Aquarium

We were so glad that Michelle and her clan were able to come to Atlanta on Sunday afternoon so we could have a smaller version of our planned weekend together. On Monday we went to the aquarium together.
We got there close to lunch time so we ate outside the aquarium before going in. As you can see from the picture Abigail had to have her lunch right along with everyone else:

When Abigail started getting tired I tried walking around with her in this carrier I am borrowing:
She tried to sleep but never did . . . too much going on. So I put her back in the stroller and we also took turns carrying her. She crashed the second we got in the car to go home.
I asked Michelle how it would feel if Abigail was her 4th baby and she said. . . "not too good."
This was the first time Emily decided to touch the sting rays and starfish:
She also still enjoyed running around with her cousins more than actually being at the aquarium:

Emily swimming

Last week I feel like we finally made some headway on Emily's swimming lessons. We usually go so she can cry the whole time she is there . . . I was getting frustrated because the place I take her wants each child to learn to float on their back for 30 seconds before moving on to other skills . . .like actually swimming! So on Monday I had a mission to speak to the supervisor about Emily's lessons. But I was pleasantly surprised because he said that some kids stall on certain skills and sometimes it's best to go ahead and move them up to the next class anyway. So he observed her and said she was fine to go to the next class starting in August . . . finally! And wouldn't you know it . . . our neighbor gave her some floaties and she started swimming around the pool by herself and floating on her back by herself because of the security of the floaties:
So at Wednesday's lesson she floated on her back with no help from the teacher! I should have gotten her some floaties a long time ago : )

I also had to run to the mall last week to get some makeup so I stopped by the play area in the mall to let Emily play a while:
Abigail enjoyed watching all the kids running around. It's hard to believe by this time next year she'll be running around with them.

I finally got around to removing my cook books from the bottom level of the bookshelf because Abigail keeps going over there and pulling them all off the shelf. I put her books there instead and she enjoyed playing with them just as much:
There is a song that Emily loves to listen to. It's about marching around the alphabet and picking one up when the whistle blows. So we reenacted the song and Emily LOVED it:
By late Friday afternoon though this girl sent us for a loop. She had a fever on Wed night and then no fever on Thursday. On Friday she woke up fine but by late afternoon her fever was creeping back up again. The doctor said I could bring her in late Friday but I had forgotten that Joe took my car to work on it, so had no car seats to get her there. So of course her fever spiked at over 104 on Friday night AFTER urgent care closed : ) So I took her to the ER. I'm glad I did because she had strep throat and it was so nice to get her started on antibiotics right then instead of waiting another 12 hours for urgent care to open on Saturday morning. We opted for the 1 time shot of antibiotics vs 10 day dosage. The shot really hurt though. Kids never get sick in the middle of the week or in the middle of the day do they? She spent Saturday just like this. She wouldn't walk because her leg hurt from the shot so we had to carry her to the couch and that's where she stayed the whole day. By Saturday night we made her get up and walk to the bathroom and she cried the whole way . . . bless her:
My sister and her family were supposed to come spend the weekend with us doing lots of fun stuff. Emily was so sad when they couldn't come and we were pretty bummed out too. But by Sunday she was feeling much better so Michelle and fam made it a short trip and came on Sunday afternoon. She still didn't want to walk on her leg but when I told her they were on their way she jumped off the couch and started running around. Her leg was miraculously healed : ) On Monday we went to the aquarium and Emily loved playing with her cousins! Those pics will be posted soon.

Friends

Emily's friend Julia came over to play today. Her mom and sister were supposed to come too but Lilly was sick. We made some jello from some jello molds my friend sent us . . . but it didn't turn out too well so the girls just ate it from their bowls:
They also enjoyed playing outside and playing C@ndyL@nd:
This evening Emily, Abigail, and I met our neighbors at the pool and had fun swimming. They had an extra pair of arm floaties and Emily did so well with them! So it will be much easier going to the pool with both girls. The only hard part is potty breaks . . . luckily my neighbor could help with Abigail while I helped Emily.

9 Months Old

Abigail is 9 months old today!

Wow . . . I can't believe that Abigail has lived outside of me as long as she lived inside me. My baby is 3 months away from her 1st Birthday! She has two bottom teeth and LOVES all finger foods. We have bypassed baby food and moved on. She has eaten peas, bananas, cheerios, carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, and even chicken! She scoots around wherever she wants to go and Emily loves watching out for her. She weighs 17 and 1/2 pounds and is 27 inches long. She is a very busy and happy baby! She has cut down on her daytime naps for sure. She sleeps about 1 to 1.5 hours in the morning and about 45 minutes in the afternoon. At night she sleeps from 7 to about 6:15 or 6:30 so she appears to be our early riser since no one else in this house likes to be up that early : )

Here is our fun photo shoot this morning:
Last night when I picked the girls up we started singing "Patty cake" and Abigail started clapping her hands together. We were so excited that it registered with her what we were saying. So of course I got it on video : ) Enjoy. I personally think this is the sweetest video ever made:

Having fun . . .

This Saturday we went to Drew's 3rd birthday party. They had a blow up pool and the kids had fun playing in it:
Abigail had fun watching everyone:
That afternoon at home Emily was playing with the party favor she got and wrote an M on the board. So far she had only written an E. So I told her to write an "i" and an "l" which I figured she could do. Then I told her to write a "y" wondering if she could and she did! Then I had her put the E at the front and voila . . . Emily wrote her name for the first time!!!!
She has since written her name lots of times on her chalkboard and on paper and on the white board at church. Way to go!

