Skillz

Abra has been showing a real inclination for art lately. She is doing alot of coloring, painting and playing with playdo. We also picked up a large magnadoodle at a garage sale and she loves to sit and draw random things on it. Sometimes we are completely amazed at what she will produce with no prompting whatsoever. It's fun to watch her grow and learn.

This was a picture of an alligator that we thought was very impressive. She even drew it in a moving car. Not bad eh? Apparently in her world, alligators have lots of legs.

This one made me laugh out loud because she said she was "drawing a picture of Daddy." Not sure if that is just his head or his entire body. Love the hair though.

Two different little girls

Neiv and Abra are two very different little girls. Of course we've seen this since birth with Neiv's colic and general demanding personality as opposed to Abra's quiet passiveness. The funny way these differences come out is in how active and "dare-devilish" Neiv is. It took us probably 2 yrs to get Abra to go down a slide by herself with much coaxing and cheering. Neiv threw herself down face first by the time she was a year. This shocked many parents at the park since she is such a little bald runt. It keeps me busy at the park but at least I just have to keep up with her as opposed to the constant coaxing. The negative side of course is that she has taken quite a few good tumbles. We went to pick her up from the nursery at church yesterday and apparently she had waited until both workers were occupied with criers and then threw herself off the top of a little plastic slide. Much weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued and the poor nursery workers were wracked with guilt by the time I got there. Oh my little drama queen. You can't help but love her.

Birthdays

Well it has been forever since I posted so I need to do some catch-up. Both munchkins celebrated birthdays on both sides of a busy holiday season. Miss Neiv enjoyed being star of the show, of course, and Abra was very quick to offer help in opening her presents. Life with Neiv can be quite a challenge but it is getting better and better as she grows. I am glad she is now 15 months and doing so many fun things on her own. She has alot of personality.
We had tons of fun celebrating Abra's birthday this year. The day before her official birthday we took her to the cabbage patch baby hospital about 1.5 hrs from here. It was the perfect birthday day trip for baby-obsessed Abra. She absolutely loved it. I just hate that I left the card for the camera at home. :-) I'm sure we will be back again one day. Neiv is showing an inclination for babies as well so I'm betting on more birthday trips to Cleveland GA in the future.

We also had a family party for Abra that turned out to be just what she wanted in a birthday party. Lots of good food, princess balloons, and all of her cousins there. She is already talking about the party we will have when she turns 4.

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.