Christmas 2008

Celebrating an early Christmas in NC....





And Christmas day in sunny Florida...
My dad, Eileen, and Abbie

Aunt Jane, Uncle Dave, and Abbie

Playing with new presents

I am too tired to write much. We've been sick, thankfully Abbie has not had anything too bad, but I have gotten the brunt of it. Threw up on the plane - yep, thank goodness for barf bags - and I had a nasty eye infection while in FL. Other than that it was a great holiday! Let's hope this is the end of all this sick stuff. Abbie had a great Christmas and got tons of wonderful toys, books, and clothes. And a sweet little rocking chair from Uncle Brett. She is all over the place - probably yet another reason I am pooped - and I swear she is waving bye bye and even saying it. Tonight I put away her 0-6 month clothes and it nearly brought me to tears. She is just growing up so fast and I want to press pause for a little while.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! XOXO

7 Months

Well, here I am again. Another month has passed with Miss Abbie and she is doing great! The last couple days have been a little rough around here because we all have colds, but hey, it's winter, and sometimes it's inevitable. So what can I expect? Dr. Morgan still said this morning she was perfect and has already gained close to a pound just since Thanksgiving!

Here is her downward dog yoga pose- she is going to be walking before we know it!! She actually
walks or crawls or whatever you want to call it - around like this sometimes!

Opening an early gift from Gram

Our mantle decorated for Christmas, it looks pretty sad, I know - no tree this year, boohoo, but we will be travelling. Maybe next year we'll be at home Christmas morning!

We have been busy with Christmas happenings and are enjoying getting to take Abbie to do everything! Christmas just takes on a whole new meaning when you have a child! This weekend we went to my work party and she got to sit on Santa's lap. I was a little worried but she didn't flinch! Next weekend we are headed to Wes's parents then Sunday we are leaving for FL to be with my family. It has been a couple years since we've been down there so I am really looking forward to it, and of course my family is SO excited about seeing Abbie again!

So here is what she is up to at 7 months:

Crawling, almost perfectly!

Pulling herself up to a standing position and staying steady for a while.

Eating 3 cereal/formula/baby food meals a day in addition to her milk

Clapping and trying to wave bye-bye

Raises her arms to say "so big" when we play "How big is Abbie?"

LOVES TV remotes, cell phones, cups, and anything else she can't have!

Picks things up off the floor now, like a piece of dirt or something. She'll just sit there and play with it forever!

Loves Brandy and squeals with excitement every time she is around

Guess Who's Preggers???!!!

No, not me!! It's my dear friend Misty Gordon!! I am SO excited for Misty and Todd as they begin this new journey in their lives. It's crazy how once you know what it's like to be a parent it makes it so much more exciting when someone else is about to experience it! Misty will be a fabulous Mom. She is one of those people - Rachel said it recently - it's like second nature to her to take care of a child. Even though she isn't a mom yet, she just knows how to hold them, love on them, talk to them, take care of them. She's a natural. And Todd, oh my goodness, Todd is over the moon about our dear Abbie and is so good with her - I know he will make a wonderful, loving father! So congrats to Misty and Todd! We love you guys!!

Seriously???!!!

So, Abbie will be 7 months old next Saturday, and I am not believing how quickly she is changing with each day. This morning I was doing some cleaning and walked in her room to this...

Granted I expected this to happen considering she's been trying to pull herself up for a few weeks now, but this was the first time I'd actually seen her do it on her own. Oh, and I haven't even told you guys that she's been pretty much crawling since Thanksgiving too. I say pretty much because she has it down except for one leg drags a little bit. But last night she seemed to have fixed it and it looked like an actual crawl.

We took her to the Picture People yesterday at the mall and had her first portraits done. I don't know why I haven't done this until now, I guess because I take SO many pictures, and I feel like I get some good ones, and sometimes they can be cheesy at the studios. But since it's Christmas I thought it was time. They turned out great, but unfortunately I can't get them digitally. I took a picture of the picture so you guys could see sort of what one of them looks like. We had a couple different outfits, etc. She was kind of shy (VERY surprising to us!) at first, and sucked on her bottom lip for about the first 5 minutes, but then she finally started warming up to the photographer a little bit. For some reason her hat looks like it has snow on it but it's just the way the picture turned out.

Darn blogger

I am trying to post videos, not working, and then my wireless just went down in the middle of this post, and I hadn't saved it. So you are going to get some pictures and a brief overview of what I had written!

Abbie went to the doctor last week, and she is progressing very well. According to Dr. Morgan she is hitting 9 month milestonses, which I figured already, but here are the stats -

Weight 14 lbs 13 oz

Height 26 inches

The doctor also wants us to add an extra meal, so Abbie is now eating 3 meals a day, in addition to her milk. I swear her little belly is already getting bigger!

As for Thanksgiving, we had a great time with the Ledford's. Wes and I even got to go on TWO date nights, which was lots of fun. Of course I hated to leave the little pooh, but it was great to get some time alone.

And for all of you who have told me that Abbie looks like a cabbage patch doll, well, we actually took her to Cabbage Patch Land on Friday, and you can judge for yourself...

We tagged along with Rachel, her mom and sister, and her kids, Ava and Jack. Ava got to adopt a doll and named her Abbie. So sweet.

Ava and her doll, Abbie...

Time is flying!!

Happy 6 months, Abbie Grace!!!

Abbie is 6 months old today!! I know, I know, I say it every month it seems, but seriously, 6 months already?? She is such a wonderful baby girl and we love her more with each day that passes, even though it doesn't seem like we could! Here are some things she is up to these days:

- Sitting up all on her own, and very stable

- Goes from sitting up to the crawling position, on all fours

- Rocks on all fours

- Talking non-stop, baba, dada, lots of different sounds

- Eating fruit and oatmeal in the morning and veggies and oatmeal at night. She has pretty much loved everything I have given her except green beans. She likes bananas, apples, pears, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots....And I am still breastfeeding the rest of the time.

- Favorite toys are the stackable rings, the exersaucer, and her door jumper.
- Some nights she is sleeping through til about 6am, but most nights she goes til about 4 to wake up and eat.

- She loves people and being out in public. At malls, restaurants, parks, she is SO curious and just wants to be in the center of it all.

- She is staying with a lady named Pam during day while Wes and I work. She loves playing with the two other 2-year old boys she keeps.

- She is taking a short nap in the morning and a longer one in the afternoon.

AND, some of you have been asking to see house pics, so here are a few!

We still have a lot of decorating to do, but we are really loving this house. It has a large living space and we can have people over without feeling cramped. And we really like the location - we are both close to work and the interstate is just a few miles away.

Well, I must go. Time is precious these days with a little one, and I am sure she'll be crawling soon which will be a whole new challenge! Until next time!

Happy Halloween!!

Well, I must say Abbie's first halloween was pretty uneventful, but hey, she's only 5 1/2 months old! I basically dressed her in her costume and took a gazillion pictures, and then changed her out of it and that was that! But she looked so darn cute it was worth it! We didn't even have any trick or treaters, not a one. I mean, we don't live in a busy development, heck, not even any kind of development for that matter, but there are some kids so I thought we might have a few, but no. So now I get to eat all the yummy reese's cups I bought today. I always buy my favorite candy for halloween so I can eat whatever's left over. Great idea! So Abbie was Pooh this year, and seriously, my heart just melted when I put the costume on her. I just couldn't get over what a doll baby she is!!

I think she looks just like Wes in this picture below!!

not sure where she thinks she's going here!!

