Hey buddy!

And we thought the girls were cute...

A crisp fall-ish day brought Rebecca and I out for a picnic in the park with all four kiddos. The girls enjoyed sandwiches, chips and dip and some Georgia peaches (thanks Nana and Granddaddy!) while the boys made quick work of their vegetable mush.

I guess we moms were on the same wavelength on this particular morning. Something about having all the windows open and a slight chill in the air makes overalls seem like just the right choice of attire. Just a few more weeks until football season and a warm bowl of chili. It seems crazy that this beach girl is looking forward to cooler days ahead, but fall and spring are much easier seasons for mothering than the hot, hot summer. It's nice when the kids can go outside and play for more than five minutes without turning into big sweaty messes.

Where my girls at?

Birthdays were always a big deal in my family. Likewise for the birthday party that went along with each special day. My mom and I have always been slightly more celebratory than average, and birthdays provided a special excuse to go overboard. Cake, candles, gifts, special birthday lunches and dinners, balloons, and the infamous "birthday week" (or sometimes month) were par for the course in my house. It was, in a word, awesome.

And so it was with great pleasure that I planned, organized and prepped for Abby's 2nd birthday party, knowing this is just the beginning of many years of balloon blowing, cake making, invitation sending, and party favor wrapping. We invited a few of her closest girlfriends (along with their parents and younger siblings) and had a blast chowing down on pizza, eating Clifford cake and running off that sugar high in the backyard.

Abby thanked me by taking a great nap while I picked red frosting off my floor after all her guests left . Maybe we'll just have cookies next time.

Buzz buzz buzz

Before the buzz

Justin finally convinced me that maybe the Wall Street banker comb over was not the best look for our son. He's cute, don't get me wrong...but having a side part at seven months old is a little old-mannish.

So with a little encouragement, and the promise that it would grow back anyway, my husband talked me into cutting his hair. Off. Buzzing it, to be exact. (That's a number 4 guard for those of you who want to rush off to Great Clips and claim Spike's style as your own.)

We sheared off two inches of baby hair (his sixth haircut since birth), and I must say I'm pretty pleased with the results. Justin thinks he looks like a fat marine now. Sure beats the banker look.

After the buzz (with his favorite barber)

So this is what 2 looks like...

To say it's hard to believe Abby turned 2 today would be an understatement. I remember the day she was born like it was five minutes ago. The moment I met her it was love at first sight. Two years later, I'm still madly in love with this precious daughter we've been given. I adore her. I'm enthralled by her. I am amazed by her. I want the best for her. And she's growing up, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

Parenting is one of the kindest, cruelest experiences in life. God takes your heart, hands it to you in the form of a screaming newborn, and says "Here, love this kid with everything you have. Teach her what's right. And raise her so that one day, she won't need you anymore."

I won't in any way purport to be a perfect parent. Heck, half the time I don't even think I'm a really good one (the other half, I blog about). But through some combination of occasionally getting it right, and the fact that Abby's a pretty good kid to begin with, she seems to be turning out okay so far. She's come a long way since her birthday two years ago.

Stats:
Height: 3 feet, 1 inch (off the charts!)
Weight: 26 lbs (42%)
(And yes, that puts her BMI freakishly low...looks like she's been blessed with my great metabolism. Glad I could do something for her.)

She's one smart cookie. She knows all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make. She's started singing the alphabet song, though not all the way through yet. She prefers it if I sing and she screams out the particular letters she's feeling excited about at the moment when I get to them. She recognizes all 26 uppercase letters and quite a few lowercase ones as well. She still loves to "read," and has begun recognizing a few written words in her books. She recently started counting, and loves to tell us anytime she finds pairs of things ("one, two...two puppies!"). So far she can count to 3 on her own, needs a little prompting on 4-7, and gets really excited about 8, 9 and 10.

