Moments

8:13am Breakfast...

10:15am Resting in Red's Crate...

12:31pm Stuffed Animal Washing Day...

8. going from two naps to one

9. toddler food ideas

10. punchy lip gloss to brighten my otherwise un-madeup face

11. two little buck teeth

12. seeing her mind work

The Only Place To Go Is Up!

As of today, she's a climber, ladies and gentlemen (are there any gentlemen that read this other than Papa and Pop Pop?) In any case... she climbed up our front steps today as if she'd been doing it her entire 13 months. I haven't given her much of a chance to practice this and it just goes to show you that if you wait long enough, they'll master it lightning fast. Maybe if I hold off on the walking, she'll pick it up quickly when she's 10! Coming back down is another story and one she hasn't mastered quite yet.

I've been trying to load some videos for you all to see but it's giving me a hard time...so it might have to wait!

13 Months

Yep. 13 months last week. Where has the time gone? Abby did lots of nap striking this week - standing up and bouncing in her bed while crying took precedence. Maybe we're moving from 2 naps to 1?

We went to a concert last week with her friend Pema. It was a marionette type thing (which was actually really random) but the girls didn't care. They just had a great time looking at the other kids and dogs and shoving banana peels in their mouths. Well, Abby did that. Pema was much more refined since she walks. She took to shoving banana bread in her mouth. Take that, Abby.

Suddenly, just today, Abby loves (really, really, really loves) Goodnight Moon. Why? I've been reading this to her for 6 months and it was like any of her other books. But today... I read it eight times. That's eight times. Eight. I know it by heart. She was adamant that I read it over and over so we got to work on signing "please" which she hasn't quite gotten the hang of yet.

She's definitely gotten the hang of climbing on the fireplace, sticking her hands in Red's water bowl, touching electrical sockets, and throwing food off her tray on to the floor just so Red will run over and eat it. These are all things that I'm trying to train her not to do. I'm failing. At least this week.

She's really trying to talk now, too. Today she said "tickle" and recently she said "baby" and "dog" - or some slurred variation. It's a start! Speaking of babies, she's obsessed. I have a baby cookbook on the counter and e v e r y s i n g l e t i m e we wash her hands (yes, every single time) she points wildly until I flip open the page to the "baby girl" who is actually a very big girl, eating something that looks delicious that I will surely never cook for her. Here it is ...


And, shoes. She loves to hold this certain pair of Robeez with pineapples on them. She does not want them on her feet but she loves to hold them.

In short, she's getting very tall and her little belly is really cute when it's full. I am pleased to admit that I have no idea how much she weighs now that we gave her scale back to our lactation consultant. Somewhere around 17 pounds, I imagine.

4. sleep

5. hysterical baby laughter at things like steam (more on this in a later post)

6. late night summer fun

7. strawberry juice running down our chins

Now That's Brilliant

My sweet husband allowed me the pleasure of sleeping in for an extra hour the other day after Abby woke up at the unGodly (in our house) hour of 6:30am. I stumbled out of the bedroom later (after having dreamed that he gave her licorice for breakfast. Why?) to find her eating breakfast with a big lump (of something gross looking) in the middle of her tray. Upon closer inspection, it was a rice cake, broken up, with almond butter slathered all over it. When I asked him why she was given this for breakfast (along with the fried egg, blueberries, prunes and cereal) he said, "Well, the brown rice seemed healthy and the almond butter seemed fattening." And there you have it. The credo by which we choose what Abby eats. The most healthy and fattening foods we can find. Seeing that she only nurses twice a day and is only taking in about 6 oz of goat's milk during the day, the food she eats has gotta pack a pretty good calorie punch. Add that to all of the crawling and standing she's doing and I'm shocked she isn't losing weight. Did I tell you that my husband is brilliant? He is. Not that I'll be giving that to Abby again. And that's only because she didn't eat it. Back to the banana/almond butter mornings starting tomorrow.

It's a Splash!

We knew Abby was a water baby but when her Grandma and Papa visited recently and bought her a tiny pool, the splashing had never been so fierce. We throw the pool out on the grass in the morning and fill 'er up -- by late afternoon it's like a bathtub in there.

She likes to sit in it when she's dry, after her bath on warm summery nights with no water in sight...

She loves to sit with her back to the sun (and her scar out in the open! shoot! haven't gotten that spf 50 swim shirt yet), splash like crazy and then crawl in and out... in and out. Many days she likes to suck water out of the nerf balls (gross).

And when we tell her it's time to get out, we get a look kinda like this (i'm so glad she can't talk when she gives me a look like this. Whatever she might say wouldn't be good)...

And thanks to my friend Hillary for making me remember how important it is to count my "everyday" blessings. From now on, I'm ripping off an idea she's using and counting them right here, for all to see.

1. sunny days

2. birthday cake even when you're on a diet

3. naps

Baby Love

It's official. The American Girl doll craze has hit our home and Abby is not even 13 months old. She loves to take her Bitty Baby for a "walk" with us everyday in the stroller. Abby is fascinated with the opening and closing eyes. At least she's actually larger than the doll now, which is more than I can say when she got this thing when she was only a few weeks old. Thankfully, she has no idea that this baby has other outfits that can be purchased. If I have anything to do with it, this is information she will never know. :)