Life With Our Little Ladies

We welcomed a new member into our family today! My dad adopted a new dog, which made it a pretty special day. This morning, Joe and I decided we would be spontaneous and hop in the car right after church to drive down for a visit and meet Nina! We knew Abby (and us) would love every minute of meeting the new pup and going to Papa's house, so we jumped on the chance.

Meet Nina! I barely got through the door before I knew we were going to be good friends! I'm so happy for my dad and brother. A dog lover's home without a dog is always missing something. She has found the perfect home.

Abby loves her too! When Nina was sniffing Abby's juice, Abby firmly said, "No, ruff, no! Dat!", while pointing to the dog's water bowl and directing Nina to her own drink. We thought her commands were hysterical by themselves, so you can imagine how hard we started laughing when we turned around to find Abby sharing by squeezing her Capri Sun into Nina's bowl.

These guys are going to be buddies.

Joe sat down on the couch and Nina jumped right into his lap. She's a snuggler.


Day 1: Let the record state...I'm predicting this future love connection.




Welcome to the family, Nina!

Putting the star on top of the Christmas tree with Daddy!

Note: the sweet little kiss Abby planted on her Dad's head. She is always running up to us and giving us loving little kisses like that.

We took Abby for her first haircut yesterday! We prepped her beforehand (just in case) and told her all about sitting in the special chair and getting a special prize at the end. Abby responded the same way she does to every beauty type activity we do. She waited in excitement, begged for it to be her turn and acted like a little lady the whole way through. She is the same way when I clip her nails...she begs me to do it everyday and doesn't understand that there nothing left to cut!


Cutest thing: Abby spent some time coloring and playing while she waited. As soon as she heard the hairdresser call her name, Abby ran through the crowd of kids and stood right in front of the hairdresser ready to go! I wasn't kidding...she was waiting for her turn!



Her face cracks me up! So serious and focused.




She loved the blue ribbon in her hair afterward.


All done! Abby got a blue card to put into the machine to get a card. AND more importantly, she got the purple lollipop she had been asking for all morning. This girl loves a good Dum-Dum.

We had such a fun morning together as a family. A haircut, some Christmas shopping and a yummy lunch at Panera to finish off the morning. *all filled up with lots of quality time*

Preparing for Christmas has been a whole new adventure for our family this year. Every step of the way has been filled with wonder and excitement. Last year, it was fun to spend our first Christmas season with Abby, but this year it has fun in a new way.

Last weekend, we got our tree and spent the evening decorating together. At the tree farm, after Joe inspected EVERY tree to find our "perfect" one, Abby and I went inside to get our special treat.


The tree was fun, but add an apple cider donut and smiles abound! She had no idea it would get even better.

When Abby woke up from her nap, she ran into the living room and shouted excitedly, "ABBY TREE!" She has reminded us exactly whose tree it is everyday since.

Opening the boxes of ornaments was so much fun. Every box literally brought a new gasp of amazement from Abby. "Oooooooo! Mommy PEEEEEEEAS! Abby do."

We were wondering what it would be like to have a tree full of sparkly, enticing, breakable ornaments+ lots of candy canes + a curious toddler, but the result has been pretty typically Abby. When it comes down to it, she is such a good listener. She doesn't touch it! That's not to say she isn't tempted. We have actually caught her multiple times pacing in front of the tree and pointing at ornaments. We started telling her to look with her eyes and not with her hands. I wasn't sure how much of it she really understood until the next day when I saw her pacing again. This time, she stopped in front of her favorite, untouchable ornament, stuck her little butt out and got her nose up really close to the tree and started saying "eyes! eyes!". What can I say? She was listening to her Mommy and looking with her eyes!

Decorating our new home for Christmas has been really special. It's so cozy and festive.

Some other funny highlights from the past week:

Abby is such a little mommy. She carries her babies everywhere. I walk into her room when she is in there playing alone to find her rocking her baby to sleep (saying "Shhh shhh shhhh" and kissing her on the forehead). She brings babies to me with a changing pad, wipes and a diaper and asks me to help her change them. When we tell Abby it's time for dinner, she runs to find a baby and bring her to the table to eat. She even insists her baby prays with us. She really wants to take her baby into the bathtub, but I'm thinking her talking baby doll wouldn't survive playtime in the water. There are some days when Abby just wants to be the baby again. So, the other day she brought out her baby's cradle and her baby's blanket and showed me who the baby was!

One afternoon, Abby woke up startled (and early) from her nap. I think she had a bad dream. When I got her out of her crib, she fell back to sleep immediately on my shoulder. This was my sweet view for the rest of her nap. There is nothing better I could have been doing that afternoon.

Abby has taken a new extreme liking to the sea otter stuffed animal Grammy and G-Diddy brought her back from Alaska this summer. The thing is Abby is convinced her sea otter is actually a mouse, also known as "MOUF". She takes him everywhere and now sleeps with him every night. When Joe goes in to get Abby from her crib in the morning, every other stuffed animal and blanket has been thrown out onto the floor, but Abby is holding onto Mouse nice and tight. The other night, Abby decided Mouse needed some dinner too. What she really wanted was for his face to be right in her macaroni and cheese, but I convinced her that would make him pretty dirty and smelly. So, we got Mouse a bowl of his own food (cheerios) and he munched away by Abby's side!

Thanksgiving was a great time with family. So great in fact that I didn't really get a lot of pictures.

We started our trip with a day in my hometown going out to lunch and spending the day with Grandma and Uncle Cory. Then, we went out to dinner with Papa. Papa even babysat for Abby when she went to bed so Joe and I could meet up with some old friends.

A couple of Abby's favorite things at my dad's house are blowing bubbles with Papa and Uncle Cory's room. She goes up and sits with Cory while he plays video games and asks him to play quad racing videos for her. Seriously?! She started doing this completely unprompted and made her uncle the happiest guy ever...especially since he is convinced she will be a professional quad rider when she grows up. We'll see about that one.

Joe disappeared within minutes of our arrival at Grammy and G-Diddy's house for Thanksgiving. This guy didn't even need to have stomach full of turkey before he found a place to take a good Thanksgiving nap.

On the other hand, Abby ran off to play some chess and hang out with Greeley.


Uncle Cory found her and hand delivered her back to us in a basket.

One of my favorite parts of the day was when all the guys went outside to play some football. Abby wasn't going to be left out. Uncle Bradley even brought out a special football just for her. It really was one of the sweetest sights. Abby running around and playing football with all the special men in her life: Daddy, Uncle Bradley, Uncle Tommy, Uncle Cory, Papa and G-Diddy. It's not everyday a little girl gets to make memories with all of her uncles and grandfathers at the same time.




As always, dinner was a delicious feast! Abby's place setting made me smile. I loved her mini fancy silver fork.

Some of Abby's other favorite things at Grammy and G-Diddy's are: