Conversations from Yesterday

Yesterday was one of those days where Abra kept saying goofy things. Of course I can't remember half of them but here are a couple:

I am in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast and Abra is sitting at her little table with a small bowl of cottage cheese. Neiv is up and about and apparently keeps trying to get at Abra's food. From the other room I hear Abra say "Neiv, I'm gonna schmack you!" And then she giggles. I came around the corner and said, "Wait, what did you say?" To which she repeats, "I'm gonna schmack you Neiv! hahaha."

Ok this is not something we say to our kids. Promise. But it IS something Mommy and Daddy say playfully to each other (in a non-sexual, purely domestic-violence type of way) all the time. Guess we should come up with a new phrase.

The other conversation went like this:

Me: It's Neiv's birthday next week! That is going to be so fun.
Abra: There will be balloons there?
Me: Sure. We'll get some balloons.
Abra: I want balloons at MY birthday.
Me: What color balloons do you want?
Abra: Pink.....green.....blue......red.....yellow.....white.......pause...... I want ALOT of balloons at my birthday.
Me: We'll see about that.
Abra: I want PRESENTS at my birthday too!
Me: What kind of presents?
Abra: Pink ones.
Me: What do you want inside the pink presents?
*Pause while she is thinking*
Abra: A Pillow!
Me: Really? You want a pillow?
Abra: Uh-huh. For my bed.
Me: Like a fluffy pillow?
Abra: A pink one. And I want some clothes too. Some blue pants and a pink shirt.
Me: Wow. A pillow and an outfit. This is not what I expected. :-)

Thanksgiving trip to the zoo

We headed to the zoo the day after Thanksgiving to see what Abra thought about the animals. The last trip to the zoo she was about 18 months and could only see so much. She seemed to really enjoy the zoo this time around and even ran toward the carousel. She was pretty bummed that they didn't have horses on the carousel but settled for the zebra after a little persuasion. I sure enjoyed going to the zoo and can't wait to take Neiv when she is a bit older. Thanks Pops!












We got some good face time with one hungry giraffe and one hungry elephant. Abra ALMOST fed the giraffe but chickened out at the last minute. Can't blame her considering the size of his tongue.

So much personality.

Daddy dropped by the house this morning to pick something up and this is how he discovered Abra. I am not phased by this since I see it every day but he thought it was hysterical to see her dressed her in tutu and dancing shoes immersed in a pile of books. She actually only briefly looked up for us to take a picture. She is quite the little reader - and the little dancer. I guess she had been dancing hard to her "Jesus music" for long enough that she needed a nice long reading break.
Then, as I was making dinner tonight, she sat at the table and played with her magnadoodle. She announced that she had drawn a picture of herself so I came over to see it. I was amazed that her picture actually somewhat looked like a person! I have never explained to her how to draw people but she has watched me do it a few times. What a smart kid. I am realizing more every day how much she is capable of at this age. It is exciting to watch her grow.

Priceless

So Shelley and her boys came to visit for part of Saturday/Sunday this weekend. They had some awesome "cuzzin time" and we are glad to see more of them in the future.

When Shelley and I were trying to get the babies down for their naps, we left Abra and Ethan playing unsupervised for a few minutes. When we emerged, we found that Ethan had decided to try Abra's gold "ballerina" shoes on. He thought he was looking pretty good. We could not stop laughing.

At least he is holding a toy truck right?

These two had fun together as well although someone was always
after the other's paci. Neiv likes having someone else around to bully
once in awhile.

The Chicken and the Ballerina

So this year we just headed over to our friends house here in Atlanta for a fun gathering of little costumed people and pizza, candy, etc. for everyone. It was lots of fun and it took Abra 2 hrs to fall asleep that night despite our limiting her candy intake to just a few pieces.

Neiv might be the cutest Chicken yet.

Abra and Juliet were really into the M&Ms. Not into making them into shapes so much.

Juliet showing Abra her princess dress.

This suit fit Abra like a glove at 8 months but was really big on Neiv at 10 months. :-)

Keeping me busy...

Our little princess ballerina. I was trying to get her comfortable with the idea of wearing the tutu to Juliet's house on Saturday but it turned into a ballet-dancing obsession. Now she wants to wear the tutu all the time and watch youtube videos of 3 yr old ballerinas. I have to admit though, she has some pretty good moves when she decides to bust out on her own.


Today we weaned the ballerina from the paci. We met Mary, Lucy, and baby Elle for lunch and gave the pacis to Elle as a gift (since only "babies" need pacis and not "big girls"). It went really well and Abra seemed to be completely on board. She is skipping her nap in there right now but at least not crying hysterically. Hopefully she will be so tired tonight that she will fall asleep without too much trouble. I am glad to have those pacis out of the house though. Down to just one baby with pacis.


Look at this cutie pie. She likes to prop her foot up while eating. Her favorite new food is broccoli and she has decided that she dislikes most other food (except bread of course). Always the tyrant. Darn cute though.

Aunt Beth and Uncle Greg come to visit.

Aunt Beth captured Neiv's 2 massive teeth coming through on top.









Neiv tolerating Abra.















Abra can't get enough of Uncle Greg.

























Neiv not sure about the hayride.

Pumpkin Patch round 2

It was much colder this round.

As good as it gets for a picture of the two of them.

We spent a little cash this time - $2 for mini pumpkins and $3 for boiled peanuts. Tried to convince Abra to get some face paint but she would have none of it. :-)

Neiv was pretty sick this day believe it or not. The only time she smiled was
when we put her down next to the pumpkins.

Pumpkin Patch fun

We took advantage of one of the two pretty days Georgia has had since we arrived to visit the local pumpkin patch. The girls loved it and it was free! Next time we'll buy a couple little punkins to do our part. :-)

Daddy and his punkins.
Took some coaxing to get Abra on the hay ride but she loved it in the end.

Not hard to get a good picture of this cutie. Can't you just smell the cider here?

Abra loved "sittin on the punkins lika chair." I thought Neiv's face was funny as well (click on the picture to see closer).

Just wouldn't smile for (or look at) the camera.

Farmer Abra.

Finally "playing" together

This N That

Sorry about the lack of blog-age. Alan has been hogging the computer. And I have been lazy. So there.

There have been many many funny things said recently by the older runt. She is getting pretty sophisticated with her sentences and it seems as though her speech has gone from a word here or there to a complete thought in the matter of weeks. It is a fun age (despite the constant whining and tantrum-throwing).

A couple weeks ago Alan and I were chatting playfully in the kitchen while the girls were at the table eating their dinner or whatnot. We didn't really think Abra was paying any attention to us until she piped up with "Mommy spanked Daddy." I told her to keep that one to herself. :-)

She is always pointing out how one thing resembles something totally different - like with the half-eaten sandwich being a boat or a dinosaur. Today we had our 6th successful poop in the potty. As we were going through the motions of dumping poo from Abra's potty to the "big" potty she said "Look Mommy- caterpillar poo-poo." We've been reading alot of the hungry caterpillar lately.

Now look closely at this picture and see if you can guess what she was painting a picture of:


Yep, I thought it was pretty obvious too. It's a picture of Jesus sliding down a slide.

You can't make this stuff up folks. :-)

Runt 2 is calling my name. Check back later for more.

Neiv obviously has a bad sense of humor....

If she thinks Daddy is that funny.

Happy Birthday Pops!!

Potty accomplishments!

I have to update since I have had an exciting day (except for Neiv and that awful diaper rash which led to 1.5 hrs of crying tonight - I guess you could consider that exciting though). Abra has really turned a corner with the potty. A friend told me to make her be naked since the theory is that they won't want to pee into thin air - unlike having panties on and knowing the pee will be soaked up. So this morning she got up and I said "you wet all your panties so we are going to have to be nakey" (Abra-ism). The funny thing was that she felt so uncomfortable naked that she would ONLY sit on the potty. For hours. So lots of pee went into the potty with plenty of praise and treats. She hardly even ate she was so nervous about being up from the potty. So at lunchtime she finally started sitting at the table to eat and getting down every few minutes to sit on the potty. This ended with her peeing which was the first breakthrough since she got off the potty then sat back down willingly when she felt that she needed to. Awhile later I coaxed her into joining me on the kitchen floor about 15 feet away from the potty and building blocks. We played for about 10 minutes when suddenly, very calmly, she got up, said she had to pee, and went and sat on the potty - and peed within 30 seconds! I was shocked. After that she got up and down with a bit more confidence and went back to the potty to pee 5 or 6 times. Poop did end up in her pull-up after nap but I think that will come soon enough. I am just soooo glad there is no more hysterical crying and she seems really excited about her new ability.

Potty-training diaries and other musings

Bathing beauty. Neiv has been very sweet (for Neiv) the last few days while I have been pulling my hair out with Abra. Probably because I just end up holding her more (translation: no laundry, cleaning, cooking etc. is getting done). She is sleeping really well at night and even took a 2 hr nap the other day. She is a more cuddly baby believe it or not, compared to Abra. She will give us real hugs/kisses and her little face just lights up when we get her up from a nap or come rescue her from the strangers in the nursery.

I was so proud of myself for taking step #1 in making Neiv's baby food instead of paying $1 a pop for the gerber sets. I steamed up a bag of frozen peas then pureed them down to a nice consistency and put them in little freezer friendly containers for future use. I then fed some to Neiv who thought they were gross but I figured she'd get used to them - she has to - I have alot of pureed peas now. Unfortunately a couple hours after I gave her the peas she started having an upset tummy which turned into the worst diaper rash I have ever seen. This led to lots of screaming last night and this morning when I tried to change her or put cream on it.

So much for my nice little frozen pea containers. Of course she had no reaction to the gerber peas. Foiled again.





Abra is having a hard time with the potty. It took one entire day (friday) just to get her to not cry when she sat on it. But she can hold her pee for long periods until she is not on the potty so I know she is ready - it is just a matter of it all coming together. We are making baby steps in the right direction. This is day 4 of staying in the kitchen all day not to mention that Alan had to work all weekend. If I make it through this with my sanity, it will not be on my own strength, that is for sure. The weather forecast for the next 3 days is 104, 102, and 101. I guess staying in the AC isn't all that bad.

The picture was a cute moment yesterday though. I made her a grilled cheese for dinner and she took little bites out of it in a sloping direction from one side then held it up and said "look Mommy, a dinosaur!!" So I told her to hold the dinosaur up for me to take a picture. It is so funny to see where their little imagination takes them.

Gettin' cuter all the time

She is doing so well on solids that we just gave her a drumstick the other day.




















Look at those teeth!
















She is super smiley when happy. When she's not happy, it's scary. A woman with extreme moods. Fun times.
















Making a mess with some carrots.














This is Neiv with our friend Josh. I thought it was a good
picture to show how roly-poly she's getting. She loves to pose while chompin' on one finger huh?

We hung out with Josh and KC at a starbucks and then ate at the Mongolian BBQ joint next door last Saturday. Pretty dang tasty and Neiv was chill the entire time. Shocking.

Back from my sabbatical

I am back from my blogging sabbatical. Thanks for allowing me the time of reading, reflecting and refocusing.

Just kidding. There has been none of that - except maybe reading if you count "Toilet-Training in a Day." Other than that, any spare time I get I have just been sitting and staring at the wall. Or eating cinnamon rolls. Sometimes both.




Neiv has been doing great on her solids! She has probably gained 4 lbs since we started. The amount that she is eating has really shot up in the last week. She has liked almost everything we've thrown at her. Maybe she'll turn out to be a good eater like big sista. I hope so. I take her to be weighed tomorrow and am excited to see how much poundage those new leg rolls have added.











Abra took her 2nd ever boat ride while we were in Augusta and really loved it (despite the questionable look on her face). Now every time we see someone pulling a boat around town she says "I LIKE Papa's boat!" Very cute.

Splash Park

As you can tell in this first picture, Abra has had a blast at the splash park so far this year.

No really, she loves it. I am not sure why every time I bust out the camera she has to frown and look completely unhappy.

Although maybe it is because we gave her a huge piece of chocolate cake (this was at our little neighbors 3rd birthday party) and then sent her out into the hot sun to run around.

It's hard to be a kid.