Little Musician

This is music to our ears! We are noticing a left-handed preference with the xylophone. . .

10 Months Old

Abigail was having a snack and sitting quietly for a few seconds, so we grabbed a couple of shots on the red couch. Here are a few things she is up to these days: -crawling all over the place-we used to keep her isolated in the front room on her play mat, simply redirecting her if she tried to crawl away, but now, she's allowed pretty much all over the house, and she loves it! -one of her favorite things is crawling with something in each hand, i.e. puzzle pieces or blocks -pulling up and cruising around her crib, not so much on furniture -she likes to point at things -she can point to mommy or daddy's nose -claps her hands -will blow kisses (sort of) -will wave bye bye (sort of) -will "dance" to her musical toys -will turn around in a circle while sitting down -she LOVES puffs, and is now shoveling them into her mouth. It seems like just a week or so ago she had no clue what to do with them. We are having some issues with textured foods, she is not so into this.

Here she is on her usual monthly picture spot.

Then somebody wanted to look out the window and see what was going on.

While Mom Is Away...

Abigail and Daddy will play! And play, and play, and play,

and not clean up! This is what I found when I got home after my afternoon at the salon.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Abigail had a really great first Valentine's Day. She slept in until 8:00, then got dressed in a cute outfit from Great Aunt Debbie, who does a fantastic job of sending fun holiday surprises in the mail. She had a fun day at school and finished up her valentine for mom and dad. It was precious - heart stickers and a little few marker marks on the front, then a nice poem and a "handprint heart" on the inside. We love her so much and hope she feels loved every day!

We should note that Grandmama made her a handmade watercolor card. And on Wednesday, we celebrated with Mimi and Aunt Nan and Aunt Nan gave Abigail her first purse!

Puzzling

Why crawl on hands and knees when you can hold puzzle pieces? Abigail likes to take things with her when she crawls. I'm sure she'll soon learn that pulling up is not quite as easy with toys in your hands.

Sharing a Snack with Daddy

Rich brought home some "Baby Mum Mums" for Abigail to chew on. This is some sort of puffed white rice wafer. . . This is what was brought home when I asked Rich to get some "teething biscuits". Abigail seemed to like it and wanted to share!

Rich spent the day with Abigail today while mommy went to work. Today she started pointing at things. She also crawled up to Daddy's legs and pulled up to standing, holding onto Daddy's pants legs. She crawled up to me too when I got home!

9 Months Old

At 9 Months old, time is really starting to fly. People always tell me, "it goes so fast". Honestly, up until this point, I have loved the pace. It has seemed just right, not too fast, until now! Something about 9 months, she has just taken off. Abigail is truly changing DAILY. She actually started THREE new things in one day recently. (1)clapping her hands, (2)learned how to turn around in a circle with her legs, and (3)started trying to go up on hands and feet all in one day! Whoa baby, slow down! Crawling all over town, I hope she doesn't start walking just yet. . .


These monthly pictures are getting harder and harder to take!


Big girl pulling up!

I have figured out how to take my alphabet mat apart. . .


Here's one of my tricks: turning in a circle!

At 9 months Abigail is. . . :
-up on all fours, crawling with ease
-pulling up to standing (loves to do this in her bed)
-goes over to her toy box and picks out what she wants to play with
-clapping hands together
-likes to "dance", moves up and down with music
-crawling up stairs (small foam stairs at school - we live in a one story)
-eating fingers foods, well, just puffs so far, and she has no clue what to do with them other than collect them in her hand
-painting with a paintbrush at school
-had her first snow!

8 Months Old

Abigail is such a big girl now! Here are some of the things Abigail is up to at 8 months:
-She can say mama, dada, bla bla, ya ya, la la, na na, ga, and doh
-She sat in her first restaurant high chair!
-She went on a plane ride to Dallas, then took a rental car to San Antonio, had a wonderful first Christmas!
-has had 23 different foods
-loves to army crawl on her tummy, can get up on hands and knees and make a few crawl moves
-painted with a paintbrush at school
-drank water from a sippy cup
-trying to start pulling up!
-working on waving hi, sometimes with both hands at the same time
-stands up in bed-first day was January 1st, 2012, started the year off right!
-had first ride in jogging stroller - (Mommy and Daddy are starting to train for the Country Music 1/2 Marathon in April)
-personality is kicking in - hello whiny cry! She will let us know when she doesn't like something, or especially if we are taking too long to get her food ready

7 months old

Hard to believe baby girl is 7 months old already! A lot has happened this month. Abigail is now riding in her stroller facing forward (not in the car seat), she had her first ride in the shopping cart at Babies R Us and LOVED it! She continues to work on her "pincer grasp" and will have a quiet moment every now and then where she will ever so carefully pick at the tags on her toys.

