Away from Mom . . .

Two days a week Emily goes to an in home day care while I work. Today was the first day Abigail went with her. So I had all these plans when I picked them up today to nurse Abigail right away and hold her until bedtime thinking she was going to be all upset and clingy tonight. That girl was fine . . . she was bouncing happily in an exersaucer when I picked them up and was smiling and cooing all the way home. During her bath she giggled and laughed and played on the floor while I gave Emily a bath. I'm really glad she had a good day today because it makes working a whole lot easier . . . looks like I worried for nothing! Here she is right before bed time tonight:
In this picture it's like she is saying . . . I fooled you mom!

Updates

Last week I took several pictures to put on the blog . . . but never quite found the time to sit down and actually post them. Here are just a few things that happened last week. I have a basket downstairs of Abigail's toys and Emily enjoys bringing her things. Last week she went a little overboard . . . but Abigail loves Emily so much that she just watched her bring her all these toys with a big grin on her face:
However, Abigail is well aware of what her toys look like and LOVES to go in search of ANYTHING she isn't supposed to have. She kept trying to get the books off the bottom shelf of the book case and also tried to get Emily's soccer ball:
She also discovered the DVD player this week and kept trying to punch all the buttons and did manage to get some of my cookbooks off the other bookshelf. She isn't crawling yet but that hasn't slowed her down. She just rolls wherever she wants to go and can get there really quickly. Here she is rocking back and forth on her hands and knees so she should be crawling soon:
Several weeks ago our friend Carey help us find this princess book that her daughter enjoyed playing with. I tell you . . . this is the best $15 we've ever spent. Emily plays with this book ALL THE TIME. She carries it with her in the car and takes it to each room in the house. It entertains her so well:
And I FINALLY got this outfit done. It's been sitting on my sewing machine for over a month now. I finished the pants a long time ago but couldn't get motivated to finish the top. But here it is!
I made her the capri pants and top because she prefers to wear pants or shorts . . . but wouldn't you know it . . . the past couple of days she has wanted to wear a dress. I can't keep up with this girl!

Lately she wants to wear her "big shirts" because she has been big into getting herself dressed with no help. She can't get most shirts over her head so she really likes the big t-shirts like this one because she can put them on by herself:
Saturday morning she came to our room and announced, "I got dressed all by myself!" She had gotten up, gone to the bathroom, and then got her clothes out of the dresser and got completely dressed in her shorts and big t-shirt and then came to wake us up. Big girl!

Last Thursday Joe and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary! We had celebrated a little earlier by going to see a movie together while my parents were in town last weekend and could stay at home with the girls. The last movie we went to see together was last year for our anniversary : ) Thursday was just a regular work day . . . but Friday night we did enjoy grilling out beef kabobs . . . they were yummy!

New Toy

PawPaw and DeeDee worried about a gift they had given Emily for Christmas that didn't work. So because everything has to be even among their grandchildren they gave us some money for Emily to pick out a new toy : ) So we went to the toy store yesterday and Emily picked this out with her money:

She has changed their clothes about 50 times already.

My mom also showed me how to make these hooded towels. They are so easy! I wanted to have some big towels for the pool with their names on them so now we are set to go:
Abigail is almost ready to crawl. She keeps getting up on her hands and knees and rocking. I haven't caught her on camera yet but hopefully I can soon. She always does it when the camera isn't close by. She also cut her 2nd tooth yesterday!

Grillin'

My parents came to visit this weekend and got us a grill for our birthdays! Dad showed me the ropes:

Dee Dee and Emily played cards while we grilled:
We went to our local farmer's market Saturday morning and bought some yummy veggies to grill.
Everything tasted so good! Abigail even wanted to try them:
We had a great visit! Thanks for the grill. I'm going to try to grill some chicken tonight . . . yum!

8 Months Old!

Abigail is 8 months old today!

Her tooth continues to come in and I can see her left tooth next to it about to come in as well. She now eats cheerios and puffs and prefers that over baby food because she can pick it up herself and eat it. That entertains her now during supper which we all like : ) I've also started giving her a bottle in the late afternoon because that seems to keep her from being so fussy in the early evening. Today she held her bottle all by herself and ate while I changed her diaper. You can't get the bottle out of her hands so I just took it with me.

Today was a busy day. Emily finished her 2nd round of swim lessons today. She has cried at the last 3 classes because she didn't like getting her face wet or underwater. So we were on a mission today! We went to the pool this afternoon for her to practice. By the end of our pool time Emily was going underwater by herself. We are so proud!! Here is a video of her showing off her new skill:



We also tried a new float for Abigail. This girl just laid back and chilled out while we were there. She's a hoot:
We also had Emily's annual check up for her kidney reflux. They did an ultrasound and the doctor said that as long as she doesn't have any kidney infections (she hasn't in 2 and a half years) that we don't need to come back until next year. Yea!

