Christmas with My Side

I figured I better get a start on all the entries and info I need to get down before I forgot about any of it! We all had a wonderful Christmas and hope that all of our friends and family did as well. We started the festivities the Sunday before Christmas by celebrating with my side of the family. This was the day that worked best for everyone and it was great fun. My brother Andy and his wife Tiffany hosted and my mom brought the food. (I feel a little guilty that all we did was show up, but not too much :-) We started out our activities with some appetizers, socializing and by playing the Wii. My brother just got his used and it came with a bunch of the accesories. We have had one for two years now, but we didn't have the rock band part of it and we got to try that at Andy's house. I can say very confidently that playing the drums is not my best skill. But it was fun to try and to watch others try as well. We also played some of the sport games together and we all faired much better with those. We have that game at home and so Lillian Andrew and I had actually practiced previously. In fact, I believe Lillian even beat several people in bowling and I served up a mean game of tennis.:-)

For dinner my mom had pre-made some lasagna and garlic toast so no one had to fuss much for actual Christmas dinner. Her lasagna is wonderful and it was enjoyed by all.

After dinner we exchanged gifts and it was fun to watch everyone open presents and see what they got. The kids loved their gifts and the adults did as well. One of the gifts my parents gave to Abigail was a set of Lincoln logs which both girls have enjoyed. Andrew has even gotten down on the floor and built a thing or two. Lillian got some Littlest Pet Shop toys and big set of Jigsaw puzzles that she can't wait to work on. (we just need to find the right Abby proof spot) Abby got some fun babies and accesories that she is still carrying around.

For dessert we enjoyed eating some cookies and playing some more Wii. The kids all had great fun together and it will be fun to watch them play as they get older. Abigail was pretty tired that day thus the nuk in her mouth in most if not all the pictures. But she enjoyed either playing with cousin Hailey or stalking (she couldn't get enough of him) baby Noah. Lillian enjoyed all of them. She likes it when Eathan plays with her, but also loves devoting attention to Hailey and Noah. And of course seeing Aunt, Uncle, Grandma, Grandpa and Elsie. I took a lot of pictures over the holidays and want to post a lot of them.

Cousin Hailey playing the drums.

Eathan on the guitar.

Elsie ( the foreign exchange student staying with my parents, the last of the Garzon's to do so) playing the drums.

Uncle Andy (with dog Dozer in the background) playing the drums.

Here I had both Hailey and Abigail in my lap wanting me to read them a story.

Abigail holding onto baby Noah's arm. She couldn't get enough of him. Luckily he is a very mellow baby. Except when it comes to diaper and clothing changes, then he screams like someone is cutting off an arm.

Lillian holding up one of her gifts. Andrew figuring out a puzzle his gift came in in the background.

Lillian opening a gift.

Abigail opening one of her presents. You gotta love color wonder, she can color with markers on the paper and it won't show up on her skin!

Hailey opened up a gift of dress up items and Eathan thought it would be funny to put them on! We are definately filing this picture away for use when he is older. He has on some jewlery and some dress up gloves.

Eathan is learning how to play the cornet and he put on a concert for us. For only having played a few months he is doing really well. Thanks for the concert Eathan, keep up the good work.

Here are Tiffany and I opening a gift. We had some fun with the shredded tissue paper.

Here is the house that Daddy built with the girls with the lincoln logs. Nice job Andrew! I am so glad I have a husband who loves playing with his kids!

Abigail got to hold baby Noah and she didn't want to give him up. But since he is almost as big as she is she wasn't able to hold onto him for long.

Lillian, Abigail and Hailey sharing a big soft chair.

Here is Abigail dancing to some music. She LOVES doing this!

Another Year Older :-)

Well today I turned 34. I am offically in my mid-30's. I must say that it has been a pretty great day! I first have to say I have great friends. I feel lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.

My friend Denise called shortly after 8am to tell me she was dropping off breakfast for me. I was so surprised. She made homemade carmel rolls that were still warm when she dropped them off. Thank you Denise! They were delicious. Andrew even had some, he couldn't help himself!