Happy 1st Halloween!

On the Friday before Halloween, Abigail attended a Fall Festival at her daycare. Our little ladybug was a big hit! Each room was set up with a different activity. The first room was Abigail's room, where you picked out a little pumpkin from the "pumpkin patch", then went to the next room to decorate it. In one room there was a cake walk. Abigail didn't necessarily participate in the cake walk, but she watched from a distance with daddy. Although you can't hear it in the video below, there is music in the background, and Daddy is helping Abigail kick her legs to the music!







Watching the cake walk


In this video, Abigail tried her "legs" at bouncing on the trampoline!


On actual Halloween night, Abigail trick-or-treated at her Mimi and Papa's house, then went to Aunt Nan's and Uncle Joel's!

Pumpkin Patch!

We had a wonderful time at Gentry Farms for Abigail's first trip to a pumpkin patch to celebrate fall. Grandmama and Grandaddy were in town, so they got to enjoy the trip too. Grandad found the wheel barrow and had the great idea of snapping a few pics with Abby inside! The weather was perfect, clear sky, lots of sunshine.
Happy First Fall!

6 Months Old

Baby girl is 6 months old! She has learned to sit up and is eating solid food. She is very curious and into everything as you'll see in the video below. She destroyed her 6 months sign! She has worked her way up to eight foods now: rice cereal, banana, sweet potato, squash, peas, carrots, oatmeal cereal, & peaches. She is learning and growing so much every day! She is a very happy baby, squeals and laughs and loves to blow bubbles/make raspberries, and kick her legs. We are having a little more trouble than usual with nap time. . . . my thought is that she just doesn't want to miss anything! One of our favorite things to do now is jump in the bounceroo.

First Food!

Only the best food, for the best child. First food is rice cereal, organic, whole grain, no genetically engineered ingredients, no pesticides, no harmful chemicals, (from Whole Foods of course). . . . I'm sure I probably won't be this picky as we go forward, but I wanted her first food to be the best thing out there!






She looks pretty messy here, but overall, I think she did quite well! We didn't have too much of a mess to clean up. She was really eager to eat and opened her mouth and took good bites!


She was a little bit grabby. . . reaching out for the spoon. Rich thinks she got her "grabbiness" from me.

Overall, success! Next, squash or sweet potatoes. We'll add a little color to the mix and see how that goes. . .

Five Months Old

Abigail is 5 months old! She is now up to 13lbs 12oz at her highest this month. We are still supplementing some and weighing her daily with our home scale and trying to pack on the l-bs. Surely she'll start to pick up more weight since we started solid food today, October 1st!

At 5 months Abby has hit some big milestones:
-Rolling over! She's flipped over a time or two prior to this month, but she has really got it down now. She does not like to be on her back. If you lay her on her back, she immediately rolls over onto her tummy. She also likes to roll over in bed when you put her on her back, so after we flip her over a few times, sometimes she ends up sleeping on her tummy.

-First solid food! Well, it was actually quite liquid-y rice cereal. She ate very well and seemed to love it. She cried when we were done, seemed to want more!

-First flight. We went to Denver for a friend's baby shower. She was really good on the plane, she cried some, but overall was a very good girl. So glad Abby got to meet many of mom's Trinity friends.

-Abby was away from mommy for the first time. Mom went to LA for a friend's wedding party. She had a great weekend with Dad!

-First cold? Nothing officially diagnosed, but I have had a cold for about two weeks straight, and I think I may have passed some on to her.

-She likes to bang her hands on things, if you hold your hand in front of her, she'll give you five!

-She's learned how to blow raspberries! (sticking out her tongue and making funny noises). She also makes other funny noises with her mouth, smacks her lips together.

