Abby's First Christmas

This was taken on Jer's phone, so it's a bit blurry, but I love this picture of Abigail getting ready for her first Christmas.

Sick Today

Just documenting Abigail's first sickness. She's doing fine just a cold with snot everywhere. She was making this goofy face all day today too.

Animoto Video

Our friends created a website that makes these slideshows for free. It's easy and fast. Check out www.animoto.com

Melting Pot

The best husband in the world (my husband, in case you were wondering) babysat for me two nights in a row. The first was Black Nativity. The second was me going to Happy Hour at Melting Pot for my friend, Kelsey's birthday. My Tacoma friends here are Leah, Kelsey (due in Feb.) me, Sarah (due with twins any moment), and Drea.

Tree Hunting

Tree Hunting was a blast! We got my dream...a big tree. It's nine feet tall. We went with my sister's family, Ross, Emma & Elena. It started snowing as we were loading the tree up. We went to Burger King afterward.

Black Nativity 1

On November 30th, my friends, Amber, Andrea, Kelly, Kelly, Steph and Lena, and I went to see Amber perform in the Black Nativity and out for Andrea's birthday. We had dinner at Racha Thai and drinks at Pesos afterward. Fun times!

Black Nativity

Amber, Andrea & Lena
My beautiful friend, Amber performed this year in Seattle's "Black Nativity." It is an amazing show of the nativity and the story of Christ set to black, gospel music. I highly recommend it!

Five Months Old

Things She Does: sit-up, babble...a lot..., stand while holding furniture or fingers (closely watched), interact with people. Her stats: 15 lbs 3 oz. and 25 inches long, She loves: Her dad, her exersaucer, putting things in her mouth, being a part of things, music, the bath. My sister, Shannon, was reflecting on personality traits of her own children and how they were pretty well established in their early months. I decided to write down some of Abby's personality traits and see how well my observations are preserved throughout her life. If I were to predict her personality, I would say she's like a cat - cuddly when she wants to be but independent when she wants to be. She is joyful with a cheerful disposition. She is social, active, very curious, an observer, talkative, and enjoys goofiness. She is also cute as a button....I may be a bit bias here!

Bitter Beer Face

OK, Maybe it's not as extreme, but Abigail's new lip thing is reminding us of the Bitter Beer Face...maybe she's a bit cuter though.

Leavenworth

Thanksgiving weekend we took a trip to Leavenworth. Jer had some work to do there, so it was a great excuse to go see wonderful Christmas lights, a lantern parade and all the shops. We couldn't resist a trip to the hat shop. I put the last picture of Abigail in because she was making this goofy face with her lips tucked in all weekend - goofball. She also decided that between 1:00 and 4:00 in the morning is a time she didn't want to sleep, which left some grumpy parents throughout the night. We got over it quickly though and look back to the trip with very fond memories.

Thanksgiving 2007

Grandpa & Grandma Time

We spent some much needed time with my parents recently. They've been so busy, and we've been so busy that it's been harder to connect. We were so excited to be able to see them a number of times in the last couple of weeks.

My Little Mouse

I just think this picture is cute. She looks like a little mouse to me.

Trying to Crawl

Abigail is trying to crawl. We put her on her tummy, and she starts to try and connect foot with floor. She can inch slightly, but her legs are normally going with a face plant because she can't get her arms under her yet. She's working on it.

Sitting Up

Abigail is a pretty strong little girl and is becoming better at sitting up. She's 4 1/2 months here.

Eating

Abigail sticks everything in her mouth. She reaches out all the time for our food. We still want to wait until she's six months to start rice cereal because our doctor told us her digestive system will be better developed by then. Now that we're supplementing with formula the kid is filling out. She's got the chubby, rolly legs and a rounder face. Now that the face is filling out everyone says she looks like her mom.

Exersaucer

Abigail loves her "activity center" that we opened on her four month birthday. Mommy loves it too because I can cook while she plays.

Here's some video of her in the exersaucer. On the left of the initial shot, you can see the box for the espresso machine we just bought ourselves for Christmas. We decided to have lattes for the rest of our lives rather than shop for each other this year.

