It's beginning to look alot like...

...we have a "walker" on our hands. Abbs still refuses to walk on the main-level of the house... I think she finds the laminate too slippery/unstable. She does prefer to crawl in the basement as well, but we've been trying to encourage her to stand and walk while playing with us. Slowly her confidence grows, and she walks more and more, although, part of me feels a bit guilty though because I know in a few short weeks this new baby will make it's appearance, and everyone will look to Abby to "grow-up" a little more, and I feel thats not fair. At 17 months she will not be tiny baby, but she's not "big-kid" either. Ty and I both try to remember this every day... and not wish this time away.

http://www.vimeo.com/17251922

I'm at work, so I don't know if that link will work... I can't view Vimeo on our network here... if it doesn't I'll re-add it when I get home tonight.

Hmm... We're trying to start to get ready for the holidays. This upcoming weekend I think we'll tackle Sugar Cookies and Khrustikias (I know it's not spelt correctly, but I can barely say it), these are delicious deep-fried Ukrainian cookies sprinkled with Icing Sugar... I can't get enough at the holidays. This will be Abbys first year tasting these cookies, and I'm hoping to find a cookie-partner in her...although she doesn't really care much for sweets, so I might be disappointed.

We bought a Jingle Frog... about a foot tall and when you squeeze his hand he sings "Jingle Frog" and jumps up and down and she is SO afraid of him. She loves him from afar, but doesn't enjoy him up close at all and hides from him. In fact, if she is into something she shouldn't be I can tell her No, and try to redirect her and usually she won't fall for it, now all I have to do is say... "Please don't touch that. Come with Mama and lets get the Frog", and she stops what shes doing immediately :D Ha ha...

She's talking SO much these days... so at 14 months she is saying:

Hello (hi/hey-oh)
Bye (bYY-ah)
No (Nnn-OH)
One, two, three (Uh-NNN, Ta-OO, TAA) - and she understands this is couting down to something. (I have a video of this at home I'll post tonight)
Down (ow-n)
Up (up-ah)
Hat (at-ah)
Yes (yah)
Come here (mumbles, and pats leg)
Weston (wah- sound I can't write)
Dog (woof) Woof gets used for most animals
More (Moe)
Mama
Good night (ni-nigh)
That (dat)
Dada
She also sings patta-cake with the correct tune, not correct words but she does the actions.
She also does "Round and Round the Garden" to herself or someone else, incorrect words but correct tune and actions.
Abby (Ah-Bee)
When she wants to hide and you find her, she covers her hand and sometimes says Abby and sometimes says "hiding" (hii-dee).

and she tries to repeat anything you coax her to say. Those are her regulars though that she does un-prompted.

She loves to read books... any books and will sit forever with you. She LOVES to turn the pages... and it's more common for her to spend an hour reading books, than it is for her to spend independent time playing with toys.

Recently, she's aquired a love of coloring with crayons, and we bought her a finger-painting kit, it's clear gel she dips her fingers into, and when she touches the paper, the different gels turn a different color. It makes really pretty pictures, they almost look like watercolor paintings. She's done a bunch, and I just bought cute frames and I'm going to put them in her room.

We tried to take holiday photos yesterday of her, and much to my surprise, waking her 15 minutes into her afternoon nap to dress her in full garb and take some pictures did not result in any photos with smiles. Sigh... again, they are at home so I'll have to post them later. I have a glucose test this week and will be either flexing the whole day, or at the minimum a half-day, so I might try to get some more of her that day.

Hmm... well thats probably a long enough post for now :) I'm handing in my 6 week notice today for work, which is insane... I can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone! And we can't wait to meet this little person... I can't imagine how busy our life is going to be by then, but it's so exciting. Lots of people are asking how we think Abby will adjust to having a sibling, but she LOVES little kids and I think she'll LOVE this new baby...maybe a little too much. I think Weston will gladly welcome someone/thing else to be the center of her attention. Poor girl is turning that dogs hair grey!

Here's a video of Abby and her "shrimp" when we were in Florida a few weeks ago.



Abby bugging Weston

Some New Stuff

Here's some new stuff finally of Abby!!!

She was a Butterfly for Halloween. We didn't go to many houses, just two and the Firehall, but she LOVED seeing all the kids and going up to the door.





And the back...




Its hard to believe this was her not too long ago...



She LOVES being outside and playing with Weston...


Heres my 22 week 5 day belly... growing all the time!!!


This is from supper the other night, you can see the scar by the corner of her eye from wehre she fell into the coffeetable and split her head open.



