Abigail's First 5K!

Bright and early this morning, we headed downtown for the "Titans Back to Football 5K". We were already excited about football season (some of us more than others), but this was a very fun event to get things started. It was great running onto the field to end the race. When we first signed up, Rich and I were planning on running on our own. We were thrilled to find out that strollers were allowed, 

so Abigail could join us and have her first 5K!

 Here we are at the start line

We are headed up over the Cumberland River towards downtown - first big hill! 

Down the back stretch. I didn't mind taking the stroller on the downhill.

Running with Daddy

We got to run through the players field entrance tunnel.

Here we are headed out towards the finish line on the field! 

Here she is wandering around after the race.

After the race, Abigail enjoyed pushing the stroller. 

She likes that there is a spot on the stroller that she can push, just on her level. 

Rich loves the Titans! 

Family pic on the field after the race. 

My makeshift Jake Locker jersey. From the front it looks totally legit. 

I thought "1ST 5K" was fitting for Abigail's jersey. 

 On the field with Daddy

I think Rich will be teaching this little girl a lot about football. 

Cheerleaders cheered us on at the start and finish line, 

and we got to grab a quick pic with a few of them.

Since we had the stroller, we were given a special exit off the field, headed right towards the locker room! 

Headed out after a great race, Go Titans!

She Can Say Her Name!

She has got Abby down. At one point she says, "Abby-aaahhh",

then "Abby-gaaa", which is so close to Abigail!

Bye Bye Swing Set

All our hopes, dreams, and future fun times on this swing set,
dashed in the night by this large falling tree. 

Abigail assessed the damage. She stared for a long long time and then simply said . . . . . 

"uh oh".

Our Growing Girl

I was told today by her teachers that Abigail is really into exploring and becoming much more adventurous. During outdoor playtime at school, she went out of her comfort zone of the area around the swings, and ventured over to the big kid area with the slide. And, she ate salad?!?!? This was hard for me to believe since she has never eaten salad at home, but apparently if you cover it with honey mustard, anything goes.
Today she also said, "Yay!", and showed her teachers that she knows what a train/trolley says, "choo choo!" They have not been lucky enough to see hand motions yet, but I'm sure she'll show them soon. Choo choo comes from her visit to Memphis where she saw trolleys downtown. She also tried to jump in the kitchen today! This might have been encouraged by mommy who still had "Jump Your Jiggles Out" or some other nursery rhyme stuck in my head from the ride home. She also thought it was hilarious to hold her hands together and move them around in a circle in front of her like some 80s style dance, and when I copied this, she just lost it! We love you sweet girl!

Playground Fun

Here are a few pics from the playground close to our house. Abigail went down the slide for the first time!

Uh oh. . . Wrong way Abigail!

There we go.

Grandmama and Grandaddy loved catching Abigail at the end of the slide!

Grandparents Visit and Fun At the Pool

Grandmama and grandaddy made another trip to Nashville. We had a great weekend. Grandmama and grandaddy saw Abigail walk on her own for the first time. She's been walking for almost a month now, and they were dying to see it with their own eyes! We had fun swinging, blowing bubbles, reading, playing on the playground and swimming! Grandmama and grandaddy watched Abigail's 2nd swim lesson and took some really great pics from the sidelines, and splashed around afterwards!

Second swim lesson

Practicing with Daddy - holding onto the wall!

Swimming is fun!

Pausing for a snack. . . 

Fun with buckets!

A Trip To the Laundromat - Did We Go Back In Time?

Abigail and I spent a little time in the laundromat this morning. Her pink floor rug in her room has been long overdue for a wash, and I had been putting this off. My mom told me this morning that she bought a red rug for Abigail's room and has hinted that it might be time to change the color scheme/set up in Abigail's room. I'm actually still quite happy with the pink and green in Abigail's room, so I thought. . . OK, it's time to get this done. Desperate times call for desperate measures! (ha ha, j/k mom ;o)  )  I asked our dry-cleaners about the rug, and they said they would ship it to a specialist in Atlanta, and it would take two weeks. I wanted it done by this Friday when my parents come into town, so I thought, I'll do this myself. So, off we went to a what I knew was a do it yourself laundromat, but was in a nice part of town, right by Vanderbilt, so I thought it would be pretty nice. It turned out to be much more "old-school" that I had expected. This was such an interesting and odd experience, and felt like a blast into the past. I can't even remember when I was even in one of these places. When did I ever not have a washer or dryer? My freshman year in college? Even then I just used the wash area in the dorm down the hall. As I write the word "laundromat" I wonder if that is even the right word to use to describe one of these places where you go in and put quarters into machines and sit and wait while your clothes spin round and round. Do people even use quarters anymore? I really thought that there would be a credit card option, but sure enough, there was not! Fortunately I had cash. We changed my $5 bill into quarters, and Abigail watched as the change machine spit out 20. Then we used the vending type machine on the wall to pick which detergent we wanted, and dumped it into the top of the machine.Then the nice lady (who was previously sitting behind the counter smoking INSIDE) helped us stuff Abigail's pink floor rug into the commercial-sized washer. We dropped in quarter after quarter, and once we'd put in enough to add up to $4.75, it started up! All in all, this experience was not all that foreign, however I did feel like I had flashed back to the 80s or something. There was a sign that said "Free Wi-Fi" and the Olympics were on the flat screen TV mounted on the wall, but aside from those two things, you would have thought it was 1983. 