We also spent the afternoon enjoying the water guns we got as party favors (Drew's party favors have been a hit around here):
I put Abigail on a blanket and she played with toys and watched the action. I broke down and put ponytails in her hair because she wouldn't keep a bow in and I was tired of seeing her hair all down in her eyes:
I also gave Abigail her cup to try to practice drinking water. She mainly just plays with the cup but you have to start somewhere:

That evening Emily enjoyed some ice cream. Can you tell it was chocolate:
She also continues to enjoy putting her babies to sleep for a nap. Her room is covered in little beds with babies covered up with different types of made up blankets. This morning she took one of her puzzle pieces from a puzzle and put a small bear on top with some covers. I love this girl!!
Yesterday she told me that her "kids" were sleeping . . . not her babies. I asked her if she was the mom and she said, "No I'm the grandma". So I asked her where their mom was and she said "she was at W@l-Mart and so was the dad and that the new baby was still at the hospital which was why she was there to help with the kids." I said, "so the baby is by herself at the hospital?" She said, "No Julia is going there to visit her" What an imagination! I wish I could bottle it. I will definitely miss these days when they are gone . . .

And the award goes to . . .

Well I actually did it! Today at a blueberry farm I won the Mother of the Year Award! We met Emily's friend Julia and her mom and sister at a local blueberry patch this morning. We picked the HOTTEST day of the year to go and it didn't take long for all of us to be drenched in sweat. We picked berries for about 30 minutes and Emily said she was ready to go. As we were walking back to pay for the berries we had picked, Emily suddenly started crying and telling me she wanted me to carry her. Well I just thought she was having one of her typical 3 year old drama meltdowns. I told her she was a big girl and needed to walk for me because I had Abigail on my back on the baby carrier Rachel was letting me use. She started crying really hard at this point and told me her stomach hurt. So I picked her up and in the middle of my speech to her about "drying it up or we were going straight home instead of eating lunch with Julia", she threw up all over me and her. Wow . . . what a great mom I am! To pay me back for not showing compassion to my sick child when she needed me, she did manage to get a fair amount of puke on me. Nice . . .

We went to the bathroom and cleaned up as best we could. I even clogged their sink a little when I washed all the puke off her arms. At first I thought she had eaten a bad blueberry but realized that it was because she was so hot! Abigail was even getting limp on me from sweating so much. Goodness! Luckily I had a change of clothes in the car for Emily.

Rachel stood in line to pay for our blueberries and paid a whopping 47 cents for both our buckets : ) Needless to say we aren't great blueberry pickers. Here is our stash that we made it home with:
I have a new respect for all those great people out there who pick our fruit for us that I buy at the store!

Here are Emily and Julia on their way to pick berries:
After Emily cooled off she was back to her normal happy self and asked if we were still going to the mall to eat and ride the merry go round . . . so we did. We ate lunch and got on the merry go round, but as I was trying to get her up on the horse to ride she changed her mind and decided it was too high up. So me, Abigail, and Emily sat on the bench on the merry go round . . . and just went round and round : ) When Julia got off the ride she said, "Emily I rode the elephant" and Emily said, "We rode on the bench!" with a big happy grin on her face like it was the best thing ever!

New Skills

Abigail has been trying several new skills this past week. I've all but given up on feeding her baby food because if she can't pick it up and feed it to herself she's not interested! I tried to feed her pears the other night and she constantly grabbed the spoon from me. So she now eats cut up bananas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and peas . . . and of course mounds of cheerios. Here she is after dinner one night. It makes for a big ol' mess but at least I don't have to sit there and spoon feed her! As you can see this night was so crazy that I didn't even take time to get a bib. Dinner time can be so CRAZY some nights:
I also gave her a cup of water to see what she would do. She actually got some water out. The couple of times she did it surprised her a little. She spent most of the time banging the cup on her tray:
The girl isn't crawling yet . . . but she has learned to scoot. I caught her this morning trying to make it to Emily's room:
Here is a video of her in action:


And last but not least I captured my sweet girls playing together in the hallway the other day. They were playing together so sweetly. I love little moments like this:

Happy 4th!

Yesterday we celebrated the 4th a day early in the Marietta square. We met our friends Jason and April and Riley. April's sister Misty and her two children, Jordyn and Landon, were also with them. We had fun eating lunch together and walking around the square and letting the kids play:

Emily went down this big slide but then the next ride she got on she got to the top and then didn't want to come down. I think because it was closed in and there were lots of kids around. Jordyn tried to help her down but she wasn't budging. So I told the worker that my daughter wouldn't come down and that I needed to go in there and get her. He looked to be about 16 or 17 years old and said, "well I'm really not supposed to let you do that." And I was like . . . "well . . . she's not coming down so what do you want me to do?" Bless him . . . I did get to go in there and get her. All the kids were surrounding her and trying to make her feel better and one little boy was trying to help her down. They were all so sweet. Crazy girl!On the way home Emily fell asleep and then Abigail took a really late afternoon nap at home, so we decided to give it a go and head to the fireworks. I gave the girls a bath and then we headed up there right at sunset, so we only hung out about 5 minutes before the fireworks started. After a few minutes though Emily decided the fireworks were too loud and wanted to go home! She sat in the car and watched the rest thru the window. Abigail enjoyed just being there. Emily decided next year we needed to be further away so it won't be so loud : )

While we were waiting to head to the fireworks Emily wrote her first E on Joe's puzzle!
So this proud mama had to get a picture of it. I don't know if you can see it but look closely. It's on the bottom row towards the left:
Today on the way home from church Emily said she didn't feel good and when we got home she asked if she could sleep in her bed. So I checked her temp and it was 103 : ( Kids sure do get sick fast . . . anyway, she went upstairs and slept for 2 1/2 hours. While her fever was down this afternoon she played some but then by this evening was back to feeling yucky again. I hope it's just a little bug that goes away soon and that Abigail stays fever free!

Happy 4th everyone!