Then after trading with Denise to get the dogs walked (she walked in the cold, I got to stay inside and watch the girls) I went down to drop Abigail off at my mother's house so I could go out to lunch with my friend Kelly. We ate a totally nummy lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and she even paid! I told her it was treat enough to just go out to lunch as two grown adults without kids, but she insisted. I am not a fan of Cheesecake as a dessert(I know, there must be something wrong with me) but I love their food! After lunch we quickly ran to Target to get a few last minute things. (I also love to shop) I then parted ways with Kelly and stopped in my dads office to help him with something for a few minutes. I then left and came back up north with Abigail. My parents live about 25 min south of us.

Denise had kindly gotten Lillian off the bus for me so I didn't have to rush back, so I picked Lillian up and went home. Andrew was home making me one of my favorite meals. Spaghetti Carbonara. YUM! Thank you honey! I also had gotten flowers delivered while I was gone from my sister in law and good friend Emily. They are beautiful! And a girl can never have too many flowers. (no really, my husband isn't into giving flowers, so I really can't have too many:-) But he has so many other great qualities! I love you honey!

Then he whisked away the kids to do some last minute shopping (so they could pick something out for me) so I had a few moments to myself. What else can a busy mom ask for?

When they came back instead of wrapping the presents they did a present procession. It was very cute. I got new slippers (yea! It's been so cold here) a new cd case that I will store DVD's in and a new Wii game called My Sims Kingdom. Andrew and I have totally different tastes in games so this was a pleasant surprise. I hope it's as fun as I think it will be. We decided to do cake tomorrow as it got quite late tonight.

I love my family and their efforts towards my birthday. It was really cute too because before Abby even got her coat off from shopping she announced that they had gotten mommy slippers. I don't think it's possible for a two year old to keep a secret. She is just so excited to have the words to use to tell people that not telling isn't an option. I have had a wonderful day and am so lucky to be blessed with people who love me. Thank you everyone for making it such a great day. I didn't even mention the others who called me or e-mailed me to share their well wishes. It was much apprecieated!

This is Kelly and I before we went out to lunch. My mom was kind enough to take a picture of us even though working a camera is not her favorite skill. Thanks mom!

Joys of Home Ownership.......

So I was making dinner tonight (very delicious tacos if I do say so myself:-) when Lillian shouts from the bathroom that the toilet overflowed. I thought this was a bit funny since I never heard her flush it. But I went running upstairs to find a VERY BIG MESS! The toilet tank had cracked and it was leaking water everywhere. Not only that, but it kept filling itself up, thus more and more water was running onto the floor. I had been gone for 1-2 hours walking Denise and my dogs so it happened some time while I was gone. While I was trying to wrap my mind around the mess in the bathroom, Lillian shouts from the basement that there was water down there too. Yep......the water leaked through the floor and was raining down in the laundry room. (luckily it was contained there and didn't get on the carpet in the basement) I was on the phone with my brother when all this happened (Andrew was still commuting home from work) and he told me to try to turn off the water shut off valve. I tried but was only able to turn in part way. Luckily Andrew was able to turn in off about 1/2 hour later when he got home. He handled the news well and got things under control. We used all the towels in the house to mop up the mess and sent Andrew hunting for the right tank to replace it. That's what he is doing right now.

Here is the mess with towels and such.

Can you see that huge crack right down the middle?!?

Two Silly Friends

I caught a little video of Abigail and Lucy playing a silly game the other day. They were being even sillier before I actually thought to grab my camera. It's nice they do so well together. (well, most of the time anyway:-)...........

December Activities

We've been busy like everyone else getting ready for the holidays. I uploaded some pictures of what we've been doing and how the kids have helped. We have a fake tree that we put up after Thanksgiving. The kids love helping "fluff" the branches and hanging the ornaments. I also got them a ginger bread house kit to put together. They did that with daddy on Saturday and had a blast. The only bummer is my "final product" picture didn't want to load onto this post so you will have to use your imagination! They did a great job with it. It's just too bad that Samson ate it a day and a half later. Yeap! The whole thing was gone when we got back from Sunday dinner at the Thomas's. Oh well, at least Samson enjoyed it:-)

We are getting ready to do lots of baking this week and wrap some presents. Ellen get into town this Thursday and then the business really starts.


