Thanksgiving Weekend - Abby Style

Umm.... Wow. What a whirlwind weekend. Previous post spoke of our turkey farm visit and first hockey game, but that was just the beginning of the weekend! Here's how everything else went down, with some pictures of course!

Thanksgiving dinner was fun and festive. Friends and family gathered for an early-ish dinner for us, 5 pm. We ate early so that everyone could head out to the beach for either midnight shopping (Jae and Nadia) or early morning shopping (Our household).

Turkey day for the adults meant Abby's first solid food! NO, we did not give her turkey, gravy or pie. She got her rice cereal mixed with formula. She started out a bit slow, but got the hang of it by the end. Here is one picture, there are others on the Picasa site:



A video will be coming soon, but Anny and I are at odds as to where to host it. She' afraid of YouTube.

After dinner we loaded up the car and drove to the beach. Abby slept for the entire drive, through a diaper change, and through the night! We were to the house first, which means that we got her settled before the onslaught of family and dogs. It helped a lot.

In the morning we got Abby fed and ready to go and we were off to shopping at the Outlet Stores. She was a good sport - awake for an hour then slept for a while, all in the Bjorn.

For a couple of weeks Abby has been reaching her finger into her mouth to the point of gagging, but we have not seen any other signs of teeth. Aunt Pam suggested that maybe we should be looking somplace other than the standard two front teeth, and we laughed it off. Until Saturday morning. Abby was cranky and fussy, only happy while eating. We opened up her mouth and sure enough, there is a toothbud on the left side of her mouth.



I have tried but cannot get a picture of it because of the placement. The above is of her getting SOME relief from the annoyance. She's become a pro at this already. On THIS chart, it would be about tooth number 21 or 22.

Hopefully it will come through completely very soon and we can move to the traditional front teeth.

Overall it was a busy and fun filled weekend. :o)

Our First Hockey Game!

Okay, it's Thanksgiving and I should be telling you that we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (we did) and put up Christmas lights (we did not) but I'm going to tell you about Wednesday instead!

I will start with the afternoon: we went and toured the turkey farm before we picked up our Thanksgiving dinner! We saw little cows, big cows and even cows being milked! We spent a half hour walking and looking and having a good time.

Aunt Pam got four tickets to the Washington Caps game and invited us to go! We picked her up and hopped on the Metro to meet Linda, who had to work a full day and had the parking pass. We had Abby in her car seat on the metro. She was sound asleep through the turn style, the platform, the train arriving, getting on and finding seats and all-but-two stops! This is how she woke up:



We strapped her into the Baby Bjorn, her favorite mode of transportation and ours:



While we ate we tried to feed her. There was WAY too much going on at Fudruckers (blinking Christmas lights were all the rage!) for her to eat her whole bottle. That would be the case at the arena, too.

Anny changed her diaper, so she missed the opening faceoff, but when she got back she was REALLY into it! She would not take her eyes off the ice! It's so white that the red of the jerseys must have been brilliant for her. We rooted for our team from the get-go:



She was awake and payed attention for the first period and a half, then Anny walked her to sleep:



She woke up with a couple of minutes left, right after we bought her a new Caps outfit that she can wear to her next game in a month or two, or around the house every time I catch the urge! There is no picture of the outfit, but here she is as the game ended:



Though our team lost, they played hard and Abby seemed to enjoy herself.

In about half an hour we're headed over to Family Dinner for Thanksgiving! Tonight will be Abby's first rice cereal, so you know there will be pictures tomorrow, or Saturday if I get too caught up in shopping on Black Friday!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Tales of a Schoolgirl

School Stories from this week, in pictures:



Another baby accidently scratched Abby on her head yesterday. We are guessing that it actually bled, but by the time we saw her she was fine. Because of regulations, though, we did also receive an Incident Report! (The picture is focused on the report-worthy scratch. Can you see it? I can't!)



Last Friday was picture day at school! We will see how their pictures come out.

In an effort to remind us to dress her nicely on Thursday of last week they stuck a sticker on her butt so that we could not miss it! Just says "The next school day is picture day!" Cuteness.

I have not scanned in the certificate she received for sitting up at school. Probably won't at this point.

We love our daycare folks. They are good to Abby and good to us. Thankful we are.

Umm. Five Months and Three Days Old!

She's no longer "working" on sitting up. She's a sitter now. Plays with toys and the dog, all while sitting up.

She even got an award certificate from school for her accomplishment! (A picture of that will be coming, but she was miserably tired last night)

Here she is, sitting up!

From November 2007

This means that she can sit at the table at Thanksgiving next week! Mommy has even agreed that she can have some of her rice cereal a few days early so that she can eat at the family table with everyone else!

Five Months Old!

Our little girl is now five months old!!

She has mastered:
Being cute
Rolling over
Responding in kind to smiles and sticking her tongue out
Recognizing faces and voices

She is working on:
Sitting up - she's steady for a VERY short time, but is getting stronger
Sitting herself up - it looks like she's doing crunches. Adorable.

Our doctor has given the go ahead to start her on cereal in two weeks. (for those non-parents, we're not talking about Boo Berry, just rice cereal.) (Sheesh, now I really want some Boo Berry!) I am all for starting her on it a week early, but Anny has it in writing that we should wait until 5 1/2 months.

Anny and I are currently debating about our Annual Christmas Letter. We're still not even talking about the letter itself, just the picture that will accompany the letter. I say that people would rather see a picture of Abby alone, but Anny thinks that the picture should be of all three of us. Since our opportunity for said picture will most likely occur next week at Thanksgiving Dinner, I would love for you to let me know two things:

What are you doing picture-wise?
What do you think we should do?
Are Christmas Letters out of date?

(A moment of maintenance, if you've not received our letter in the past but would like to this year, drop me an email with your address. Be warned, I will expect one in return!)

A Bedtime Routine

We were talking with a friend on Saturday about establishing an evening/bed time routine with our babies. (Their son is 2 1/2 months old now)

We do terribly with a nightly routine, and are not afraid to admit it! We read to Abby when we want to read, but rarely if ever when we're trying to get her to bed. She usually falls asleep in one of our arms and when we're ready for bed, we put her down.

I know that a lot of readers on this blog are parents of young children, and we would love to hear if you have a bedtime routine. I would also love to hear from those that don't as to any method or madness behind that.

Discuss!

(Next post will be about our morning routine!)

Happy Halloween

Her daycare is attached to a middle school, so the babies parade around part of the school and through the office gathering smiles and ooh's and aah's as they go.

When we put her in her costume last night she was getting tired and grumpy, so our pictures are not great. Once she fell asleep we all walked down to a neighbors house and she was immediately awake. Oh well. She got a full night sleep after all of that!

So – here is a front view and a back view, because the tail makes the outfit!

From October 2007

I wish she had been more cooperative, but that's okay. She's adorable anyway!