Art, Family and Yummy!

Here is a weekend update, short and sweet:

I think that I forgot to post about Abby getting her top left front tooth a week or so ago...ooops!!

Abby brought home her first work of art from school on Friday (which is proudly hanging on the fridge)...



Just incase you can't tell it is a footprint snowman. LOVE it!!!

I found out the hard was that Bra World by Oakland Mall no longer exists...Ugggghh!

I decide that i can't take much more of the winter-blahs without saying/doing something that I'll regret. So to the tanning bed I went :) Boy how I have missed you tanning bed! Keep you lectures to yourselves please--I know the risks and have decided that this is the only way to make it (and I am lecturing myself as I drive to and from said appointments).

We had a great visit with Uncle Tom and Aunt Amanda yesterday. Lots of playing, dancing and laughing.

Pics to come...

And we finished our weekend with a busy Sunday full of conducting singers at church, dinner with Nana and Papa, and Abby's first trip to Coldstone...







She refused to eat it until I gave her her own spoon and then she was unstoppable!! She was double-fisting with a Timbit, so cute!!

And that was it (well now I'm off to do some grocery shopping...)! Hope you had a great weekend!

T minus 6 Days

I'm back! We have been busy little beavers over here getting ready for the birthday extravaganza! I am SLOWLY coming to terms with the fact that in less than one week I will have a one year old! Hang in there with me, I'm sure I will get there at some point.



Today was a BIG day for Abby and Gramps....as Gramps has been waiting Abby's whole life for this "first"! Take a peek:

That's right, Abby had her first bite of pizza today and it was with Gramps! Let me give you a bit of background on the topic: For one of my baby showers, the guests were to give books instead of cards and seeing how Gramps loves pizza (and knows that it will soon be one of Abby's favorite things to eat with him) so much searched for the perfect book and found one about making pizza with Grampa...it was the cutest thing and just the perfect gift from Gramps. And with today's first, a new ritual was born! I'm sure Abby will have her fair share of pizza at Gramps and Grandma D's house :)

Abby also got to meet some of my family for the first time today: My Uncle Denny, Aunt Carol and cousin Sara, who is in town from California along with her son Shalin. The last time I saw Sara I was 41 week preggers...my how things have changed! It was great to spend some time with them--Thank you Sara for making time to see all of us!

T minus 16 Days

Silly little Abby always manages to amaze me and make me smile! Last week my Dad and sister spent the day watching Abby while I did some work around the house. Towards the end of the day Gramps and Abby had a little computer time. Gramps, being the resourceful fella that he is, found Plum-Vision--and Abby LOVED it! So much so, that it is now one of our "Favorites" (hey, a mom has to do what a mom has to do in order to get a call in or the dishwasher unloaded). One of the scenes is about the wind blowing and it shows kids blowing and the wind moving things. Much to my amazement, Abby started to blow too. I thought it was a fluke at first, but the last few days I have seen Abby blowing from time to time. Then today when I started Plum-Vision, Abby blew and blew and blew. It is funny because she gets so excited when the music starts, I just laugh! So, with this new skill I am working on getting her to blow on cue (which seems to be working just fine) so that maybe, just maybe, she will be able to blow out her own birthday candles. Wish me luck!

Skill building did not stop there today! At snack time Abby and I had some watermelon and cheese. For some of you, this may seem like a strange combo, but really it is not bad. Abby LOVES cheese and gets oh-so-excited when she see it. Funny! So, I figured that we should make "cheese" our next sign. Usually, it takes a week or so of heavy use for Abby to pick up a sign. But not today! Abby was signing "cheese" by the end of snack! Either it is her LOVE of cheese or her sheer brilliance...hummm. Well, we will see if "cheese" sticks around for lunch or snack tomorrow.

Later, we went to Nana and Papa's to wish them a happy homecoming. Mark and the girls were there too, Abby had fun playing with them two days in a row! Thank you Nana and Papa for the gifts, especially the Eskimo doll and duck whistle (Michael truly enjoyed the whistle!!). Here are just a few pictures of the fun had by all.

Julia mastered the Duck Whistle right away

Gracie took a little longer, but had it down too

Abby on there hand, not so much...

That's ok, there is always love from Nana!!

Let the Countdown Begin!

I can't believe that it is August already and that in just 17 days our little Abigail will be ONE!! It is still hard to wrap my head around the life of parenthood and the joy that a little brings!

Abby is fine tuning her "almost-walking" skills each day. She loves to walk holding on to something--fingers, a pant leg, a walking toy, the wall--and winds up standing without realizing it while playing with toys. I think all she needs to do is want to and she will be off!!

I love resale items and Abby does too. She was pushing this around the yard today:

Uncle Mark, Aunt Stacey and the girls (Julia and Gracie) came for a visit today. Actually, Mark helped us with a little party prep--he and Michael worked out in the yard today. Thanks Uncle Mark!

Play time with Abby

(Thanks to the Ratliff Family for the hand-me-downs--Everyone LOVES the walking toy!)

Kisses for my cousin!


Hey there little niece!




Hanging with Uncle Mark

Today was a good day and a great start to a WONDERFUL month!

Florida Fun

We took Abby for her first Florida Vacation in early March. We stayed with Michael's Uncle Chris and Aunt Ann (and Izzy too) in Clearwater. MJ and I went to see "Wicked" thanks to Abby (she got me tickets for Christmas and Uncle Chris and Aunt Ann baby sat, THANKS!!). We also got to spend some time with MJ's Grandma and her friend Violet. All in all it was a great trip and we hope to go back soon.

