Two New Favorite Things

I have two new things I could no longer live without. The first is my boppy pregnancy wedge pillow (http://shopboppy.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=17&zenid=798c8798fc3a3f9508743805eeaf8624). I'd been trying to alleviate my daily backaches by using a standard pillow, but this magic little pillow was the perfect shape to help support my back from the ache caused by the growing midsection.

The other great new purchase I made this week was a food steamer. Abby and I picked out the Rival model (http://www.rivalproducts.com/product.aspx?pid=2420) at our local Wal-Mart and have been enjoying yummy veggies and meats from it. It has two steaming trays, so we can fix multiple vegetables at the same time without doing the microwave juggle. And the food tasted so much better at dinner last night after a quick trip through the steamer.

Abby's new favorite thing is play-doh. She's played with it at playgroup before, but over the weekend she and Aunt Emily really got into it. Abby especially enjoys cutting and pretting things into the play-doh. We left the play-doh from the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Hodges' house, but we replaced it with our own play-doh 4 pack. On the way home Abby counted the play-doh and then finished counting. I had no idea she knew how to count, so I was quite pleasantly surprised to hear "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, two" from the backseat. We've since had to throw one of her new play-doh tubs away (I didn't think yogurt smoothie and play-doh mix would sit very well), but we are still enjoying lots of creative playing.

Getting Back On Schedule

We had a great time visiting family last week, but now it is time for us to get back on schedule. We have a lot to do this week!

We headed down to visit family last Wednesday night and enjoyed seeing Grandmas and Grandpas and Great Grandparents too. Abby had a lot of fun playing with Aunt Hannah and Aunt Emily. She especially enjoying having play-doh time with Emily on Saturday while everyone was busy. Emily made lots of good things and then Abby cut them up. We were cracking up. And Abby also had fun teasing Uncle Dan and talking to him on the pretend phone. She had so much fun doing it that she kept it up for a good part of the car ride home.

I think the highlight of Abby's weekend may have been visiting Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jim's puppies. Abby and I tried really hard to talk her dad into letting us keep one, but he is a stickler for the one dog rule. She had so much fun with the puppies that she talked about it into her sleep that night.

Abby also came home with some neat stuff, like a double stroller and a rocking chair. We test rode the stroller around our house this morning and it worked well. And we also brought home Abby's new favorite shirt - a monkey sweater. We have a lot of stuff to put away and so I'd better get back to it.

Our Baby - Week 17

How your baby's growing:

Your baby's skeleton is changing from soft cartilage to bone, and the umbilical cord — her lifeline to the placenta — is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and she's around 5 inches long from head to bottom. She can move her joints, and her sweat glands are starting to develop.

(from: http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-17-weeks_1106.bc)

Next Wednesday is our next OB appointment. I get to take the lovely glucose tolerance test and we will be setting a date for our 20 week ultrasound. We've had several people we know recently who have been unable to determine gender from that ultrasound, so we are praying that Baby O. cooperates and Abby can settle on a name for her new baby. Last night's choice was Boy Sister.

In Case You Don't Facebook

This is Abby's singing debut. She needs some work on the rest of the lyrics, but it's not bad for a first timer.

New Phases

Our car dialogue after playgroup.

Abby: "Shoes off"
Me: "No Abby, please keep your shoes on big girl."
Abby: "Why?"
Me: "Because we are going to Subway and you need shoes to go inside" - in my head (oh man... I thought I had at least a year before we started this...)

Moon Boots

Hmm... Abby wonders. Who is cooler? Abby in her spandex and moon boots or Napoleon Dynamite? He does have sweet pockets on the side of his pants, but she thinks the stripes are a much bigger fashion statement.

Abby enjoyed a visit from Grandpa Roy, who was in town to train the staff at the local Department of Agriculture office. We got to have dinner last night with Grandpa and then visit afterward and had lunch together today too. And, tomorrow night Abby will be headed off to Hastings to do lots and lots of visiting with family and friends.