-She sits up well in her Bumbo seat.

-She still really likes her rattle, (and continues to shake it quite vigorously at times!) eating her toes, and likes watching the cat (who chooses not to come too close).

Four Months Old

Who says you can only be patriotic one day out of the year? We decided to pull out the 4th of July duds for her "4th" month pics. Abigail is truly a blessing. We are having so much fun with her. At 4 months she is full of smiles, babbles, and coos. She talks quite loudly at times, and even had a talk with the doctor at her 4 month check up! She likes to sit up with help, and seems to like the Bumbo chair. She is enjoying tummy time. When on her tummy, she picks her head up high and reaches out for toys that are within reach. Everything goes in her mouth, and we thought for a while that she was starting to teethe, but not quite yet. She started daycare, just one day a week for now (working up to three), and all is going well so far. The staff says she likes her swing, calling this her "throne", finding that she is not too happy doing much else; but while in the swing, she smiles and talks. They say this is normal for a child to have a "safe place", and that she is just taking some time to get to know everyone. Mom hates to leave her, but I feel she is in good hands. Luckily, I'm only working part time, so I still have some days at home with my girl!

Triple Playdate

On August 1st, Abigail invited her two friends, Caroline and Emmaline, over for a play date. Their moms, Martha and Beki, are friends of mine from church, and it just so happened we all became pregnant right around the same time. It was great having two close buddies to go through the pregnancy with! Our little girls have a special bond from early on and have had several get togethers already! Abigail, Caroline, and Emmaline were baptized together on August 14th, 2011. We wanted to have one last get together with all three before the big day!

Moms and Babies

By the time we set up the camera for a timed shot and got babies in laps, we weren't able to get all three girls to look at the camera at the same time, but this will do! Emmaline's got the idea, Caroline and Abigail apparently have something to say to one another.

Caroline (14 weeks), Abigail (16 weeks), and Emmaline (10 weeks). This is pretty much it! Once these girls get older, I'm sure they will have a lot of fun actually playing with each another. But look how excited Caroline is. . . she's cheering!

The girls were very good and amused themselves while we ate lunch.

Comparisons

Look at the differences: 3 days and 3 months

One person in these pictures is really changing!

Abigail Update

At three months, Abby likes to:
-grab toys and put them in her mouth
-pass toys from hand to hand
-shake a rattle
-bat at toys with her hands or her feet
-put as many fingers in her mouth as possible, and she has recently been spotted putting her foot in her mouth!
-smile, squeal, and most recently LAUGH!!! We are most excited about this!
-she finally likes reading (thank goodness); she will actually sit in your lap & look at the pages where before she had no interest.
-sit for short periods of time (with someone holding her body) and hold her head up
-AND, for the grand finale. . . she said mama! Well. . . actually she said the sounds "mmmmm" and "ma". . . "ma". . . I'd like to think it was in reference to me!



Who doesn't love warm laundry right out of the dryer?
We had to give Abby the warm laundry experience.

She's at it again!

Abigail is not only getting better at tummy time, but she is rolling over! She rolled over at 11 weeks, but we think this might have been a fluke. She rolled once, then stopped. She hasn't been able to repeatedly roll over until now (this was 15 weeks). It's still very sporadic, and rolling isn't her favorite thing to do, but as you can see here, she's got it down! I love how she looks behind her to make sure the coast is clear before she comes crashing over!

Tummy Time

Abigail is getting better and better at tummy time. She used to really hate being on her tummy. Now, she tolerates it quite well, and might even enjoy it just a little bit. . . at first. . .

Beach Bound?

Well, we have no plans to go to the beach, but Abigial is ready! She had to try on her swimsuit and sunglasses!

No more photos, please!

First Story time

On Wednesday, July 20th, Abby went to her first story time at her MiMi's library! Abby's MiMi, (Joy), is head of the Children's department at her library and each Wednesday morning, she does story time. This was a very exciting time for Mimi. She was very proud to show off her grand daughter to her co-workers. This Wednesday the theme was "the ocean". Abby was a very good girl, she sat and listened to MiMi tell several stories about walking on the beach and swimming with dolphins. Then she made her first craft - a paper plate clam! Well, I might have helped a little bit. . .