new years eve

Hi blog.

I'm sorry I haven't written lately, but you see, the reason I write is so that people who live far from us can know what we're doing everyday.  That means, when I'm actually home with all those people - I find that it is difficult to carve out the time to write...I'm too busy soaking them up.

I only have a moment now.

But I wanted to say, thanks for a great year.  It's been pretty crazy good.  I'm beyond blessed in more ways than one, and I'm excited to see what new and wonderful things 2012 brings.

I'll write soon about all of our christmas and travel excitement.  We have so many stories to tell.  Until then, Happy New Year - everyone.

My 3-year old

Ok, so I need to write about my newly minted 3 year old. 

Let's start with the stats.  

Abs went to the doctor yesterday and weighed in at 34lbs and 37 inches tall.  I haven't charted that yet, but I'm fairly certain that's pretty average for her age.  The doctor asked me how many words she says and I laughed.  She's always been a verbal child, and that hasn't slowed down at all. 

This whole 3-year old thing.  I think my friend Kathy put it best when she said that 3 just fits.  I couldn't believe she was a year old.  I couldn't imagine her being 2.  But, 3?  Yeah - she is totally 3.  She doesn't seem like a baby, she doesn't seem older. It's just where she's supposed to be.  

Let's see.  What about Abby now? She asks more questions now than ever.  She has shifted from taking in the world around her to exploring the world around her.  If she hears me talking and doesn't know a word, she'll stop me and ask "Mommy, what does 'treadmill' mean?" She's just as much of a little sponge than ever.

For example.  Yesterday morning, I prepped the cupcakes for baking.  I noticed the oven was taking a long time to preheat and when I opened it, it was cold.  Abby saw me tinkering with it and came over and asked in her sing-songy bouncy voice "whatcha doin' mommy?"  So I told her that the oven was broken.  She says "Oh.  Maybe we can call Mr. Richard to come an fix it"  Richard is our landlord.  I told her that I thought that was a good idea and I called him.  When I got off the phone, Abby asked me if he was going to come fix the stove, I told her yes and she says, "ok, mom, I'll start cweaning up.  We need to cwean before Mr. Wichard gets here."  Ha.  I mean, she's obviously, NEVER heard me say that before. 

They did fix the stove, but not in time for me to make cupcakes, so a store bought cake it was for Abby's party.  Which was fine.  

Moving on.  Abby has more elaborate pretend play now. She's so funny.  She's animated and exaggerated.  Her facial expressions are often one click more expressive than they need to be.  Kyle and I got Abby a little train track set.  Her response upon opening it was appropriate and extremely gratifying.  She was so excited about it.  We let her stay up an hour past bedtime to play with her trains.  The whole time, she was making up stories and plots and building characters and relationships with her new trains.  We all just sat there and listened to her chatter on and on, "Oh, what?  You already picked up the freight?  But I thought *I* was going to get that freight.  Oh, ok, you can take it to the stationmaster then.  Why, thank you.  Have you seen my brother car?  He's over there. Beep Beep!  Hi trains, it's me, car!  How are you doing today?  Well, we're fine thank you.  Thomas is taking the freight to the stationmaster.  I think I need a new coupling, I'm going to go get checked..."  on and on and on.

It's one of my favorite things ever.  To just sit and listen to her ongoing imagination. 

This picture pretty much sums up Abby

Okay.  Other Abby things.

She eats well.  I really can't think of much food she doesn't like.  She's still not big on chicken, but she'll eat it more than she used to.  I'm not sure I can pinpoint her favorite foods, but some of her most common choices are: hummus on a tortilla, hot dogs, green beans, bananas, apples, applesauce, pasta (with sprinkle cheese, of course).  She still loves olives and tomatoes - those might be favorites, actually.  She drinks milk with meals and water in between.  She's had juice a few times on special occasions, but 99.9% of the time, she's still on milk or water.

We can jump from food to potty training, right?

We started training on Thanksgiving.  She had 3 or 4 accidents in the days that followed, and hasn't had any since then.  I am in disbelief how quickly she's adapted.  She still wears diapers for nap times and bed times. But, if she's awake and wearing underwear - she has a 100% accuracy rate going right now, or has since about day 3 of training.  She is not ready to be sleep trained yet, and that may be a while off.  But, I'm super proud of her.  She's super proud of herself, too.

She's still taking naps, and still needs them.  She doesn't usually fight us about them.  Sometimes she likes to stall bedtime, but she's usually not too bad.

At this age, she loves projects, she loves coloring and crafts and baking and absolutely anything where she can help.  She still loves cleaning and organizing and is always rearranging things or packing things up into new places.  She loves to dance.  She loves to be chased and tickled and hugged.

