let's see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxd2drf2UVM

quick update

still no paci!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!











yes I'm a little excited :)

big girl = no paci?

Just a quick update that I hope sticks!

So last night Abbie started asking for a pair of pink shoes. She’s got PLENTY of shoes and I kept telling her no but she’s my daughter and kept asking. So finally I said, would you trade your paci for pink shoes, I figured this was the only way to end the conversation because we all know that won’t happen. SHE SAID YES. So I tried explaining that it meant she wouldn’t have it again any night or nap, and she said I know I’m a big girl I want pink shoes. So we got them, she’s got nicer shoes than me, but they are pink and she gave me her paci when we got home. She made it ALL night long without it. I’m sure it’s not the end of the paci conversation, but I know if we can make it one night we are DONE.

Big Mac Blessings

So Abbie’s good, great actually. She’s full of energy, questions and attitude just like a 3 year old should be. I need to post some current pictures, but have just felt so busy. I don’t think we really are, but sometimes feeling busy is worse than actually being busy, right?

Anyway, in the last month or so stupid stuff keeps happening. First Rick’s car died. We knew we were going to have to replace it, but we were hoping to hold off until after the first of the year, still hoping, but sharing a ride is not so much fun  Abbie is so confused because she thinks my seat in the Malibu is the one behind the wheel and Rick’s been driving. She’s all about routine.

Then someone broke into the house, well does it count as broke in if they come in an open window? I should have known better, after all the years of living in South St. Louis, but I didn’t. Dad even asked if they should close the windows before they went to bed and I said no we’d be fine. Well I went to bed and they listened, and I was wrong. Yep mark your calendars, August 31st, Melissa was wrong. I guess about 12:30 or so they came in, mom got up to go to the bathroom and scared them away so all they got was our purses. Having your purse stolen is minor I think compared to what could have happened, but it’s all that pain in the butt stuff like getting a new license, library card, sams card, I never knew how many cards a person could have! Not to mention all the brand new lipsticks, and the purse I spent WAY too much money on. That will teach me to buy nice purses 

But the point of this post wasn’t a pity party for us. It’s to remind me how really and truly lucky we are. No one was hurt in the “break” in, we still have another car to share and my family is healthy (knock on wood). I have a friend who’s mother after already having cancer, having a kidney removed and a bunch of other stuff, found out she had cancer again, in her lung. They removed the lung but couldn’t get everything and now she’s got to have the max dose of chemo and radiation. The first chemo treatment made her so sick they can’t even start the radiation. Another friend’s sister just found out she has MS on top of serious diabetes. Someone else’s mom is recovering from leukemia and needs to have her knees replaced. Someone at work, their car rolled across the parking lot into a pond! One family my parents know in just 7 years have lost a son, father, mother, had Hep B, another mother has bone cancer and I’m sure many other things I don’t’ even know! I feel like I’ve been having a crappy couple of months so I just thought I would stop and realize how lucky we are.

We both have jobs; we have a great house, great kids, great family, healthy family, friends and so many other things we don’t even see as blessings. So take some time to stop and look at the little things around you that others can only dream of. My step daughter said in the car the other night that she figures every person in America had been to McDonalds and was flabbergasted when I said not everyone has the money to go to McDonalds. Did you ever think it would be a blessing to get a Big Mac?

It's her birthday

Here's some quick pics

Three is the magic number

And Abbie's magic today! She was making about as much noise at the exact moment she was born as I was when she was actually born (bummer when the epidural wears off in the MIDDLE OF A C-SECTION) Anyway, we all survived that fit and will live through many more. She did how ever let us get a couple of cute pictures. Here's one.




for those of you who know her well she loves LOVES to read and often we'll head to bed only to hear her reading to her dolls. Sometimes she falls asleep with a book in her hand, see!




anyway, more stuff later. I'm tired and party and people tomorrow..

oh, Rick is 35. Just a little older than Abbie, but a good number for him too :)

what a fit

ok, in case you check this before I figure it out just click below and you'll see a fit. I know everyone think's always perfectly sweet, but nope not a chance. I'm trying to figure out how to make it face the right way but haven't yet. if you know shoot me a message

tell me a story

So Abbie's favorite thing is to have us tell her stories, not read stories tell her stories. I'm not so good at that, need to work on it, but in the car I had one for her. It was a story about a big girl who managed to sleep without a paci for a whole week and her mommy took her to the store to buy a new toy. She loved it we talked about it, she was going to be a big girl and sleep with no paci. LOVE IT. So we do bed routine, books, pj's, brush, hug, kiss, snuggle, mommy leaves. Didn't ask for a paci 10 minutes later SCREAMING for the paci. I said remember the story about the big girl who didn't need her paci. Abbie's response