This is Abby's favorite place to be. The minute Andrew gets home from work she begs to go on daddy's neck!

Here is Andrew putting the tree together.

Here Lillian is "fluffing" the tree.

Abby is "fluffing" the tree.

Abigail loves posing for pictures. Look at that picture smile!

Lillian in front of the almost finished tree.

Here are my two silly girls.

Daddy and Lillian starting the ginger bread house.

The girls putting the candy on some of the house.

Here they are putting on more candy.

Late Thanksgiving Post

I am way overdue on our Thanksgiving post. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ben and Emily and their girls came into town and we had a great time spending time with them. We didn't get to see my side of the family, but it worked out ok. The girls were recovering from surgery and we didn't want to be hauling them too many places.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner rather early at the Thomas's and were done by around 1:30p. This allowed Emily and I to sneak off and see the movie Twilight. We had both read the books and were looking forward to doing this. I really enjoyed the movie and I look forward to the next one when it comes out. Emily liked it, but I think she was a bit more dissappointed with it than I was. I will say that reading the book ahead of time will help fill in a few things that the movie skims over. But it's always hard to sum up a book in entirety. Overall I enjoyed the movie.

Friday Emily was up really early for the black Friday deals. I wasn't so willing to sacrifice sleep. But I did run to Target around 8am and found a few good deals. Friday we let the kids run around and play some more. Emily and I also went out later in the day and did some shopping. Andrew and Ben got to hang out quite a bit also. They fit in some games of Scrabble with Drew and we all played Cranium together at one point also. (Drew and Carolyn even played) (some of this summery is for all three days) We stayed out too late with the girls Thursday so on Friday I took the girls home early and Andrew stayed at his parents house later to hang out with Ben.

Saturday Andrew and the girls went with everyone to do a treasure hunt at the state capitol in the morning. I stayed behind to clean up a bit and rest some. I was pretty worn out with all the activites and sickness. I came to their house later and Emily and I took all the kids to see Madigascar 2 in the theater. Abby was a bit restless for this but did well overall. She would have stayed with Andrew but he and Ben were working on moving some furniture out of our house so we could move some other stuff in. We are getting rid of the huge desk in the 3rd bedroom so it can be a full fledged 3rd bedroom. Ben graciously helped Andrew do all that while we went to the movie.

Saturday night was Andrew's turn with the kids. Emily and I went out and did a bit more shopping, visited grandma Wallace and then came back to the house to play some cribbage. We even watched Kung Fu Panda while we played cards. It was great. I love spending time with their family. We look forward to seeing them at Christmas!

Surgery Update

Lillian and Abigail went in for surgery last Wednesday morning and I thought I should do an update on that. They both faired well for the surgery. Abigail went first and then Lillian. My mother came to lend an extra hand which was very helpful. I was not feeling well that morning (I think whatever the family had caught up with me) but luckily was doing well enough to still go. Abigial was just having tubes so she was doing better that same day. Lillian was a trooper but she had to have an IV and was put under heavier sedation. We had to watch her closely as she tried to walk around. By bedtime that night she had a little meltdown about how she wanted her adnoids back. (I think the drama was from the discomfort and the fatigue) She was in bed by 7pm (which for her is very early) and she slept straight through till 7am the next day. We have been able to keep her fairly comfortable with just motrin. The bigger bummer was that she had a stomach ache and threw up on Friday night. She just did it one time (thank goodness) but it really seemed to upset the back of her throat. I don't know if it was a continuation of the stomach sickness, or from the drainage coming from her surgery. We are desparately hoping she can go back to school tomorrow. She has already missed 6 days. The fact that Ben and Emily were in town for Thanksgiving was great because it really seemed to distract the girls during their recovery.