We're back online!!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post - I haven't been a slacker, we just didn't have internet at our new house! So anyways, I am going to just give you a bunch of pictures today of the last month or so. Some of you have seen these, but my blogger friends have not! Abbie is

5 1/2 months old now! She is sitting up all by herself, eating baby food plus oatmeal twice a day, going to a new sitter whom we love, and just being a sweet little girl as always! She really is so easy going, LOVES being around lots of people and other children, and still loves being outside!

First foods, family and friends!

Another week has passed - time seems to be flying by with Abbie and we are one week closer to being in our new house! The closing is officially on the 15th and we are moving in on the 16th!

We took Abbie for her 4 month well baby check this week, about 2 weeks late, but I was waiting on her records from her doctor in Utah to get here. The appointment went great, other than those horrible shots. Dr. Morgan (whom I love by the way!) said she was perfect, had a "smooth reach", and was very advanced for her age! How can you not love a doctor that says all that about your child??!! She weighed in at just under 13 1/2 lbs and was a little over 25" long. AND she said we could start Abbie on some first foods! Baby oatmeal w/ organic butter, and whatever other fruits and veggies we wanted to try. I for one am very excited about this because she's been waking up in the night again so I am hoping the extra food will help her start sleeping through. I will say though I was a little sad at first because I thought this meant breastfeeding would dwindle away, but I was happy to hear that the cereal and other stuff is just to supplement the milk. Phew. I am nowhere ready to give that up yet! So anyways, we started oatmeal mixed w/ breastmilk yesterday morning....

Then this morning we mixed the oatmeal w/bananas....

Look at her reaching for it!!

Yummy bananas!!

And tonight we tried sweet potatoes!!!

So as you can see, it was all a little messy, but she seemed to like everything and it was fun to watch her try it! It's just one more thing we get to experience with her and another sign she is growing up! She'll be 5 months old in 9 days. I really can't believe it!

Since we've been back we've also gotten to spend a lot of time with our families and some friends. Last weekend we were at Wes's parents, and last week we were able to get together with the Johnson family - Crystal, Danny, Owen and Ben - and today we got to meet Brooke and Anna Parris. I don't have any pictures of Owen and Ben, but I did take one today of Abbie, Brooke and Anna. And here are some others from last weekend...

Just a quick update...

Well, I'll try to make it quick. We have put an offer in on a house and are scheduled to close on or before the 15th of October. We are very excited but still have not sold our home in UT. The sort of good news is we can sell it to my company at any time, but the bad news is if we take their offer we are upside down on the home because we have a home equity on top of our first mortgage, and like every one else, we don't have the equity anymore. We'll make it work if we take that option, but if we sell it on our own we should at least break even, and possibly even make a little. But we only have a couple weeks to try to sell it because we don't want two mortgages. So that is what we are up against! We have had about 10 showings in the last 3 weeks, so at least we are seeing activity, and we have dropped the price a little bit to try to get aggressive. So we will just wait and see what happens!!

In Abbie news, she is doing fabulous! She is almost 4 and a half months, and I finally got her medical records from her other doctor so I will be taking her Tuesday for her four month shots and well baby visit. She is getting so strong, rolling all over the place, and trying her very best to sit up on her own. She giggles a lot, especially when her cousin Joshua plays with her! We have also been taking her on walks in the stroller in the evenings, which she really likes. Oh, and she is, at least for now, actually liking her car seat!! OK, I'll stop babbling now and post some pictures. I'll try to update you all again soon or if anything happens with the house situation!

4 Months!

Abbie turned 4 months old on Saturday! She is doing great and adjusting well to life in NC. She is sleeping through the night now without eating BUT now she gets stuck on her belly and wakes up, like A LOT. She can roll all the way over but doesn't always have enough room in her pack and play, which is her temporary bed until we get a house. We are ready to get our own place of course, and have found a great house that we just put an offer on today, but it's contingent upon the sale of our house in UT. In the meantime, we are still living with my cousin and it's working out well. Abbie has also not only found her feet, but they have found her mouth. It's pretty cute. Here are a few pictures over the last two weeks...