She's an engineer. Like her dad, she's constantly solving problems in her head or with her hands. She's fascinated by how things work. She's destroyed more interactive books that I care to count by trying to figure out what causes them to make music, or what makes a certain piece move, or how the binding holds everything together. She takes things apart in record time, then brings me the pieces and tells me, "Pieces mommy. Broken. Fix it, please." She'll watch while I fix it, and have it disassembled again in moments. We go through a lot of tape at our house. She's figuring out magnets and what they will and won't stick to. I find magnets all over the house that she's tried to stick to doors (fail), the washing machine (win), my leg (fail), or the spring on Caleb's jumparoo (win). Most recently, she was fascinated by the birthday balloons that got stuck to the air intake on the wall in the foyer. We had to explain that dolls and blocks would not work in a similar fashion.

She's a social butterfly. Abby has a couple of real close girlfriends and regularly asks to play with them. Which works for me, because I like their moms. So it's a win-win situation really. On our way home, we pass our neighbor's house and Abby always points out "Maddie's house! Maddie's house!" And anytime I even mention the word "fun," her mind immediately goes to her buddy Abby Mae. "Fun? Abby Mae? Splash in fountain?" It's adorable to watch her make friends and navigate the world of sharing. And speaking of that, she's not too bad at the whole sharing thing, for a 2-year-old. We try to explain about turn-taking and greed, and it seems that she's beginning to understand how to be patient (waiting without grumbling). Watch out though...if you turn your back, she will take your stuff.

She's a chatterbox. Counting the words she doesn't know would be much easier than counting the ones she does know at this point. The thoughts that she vocalizes never cease to amaze me, and she's particularly fond of narrating absolutely every single thing that happens in her little world. "Abby jumping! Mommy cooking...stove hot, don't touch it! Cabey eating green beans! Daddy's home! Abby's riding in Mommy's car! Mommy vacuuming the rug...move Abby!" How she gets that excited about every little thing is beyond me, but I love her exuberance. I'm exhausted by it, but I love it. Most recently she's started helping us say the blessing at mealtimes ("Thank you God for food. Amen.") and will help say her prayers at bedtime with some coaxing. She's learned her full name and is proud to tell you when you ask.

She's a sweet big sister. She's generally kind to her brother, and always makes sure he has a toy to take with him in the car like she does. My favorite moments are those when she'll give up her favorite toys to "Cabey," as if she knows that they're extra special and he'll appreciate them more. If he's crying or upset, we can count on her to bring him "soft baby toys" or "chew toys" (teething rings) to play with. She likes to pet his head, and has learned to be gentle. She'll hold his hand (if he'll let her) when we say the blessing at mealtime, and often comes in to give him good night kisses when he's getting ready to go to bed. She tries, unsuccessfully, to pick him up (which is understandable, since she only weighs three pounds more than he does).

She's ours. Justin's in the habit of asking, "What's your favorite thing about Abby?" My answer never changes. "She's ours," I tell him. And I mean it. She's adorable, she sometimes cuddles, she's a great sleeper, she's not a picky eater, and she's generally pretty obedient. But if none of that were true, I would adore her just the same, because she's ours. I love getting her up every morning, I love that she's part of this family, I love dreaming about her future and soaking in the present. I love that God chose me to be her mom.

Happy second birthday, Abby.

Learning is fun: Letter B

B is for baby, bumblebee and butterfly. In honor of the letter that makes the "buh! buh!" sound, we made a big mess by glittering beautiful butterfly wings made of one big B and one backwards B. (Note to self: move glitter activities to the back deck whenever possible.)

After we made our letter B butterfly, I had Abby point to all the letters in the word and read them to me. She knows all the letters of the alphabet, so she did great with that activity, but it took her a little longer to get that all those letters together made up the word "butterfly" as well. Abby correctly identified the word a number of times when we practiced later, but she also says butterfly when she sees other big words that begin with a B, so I'm not convinced she's got this word nailed down yet. Oh, and since she insists on pronouncing it "bubbafwy," we worked on enunciating the "T" sounds in some of her words too. Now with some gentle reminders, we can get her to say "buh-ta-fly" and "wa-ter" correctly.

