Trip to the Zoo

First off, today Abigail is 17 months old!!!  Over the last couple of days she has really tried to walk more than crawl so we are excited about that!

Now to highlight our fun trip to the zoo on Monday with our friends Rachel, Julia, and Liliana.  It was a gorgeous day and all the animals were active.  This was the first trip to the zoo that Abigail was very aware of her surroundings and excited about seeing the animals.  She very much wanted to be a part of everything the big girls were doing:

 

 

 

I love this picture.  Abigail insisted on being right there watching the meerkats just like everybody else:

 

  

Emily struggled on Monday with sharing with her friends.  I had to keep reminding her to take turns with the map among other things.  By Monday night she was sweet as pie and has been since . . . I really struggle sometimes with the "ups and downs" in behavior . . . just one of the many humbling and learning experiences of being a parent.

I do love this picture though because Julia and Emily took turns telling us which exhibit we were going to next.  They followed the map pretty well:

 Abigail walked right up to the hole and tried to put her face in:

 

 

 A new baby panda bear was born at the zoo a few months ago so this was our first glimpse at him:

 Abigail also went into the petting zoo for the first time.  I didn't want to spend too much time in here with her because once she petted the goat I had to watch her like a hawk to make sure she didn't suck her thumb until I could wash her hands!!!!!

 

Abigail also enjoyed trying out all the toys in the park area . . . just like the big girls!

 She even wanted to "order food" at the window like Emily enjoys when we go to a playground:

Yummy Dinner!

We had a very busy Monday!  We met our friends Rachel, Julia, and Liliana at the zoo and had a good time.  Those pics will be up soon!

Tonight my friend Tara and her daughter Taylor came over for us to cook together and visit with each other.  We made some yummy goodness!!!  Tara made the dish on the right which is Greek Caponata which is a bunch of vegetables cooked with tomatoes and olive oil and garlic . . . in a word . . . yum.  I made the tilapia that had salt and pepper, lime juice and butter:

This will definitely be a recipe I make again.  I liked pouring the tomato juice over the fish.  Here we are about to dig in:

Taylor and Emily had a great time playing together and Abigail enjoyed any chance she got to sneak food from us while we cooked.

Allergy Season

We spent Saturday afternoon playing in the cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids, and now we all have runny noses and itchy eyes from all the trees blooming.  So we had fun but are now paying a small price . . .

So this post is pretty choppy and all over the place . . . kinda how my swimmy head feels right now . . . so here we go!

On Friday we met our friends Rachel, Julia, and Liliana for a play date.  We had not seen them in a couple of months so it was fun for the girls to play together:

 

 Earlier that morning here's what Abigail entertained herself with while I washed dishes:

 

I knew what she was doing but she had been so clingy that morning that I preferred her to play with the wipes so I could get the dishes cleaned  . . . like they say . . . sometimes you gotta pick your battles.

On Saturday this ball kept Abigail busy on Saturday for a little bit:

 

 but didn't stop her from crawling all over the cul-de-sac.  I even watched as she crawled around on the asphalt and then stopped to suck her thumb for a while . . . nice!

This weekend Emily also learned how to play Uno.  She plays it really well.  We had fun playing this with her on Friday night and Saturday:

 

And last but not least, April put these glasses on Abigail today after church. . . . we think she looks pretty cool!

We hope you had a good weekend enjoying the weather without suffering a drippy nose : )

Museum

Today we visited this museum a few miles north of us:

We went after lunch today and it was so nice because in most of the exhibits we were by ourselves : )

They had a kids room with lots of hands on activities.  We liked this room the best because Abigail could get down and walk/crawl around:

 

 

 Abigail liked this one enough to hang out for a while:

funny mirrors:

 

Emily decided to make herself comfortable in this exhibit.  It showed thunderstorms or rain above her so she decided to lay down in the floor and watch:

 

 It creeped Joe out to put his head inside where everyone else's head had been so his picture looks like his head is really small : )

 

 digging for fossils:

 

 This was Emily's favorite room . . . you got to dig for "jewels":

 We then went to the dinosaur exhibit and the gem exhibit:

 There was an intro movie that we didn't watch at the beginning because we wanted to make sure we had enough time to see everything.  So Emily reminded us about 10 times that we needed to go see this movie.  So we went at the end.  Abigail had fun crawling all over the room while Emily watched the movie and Joe sprawled out on the bench and took a nap . . . that's what we do when we get the theater to ourselves : )  Of course they had to explain their take on how the Earth was formed and how life was formed blah blah blah.  I kept telling Emily that we know God really formed the Earth.  I think she was more interested in the fact that we were watching a movie more than what they were really saying . . . so I think for now we are safe.

Princess Time

Saturday we finally got a family picture of the 4 of us!  And now that Abigail can stand on her own I was able to get her 1 year photos (at 16 months old!):

 And because I can never choose just 1 pose here are the other photos we bought from our session.  I have Emily's 4 year portraits as well and our family picture:

 I didn't buy this photo but thought this was funny.  Here's what Abigail thought of their idea to have the 2 girls lay down beside each other for a head to head shot:

 Emily has also enjoyed playing some more dress up.  I got her a new outfit at the consignment sale last week for $5!!!!

 

 

We also went to the Lydas on Saturday and hung out so Riley and Emily enjoyed playing dress up there too!

 

and enjoyed a little down time watching a movie:

 

In other news, Emily spent a few nights last week with her bedrails down to see how she did.  She did fine so we finally removed her bed rails!!!!!  Here she is ready for sleep!  It's been so nice because I can make her bed so easily now:

And speaking of sleep, Joe had to go to a sleep clinic on Saturday night.  Here he is all hooked up so they can check out his sleeping . . .

My only question is how are they supposed to really get a true reading of someone's sleep when the person has all this hooked up to their face!  He even had two microphones up his nose to monitor snoring and air flow . . . I don't get it!

Abigail Walking

I was finally able to get Abigail walking today.  She has taken a few steps each day since last Friday:

I also captured the girls playing in Emily's tent.  I took a few "down time" minutes today checking Facebook (a mama needs a few mindless moments to herself to keep her sanity) and when I got done, this is where I found Emily and Abigail:

 

They were having a great time together!

 

 Abigail also enjoys pretending like she's a big girl and wants to sit at the table and have us feed her pretend food.  She has seen Emily and me doing this from time to time so today she kept holding on to the chair and saying "up . . . up".  So I sat her down and gave her a plate of pretend food.  She sat there and played with the food and made smacking sounds for a good 15 minutes:

Dress Up

I think Abigail is now transitioning into 1 nap a day.  On Monday she slept in the morning but then wouldn't take an afternoon nap so yesterday I kept her up until 1:30 and she took a long afternoon nap.  She was MUCH MORE pleasant late yesterday afternoon . . .so we will see how this goes.

So during Abigail's afternoon nap, Emily enjoyed playing dress up.  Every half hour or so a new princess would join me.  First Cinderella came and asked for a snack while I finished up work:

 

Then a ballerina dressed her bear up like Tinkerbell:

 

This kept her quite busy.  By dinner time Aurora joined us at the kitchen table.

I really am going to miss these days when this phase of our life passes . . .