Sunday, October 7, 2012

Summer 2012 Recap!


Well, I failed on my promise. Not because I didn't think about it, because I did, almost every week I said I need to update the blog! Woops! Let's just say I wouldn't make a good professional blogger.

I wish I could say that things have been uneventful and just normal around here but really what is normal? We have been super busy and having a great time doing it.

Summer was great, Abigail is in love with summer. She LOVES being outside, she loves anything that has to do with water and I see lots of fun adventures for us every summer! We made trips to the beach, the lake and lots of area parks and water attractions.

Abigail cannot be 18 months old....1.5 years old! I know I say it over and over but I cannot believe where the time has gone. I must say, I am really looking forward to what's coming next, potty training and talking!  This kid amazes us every day. I know parents brag about their kids but I'm telling you, ours is the SMARTEST!

Even tho we do believe Abigail to be super smart, we did feel she was a little behind in her talking so we had Montgomery County Infants and Toddlers come out to do an assessment and see where she was. 2 of their therapists came out, a Speech Language Pathologist and a Physical Therapist. They go through a whole bunch of different "tests" to see just where Abigail falls. They were amazed by how much she could do. They kept saying that the test doesn't normally take this long but they haven't found Abigails "ceiling" so they had to keep trying more things. Finally they said that Abigail was scoring around 11 months for her verbal communication and everything else was outstanding. Her motor skills were around 24 months, which is pretty good considering she was just 17 months old at the time! So since she was a little behind in her verbal communication we are now getting Speech Therapy once a week. We have seen stellar improvement, from week to week it is amazing and I know its probably not all due to the 1 therapy session a week but it helps to have someone from the outside of the family saying, yes things are going the right direction!

We think we are just about ready to venture into the land of potty training. If we had a few more words in our vocabulary I would say we are 100% there but not quite yet. We had made a few attempts at the potty but wouldn't you know when you go pee pee in a potty and then it sings at you...that scares a toddler! Go figure. The kid LOVES music but she gets scared when the potty she is sitting on sings at her. We turned that feature off but it took a few weeks before the poor thing would even sit on the potty again.

Some of Abigail's favorite words include : da da for daddy and well, quite a few other things it seems. Ja for jack. Kitty and simba for my parents cat. Sum....whenever she wants some of something!
She has also learned what comes after one.....two....and what comes after three...two! So it seems she learns a new word and it sticks for quite a few things. Just this morning we noticed that her favorite word of the weekend is ouch! She may or may not be turning into a little drama queen!

Abigail continues to LOVE spending time with her gramma and nonnie. They switch off weeks and watch her for 3 days while mommy works. Then Abigail and mommy get to spend 2 days a week together. We try to do as many fun things as we can so we did make it to a few park and splash parks. 

Abigail is a growing machine.....at least in height. We can only hope for her sake she keeps the "skinny" jeans she has going on now, although mommy would like it a bit better if she could chunk up a bit.

Here are a few of the pics from the summer to give you an idea of all the fun we had!


Trip to the lake

She loves the water! 

Maybe not so much of a fan of the floaty

Captain Abigail


Splash park fun


Boardwalk OC, 2012. 

Playing in the water with daddy

Jumping off of grandpa's boat

Pool fun

She couldn't run fast enough to get to where daddy was so she could jump again! 

Here I come! 


We've been working on our "cheese"

New teddy just a bit on the big side


Back yard sprinkler fun

Abigail and Sadie on the beach



Daddy was a bit cold in the water but Abigail loved it!



Another splash park! 


Playing with daddy


Wheeee! 


We had many afternoons / evenings in the kiddy pool. Here Abigail was directing daddy to "sit down" 

More park fuN! 

Everyone brought toys for the kiddos to ride
Abigail enjoyed pushing everyone around

Even on her own power wheel she was the pusher



Don't mind the bags of clothes for donation but look at that beautiful smile! 

Our most recent park adventure

She loves it when daddy is there to help her 

peek-a-boo! 

Ready....set....GOOOO!!! 

This is where she is saying "GOOOOO"

Such a cutie pie! 