She's improving daily at telling us what words start with by sounding them out. ("What does baby start with?" "buh-buh-baby, buh-buh-B!") Oh, and since it was letter B week, I decided it was time for her to stop calling bananas "nanas." So I practiced with her by singing the "Bananaphone" song ad nauseum, and I got my wish. Now she no longer calls them "nanas," but refers to them as "bananaphones" instead. Can't win 'em all...

Now I lay me...

Tonight's bedtime routine was one of our sweetest yet.

Lately we've been practicing saying prayers with Abby, and we try each evening at dinner to let her ask the blessing before we eat. We've explained to her that we wait until everyone is seated at the table, then we thank God for the food, then we get to eat. So on many nights, we'll ask Abby if she wants to say the blessing, then one of the adults will say "Thank you God" and Abby will finish "for food. Amen"

I'm hoping that what she's soaking in as we say mealtime and nighttime prayers is the idea that "every good and perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17) and that she'll soon come up with her own prayers of thanksgiving and adoration for the God who has so richly blessed our family. Tonight made me think she's starting to get it.

After bathtime and storytime, I told Abby it was time to say her prayers.

"Let's thank God for Caleb," I suggested.

"Thank you for Cabey," she replied.

"That's very sweet Abby," I told her. "What else do you want to thank God for?"

"Thank you for Abby. Thank you for mommy. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for soccer balls. Thank you for puppies. Thank you for meows."

"Those are all great things to thank God for," I told her. "Are you all done?"

"Yeah," she said. "Amen."

Amen, indeed.

On the clock

Ever wonder what your pilot was doing while you were rushing to the airport, checking bags, standing in security lines and waiting to board?

If you were on Papa's flight on Wednesday, then your captain was preparing for your flight by taking his grandkids to the farm, splashing with them in the local fountain, buying lunch for his family and treating his daughter and granddaughter to coffee before heading home to read books to the kids and put them down for naps. And he still got you to your destination on time.

Great job, Papa!

Learning is fun: Letter A

Abby's been slightly obsessed with letters and their sounds ever since we acquired our awesome alphabet fridge magnet toy at a yard sale a while back. So we started alphabet school, and I'm running a little behind on posting our progress. I'll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) and maybe one of these days I'll catch up.

Letter A week found us eating apples and discussing things around our house that are awesome. (Babies are awesome. Poop is not. Abby is awesome. Booboos are not. You get the idea.) She totally gets the idea of every letter having it's very own sound, so we spent a lot of time emphasizing the beginning sounds of A words. When I quizzed her later ("What letter does apple start with?") she'd sound it out like we'd practiced earlier, eventually getting around to yelling out the answer ("ah...ah...apple! ah....ah....A!")

We read the Dr. Suess ABC book (one of her favorites), and she got so excited about all the letter A's on the first page that we hardly made it past Aunt Annie's Alligator. So we made one of our own. (She glued on those ferocious teeth all by herself. Not bad, huh?)

By the end of the week she could correctly identify the words "Abby" and "apple" (when they were spelled out in all capital letters) about 90% of the time, though she sometimes gets so excited that she just yells out her name no matter what word you show her.

Click here for pictures of our alphabet activities, and stay tuned for Letter B week...

Safety first

Two kids, one swing? No problem.

Don't worry, Abby was holding on really tight.

Workin' at the...

Go ahead and sing the song. You know you want to.

Nothing says "Time to wash the car" quite like a dress and a bow in your hair. Justin put Curly to work this weekend, and thanks to my hard working toddler, the bottom two feet of the outside of my van is squeaky clean now. And so is Abby.

The inside of the vehicle is another story. She gets credit for that, too.

Mr. Fix It

I got a great deal on this awesome little wooden tool set during Mommy & Abby's Yard Sale Adventure this morning. Abby was super excited to find "toys for Cabey" (that's "baby" and "Caleb" combined in case you were wondering) and promptly brought them inside and dumped them on him so he could play.