Hanging out with Friends

This weekend we went to our friend's cabin in North Georgia. We all hung out together in college and had a fun reunion! We had us, the Clicks (my sister), the Stringfields, and the Newmans:
Tara made this cake for us:
Marc and Kristin's son Carson was Joe's buddy all weekend. He would push Joe into the playroom and say "Joe play . . . Joe play" or "Joe read". It was a hoot!
Emily never actually went down the slip and slide because she was afraid water would get in her eyes. So she just ran around the edges of it . . . crazy nut!Abigail loved all the extra attention that she got:
Today Emily got all the pillow cases out of the laundry basket and spread them out for all her friends to take naps and read books. This girl is obsessed with rest time. Too bad she never actually takes a nap : ) She got in her pillowcase like it was her sleeping bag:
Also, last week I took the girls to the pool by myself and survived! We walked to the pool and I had Abigail in the stroller. There is a small walkway where we went in between some bushes. When I got to the pool door I turned around and Abigail had a fist full of leaves from the bushes we just walked thru and had 4 of them in her mouth! I had to fish one out of the back of her throat. That girl grabs stuff so quickly!

Busy Girl

Abigail has become SO CURIOUS about everything and is constantly on the move. The past couple of weeks she has only slept about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon and when she's awake she is trying to figure out what she can get into. Today I left her on her blanket with lots of toys:
she stayed there for a little bit but then quickly rolled over to the trash can and knocked it over and started gnawing on it. Then I put her back on the blanket and she rolled over to my sewing table and got stuck . . . and got mad!

I needed to send out an email so I put her in the bouncy seat next to me and she did this instead:
So no more bouncy seats for Abigail. It is fun to see how curious she is . . . but this one . . . you have to keep a close eye on! I don't know what I'm going to do when she actually starts crawling!

Swimming

Well we finally got to spend more than 5 minutes in our pool! We went Saturday afternoon and had fun. The pink hat is Abigail : ) She was busy trying to chew on the side of the float:
It took about 30 minutes before Emily would venture out past the pool steps. We bought a float for Abigail in case I get up the nerve to go to the pool by myself with both girls. I wanted to have something I could put Abigail in and not have to have both hands on her just in case I needed a quick minute to help Emily. But this float is too big for her. Her head doesn't even go over the top of the float . . . and if Emily continues to only want to hang out at the steps I won't have much to worry about. We got to the pool about 5:00 and most families were heading out to go eat dinner so the pool was pretty empty . . . which was nice.

She is now taking her 2nd set of swimming lessons. Today was their first day in the big pool. Emily is in the very back of the photo sitting at the end of the pool:

The teacher had them jump off the side of the pool (she caught them) and then "swim" to the side of the pool and then they had to get themselves out of the pool. Emily cried just a little but did what the teacher asked her. Abigail and I hid out over in the corner so Emily wouldn't see us.

Friends Reunion

Emily had a sweet reunion today with her friend Julia. We met her and her mom and sister at a park today:
Abigail got to enjoy a view from the top with Rachel and Lilly:
Later today we went shopping and I put Abigail in the grocery cart for the first time. She fell over while I was trying to get Emily out of the car so I had to prop her up with my purse and diaper bag:
I had toys for her but she was too interested in my purse strap!

Abigail also cut her first tooth today! Her bottom left tooth is now officially on its way. My baby won't have that sweet gummy grin for much longer . . .

Emily has been taking naps on Tuesdays and Thursdays at her home day care she has been going to and last night the girl didn't go to sleep until 11:00 pm!!!! Help me . . . I've got to figure out what to do . . . she doesn't take naps at home because we can't get the girl to go to sleep . . . but I'm limited in my control of what happens in someone else's care.

Tags

Why do babies love tags so much? Abigail will do all she can to get to the tags on her blankets and on toys . . . too funny:
Also . . . do your babies have a poop outfit? You see this outfit right here:
the last 4 times Abigail has worn it she's only had it on for a couple of hours (sometimes less than 30 minutes) before having a major blow out and needing a new outfit . . . I mean . . . how does she know I'm putting that outfit on her?

Emily had one of these outfits too as a baby:
We also got our baby gates put up this afternoon for Abigail:
. . . on a totally different subject, I graduated from high school 20 years ago yesterday! I can't believe it. Here I am on graduation night with my Mom and Granny B:

Crazy Hair

Abigail's hair was driving me crazy yesterday . . . so I just stuck it in a ponytail to get it out of her eyes for a while:
It didn't seem to bother her and we all got a good laugh out of it. We decided to go for a walk after supper last night and I forgot her hair was up in that ponytail. We stopped and talked to our neighbor across the street and when I got home and looked at Abigail in the stroller I thought . . . oh my word . . . I sure do hope our neighbor doesn't think I normally do this to my poor baby! Oh well . . .

Monday is typically laundry day around here so at least once during the day in the middle of hauling laundry from the dryer to my bed for folding, Emily always climbs in and wants a ride. So yesterday I decided to give Abigail a ride too:
everything with Emily now is about "her turn". If Abigail gets ANYTHING she says, "in a few minutes it will be my turn". So when she saw Abigail with a toy in the laundry basket she had to get one too for their ride around the room : ) At least she is sharing . . . although she did ask me the other day if I could move Abigail off of her mat because she was taking up too much room and it was Emily's turn to play on it . . . uh . . . no . . . I had to convince her there was plenty of room for both of them.

We also moved the baby bed mattress down for Abigail last night. I think she likes it: