Thursday, September 29, 2011

the scooty-crawl

I have termed Abbie's current mode of transportation the 'scooty-crawl' because she goes back and forth between moving on her knees and scooting on her tummy.

A couple of days ago she discovered the kitchen- I guess now I have to keep that clean too.


The most fun thing in the kitchen: the fridge!

She loves being outside. Her new current obsession is leaves. And, yes she has eaten pieces 2 different times.


The last couple of days she has been doing more baby talk and less squeals and screeches. Today she started saying 'dada'. So cute!


Here is Abbie sporting her Halloween pj's. I love holidays! Ness came down on Monday and we went to the store and tried different costumes on Abbie. They were all so cute! We picked one out but you'll have to wait til Halloween to find out what she will be.

And last but not least a cute story: As you know Abbie has been a not so good sleeper. Lately, the only way she will go down for naps is if I rock her to sleep (if I just set her in her crib she either cries forever, or plays until she gets bored and then cries). Well, yesterday I rocked her and thought she was in a deep sleep. The second I layed her down in her crib her eyes popped open and immediately she rolled over, sat up and was standing up against her crib smiling at me. It happened so fast. It was cute, it seemed like she was saying "ok mom, I am ready to play". I couldn't resist, so I got her out and we played for a little bit before trying again to take a nap.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

If only she would sleep...

It all started Friday. I substitute taught Amanda's 6th grade class. Brandon had school stuff to do, so Abbie came with me and hung out with grandma and grandpa Crowther for the day. It was hard being away from her, I kind of felt like I was abandoning her. Thankfully she only cried for like a minute and then had a good day- with little sleep. When school got out we came back home and barely missed the BYU football game traffic (so, glad! I don't do well with traffic, or other cars for that matter). We tried to put Abbie down for a nap but failed.  So, we decided we would go get a quick dinner and hopefully she would be ready to go to bed for the night. That might have worked, haha, except that all the places we had coupons for actually don't exist anymore, so we ended up driving around a lot, which may have been okay, except for the previously mentioned traffic. We finally settled for Arctic Circle and then picked up Thor at redbox. Getting Abbie to sleep wasn't as easy as usual. She woke up at 3am and was wide awake and would not go back to sleep. I ended up staying up with her for 1 1/2 hours. And then because I was wide awake, I had a hard time going back to sleep. Saturday, we got up early, because Brandon's dad planned a family 5k Here's a cute picture of Brandon and Abbie watching cartoons while I was getting ready.
We all had matching t-shirts for the 5k.  The boys ran most of it, and us girls walked (and cheated). It was fun :)
We went back to the house and had a yummy breakfast and then hung out for a while. Abbie tried some new baby cracker things and of course liked them. Please note the bow that is glued to her head (Elmer's glue). That is because she won't keep her headbands on anymore, and someone recently thought she was a boy. So I will resort to this. 
During the whole morning and afternoon she only took about a 30 minute nap. Do you see where this is heading? We went over to my parents' house because I was planning on going to the General Relief Society Broadcast with my mom and sister. By this point Abbie was getting super whiny and once again would not go to sleep. Let me just say, I was very grateful to get a break from her to go to the meeting. And of course the meeting was fabulous and uplifting. We got home a little before 9pm, and put Abbie to bed- thankfully she transferred from the car seat!  Unfortunately, she woke up around midnight. Brandon brought her in to sleep with us, but she tossed and turned most of the time, which meant that neither of us slept very well so around 3am he took her back to her crib and she actually stayed. That is until 4am. I got up with her and once again was up with her for a LONG time. She then got up again at 6 with Brandon for good, which means she never really went back to sleep. Basically we were all exhausted this morning, and had to get ready for our 8:30am church. Thanks be to heaven that she did sleep for half of church. When we got home we all took a short nap- too short for some of us. We attempted other naps for Abbie, but no such luck. One time when I went to get her I found her standing up in her crib. This would have been exciting except that I was quite frustrated. (now that she is asleep, I can be proud). She went down a couple of hours ago, and I am praying that she will sleep better tonight, for all of our sanity.
So, the moral of the story is: if Abbie doesn't get her precious sleep, then everyone suffers. Therefore, I plan on being more careful with sticking to her schedule.
Don't get me wrong, I do love that girl and wouldn't trade her for anything. I guess I need to learn some patience and how to be more positive.  So, I will start by showing you this cute video of Brandon making Abbie giggle. 

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

11 minutes

in the life of Abbie. 
And because I am so nice I fixed the movie and sped it up to fit into 40 seconds. Enjoy!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Funny Girl

Yep, this here is definitely a funny girl. A couple of days ago when I went to get Abbie out of her crib she had stuffed both of her legs into one of the pajama legs. It must have been comfy because she just left it that way until I got her dressed.

