding daddy camp food.

Abby's only day at the beach of Lake Superior

Ready or Not... Camping Here We Come!

Abby and I are headed out to the Blind Sucker Flooding to go camping with my family first thing tomorrow morning. I've got the car packed and ready to go. All we need to add is ourselves, our toothbrushes (and my contact case), and the bag with the fruit and other perishable food. It should be a lot of fun. So, you'll all have to wait until a week from Monday for updates and pictures of our camping adventure.

Wishing you all a safe and wonderful week!

Getting Big

This picture was blurry, but it was super cute, so enjoy. Abby used her potty again today and got her great reward - a peanut butter M&M. Those are awfully wonderful candies and she now knows right where they are stashed in the bathroom. She was a little surprised with herself when she started to go in the potty, but I think now that we've had the candy episode we will be moving in the right direction.

Yesterday we had another hilarious Abby event. She ate her cherrios with milk (she only eats cereal with milk on it) and then tried to drink the milk out of the bowl like her daddy does. Needless to say, she made a huge mess but hearing her say "yummy" when she was done drinking the milk was worth all the cleaning we had to do. She is sure ready to be a big girl, much faster than I am ready for it!

Shopper's Shoulder

Abby loves wearing her new tu-tu from Grandma Mary and Aunt Hannah. She even knows how to do spins now. She would wear the tu-tu over anything if we let her.
This is Abby's necklace that she picked out at Super Wal-Mart. She is showing me how to wear a bracelet, but using the necklace instead. She really loves jewelery - we are in trouble when she gets big enough to walk around the store by herself.

Abby and I went and picked up groceries along with some camping supplies today. Abby picked out her very first fishing pole. There was a Disney princess one and a Dora the Explorer one. Abby is usually a princess kind of girl, but she picked Dora. Then she rode in the cart saying "Dora, Dora, Dora" just like the theme song. She was very proud of her purchase - that is until I put the goldfish crackers into the cart. Then all she could think of was the goldfish crackers and how badly she wanted to eat them.

Abby said Grammy and Grandpa one time last night, but then wouldn't say them again. She has lots of words like that, I know she has them stored up in her head and just isn't using them because they don't go with anything she is thinking of that day. Even without those words that she doesn't use every day we still have a lot of jabbering going on around here.