MOMMY DON'T TELL ME THAT STORY ABOUT THE GIRL GIVE ME A PACI



Well we are down to one paci anyway. That's an improvement, have you seen this picture? There are at least six paci's in this shot!

she's reading

Ok not for real, but I'm in the computer room paying bills and I hear her looking at books and telling the story. Books I haven't read her in ages, bookes I didn't think she knew. It's amazing the memory she has. My mom broke her foot and made up this silly story about how it happened and Abbie asked her to tell it SEVERAL times over the last week when they were here. Tonight I asked her to tell me the broken foot story and she did, she even remembered that the princess captain broke her foot on the toe rail. I don't even know what a toe rail is, but she remembered it.

I am contiunally amazed by her and the things she has learned and I didn't even notice. I look at her and she's this big girl, a kid not a baby and I can hardly breathe just thinking about it. As I backed the car out of our spot at daycare today she said so matter of fact "So Mommy, how was your day, mine was wonderful" For real, she said it. And just when I'm so sad but resigned to the fact that my little baby has turned into a little kid I see her in her new big girl bed, curled up in a ball looking so tiny and small. She's so big and tiny all at the same time.

I'll try to post pictures of the bed and the kid this weekend. Rick is traveling most of this week though so I don't know for sure if I'll have time. Not sure I like being home alone in our house yet. I was actually looking at alarm systems today :( but when I walk at night I notice that there are ony 2 or 3 houses in our area with alarms so probably I don't need one. Someone said get a dog, as if I didn't have enough to do already :)

hope everyone is good.

quick post

We are doing our best to settle in. I sent pictures of the new house to those I had emai for, if you'd like to see it let me know. Also if you know how to make the picture at the top smaller tell me PLEASE. and if you're reading let me know too. No one ever leaves messages. More tomorrow I hope.

Abbie has a back yard

And we are here watering it right now. She thinks the whole house is the back yard. If we go out front she says "lets to out to the front back yard" We closed May 16th and will be so glad to be done moving and packing and unpacking.

Abbie's room is pink, ours is kahki, grandma's is yellow and we'll be glad to never paint again. We got the fence we thought would never happen today.

Oh and can I tell you, Abbie told her first joke today. We were in her new bathroom and she was looking around under the sink, there was no toilet paper. For some reason I asked what she'd had for lunch and she grinned a big old grin and said "mommy, I had toilet paper for lunch" then she just cracked up!

I'll post pictures of the house soon, but it's likely to be a mess as we move in. I'm not sure where I want anything, or even if I want everything ;) We may hvae a big old yard sale eventually.

anyway, hope all is good with everyone reading.

new pictures

SO I got a new photo thing with my new scanner. It's totally cool. Look at the pictures from the snow.


and here are some of our house

school pictures

Ok so we got her the cutest outfit, matching ribbons, matching shoes the whole 9 yards. Guess which picture is taken at home :)

April First, a day of firsts

Abbie’s first have to leave the store right now temper tantrum. It lasted at least another 10 minutes of drive time. We finally pulled over so dad could get us something to drink (diet coke) and Abbie could catch her breath. We still don’t know what set her off, but man was she angry.

Our first meal in our new house. Ok it was McD’s on a blanket over the plywood in front of the not finished fire place, but it counts in my book. It was sort of cool to spend sometime really looking around. It’s bigger than it seemed before they put walls up :)

Abbie’s first night in her toddler bed. Her crib converts to a toddler bed so I don’t think it was a big deal for her, but I was missing my baby. Course the paci’s in her mouth and each hand helped me find that baby :) We’ll work on those next.

just a quick one

in case anyone is actually reading. Abbie's learning so many words, but getting them all wrong. Her latest word is CRAZY. For example she'll say "I want to watch backyardigans crazy mommy" or "read me a story crazy" I think crazy must mean REALLY BAD, but it's so funny.

And she's getting compound words backwards like her mom, I said hangaburger, regiscaster and many other hystical to repeate things. She says gotfor, like we gotfor my gloves in the car, papertoilet, if you need me to tell you what that one is you gotfor your brain. and others, I can't think of them right now, but I'll write them down.