I had planned to wait until he was a little older to let him play with the wooden wrench and screwdriver, but apparently big sister had other plans. So much for age-appropriate toys.

Night on the town

Friday nights are my favorite. After a healthy dinner of apple cinnamon pancakes, Justin dragged the kids around the house on a blanket until they fell off, then we threw them in the wagon for a spin around the block. There's was plenty of laughter, bedtime was a breeze, and I didn't have to cook dinner. It's hard to beat that combination.

Don't get me wrong...I love the occasional night off when I get to go on a date with my hubby and not worry about bathtime or bedtime. But Friday nights sure are a lot of fun with these kids around.

Something's wrong here

There's something about this picture that really bothers me. I think it's the fact that my almost two-year-old wasn't the least bit fazed by a 6-foot-tall cow walking around the mall wearing a silly hat. It seems she has a thing for larger-than-life costumed characters.

High tolerance

No doubt about it. Our second child is going to be much tougher than our first. Abby's one tough cookie, but Caleb has to put up with more in a day than she ever did.

We were so careful to make sure Abby always had age-appropriate toys available to play with...soft toys, toys that couldn't hurt, poke or otherwise offend her. Caleb spends most of his time playing with a wooden toy hammer, or the top of Noah's plastic ark. He rolls over blocks, eats pages of books (he prefers Dr. Suess), and fends off goldfish crackers Abby thrusts at him with careless little toddler fingers.

And at the park...well, there'll be no easing him into outdoor play. Because when you're swinging with a soon-to-be-two-year-old who's learning to pump, you're swinging on her terms. And her terms are high. Or as Abby puts it, "super high!"

30 seconds unattended

While I changed Caleb's diaper, I audibly supervised Abby as she played nearby. I heard her walk from her room to the bathroom.

"Abby's stool!" I heard her exclaim, followed by grunting that indicated she was going to move it somewhere.

I heard her plop the stool down in her room.

"Blankie, here," she commanded, followed by a moment of silence. And then...

"One, two, free...jump!"

Thirty seconds later, I returned to her room to find her jumping, quite high, from the stool onto her blankie. All this just moments after waking up from a three hour nap. What is with this child?

On the sixth day, God made bunnies

Abby has recently begun "reading" to herself from her expansive library of books. Listening to her babble about what she sees on the page, or try to retell what she's heard us read, or simply repeating the iambic pentameter she hears when I read to her, is super cute, to say the least. So it is with great pleasure that I present to you her most recent work, which she read to me with great excitement last night:

The Story of Creation
as told by Abby

"Sun. Moon."

"Make bunny."

"Apple. Mouth. Snake"

Creation and the fall of man in seven simple words. Take that, Cliffs Notes.

Here comes trouble

Spike's increasingly skilled mobility means big trouble for Abby. Looks like even her beloved fort is no longer a safe haven from her crawling, scooting little brother.

Too cool for school

From her head to her toes, Abby's all girl.

She has developed a sincere appreciation for hair accessories. Not sure where she gets this from, since she's never seen me with a bow in my hair (since, after all, I'm not 7). I'll blame it on Mimi. She's the one that keeps sending the darn things.

Down at her toes, I've taught her that nail polish is the perfect finishing touch to go with your summer sandles. Toenails, she now understands, should be painted, preferably a color that makes people wonder if they can take you seriously. Blue is our hue of choice at the moment.

So the conversation we had as we prepared to leave for school this week should not have surprised me.

Mommy: Abby, can you go get your backpack and bring it to mommy?
Abby: Backpack?
Mommy: Yeah, sweetie. You need your backpack because you're going to school today.
Abby: School! Yay! Okay!
Pause...
Abby: (with her hand flying up to her unadorned head) Uh-oh mommy! Bow in hair!
Mommy: (adding a bow to her hair) Okay sweetie, now you have a bow in your hair. Are you ready to go to school?
Abby: (looking down to her very chipped toenails) No Mommy. Uh-oh toenails. (pointing, in case I didn't understand) Paint toes? Blue!
Mommy: (checking the clock, and grabbing the polish) Okay Abby, let's fix your toenails.
Abby: Thank you Mommy.