She is so funny when we put her on the ground. She moves all over, and finds anything and everything to stuff into her mouth.

She has become a pro-sitter. Yay, now we can use highchairs at food places, which is good because then she is not sitting on our laps trying to grab our food :) But, trust me, she sure tries!

We finally gave her this empty cup to play with. Rather than sucking on the lid or the side of the cup, like we thought she would, she stuffed the straw into her mouth. She's a smarty too!

And because she is a pro-sitter, she can now sit up in her whale bathtub. It's so much easier. She sure loves the water. Yesterday we went swimming. She splashed and played the whole time (and swallowed lots of water). It was so cute!!


This funny girl loves to be on her tummy in the crib. Today she actually slept on her tummy with her knees pulled in. It was super funny!

Well, there's your update on Abbie. Oh and Brandon and I are doing good too!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Sleep, where are you?

Let me just start by saying that being a mom is a hundred times harder than I was expecting, and I wasn't expecting it to be easy. Good thing it is totally worth it. So, Abbie has a cold. Which means that her nose is constantly running, and she is not sleeping well. Two nights ago she woke up about every hour, so Brandon finally brought her in to sleep with us. Let's just say we were all very tired yesterday.

Sometimes I have to lay by her to get her to take a nap- yeah, I know it's a bad habit. But, look how cute she is when she sleeps :)


Thankfully she does have her happy moments.

Oh, and she has recently figured out how to go from sitting to laying to sitting :)


Monday night Brandon took his dad to the Weird Al concert. They had a blast!

Friday, September 9, 2011

State Fair

Last night I went with my family to the Utah State Fair- it was discount night. Brandon wasn't able to come because he had a class and ultimate Frisbee practice (he's on the Law School team).

Grandpa, Sydney, and Amanda all entered a piece of art into the Fair. Syd got an Honorable Mention. This inspired me, now I want to take art lessons.

Here's most of our group :)

Yay, for riding the awesome, yellow, bumpy slide! (Abbie did not ride it)

Abbie was so fun. She loved looking at everything, and was really happy.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

half a year old

That's right, Abbie is 6 months old! We went to the doctor today for her 6 month appointment. The doctor said Abbie looks like she is 9 months old because she is so big. Abbie is doing fantastic developmentally. Good news: the flat spot on the side of her head looks better, and won't have to be re-shaped with a helmet. I am so glad! So, here are her stats:
weight: 18 lbs. 6 oz. (90th percentile)
height: 28 inches (99th percentile)
head circumference: 42.5 cm (50th percentile)
Abbie is very mobile-rolling and scooting all over. She is a pretty happy girl if she gets enough sleep. I think that is a huge part of why she was being super fussy. She loves any and every kind of food- not that you can tell from her size :). In the last couple of weeks she has started to show preferences for people, which really means she does not like strangers. She is such a joy in our lives, and we love her so much!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Labor Day weekend

Friday started out not so good. The law school was closed because of a power outage so Brandon had to work from home- which means less productivity. On top of that, Abbie was just having a bad day, which meant that I was having a bad day, and because Brandon was home he got to experience all her fussiness, etc. So we weren't exactly a happy family. By mid afternoon we had had it, and decided we needed to do something fun. We decided to go to Planet Play in Draper with a coupon we had, and my mom met us there and took Abbie for a couple of hours. It was really nice to go on a date without her, and to just have fun! 

Saturday, we got up early, dropped off Abbie at Brandon's parents' house, and met my family at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It was Amanda's 12th Birthday, so we went to do baptisms for the dead (a family tradition). It was so cool finally having our whole family there.
Afterwards, we picked Abbie up, ate lunch, and then headed to Swiss Days. It was Brandon's first time going and he actually enjoyed it. I always enjoy it because I love looking at all the cool crafts. I also bought a couple of cool puzzles. Speaking of which, here are the 2 puzzles that I've done in the last few days.


Sunday our ward switched to 8:30 church. It's funny that Sunday will be the only day that I have to get up early. Usually Abbie and I sleep in til about 8:30. It was nice to come home and have most of the day left. All three of us took a nap- probably the first nap I've taken since Abbie was a couple weeks old. Basically it was a relaxing day. In the evening my sisters came to sleep over.

Monday morning my sisters and I were lazy and played games. Brandon worked on applications to clerking for a judge next year (scary to think we will probably be living far away from here next year at this time).
Then we headed up to Salt Lake to go to Grandpa Nielsen's birthday party. There we had lots of delicious food and got to spend time with family. Abbie had lots of fun. She played on the ground, and got herself stuck under the chair. It was pretty funny :)


And, she had a blast playing in the swimming pool.

Afterwards, we headed to my parents for dinner and games (while Brandon finished up his applications). 
We had quite the busy weekend, which I love since my days are pretty chill, sometimes boring.