Oh and today, she said "I only like my daddy crazy" You can interpret that one :) but she's such a daddy's girl these days to the point that I can do NOTHING right for her. Rick had class tonight and so when she asked where he was and I said schools, she said no way he's at school, he needs to come home now. Then we were driving by O'Charley's where we had dinner last night and she said we need to go get daddy he's eating still. LOVE IT sort of. Except that I bribed her with a shopping trip she could have cared less that I picked her up. And unlike her mother she's content to just walk around the store, or ride as she does like the queen in her cart.

k, I'm sleepy and going to sleep but here are some pictures. First one is of my girl in a dress and big old boots shoveling the snow with a rake, yes a rake. She's a creative girl and does what it takes. Next one is how much snow was on our patio before it stopped snowing. And the last one is abbie helping to salt the walk.

too hot

just a quick little Abbie story.
I was drinking hot chocolate last night and Abbie was convinced it was meant for her. I knew if it was too hot for me it was too hot for her so I was going to make her some chocolate milk and she told me no way. I had her touch my mug and she yelped and said “hot like coffee” yes I said, too hot for Abbie. To which she replied nope, I want some chocolate coffee. Anything hot is coffee. She touched the mug again and yelped and I told her it would burn her mouth. Then she stuck her finger in it and really made a face and yelped. Then she said she had an owie and she needed a bandaid because the chocolate coffee burned her. I kissed it and convinced her she would survive AND SHE DID IT AGAIN :)

Finally I poured a little into a cup for her and swirled it until it was cooler and she had some. She liked it but scrunched up her face and said too hot.

Yikes, it's been a while

So I haven't been here in ages. We survived Thanksgiving and even Christmas. We even managed to survive a week without Abbie while she was in St. Louis. Ok so it was like 4 days but still. I really missed her. I decided to try to potty train her today. Just underware unless she was asleep and it went ok. Accidents all morning but after nap we only had 2 and even a great big poop in the potty. If I was more disgusting, or more on top of things (I'm not sure what) I'd have taken a picture for posterity :) Ok not really that's gross.

Rick is in St. Louis for today and tomorrow. I'm hoping he'll be home by bed time, because Abbie was looking for him this afternoon and when I said he was in St. Louis she sat really quiet for a while and then asked if we could go for a ride. I asked where she wanted to go she said St. Louis. Course not grandma's house, not quite yet. SHe was there a week or so ago and she's had her fill. They brought home for new years and when they came back new years day she thought they were taking her with them and she gave them the dirtiest looks. She's a smart cookie!

I'm tired, short post, if you don't like it leave a comment so I know someone, anyone is reading :)

funnies

We rearranged our living room. We moved the couch and tv to one side, took the living room up to Abbie’s room and the whole other side is “Abbie’s space now" We were able to bring her table in and put it next to her kitchen and she’s got plenty of room to play. We did it during her nap and I was worried she would be confused so I was telling her we’d moved things around so she could play better. She saw it as we were coming down the stairs and she said “oh thank you mommy” Made my day.

Another funny Abbie story. Rick helped her pick a card for my birthday and there was something inside on a spring so it bounced when you opened it. Well she gave me the card and the pointed out how she drew on it and she was telling me all about it. So when we were done I put it on the table and she said “hey I want that back” I cracked up!

yesterday she was struggling with her slipper, she couldn't get it off and she kicked it and said damnit. I SWEAR I'M TRYING TO STOP, so Rick says don't say that word. She huffed and said Mommy says damnit, so now I get a time out if I say it too :)

Earlier the same day she was trying to pick up something that was stuck. I don't know what it was or what it was stuck on, but it was stuck good and stuck. All of a sudden I heard her yell "what the heck" another mommy term, at least it's clean, but coming out her mouth it sounded so silly. It's hard not to laugh.

fun stuff

Purple dress is post dinner, see story below.

Picture on the phone is Saturday, just like Mommy

And the other one, do I need to explain? She has a paci problem.

We had a lovely evening singing and squealing and laughing to be had by all. I'd composed a wonderful little blog and deleted it somehow, so not sure how, but it's gone. So all you get is pictures and quick sentances. Enjoy.

You can try looking at the rest of the pictures I uploaded ot kodakgallery.com. Lovemyabbie is our site, don't know if you can just search for it or not. If I have your email I'll send you an invite tomorrow, if not leave me a message here and I'll add you to the list