When I saw this Ms. Pac-Man game, I was convinced we had gone back in time. We dropped 25 cents in and played. My three lives went quickly. . . it's been quite a while since I've used a joystick!

A Few Uh-ohs

Abigail has been doing much better with eating IN GENERAL, however lately she throws her sippy cup, plate, or bowl (as you see here) overboard when she is finished with her meal. Although this was a pretty impressive launch into the kitchen, I tried to reinforce that this is still a "no-no". 

The bowl-throwing was after breakfast. After lunch, she threw a few pieces of grapes on the floor.

I didn't see them, stepped on one, slid a little, and I almost fell flat on the floor. 

Clearly food and utensil throwing has got to stop!

She got her hand stuck in her shape sorter. 

This game is more fun and works much better when shapes are put inside. 

Not little hands, Miss Abigail!

Pigtails!

Mommy is thrilled that Abigail now has enough hair to put in pigtails! 

Double bows! What could be better?

Big Scare!

The other day Abigail fell off the changing table.

Thankfully, right into my arms. I was standing right there by the changing table, bending over putting an extra change of clothes in her diaper bag. I leaned back up and about halfway between the top of the changing table and the floor, I caught my baby. Very scary!

From now on I'll be keeping at least one hand on Miss squirmy wormy at all times, and getting her off the changing table ASAP!

15 Month Well Exam

And very well she is! Other than a little rash on her bottom, she checked out just perfectly! She enjoyed reading books with daddy before the doctor came in. Doc was very impressed with how verbal she is!

Here are her stats:

Wt: 23lb 7oz (55th%ile)

Ht: 32 in (90th%ile)

HC: 18&3/4 (92nd%ile)

We had to get a pic by the funny looking mirror on our way out. This mirror was here when daddy came to this clinic when he was a little boy!

Rainy Day Fun!

Galoshes and books - necessities for a rainy day.

And a sun hat. . .We opted for a hat instead of the plastic box she was trying to put on her head.

Today she was REALLY into her "Where is Spot?" book. I think she read it about 8 times with Rich and me, then some on her own. She loves flipping up the flap on each page and saying "no" (he's not in there!)

Abigail had a blast splashing around on our front porch. 

Mommy got out the frog umbrella and played too!

She can walk!

She has taken a few steps. She still prefers to walk holding our hands or crawl. But this is progress! We are proud of our girl!

Zoo!

Here are a few pics from our first trip to the zoo!

14 months:

I guess I better go ahead and post this 14 month update since there seems to be something new each day to the point that my original list that I hadn't posted yet is beginning to be old news! Today Abigail learned to say "please", which comes out more like "pa pa peees", and she also took a few steps on her own! The monthly pics are becoming harder and harder to take. . . she is a busy busy little girl! Even with a book as a prop, it is very difficult to get this little girl to sit still! 

 At 14 months she can say:
mama
dada
mimi
papa
nana (Aunt Nan)
dojo (Uncle Joel/Uncle JoJo)
bubble
(book, bird, bunny, & ball are all "ba")
night night
uh oh
bye bye
bow
"no no"  (6/14/12)
diaper and apple are recent new words-Rich thinks her "diaper" sounds like "bubble". I think it sounds more like "piper".
She signs "more", "eat", & "all done"

One of her favorite phrases is "da-pa-tah", but we're not quite sure what this means.

She knows what horse, monkey, cat, and fish say. Well, for fish, she just makes a fishy face. She can also recognize and find various animals in her picture books. She knows her body parts too: hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arm, hands leg, foot, toes. She can point them out on her self, and on mommy and daddy. She also hums the tune to twinkle twinkle (or ABCs) to herself. She can do the motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and can do pat-a-cake.

I personally feel that since she is so verbal right now, that is the main reason that she is not quite walking yet. She is getting really good with her walker and can stop on a dime, turn, and practically run with the thing, but walk on her own? Nope. She's not ready. She has taken one or two steps on her own when she was holding something in each hand and wasn't thinking about it. Today at school, they said that she took a few steps on her own. I think any day now she's going to take off running!

Drinking hands free

Why use your hands when you can set your cup on the floor and bend over to drink out of it?

Memorial Day Poolside

Memorial Day was a lot of fun! It was Abigail's first time in the pool. We set up her little pool and water table in the back yard and let Abigail have at it! I was really pushing the pool, but she much preferred the water table. Although it was 80+ degrees at 10:00 in the morning, we didn't let the water in the pool warm up before putting her in, so I think the cold water was part of the reason Abigail kept wanting to get out of the pool and stand at the water table. Despite the cold water, she did plenty of exploring and learning. I think you can tell by these smiles that she had a great time!

scooping water. . . 

This girl takes her water play seriously.

He is the World's Greatest Dad!

Abigail couldn't resist a visit to her new play set. She loves going down the slide with daddy.

She also likes climbing up!

That evening we went to Mimi and Papa's house and had BBQ. Abigail has been working on eating more table food, but you wouldn't know it that night! She refused to have anything except veggie straws.

Here is Abigail with Aunt Nan and Uncle Joel, "NaNa" and "DoJo". She is getting so much better at saying MiMi, Papa, Aunt Nan and Uncle Joel! We practiced a lot this weekend. She did call Papa "PeePee" which Rich and I found quite hilarious. I wonder how she'll do saying "Grandmama and Grandaddy", that will surely be a mouthful!

Abigail and Mimi did have a special moment when she sat on Mimi's lap and played piano on Mimi's grand!