Abby and Great Grandma Gina

Violet, Gina and Abby

Aunt Ann, Izzy and Abby

Aunt Ann, Uncle Chris and Abby too

Kzoo

Abby and I headed out to K-zoo for a little visit with the Agnello family. It was great to see Emily, Steve and the girls. It is amazing just how fast they grow up! Here is a few shots of the girls together for the first time:

It was so cute to see just how excited the girls were to meet Abby for the first time. Emerson couldn't believe that she was really there...she kept saying over and over "Mommy, its Abigail!" "Mommy, Abigail's here!" for about the first half hour.

It was a pretty low-key weekend--lots of talking, a little shopping, a few naps (for mommy too) and lots of good memories. I think Emily got a few more pics. I will update this when I get them.

Thanks Emily, for another great visit to Kalamazoo!

Christmas Update

Well, the festivities have come to an end and I must say that we had a fabulous time! Our Christmas started at my Dad's house on the 23rd for a visit with Grandma D's son Dan.

Abby meeting Uncle Dan and Amber for the first time

Abby in some of her Christmas attire

Gramps got Abby a Santa suit--we enjoyed our early visit with little Santa!
Amber's dog, Bear, has a suit of his own! So fun!!

Next came our Christmas Eve visit at the Johnson's. We kept it simple and had yummy pizza and salad from Benito's. This was a great idea because we had more time to visit and less clean up...I think we are on to something here! Anyway, here are some pics of the evening:

Abby and Nana

Here is a picture of Chrissy and Mark's kids:

Julia, Gracie, Connor and Brendan

Abby was in the middle of a 2 hour nap, we got lucky!

Chrissy opening gifts for her newest addition, due in May.

They just found out on the 23rd that they are having a girl--finally!! CONGRATULATIONS Chrissy!!!

The news of a girl is starting to set in...so exciting!

Opening Abby's gifts:

With a little help from her cousins :)

We had hoped to make it to the 6:30 Christmas Eve Mass, but Abby slept too long. So, we decided to go to the 10:00 Mass thinking Abby would sleep through it since it would be way past her bed time. Boy, were we oh-so-wrong. I hung out in the hall for the last half...maybe next year we will make it through it!

Here is Abby with our friend Erin before Mass started.

Needless to say, Abby was super sleepy and we had a bit of a rough night. She has started to come down with another cold and was a bit "Snarphy" so I suctioned her nose after feeding her...BIG mistake, Huge. When I laid her down, boogers shifted and she started to gag. Next thing I know there is a stream of vomit spewing from her mouth, across her mattress and down the side of the crib and her cute Christmas sleepsack. Most of you realize how hard it is to change crib sheets so you completely understand having Abby sleep in our bed for the night.

Christmas morning was the best! Abby slept in til 10 which gave me time to shower and make breakfast before our festivities began. Since we have our own kids now we decided that we will be staying home on Christmas Day. I took full advantage of this and bought all of us new PJs to hang out in for the day, which was great. I think we are going to make this a little family tradition!

Abby and Daddy in their PJs in front of the big tree

Since we are staying home on Christmas Day, we decided that part of our new tradition would be inviting our parents over for a visit if they would like. Both our parents decided to take us up on the offer, though the Johnson's were not able to make it because MJ's dad wasn't feeling so well. My dad and Dara came over about 11:00 and much to our surprise, they were not alone:

Here are some of the pics from our visit with Santa:

Truly Priceless!!

Since my mom is in Virgina, we Skyped her and chatted for about an hour. I love the Internet and modern technology--it makes keeping our long distance family informed so easy and fun. Sometimes it is like Grandmama is right here with us!

Well, our Christmas fun continued on the 26th with a family visit to my Dad's house. Dara made a great turkey dinner with all the fix'ins as well as Christmas cookies and chocolate pie. Yummm!!

Here is Peanut in the reindeer outfit from Aunt Wendy. So cute!

Abby and Aunt Wendy:

Gramps got Abby a GIANT stuffed caterpillar who he named Sir Webster of Oxford (Webster because he has the alphabet running down his back). Webster is about 8 feet long, super fluffy and very colorful.

Abby loves Sir Webster already!

Our Family

(Sir Webster is in there too!!)

Santa was a very busy man this year! He managed to have time to show up to this Christmas celebrations as well! And yes, his reindeer were there too! I think my brother and sister enjoyed the visit as much as we did the day before!

One Last Grab at Santa's Beard:

All in all this was a PERFECT Christmas! It was great to be able to share Abby's first Christmas with our entire family so they could be part of the memory and joy that this special day brought (and I'm happy to share it with you as well). I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas tool!

OH Pics

What a fun weekend! I think that Abby and Kate are going to be good friends--Kate just loved to be close to Abby and got sad when she left the room. It was so cute! Here are a few pics of our bow-loving babies:

I love the big bow, thanks for lending it to us for the day! I'm going to have to order some big ones for myself.

Michael and I had a good time catching up with Ande and Ben. I can't believe that we haven't been down to see them since before MJ popped the question! Here is Abby and Ande:

Here is Kate with her fish finger puppet book. She sure did love to try to grab the fish as it swam. So cute!

A big Thanks to Ben and Ande for letting us stay at their place and for the chiming bells--Abby played with them all day today!!