The other interesting thing that happened that day was running into my brother in the hospital. He and Tiffany were there for an ultrasound so we ended up being able to see them too. Tiffany ended up having to have her cervix sewn shut at the same surgery center we were at for the girls. We really felt like the hospital visit was a family affair with my mother there along with my brother and sister in law. We are hoping that things go well for their family as well. They are expecting baby number three in March-April. That will put Haylie at 3 years of age, Noah 1 year and a newborn. They sure will be busy!

We are just thankful that the surgery is behind us and hope that this drastically improves things for both girls.

Volleyball Update

Well we played our volleyball tournament games and ended up doing very well. We ended up playing three different teams on Friday night. We played Minnetonka at 8:15pm, we played ourselves (our ward has two teams) at 9pm and that was a lot of fun. It's always fun to play against your friends. Then because we won both of those matches we played North Saint Paul. They are the best team in church ball that I have seen. And we actually beat them as well! We took each set of games in two. (we play the best out of three, but if you win the first two you don't have to play a third game) So that felt really good. We then had to play for 1st place on Saturday morning. We played Shingle Creek and we weren't playing quite as well as we had the night before. But we still managed to beat them. It took three games and it was close, but we pulled it out in the end. YEA! So our team took first place this year! It was really fun to play too because we had some real good players on our team. (I am not one of them) People who had played in high school etc. It's fun to watch and be a part of it. It's bitter sweet though because I doubt we will all be on the same team again next year. They mix it up for us every year since our ward has so many women that like to play. I had someone take a picture of us after the game, if I ever get a copy of it I will put it with this post. I just wish I had thought to bring my camera!

Sick, Sick, Sick of SICK

Ok, so I am going to whine a bit. I am tired of dealing with sickness! I am going to write an outline of sorts to document my survival of these latest events.

I was working for my dad for a few hours last Friday when I got a call from my mother that Abigail had thrown up. (my mother watches Abby when I do office work for my dad) I asked her if she wanted me to come right away but she said she was fine and to finish what I was doing. I called Andrew and he left work (if was after 4pm by this point) to come get Abby since I had plans that night with a friend. Abigail continued to throw up until around 1am.

Saturday she seemed much better and we went on with our weekend. Satuday night Lillian was complaining of a stomach ache but went to sleep and seemed fine. Sunday went by as usual and we went to dinner at Andrew's parents house. We were on the road after dinner when Lillian stated that her ear hurt. (of course it was then to late to have Grandpa Drew look at it) It was hurting really bad by Monday morning so I took her and sure enough, she has an ear infection. (mind you, next week they get their tubes) So she misses school Monday and Tuesday.

Abigail who appeared fine through the weekend throws up Sunday night and runs a fever all day Monday and part of Tuesday. Wednesday I take her to the clinic, she also has an ear infection.

Wednesday, Lillian comes home from school with a stomach ache and starts throwing up. She is also having diarrea. Things go downward from here. She is sick continually through much of the night. Andrew also starts getting sick around midnight. I am the sole healthy person holding down the fort. Not much of any sleep for me Wednesday night. Thursday Lillian drinks some fluids and eats about 10 crackers and lays around. She goes to bed early and seems much improved this morning. Abigail throws up again yesterday but I am pretty sure it is from her antibiotic. So much for clearing up the ear infection before the tubes go in. Lillian has also not been able to take her antibiotic.

I have a Volleyball tournament tonight, appointents for the girls in prep for surgery next week and I feel like a have arrows pointed at my head. I have been surrounded by sickness and am praying that I don't succumb. My diet has been reduced to the bare minimum to get by because after all this I have no appetite. I tend to get sick about 4-6 days after my kids show signs, but do you start counting from Abby, or from what happened here Wednesday? I am taking it a day at a time and we will see what happens I guess. This is the part of parenthood I hate, hate, hate. So for those of you who read this, sorry for my depressing entry. I hope to be posting happier things soon!