Here's a video of her from last week, afraid to reach into the bag.

A new update...

...well new-ish. I've sort of been guilty of only putting new pics on Facebook...but I'll get some up on here too, as I know there are lots who only check here.



Abbs just had her 1st birthday! And she changes alot every day. She can say Mama, Dada, No-No, Weston, Ba-ba, Oh's (Cherrios). She can clap, hides her eyes for peekaboo, slaps her leg to call the dog, crawls like a crazy person, could walk if she would JUST let go of things. She's got very good hand/eye coordination and can work some really small/hard to maneuver things.



I'm 1/2 way through this pregnancy and it is FLYING by! It's so hard to believe in just a few short months we'll have another small little person joining us!



Work has been busy for both Ty and I. We have a less-than-part-time babysitter for Abby, and she LOVES it. I think it's fun for her to be with someone different. Never any tears when we leave, or when we're getting home. It's nice to know she's happy while we're gone.



Well, this is just a quick update from work, so I'll keep it short. But hopefully I can stay on top of this thing now!

Just because.

This is my lovely friend.



Her heart is as beautiful as her face.



We are kindred spirits, her and I. She is my Dwight, and I am her Jim.



Beautiful light. Beautiful life. Beautiful friend.

8 months.

8 months bigger.
8 months smarter.
8 months older.
8 months...unbelievable!

When someone finds the time that just disappeared, can you return it to me!!!

Just so you know... I'm done apologizing for not updating enough. It's too redundant. I know I don't update enough, so I apologize this last time, and then it's a standing apology!!!!

I'm just too busy having fun to be on here. Poor excuse I know, but it's the truth and all I got.

Big news on this front, Habbs has figured out to sign More...which remarkably kind of looks alot like her clapping (hey, I didn't say she was brilliant!), so it takes some interpreting on whether she wants "more" or for you to "yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy" with her as she proudly claps (usually for herself). Regardless, it's very cute and it's taken 8.freaking.months for communication to truly take place - I'm taking what I can get, ha ha. (SEE END OF POST FOR VIDEO)

She's getting closer to crawling (this feels like it's taken longer than 8 months, ha)... today Ty was trying to force her to crawl, and she gets on her toes and sticks her bum WAY up in the air (like a downward dog pose), to avoid using her knees. Poor kid. But she's army crawling/pulling/spinning/scootching like a pro every day. OH wait... did I say like a pro...like a pro with a fat lip...not like a pro at all, but better every day.

This beaut:

...happened under my watch. Yes, I was playing with her, and didn't catch her before she had a HUGE faceplant (which left an incredible bloody smear on the floor I might add). After I cleaned up... it's amazing the amount of blood that gushes from such a small wound... and iced her lips, this is the brunt on it. She has a cut on the top, and just a small one on the bottom lip (not really worth showing).

Her hair is still not really growing in... poor girl is looking like she takes after me and not her papa. :( I was hoping she'd be in barrettes by now! But, she's a pretty cute baldy... and I guess better this than fighting over brushing her hair!





I have more photos to post...perhaps tomorrow ha ha...no really....maybe tomorrow.

Empty Post.

No idea WHAT happened to this post. I was so glad to log on and see it was empty. Hmmm... guess my lack of sleep is catching up on me after all.

Abbs has 4 teeth. Teeth 3 and 4 just graced us with their presence this last week...which has resulted in a much whinier, clingier baby than we are used to. She sure does LOVE them chompers though, and has bitten us a few times to test them out - and YES those suckers ARE sharp.

She is still refusing to crawl like a normal baby, and uses a modified "scootching" method to make her way around - UNLESS she is on our bed, and then shes a moving machine.

She is an eating machine...some of her favorites are Squash (LOVES), green beans (LOVES), hummus (LOVES), plums/pears/bananas/mangoes (LOVES), and she's pretty into Puffed Wheat...but her favorite is still her rice cereal, she'll eat it every.single.meal and wants ALL of it. The only thing she still isn't fond of is peas...but really...who loves steamed strained peas?

She's developing SUCH a little personality and with allll the good comes the bad...and she can throw a tantrum like nobodies business. It's funny... no one ever showed her how, I guess it just comes natural to all kids. She loves to torture poor Weston, but if he licks her she HOLLERS at him and he knows she's mad and usually leaves her alone...classic can give it but doesn't like to take it back syndrome.

We're still loving taking photo's of her... I've been trying to work a bit on my photoediting... it's definitely a learning process, but it's been pretty fun figuring out how to tweak things. Here is a recent (it was my first "true full edit") which was a little heavy, but I still kinda like it.