Sleeping

Our little girl is sleeping like a champ now that she has a full belly. Thank you to our friends, Greg and Jackie - parents of new twins, for your advice. She slept 9 straight hours last night and 10 the night before. Her naps are great too. Their advice? Their children are sleeping through the night, and the trick is to get the calories during the day. Abby's eating has been a concern for a while. I just don't think I'm producing enough. Her fussiness stopped, but it seemed like she was barely eating. So, two days ago, we did an experiment. I fed her like normal, and then we gave her the bottle. After feeding off me, she ate an additional 8 ounces from the bottle, which confirms that she isn't getting much from me. So, now I'm back to pumping, which I don't love, but I want her to get as much breastmilk as possible. An example of what we're doing is our schedule this morning. First feeding was 100% at the breast. Second feeding began like that. Then, I gave her 4 ounces of pumped breast milk. She was still hungry, so I had to give her an additional two ounces of bottle. We're told they don't overeat at this age, and she indicates when she is full, so I pray we're doing the right thing. It feels right.

Harvest Carnival

This is us at our church Harvest Carnival. Abby is a lobster, and we are the fishermen who reeled her in.
Jeremy's gorgeous parents.

We normally call her shrimp, but today she was a lobster.

Jeremy's beautiful sister, Julie, manned the booth with us.

Four Month Update

Here is Abby's four month update. She still checks out as healthy as can be. She has a good nature with some times of fussiness, which I assume is pretty typical to most babies. She weighs 13 lbs 14 ozs (33%) and is 25 inches tall (75%). Eating habits have been OK. She hasn't been as fussy, but we weren't convinced she was getting enough, so we are now supplementing. She starts with me and then goes to the bottle. This shift, last night (11/4/07), gave us our first all night sleep session, which lasted 10 hours!!! We'll see what happens tonight. She is gulping down an extra 4-8 ounces after feeding with me, so she's obviously still hungry. She is talking up a storm. For her four month birthday, I pulled out her exersaucer, which she is enjoying. She really pays attention to what is going on around her and wants to figure out what is going on around her. She opens her mouth toward our food and reaches for it. Maybe it's because we've given her tastes of whipping cream, chocolate sauce, latte and sucked on strawberry, banana, wheat thins and belgium waffles. She smiles tons at every new person we see. I think she's pretty social. She was dancing on the couch as dad was making some dance rhythms for her. Jeremy is good at getting her to really giggle. She pulls hair, drools all over the place, blows out diapers, spits up, puts everything in her mouth and tugs at clothing...all the things that babies do. We adore this little girl.

Ross' Birthday

Happy 40th birthday Ross. I'll try to get a better picture of the cake uploaded soon. We went to Grand Prix Raceway for a fabulous suprise party!

Rolling Over

My sister ws here a couple weeks ago to witness Abby rolling over from back to front for the first time. She was wise enough to snap a picture. She looks a bit shocked about it all - huh?

The Generations

This blog is kind of out of order. This was taken at Jeremy's 29th birthday on October 7th. It is the generational picture with Great Grandpa and Grandma Durr, Grandpa and Grandma Durr, Great Grandpa and Grandma Weber, Daddy and Mommy & Abigail.

Hello?

Hello? Anybody there?

Murder Mystery Party

We had wonderful babysitters for the evening: Uncle Ross, Aunt Stacie, and cousins Emma & Elena.

We just did a murder mystery evening with our friends, Hope and Jeremy Evarts, Kelsey and Mark Wilkening and Debbie and Todd. It took place in the 1800's. Jeremy won for best in character as Juan Pinto.

Mommy and Me

Halloween was the first day Abby pulled the "I'm going to scream and calm down only when mommy holds me." It's very sweet to be loved so, but I am so not looking forward to this stage. I should just cherish this time before she wants nothing to do with me. We do have fun together though. If people recorded me throughout the day with her, they'd probably be quite entertained...I'm very odd. I make up my own songs, which are sounding a lot like the "Elf" song about him loving his dad. We've also just started a "Mommy and Me" yoga class at the YMCA.