Primary Part

Our ward had their primary program a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to post Lillian's part for it because she did such a good job! We had to work hard on the part for a whole week but it really paid off. She got very discouraged at times when practicing it, but in the end she was so excited about saying her part. At the practice the day before one of the presidency members used her as an example to the other children saying "did you hear Lillian saying her part? I want all of you to go home and practice your parts so you can say them like Lillian did". You should have seen how proud she was about that! So I decided we should record the part before she forgot it, and to use it to remind her of the lesson she learned about how hard work pays off in the end. :-) And yes, she does pronounce it "bathtized", we worked on her pronouncing it and in the end let it go. She tried hard to pronounce it correctly, but then she would focus so hard on that part that she would get stuck there, so we told her to just say it how she was saying it and we would work on it later. And it was really cute this was anyway. We are so proud of you Lillian!

Halloween Fun!

Thursday night we carved pumpkins together as a family. It was a lot of fun. We let the kids paint their pumkins any way they wanted and then Lillian decided she also wanted help carving hers. Friday Lillian had a class party at school that I helped out with, she then had a Halloween birthday party she went to and finished up with some trick or treating. What a fun day! Abigail also had fun going trick or treating. Andrew stayed behind and passed out candy. We let Lillian decide who she wanted to go with her and she was very methodical about it. "Well, Daddy took me last year so mommy can take me this year"! The weather has stayed pretty nice to the kids were lucky this year and didn't have to wear too many extra layers to stay warm. The high was in the low 60's, but it was in the upper 40's I think while they were out getting candy. (maybe low 50's)

Abby painting her pumpkin.

Lillian with her pumkin.

Here is Andrew trying to get the covers off of the pumpkins.

Lillian trying to scoop out her seeds. We cooked them the next day and my were they tasty!

Here is my pumpkin. I tried to carve out a bat and turned it into a face. Andrew thought my bat needed work. :-( But I thought it was pretty good! :-)

I also carved this spider on the side of my pumkin. or attemped to......

Here is Andrew's finished work.

Here is Lillian's as we were converting it from painted pumpkin to carved pumpkin, I guess I didn't get the finished picture of it. Whoops!

Here is Abigail's pumpkin.

Here is Lillian in the outfit she wore to school. So festive!

Our neighbor Essence went with us trick or treating. She and Lillian both went as matching witches. I think this is the third year Lillian has worn this costume. (her choice)

Here are Lillian and Abigail. Abby is wearing a lion costume and she LOVED it! She is in the middle of roaring in this picture.

Here are all three of them ready to go out and get some candy.

A Beautiful Fall Day

So today was a beautiful sunny day. The high was only in the low 50's, but when Lillian got home from school I decided it would be a great afternoon to rake up the leaves in the front yard. I usually leave this job for Andrew but I was feeling inspired and thought the kids would love playing in the front yard for a change. I don't let them play in the front very often because I need to sit out there with them when they play there, where as in the back yard I don't need to to that. Our back yard is very private and comletely fenced in. So I feel very comfortable letting them run around out there together without direct supervision. I am too afraid of Abigail going into the street or other things happening to let them play unsupervised in the front. But today was great. They loved playing in the driveway and in the leaves. And Andrew was pleasantly surprised by the raked up leaves when he got home. I want to take advantage of these last lingering nice days where the kids can play outside without having to totally suit up in their winter snow gear. In the videos I have a couple of Lillian running into the leaves, one really shows what a great helper she is for Abigail. The other videos are of Abigail with her new ride on toy. She was going up and down the driveway countless times today while I was raking leaves.


Abigail and Lillian "helping" to rake the leaves. Lillian wanted to combine the piles to make 1 big pile. I did that later.

Two sisters playing in the leaves.

Two sisters showing me their leaves.

Lillian lounging in the leaves.

