Thanksgiving weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend! My family came to town so it was nice for us not to have to travel with a 6 week old!

My sister and I ended up using the same snowman applique on Christmas outfits so they all wore them to church this morning:
The kids had a ton of fun playing outside all weekend. We were so thankful for the beautiful weather. They all played so well together. Emily asked if they could just stay here. She is going to be so bored tomorrow when it's back to just me, Emily, and Abigail during the day.

PawPaw joined in on the fun when they all kept making special plates of food for everyone:
We also worked on "paci boot camp" this weekend while my sister was here. Abigail won't take a pacifier and so at times she is so fussy because she doesn't know how to soothe herself. We are still hoping she takes one . . . but who knows. We tricked her a couple of times this weekend but no real luck so far.
Abigail did get a lot of time being held. She did enjoy that:
We joked with my brother Robert that Abigail enjoyed staring at him so much because he reminder her of Jesus with his hair and beard. We kept saying, "hey I remember seeing you a few months back":

And since my brother in law Nathan always enjoys a good nap he took his chance with Abigail while she snoozed on his shoulder:
We actually celebrated Thanksgiving Friday night since my sister had to work on Thursday and Joe had to work on Friday and Saturday:

On Saturday, Nathan installed our kitchen sink for us. Yea! All our projects that we wanted done initially on the house are now done:


Here is our beautiful new sink!!!!! Thanks Nathan!!!
Abigail was 6 weeks old on Friday and she also FINALLY lost her umbilical cord. I didn't think it would ever come off. So she enjoyed her first real bath this weekend. She has been really fussy in the evenings the last week or so. We are trying to figure out if that is just what she wants to do at night or if something is wrong . . . you sure do a lot of guessing when you have a newborn in the house. My sister brought a baby sling that fits me better so she stayed in it for a while this weekend since she wants to be held alot at night.We had a GREAT time! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving also.

Playing with her sister

This morning I put Abigail in the bouncy seat to do a load of laundry. Emily told me she would talk to her while I did that so "Abigail won't start cwying". Here is what I found when I returned:
Emily said she was feeding her a snack and she was drinking her coffee. Abigail didn't seem to mind. I think she liked the attention. Since the girl won't take a pacifier she has to be soothed some way . . . and what soothes you more than a nice cup of coffee and an orange in the morning : )

Hanging out

Here is a sweet picture of Abigail and Joe hanging out on Sunday night:
This is a much calmer picture than Saturday night. Abigail was in rare form Saturday night and cried for several hours before she finally went to sleep after midnight. I don't know what was wrong but she let us all know that something wasn't right : ) This is rare for her though so I am thankful. The girl won't take a pacifier though . . . I really hope that is temporary.

Aunt Leslie sent a package for Abigail and sent her this soft sweet sleeper. Abigail enjoyed wearing it this weekend . . . she really did . . . she told me : ) And last night in between Abigail snoozing I finished this t-shirt dress for Emily. These are easy to make and one of the first outfits I made for Emily last year. It's amazing to me how different she looks in just a year's time:
Since we don't have school this week, our new neighbor invited us over this morning for Emily to play with her 2 children. It was nice for Emily to have some social interaction. She is looking forward to my family coming here for Thanksgiving!

Well I'm off to finish making Christmas outfits . . . . hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sisters

Here are the matching shirts I embroidered with Emily and Abigail's name on them. Here we are at out "photo shoot" this morning in Emily's room:
Abigail definitely knows that Emily is her sister. Whenever Emily talks she turns her head towards her and watches her. It's sweet for me to watch:

Here's what Abigail thought of how long the photos were taking:She carried this attitude with her when we went to lunch. I figured since I got them all dressed up we would go get a bite to eat at our favorite Chicken place. Emily was ready to get out of the house for a little bit so we headed that way. But Abigail decided to be fussy this time so our stay was short. The manager at the restaurant WAS SO NICE! She took our order and then brought the food to us and got Emily all settled with her food. Then when she saw us leaving she came back over, helped me get packed up, walked us to the car and stayed there with me until both girls were in their car seats. I love this restaurant! Very family friendly.

I had to take both Emily and Abigail to the doctor on Monday. Emily was running a fever and since it was time for Abigail's 1 month appointment the doctor saw both of them at the same time . . . thankfully. I thought Emily might have an ear infection but she doesn't. Just the end of one cold and the start of another which brought on a fever.

Abigail weighs 9 lbs and 8 oz and is 22 inches long. Emily is 27 pounds and I think they said 37 inches??? The visit was a bit of a blur since Abigail was ready to eat and screaming her head off the entire time. The doctor had to yell over her and had to repeat himself several times because I couldn't hear him. This girl has got some lungs on her!!! I'm thankful though that she is healthy.

Then I had to go for my checkup appointment yesterday. I had to take both girls with me since Emily couldn't go to school with a fever. Emily was an old pro at my doctor's visits so she did fine. Abigail decided she wasn't about to sit in the car seat for me so the nurse took her and carried her around to see other patients while I met with the doctor. I tell you . . . you don't realize how many sweet angels there are in the world to help a mother out . . . but I have come across some sweet ones!

So we've had lots of outings this week that have been humbling for me. I'm glad to just jump in with both feet and go for it : ) I still laugh at myself because I don't think I went anywhere with Emily until she was 5 weeks old and Abigail has been all over the place by a month old.

One Month Old!

Abigail is One Month Old Today!

We also went to church for the first time as a family yesterday and Emily and Abigail wore the first matching outfits that I made them : ) I hope they are o.k. with me playing dress up with them . . . I've got to put my sewing machine to good use!

Christmas has also come a little early this year. I wanted a cutting board table for Christmas and this one was on sale so my parents got it for me early. We also bought the matching sewing desk since they were discontinuing the one that I wanted. Doing embroidery and sewing has been so much easier for me now that it's all right here together. At the old house I had to cut out and set up the embroidery at the kitchen table and then sew and embroider in our bedroom. I spent a lot of time walking back and forth between rooms and could never leave projects laying out.:

These are the burp cloths I did for Abigail this week:

I also have some other embroidery projects that I'm working on. It's been fun. I still have to learn though that I might get 30 minutes here or an hour there . . . so projects come a little at a time. It's a learning curve for me since I like to start something and finish it on my time table : )

Zoo

We went to the zoo today. It was such a beautiful day and we had a great time together. We haven't been to the zoo in about 3 months with moving and having a baby so it was good to go back for a visit.

This is what Abigail did the majority of the time we were there:

We went in the afternoon this time and the animals were more active. And I guess because it's not summer time the crowds were pretty light.


This was the first time that we have seen the rhino walking around:



Abigail can now say she has ridden a train:
I have to share another Abigail poop story : ) I was feeding Abigail by the playground at the zoo, and I was sitting on a grassy platform with a concrete area that you could sit on, but it wasn't a flat surface. I went to go burp her and realized my hand was holding a soggy bottom. Joe and Emily were at the playground so I couldn't get Joe to help me . . . so I wrestled the diaper bag out from under the stroller with one hand, and then laid the changing pad on this ledge that wasn't flat and tried to lay Abigail on it. I had to get her clothes off of her since they were soggy with poop . . . bless her heart . . . if anyone was watching me they were either gasping that I didn't drop my child or were getting a good chuckle watching me try to balance her on top of the ledge. At one point Abigail had no clothes on or diaper while I tried to clean her up with one hand and using the other hand to keep her from falling. At one point her flailing hands swiped some pine straw and landed in her hair : ) Anyway, Joe got there as I was trying to wrestle some clothes back on her and came to the rescue.