By the end of the afternoon she had managed to figure out how to climb up this ladder all by herself! 


Even daddy had fun at the park, sitting in the choo choo train! 
I feel like you missed out on so many cute summer outfits because she was always in her bathing suits! At least she had several of those so you all don't think the poor thing had to wear the same thing over and over! Let me tell you she had some pretty dang cute outfits! 

Sadly, summer has come to an end and fall has come flying in. Tomorrow we are heading to the pumpkin patch for some fall festival fun! Mom is super excited, just wish the weather was gonna be a bit warmer! 

I will try my hardest to do better with blog updates! :-) But its fun to look at a couple of months of pictures and see how she got taller and thinned out and my oh my how her hair has grown! This momma needs to figure out what to do with all that hair, she starting to look like a punk rocker! 

Happy Fall! :-)

Monday, June 25, 2012

15 Months old and More Summer Fun......

I'm beginning to realize that Abigail has had quite a busy few weeks. You forget how much you have been doing until you sit back and look at all the pictures!!

I had bought this kiddie pool last summer but obviously we were not quite old enough yet. So this year we are breaking out all the fun toys and hanging out in the back yard!

Abigail is now 15 months old. Can you believe it!!?!!? I can't. Really. I cannot believe it. Seems like just yesterday I was taking weekly trips to the doctor hoping for them to say okay its time to go! And here we are 15 months later and our little girl has turned into quite the "big" girl these days.

She weighed in at 19 lbs. 6 oz. Still a little bit of a peanut but she really is sticking to "her" growth curve. She is now 30.75 inches tall! She is starting to be able to reach things on top of tables, which means more baby proofing will soon begin!

Abigail has developed quite the little personality lately. It's so much fun to watch. She is learning how to do new things everyday. She understands about 90% of things you tell her to do. Her motor skills are amazing for her age and she is a running fool. Of course mom's and dad's always think their kids are smart but I'm afraid this one might be toooooo smart for her own good.

She has also developed quite the little temper and is happy to display that when she doesn't get her way or she can't get something to work that she knows should work. She loves technology and if you need your iPhone fixed.... Abigail is your girl. She can unlock an iPhone, turn on the music and check email's if you'd like.

Besides the great outdoors and anything to do with water, this kid loves music. I know she should be listening to fun kid songs (which she does) but she gets her fair share of current music as well. Gramma does jazzercise and she and Abigail love to dance to the music from jazzercise class. You should see this kid when a song comes on that she recognizes and likes, it is like a switch and she goes into dance mode and is one dancing fool. Cracks me up every time.

Abigail is working on her vocabulary, but slowly. A little more slowly than mom would like but she has a few words. I think I really am going to have to commit to "Jack" being her first word. She will also try to say "simba" and just this past week we have started saying "Hi" "mamma" and "dadda," so baby steps! Of course, she still points at everything and asks "what's that?" I think one of these days she's going to just say a full sentence and we are all going to be left wondering where the heck that came from!

We have been excited to hear and see so many of our friends having babies recently and quite a few on the way!! I wish we all lived a little closer so we could schedule some fun play dates but hopefully we will get to visit occasionally. Abigail does love to play with other kids her age. We have been lucky with this new mommy group that most of the kids are in the exact same age range as Abigail so that makes it even more fun.

 We're going to the pool......
 The kiddie pool! 
 Again, little miss apprehensive
 Jack of course thought this was his very own personal water bowl! 

 Abigail loves her slide and swing. She has taught herself to climb up and slide down all by herself! 

 Here we go.....

 Back to the pool


 Daddy was a bit apprehensive too....
 But he finally braved the waters with Abigail. Mommy did too but no one got a picture! 



 I was laughing so hard at her the other morning. I was taking a picture and the flash was going off. Every time it went off she made this face! So hilarious
Jack. What can we say. He is certainly Abigail's best buddy these days. He loves the food she drops for him and she loves the "kisses" she gets when he is looking for food she may have but hasn't dropped. 


There are many more adventures planned for the summer and even a few still on the camera to share, hopefully it won't take me 3 months to post them!