She's a little ball of energy.

I'm out of time, but this will do for now.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Abigail.  We all love you so very much.

3

I'm too tired now to write much - but here are a slew of pictures of Abby's party today.  In short - we had fun, she had a blast, she's spoiled rotten, and we're all feeling pretty happy about things.  Well, happy and tired.

We did a pink/grey train theme.  It was 100% perfect for her.

first tooth

A day or two ago, E woke up glued to her sheets thanks to a very runny and goopy nose.  

I just assumed it was the natural consequence of chewing on the cart handles at Target.  And I know "they" say that teeth do not cause colds.  But, while the jury may still be out on causation, you can't deny the correlation after a while. 

E's cold was just gross more than anything, she was still in pretty good spirits.  She was/is soaking her onsies within an hour or two with all the drool she's producing.  It dawned on me last night to check for teeth.  

Sure enough.  Her bottom front tooth - on the left has broken through and is here to stay.

So, now all of these looks made more sense.

The poor girl just didn't feel good!  I've been giving her things to chew on.  She's a big fan of mum-mums, as well as anything that's made of wood...and she has a frozen teether she likes.  Coins too - although, I'm trying to prevent those going in her mouth anymore ever.

Congrats little miss mae, one down, 19 to go.

Dear Santa

Two nights ago, I was putting Abby to bed and I decided to talk to her about Santa.  She's picked up bits and pieces about him, but I don't think we'd ever really talked about the whole thing.  So, I explained to her where Santa lived and how he had elves that made toys and that, if you were good, he would bring you a toy on Christmas.

She was mostly concerned that Santa was cold in the North Pole.  I assured her that he had a nice warm coat.

Then I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she said "I don't want anyfing"  I asked her why and she said "because I alweady have so many toys"

sweet girl.

But, I could tell that she was a little sad about that.  You could see that she WANTED to get new toys for Christmas, but for whatever reason, wasn't going to let herself think about it because she'd decided she had too many toys already.  She was torn.

*tangent*

It reminded me of the time when I was in 1st or 2nd grade and my parents surprised me with tickets to go see Disney on Ice (at least, I think they had the tickets already - that's how I remember it).  Disney was my favorite thing and I can only speculate that they were as excited to offer me this treat as I was going to be to take it.  But, I told my mom I couldn't go.  Why?  Because I had too much homework.  I remember feeling so sad, and yet, so adamant.   To this day, I don't know why I didn't forget the homework and go to the show.  I remember mom and dad trying to convince me to go, and I just wouldn't.  I guess I was convincing.  I remember crying while filling out a worksheet due the next day because, I really did WANT to go.

So, that memory came back when I saw Abby so sad about not wanting Christmas presents.  She's still young enough that I can fix it.

I asked her why she didn't want to ask Santa for anything and she said, again, because she had so many toys already.  I suggested that maybe we could make room for some new toys - would she like that?  She whispered "yes"

Then, we were good.  I asked her again, "Once we make room for your new toys, what kind of new toys do you want Santa to bring?"

She thought about it and said "trains"  But then she said, laughing, "no, I already have so many trains"

...too bad kid.  You're getting more next week. ;)

She thought about it some more and finally decided on "a doll"  Then she added "and a dog and kitty cat"  She went ahead and clarified that she meant a Toy dog and kitty cat.

I asked her if she wanted anything else and she said "nope"

what a great age this is.

Yesterday afternoon, I told her we would write Santa a letter, and she told me the same three things from the day before.

I'll mail off the letter today, but I texted him too - in case the mail is slow. :)

I love the magic that Christmas brings, and I'm excited to watch Abby get caught up in it all.

not to be outdone...

phone pics

Time for me to dump out a bunch of phone pics I've been storing. 

baking with my little chef

 my brother and I used to always put baby Jesus on top of the manger - we thought it was hilarious. So I, obviously,  thought it was funny when Abby knew that was the best place for him as well. 

        

This is the lunch Abby made me for work.  

In addition to about 8 apples and a banana, there is also some wooden food and a bouncy ball.

I can't stop her from cleaning.  This picture is her cleaning the church on Sunday. Yesterday she cleaned the post office while we waited in line.  She looks down at the floor and says "(huff) my my, I need to clean up this mess!"  

She saw these hair ties on the floor and said "Look!  It's like eyes"  And she went to get a nose and a mouth.  She then said "I found a dog mouth, so now it looks like a doggy"

The nap monkey makes sure she doesn't get up, I guess...

So close...

Elizabeth is *not* about to give up her starbucks cup. 

little chef making ornaments.

happy kid.