Stay tuned for a whole post dedicated to pictures... :)

ThrowBack Tuesday.

****Warning******* Graphic photos ahead.....MARY, you may not want to look!*****

So... I am still here, but haven't posted as I was going to switch programs to use Photoshop CS4 and it will not recognize my RAW photos... which are uploaded as NEF files...we've tried everything and nothing will work. SO...it's off to find a different program - I think I'll just end up going back to Lightroom....or Elements even. I don't need anything too fancy.

Anyways, I was looking through all my old pictures and decided in honor of spring, I was going to do a ThrowBack Tuesday, and show some pictures/stories that you may not know.

How about this; Did you know that:

When I got married I used a French Manicure sticker set? And one of the stickers peeled off so I hid my finger (thinking it would make a better picture)...should have just left my finger normal, and no one probably would have noticed.



Or, that we thought it was beautiful to take pictures on the grounds of the Veteran's Hospital...until we were told by the police that it was illegal to take pictures there (we had no clue!...dumb Canadians, lol)! Did you know I had a hilarious bridesmaid with PURPLE HAIR?


Ha ha, I love this photo.


Did you know...

Sometimes, I think my husband is embarrassed to be seen in public with me.


and I`m not really sure why.


Did you know when Tammy took this picture of me almost 4 months pregnant:

I thought I was huge!!!

..And here I thought I was tiny, lol!


Did you know being pregnant was glorious, and this gives me HORRIBLE baby fever.


Did you know that I was terrified of meeting my baby...and terrified we would end up with photos like this one:
...and we did.

I don`t look at this photo very often: because A) I think it`s a horrible photo. B) I was SO sure the baby was going to be a boy - I was shocked! and C) I was in such SHOCK from what I had just gone through and I was SO angry with the world (telling me it wouldn`t be THAT bad) at what had just occured that I didn`t ``enjoy`` meeting her the way I should have and a small (...huge) part of me feels guilty. D) This was all the `smile`I could muster at that moment.

Did you know I look at this photo ALL THE TIME.

I`m so facinated that something so disgusting was her lifeline. I feel like I owe it a huge thank you, or a gift or something...It truly is amazing...AND to be 100% truthful - I had HAUNTING dreams of forgetting to deliver the placenta, so I needed proof that I did.

Did you know that sometime in early afternoon Tammy, Mike and Christa brought me a Booster Juice...and AFTER I delivered the baby I drank it... after midnight. I found it sitting right there, and I was thirsty so I drank it....and I didn`t tell anyone.


Did you know that I thought this little face looked like an Inuit baby and couldn`t figure out why...

...until I saw this picture...
...taken right after Ty named her. I had chosen the boy name, and so Ty chose the girl name....and it suits her perfectly!

Did you know I was CONVINCED I was close to death the night I had the baby, and seeing this.... ... I feel I was right!

I can`t believe how swollen I was from all the fluids... look at my hands!


Did you know:

..he was smitten with her right away!


...and that I desperatly miss this tiny thing ( who at the time, felt anything but tiny!)!!!



Can I tell you what a feel-good moment this was to see this 5 days after I had her and know I somewhat still possessed a waist!


Did you know... I`m horrible at keeping things alive and did fairly well with these...oh good I`m now getting É instead of a question mark!!!



Oh, how I miss her...but I love her now.


Did you know.... that is one of my favorite pictures of her...
...it makes me smile each.and.every.time.I.see.it!!!!!


I think all of you should do a ThrowBack...enlighten the rest of us. Heck, throw a few curveballs out there and surprise the heck out of us... I double.dog.dare.you!

To Grandmother's house we went.

This is Habbs.

And this is Habbs with her Great-Grandfather.

It's amazing to me that he hasn't changed one.iota for as long as I've known him.

He sings to her the same songs I can remember him singing to me..



..and dances the same way I remember him dancing...



...and makes the same hilarious faces...



and I know the other grandkids know exactly what I mean...

Abby and I had such a lovely visit with our (great)grandparents (Grandma declined a photo-op)...

we did a puzzle (in record time), ate wayyy to much delicious food,,

collected scraps for the compost,

watched some movies, went for a walk or two, toured around to see what was new in town, searched the house for hidden treausres


and did a few crosswords.

Visiting them is like a trip back in time, and it was fabulous...no they are fabulous.

And this is fabulous...

Two of my favorite people sharing a special moment...that I intruded on.



I wish I could bottle this moment and pull it on a rainy day!