Today was Abby's playgroup day. We had a great time playing with the other kids and Abby enjoyed the lesson on making healthy fruit salad from our local MSU extension office friend Janet. Abby even got to help make the fruit salad by cutting up peaches (don't worry, it was a plastic knife and she is very handy). I am so glad she has a safe, fun place to play with other kids and learn things each week. And, it is nice for me to interact with other moms. Just this morning one of them was asking me how I handled staying at home when I had so much education and had an "important" job before having kids. It's nice to be able to share with moms like that how much Steve and I value the fact that we can give Abby and Baby O. a great start by letting them have a stay at home mom. Not that me working would have been a bad thing, its just too much fun to give up in exchange for extra income. And I get to witness all the firsts. Like the singing of twinkle, twinkle little star. We are up to "twinkle star how wonder are up diamond twinkle star how wonder are." Pretty soon she will have the whole song down.

Daylight Savings Time = BAD!

We are not enjoying daylight savings time. I have been getting less and less sleep lately from the pregnancy. So when Saturday night rolled around we tried to keep Abby up an extra hour hoping that would help her make the "fall back" switch. Wrong... Instead I was up an extra hour and still up at her normal time (8 a.m, which was now 7 a.m., on a Sunday morning when I don't need to be up until 9 a.m.). We are still fighting the fight. She was super sleepy and ready for bed at 8 last night, rather than her normal 9 or 10 p.m. bedtime and she woke me up at 4 a.m. this morning.

I really need a nice long nap, and this string of icky weather we've been having has been just what I need to help with napping. Now I just need to get rid of the rest of the things I need to complete, so that I can actually take advantage of the nice napping weather.

Abby has been singing to us lately. She is really funny. Today she was singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It went about like this... Twinkle star wonder are. She is pretty much adorable. She also loves to sing Jesus Loves Me to me, mostly in the car. She insists that the radio be off before she sings. And, if she doesn't like the song on the radio, she sticks her fingers into her ears and yells out "change, change" until I switch songs. It is hilarious!

Trick or Treat

Alright... I know this looks like she is crying, but I swear she was not. She did not like getting the candy from costumed people, but she didn't mind asking older people for a treat. Abby's friend Maddie went with us and was way into trick or treating - she even walked straight into the first house.
Mom and the ballerina trick or treating - she had cute little tights and a shirt on, but at 40-ish degrees you get to wear extra pants and a coat to trick or treat.
Abby and Dad trick or treating. Abby only took a 30 minute nap at 5 pm (we had to wake her up at 5:30 because people were here and ready to trick or treat). She did pretty goo for being tired.
Ballerina before the party. She was way cute :-)

Pumpkin Fun

Of course, pumpkin carving wasn't nearly as fun for Abby as it was for Steve and I, but we are pretty sure she still had a good time. Abby and I made her pumpkin a Blue's Clues pumpkin, so she was excited about having a dog in her pumpkin, especially when we lit it up with the candles. We also made a traditional-ish jack o'lantern. Of course, it couldn't be totally normal so we gave it a Michigan "M" for one eye and Steve gave it teeth for ears (an incisor and a molar, in case you are wondering). He didn't have that pumpkin done in time for us to take it's picture, so we only have Blue to show you today.

We left Abby with her babysitter Kitty on Tuesday and she has been talking non-stop about it. She must have had a great time because she keeps telling me about Kitty reading her books and keeps asking if Kitty is coming. I'm so glad we have someone to watch her that we all like a lot.
Here is Abby's pumpkin lit up. Carving it was quite a trick. I have a lot of knives and drills to wash as a result.

Abby exploring the insides of the pumpkin (after I had done all the yucky work).

Pumpkin Carving

We are carving up Abby's pumpkin tonight and she and I already gutted it so that it would be ready to go when Steve gets home. Now we just have to figure out how Abby is going to carve it. She said it had to be a girl pumpkin, so it will need to be something cute. I'm sure we'll have lots of cute pictures tomorrow - that is if Abby will actually do cute smiles instead of her cheesy ones.

We had a first last night - Abby's first time wetting through the diaper and soaking her sheets and mattress. I'm glad we made it over 18 months before it happened, but it was still no fun to clean up. We just put the last load of blankets into the dryer, so hopefully by bedtime we can get the bed back together. It was not the way I wanted to start a busy morning, but hey... sometime you just can't make it all night.