Seriously. What's this kid going to be like when she starts middle school?

Snug as a bug

We got a new rug. And my boys like hanging out on it, which makes me smile.

As a bonus, my baby now has a soft place to play, and my toddler can run like a banshee through the living room without slipping and crashing into the coffee table. (Justin pointed out that new rugs are cheaper than new teeth, so it's a wise investment.)

You keep me hangin' on

I can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but the evidence is getting to be undeniable. Abby is, ever so slowly, evolving into a monkey.

Don't believe me? Let's apply the scientific method and see if I can prove it.

OBSERVE
Her dad and I noticed that some of her clumsier tendencies were waning, and being replaced with an insatiable need to climb (furniture, stairs, adults) and hang (from tables, countertops, and outstretched arms).

PATTERN
As the climbing and hanging trend continued, we began to notice that the monkey-like behavior occurred during her most energetic times of day, or whenever a challenge (an out-of-reach toy, for example) presented itself. We also saw an emerging pattern of more and more skilled behavior, such as the dramatic flip into her brother's crib, or the attempt to scale the kitchen cabinets by creating a series of steps with boxes and chairs.

HYPOTHESIS
After noting the subtle change in behavior and the emerging agility and balance where once there was only clumsiness, I wondered if perhaps my daughter could be turning into a monkey. My mom reports that I went through a stage of childhood where she firmly believed I was a monkey, so it was feasible to think Abby could have had those same traits passed on to her.

EXPERIMENT
I released our daughter into the wild world of the local park, and set up a series of challenges to test my theory. She was shown various bars, slides, steps, ladders, bridges and poles to see how she would respond.

RESULT
When presented with a bar--any bar, in any sort of configuration--Abby would indeed attempt to hang from it, and often swing from it, for as long as her little toddler fingers could support her weight. Poles, stairs and ladders were climbed. Bridges were crossed in a variety of fashions--from simply running across the bridge itself to teetering across the bridge railing on two feet like a balance beam. And to drive the point home, Abby even looked to us for help getting from one side of the equipment to the other, across the monkey bars.

Faced with this evidence, I think it is safe to assert that our little girl is, in fact, becoming a monkey. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she's scaling the door frames like her mom used to do.

Curioser and curioser...

Any tips on how to get this bear to stop shrinking?

6 months
----------------------

2 months
----------------------

1 month
----------------------

3 weeks
----------------------

2 weeks
----------------------

The biggest, reddest dog on our street

Think for a moment and recall, if you will, the most excitement you've ever felt. Was it your first kiss? Or the day you learned to ride a bike? Or coming downstairs on Christmas morning as a kid? Or your wedding day? Or graduation? Or the birth of your children?

Whatever it was, I can guarantee you the emotions you felt at that moment pale in comparison to what my daughter felt this morning. Because on this most glorious of Saturdays, she finally got to meet her hero.

"This is Clifford, the big red dog. Other kids I know have dogs too. Some are big dogs. And some are red dogs. But Clifford is the biggest, reddest dog on our street."

-Clifford the Big Red Dog

Words will never describe the pure joy on her face as she caught a glimpse of Clifford peeking out from behind the bookshelves at storytime this morning. And if you weren't there, you'll never understand how absolutely mesmerized she was by this big red character, and how desperately she wanted nothing more than to be close to him, to touch his paws, kiss his nose, and sit on his big red lap. Of all the toddlers in attendance this morning, I can safely say she was the only Clifford groupie. My apologies to all the other parents for the fact that my daughter will be in all of your pictures. She simply could not be pulled away from the dog.

It was a beautiful moment, and one I'm overjoyed to have been able to make happen for her. This is what being a mom is all about, and these are the moments I live for. A year from now, I doubt she'll remember this ever happened. And maybe her obsession with Clifford will have ended. But rest assured, this is one Saturday morning I'll never forget.

Click here for more pictures of the best day of Abby's life.