There were several times when Abigail rode down the whole driveway without running into the car or grass. She was amazingly good at stopping just before the street. I just didn't catch that on video. On the last video the other cute thing is Lillian is dancing to the "music" that is coming from Abigail's ride on toy. It's pretty funny. :-)

Going Under

Going under the knife that is...........Both girls are scheduled to get ear tubes in on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The doctor we see only does surgery on Wednesdays and as much as I don't want the girls having trouble for the Thanksgiving holiday, I also don't want Lillian to miss much school. Lillian is going to have tubes put in (for the third time) and also have her adnoids out. Abigail will be getting tubes for the first time. We decided to get it all done with the same morning so Abigail will go first and Lillian is scheduled to go right after. We are hoping this will resolve Lillian's ear issues entirely and that it will greatly improve Abigail's ear issues. I have put this off too long and am relieved to have made a decision. Although nervous of course about my kids being put under. I am tired of the lack of sleep that comes with the girls getting colds with ear infections 8 plus times a year each. Plus watching them suffer with ear pain and being unable to hear with all the fluid trapped in their ears. Wish us luck and I will let everyone know how things go once it's all done!

Apples, Apples, Apples

Last Friday Denise and I got together to use some of the apples from our apple tree. Andrew had picked a lot of the apples the week before and we didn't want them to go to waste. The apples are soooooo good for baking and turning in apple sauce. I think they are Haroldson apples. So Friday we pooled our efforts and our kids and got to work. The kids had a great time playing (they were off of school for MEA) and we got quite a bit done. All in all we made 4 apple pies, 2 apple crisps and a batch of apple sauce. We split the pies and crisp up and Denise kept the apple sauce. My kids don't really eat it and her family will. But it's just great to see the apples get used and not let them go to waste. The pies freeze up really well and so I put those in our freezer for a later date. We have made even more in past years but the apple tree didn't produce as many apples this year. We really need to trim up the apple tree this winter so it will do better next year. We have been really lucky though. I don't think we have ever found a worm and we do very little work to keep up the tree. It is also great because even as early as August Lillian and her friends are always picking apples off the tree and eating them fresh all the time. Andrew planted rasberries and strawberries in our garden this year so we will see if we can have good luck with other fruits as well. We won't know until next year on those though.

Coloring

Abigail has found a new love for coloring, or writing of any sort. This started up around the time that Lillian started bringing home homework. I just thought it was so funny that she stretched out on the floor with her book and pen and got busy. She has done this several times now and I just finally thought to grab the camera. She is changing so much every day. I forgot how much they start to communicate at this age. They become so much more expressive in their language and body movements too. It is just so much fun to watch and be a part of. It kind of makes up for how much work they are when they can actually say "NO!" to you. :-)

General Update

Well our schedule as been clipping right along. Lillian is enjoying school and even likes doing her homework! (YEA!) Abigail and I are getting used to hanging out alone during the day and getting things done together. I hope to start volunteering once a week in the school sometime in October. It takes them about a month to assess the kids and find out what the volunteer needs are in the classroom. So I should be finding that out soon.

Volleyball is going well. I got made team captain (imagine that!) this year and so I am trying to organize team t-shirts and other things. (I took the job because no one else was keen on doing it, not because of my skill level:-) But we have a great team this year and I am really excited to see what happens.

I started taking an ECFE (Early childhood family education) class with Abigail on Thursdays. It goes from 11-12:30. I did this with Lillian when she was 3 and it was great. You spend 45 minutes playing with your child and interacting with other parents and children. Then for the remaining 45 minutes you have parent discussion time separate from the kids. It's great for the kids and the adults. The kids keep playing and having fun while parents get to discuss certain topics pertaining to raising kids that age. All of the kids in Abby's class are 2 years old. How much you get from it depends on the group you are with of course, but I find it very helpful. You get to discuss things with other parents and get ideas and input while also helping other parents with issues they are having. I am also hoping it helps Abigail work on sharing with other kids and separating from me.

