Six months

Abby girl is six months old already! Wow, time flies! I cannot believe she is no longer my little-bitty baby.

She now weighs 6 pounds 11 ounces and is 26.28 inches long. That puts her in about the 70th percentile for both. She is on the move, crawling and pulling up onto everything. She really wants to walk, and I don’t think it will take her too long to figure it out.

She has two front teeth, and she is working on a few more. Abby loves attention. She watches to see if people are looking at her, and she rewards them with her million dollar smile. She claps her hands in excitement over all her accomplishments, and she squeals with delight whenever Benjamin decides to play with her.

She loves toys, and she loves that she can go after them now.

Poor Abby has to listen to, “No Abby! No!” all day long from Benjamin. I fear that will be a word she learns early.

 

Guilt post

The guilt is killing me. I haven’t posted in more than a month. I think about it daily. It weighs on me. I am sure all of my loyal family followers have given up on me.

Each day, I intend to write. Then, life happens. It is a bit overwhelming to take care of two kids on my own at night sometimes, and when they are finally asleep, there are so many other priorities to tackle.

So, here is a brief post of some older photos. Then, I promise for a blogathon later this weekend when I will catch you up on all the latest and greatest!

 

So quite a few weeks ago we attempted to potty train Benjamin. We had a bye-bye diaper party, complete with new Cars underwear and a celebration cupcake. It was super exciting…until it completely fell apart. Benjamin was great about responding to a timer every 30 minutes to sit on the potty. But, things got ugly fast. He started having nightmares, acting out, and pooping in his underwear. So, we sadly gave up for a while.

Next time, there will be no party…but hopefully it will go better.

My mom is doing well still. She isn’t feeling great, and she has more bad days than good days physically, but she perks up when we come to town!

I just adore these leg warmers I found at a used clothing store for Abby.

Benjamin loved spending time with Grandma Jan too. I admit, this arrangement made me a bit nervous. But, they had lots of fun, and Benjamin didn’t attempt to dive out of the moving wagon.

 

Abby is six months already, and I promise to do a whole post devoted to that. But, I wanted to add that she has been eating solid food now since about 4.5 months.

We bought her a high chair, because we were running out of grown-up chairs at our table!

Abby has been trying to crawl for about a month now. She is finally on the move, though it is a bit humerous the way she manages to get across the floor. She stands up on her knees, throws herself onto all fours and then sits on her rear end. Then, she repeats the process.

And, she spends a lot of time in the downward dog yoga position.

Benjamin loves and hates that Abby is mobile. He loves that she can chase him and play with him. He hates that she can fight back when he takes things from her.

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year, even if I didn’t try very hard with costumes.

Benjamin was an Angry Bird, and while he was able to go to one Fall Festival wearing his costume, on Halloween, we left the costume in Jeremy’s car. So, we had to improvise.

Here are some photos of our fun. Abby went as a ballerina, because I am boring like that. Benjamin put on his Angry Bird hat and an Angry Bird shirt to wear. Lame. I know. But, we did our best. It was rainy and cold, so we loved going to an indoor festival!

We only stayed a short time, since it started at 6 p.m. and Abby goes to bed at 7 p.m. But, Benjamin made good use of his hour there.

The next day, we went to our friend Tyler’s house and had another trick or treat. Dominic, Benjamin’s other good friend, doesn’t eat sugar. So, we had an organic, all natural “treasure” hunt. The boys had so much fun hunting for the treats in each room. Benjamin liked the fruit leather the best.

I couldn’t get all three boys to look at me or to smile. They were so serious about their hunt!

Before lunch, we decided to try to get a photo of all the kids together. It has been great getting to know Katie and Tammy, because each of us had a boy at the time we met (all around the same age) and each of us had another baby around the same time this Spring!

Abby spent much of the photo shoot trying to grab Leila’s skirt and Thomas’s foot.She was so excited to have new friends…and to find some relief from her two front teeth that are popping through.

Abby and Leila are one week apart in age.

Thomas is nine weeks younger, and Abby had her eye on him the whole time… for one reason…

Yes, my little darling just “swept Thomas off his feet..” or knocked her him flat on his back and tried to eat him I guess it is a matter of perspective. I am sure we will display this someday at their graduation party.

These kiddos are going to have so much fun playing together as they get older!

Playing in the dirt

We did a lot of “playing” in the dirt this week. Well, really Jeremy did most of the playing, and we watched.

Our water line broke, and Jeremy discovered the mushy grass on Sunday. So, by Thursday, he shut the water off completely and started digging. It took two days to complete the project, and several days of prep work. But, the total price tag was around $400 rather than $4,000 because Jeremy is so handy and was able to do the work himself. Our front yard is a muddy mess from all the rain, so we haven’t been able to get the hole completely filled in…and we can’t pull up the tarps or replace the sod. So, we may find the sod will freeze this week as it gets covered in snow!

Jeremy said, “I always wanted to drive one of these!” He was super excited about it. Picture Tim the Toolman Taylor, only the only casualty of this project was my landscaping.

Endless entertainment.

I took Abby and Benjamin out as much as possible, because we had no water at home. Benjamin was hungry, and I told him we were going to pick up some food. We were walking into a restaurant, and he said, “Abby is yucky.” He kept saying it until I finally asked, “Why is she yucky?”

He replied, “We can’t eat her.”

I have learned that Benjamin thinks a lot of things taste yucky these days. So, I am glad Abby is one on the yucky list.

Happy girl

I just love my happy Abby girl. She is such a delight. She has been super busy lately, learning to roll over, sit up, play with toys and even eat her first solid food! She holds her own bottle when I need to supplement, and she puts her pacifier into her mouth herself!

Abby loves to be outside, and she was especially excited to sit up in the grass and watch daddy clean up crab apples. They have littered the ground worse than any other year we have lived here!

Here is another shot, so you can see our new siding. I never did get a good photo of the finished house online.

We now set Abby in some very odd places to contain the little wiggle worm. This basket is a favorite when we are folding laundry. This Tuesday, we took Benjamin to his babysitter’s house, and I spent the whole day working on the mountains of laundry that had accumulated with all our recent travels.

She is still drooling away, but no teeth yet. I bet they will pop through any day. This is about the time her brother got his first two teeth.

Here is where this post is going to get very scattered and crazy. I just need to get these pictures on here, and I figured why not put them all in one post, rather than a bunch. So, here you go…

Abby and Mommy had fun watching Daddy and Benjamin play in the leaves.

This past weekend, we spent a day in Findlay with my parents.

And, we went to Cedarville for a 10-year class reunion for Jeremy.

Abby liked playing with the other babies she encountered.

This week Abby got a taste of her first baby cereal and also squash. Yum!

Going backward, here are some photos from two weekends ago. Aunt Keri took time away from setting up her new house as Mrs. McCoy, and came to see Benjamin and Abby.

Daisy also bonded with Abby.

Doesn’t Benjamin look like a teenager here…foreshadowing of things to come?

This seriously melted my heart. I caught him sound asleep with the book, “I can read with my eyes shut” resting on his chest!”

We had some nice cuddle time with Nana.

And Papa…

Here is Abby, hanging out and teething.

She is super into playing with toys right now.

She especially likes to play with Benjamin.

Love this little girl!