Andrew is busy with work and keeping up with the demands of that. He is also serving in scouts on Wednesday nights. I have been doing more of the cooking these last few weeks so we can have dinner on the table at 6pm every night. I know he misses doing the cooking but the kids can't eat dinner as late as it would be if he made it after getting home. Wish me luck in the cooking endever. It's not my strong point and I hope to keep this up for a while. I only make dinners that are quick and easy (for the most part) and I am running out of nutrious options that fit into that catagory. Feel free to leave suggestions if you have them. Maybe I will learn to love doing it by the time this is done! :-)

Sisters Playing

I am sorry I haven't posted in a while. It has been a busy week. Both of the girls were fighting ear infections and that always takes more time and energy to deal with.(and sleep interupted nights, but whos complaining?:-) I also picked up a work shift last Saturday and then this past Friday. For those of you who don't know, I occasionally pick up shifts as an on call banquet server. It gets me out of the house and the money is quite good. I am hoping to start doing this as often as once a week, but we will see how it goes. Denise is willing to watch Abigail for me so I could work a lunch shift during the week while Lillian is at school. But it depends on what shifts are available any given week. A lunch shift typically goes from about 9am-2pm.

I caught the girls playing really well together the other day and I wanted to catch it on camera. They are doing this more and more. Lillian had put up our pop up tent and set up stools and pillows inside so she could read to Abigail in there. They had a blast together doing that. I love it when they do this without my prompting. They are both wonderful girls and they are lucky to have each other for sisters. I hope they realize that!

The other thing that has started up again is volleyball! I love playing this with the other women at church. I practice on Wednesday nights and play games on Saturday mornings. Our ward has two teams this year and if anyone else signs up we may have to split to three teams. It's just so fun!

Here the girls are reading together in the pop up tent. Yea!

More Pictures

For those of you who are interested, my sister in law Emily has posted more pictures and stories on her blog from our trip out east. She has lots of great pictures of my kids and I will be getting copies at some point from her. But until then you can link to her site (Fabulous Four) from mine to see them and read more stories from our trip.

Two Little Mommies

I caught Abigail and her friend Lucy pushing our two baby strollers around today while they were playing. It was so cute. I even told them to smile and you see Abigail's reaction, she loved smiling for the camera. Her language ability and cognitive understanding has really taken off in the last month or so. She started talking a lot more when we were on our trip out east and it has just continued to grow greatly since then. She is putting many words together and is now starting to get frustrated when we don't understand what she is saying. Although we have fewer and fewer times now where we don't understand her. Especially when you take things into context of what's in the room or what activity we were just doing. It's great to watch them change and grow. (except that it happens way to fast!)

Some of her favorite phrases right now are:

Anything that starts with "I want"
She talks about Denise, Lucy and the boys all the time. She says Denise, Lucies, and boy for those.
She loves telling people Lily is on the bus or at school. This comes out as "Lily school, or Lily bus" She also loves copying everything she can that Lillian does. If Lily has homework then Abby has to have some too.
She loves jumping. She just learned this in the last couple of weeks and goes around saying jump!
At bedtime she asks about everyone she can think of to find out if they are also going "ny ny"
She is a true momma's girl who prefers me over anyone else. Most of the time I don't mind, but every now and then I get frustrated that she won't choose dad first. But she doesnt' always get what she wants! I remind myself though that this time is short and someday I will look back and miss it!

First Day of 1st Grade

Lillian's first day back to school was yesterday and it went well. (for both of us:-) It was the first time for her going to school all day and she and I both did pretty well. She loved lunch, recess and gym. I loved running errands with only 1 child and getting things done. I missed talking with her and having her keep me company. She missed having to be quiet at nap time. (ok, not really :-)

What I am going to have a hard time with is the amount of homework I hear they get. She is already away from me for 7 hours a day. I think she should be able to play and do her own thing yet when she is not on school time. She is only 6. But I have heard that homework for first graders is almost every day. Don't get me wrong, I am all for education, but I feel like free play time for kids is also important. We will see what happens. I am sure I will post again once I see what we are really dealing with.

But I am really proud of her for doing so well her first day and I hope she continues to like going to school. She loved kindergarten so I can only hope she will love 1st grade as well. She is a wonderful little girl who I am blessed to have as a daughter. We love you Lillian!


At the bus stop the first day of 1st grade!