Baby? Where are you?

My baby is crawling. There. I said it. And I'm sad.

I've been waiting for her to do it for a few weeks now, as she's been on the brink for awhile, and now I can check it off. I just felt like she needed to crawl before her 9 month well-baby appointment, so I could tell the doctor that "she's doing it!". But now I feel like my baby, the one who spent nearly 3 weeks in a NICU, is just growing up. She's looking like a little girl. I mean, she IS a little girl and always has been one, but you know what I mean. She's doing things that just a few months ago I couldn't really imagine her doing. Not because I thought she was going to be delayed or anything, but just because what parent can really imagine their tiny baby actually doing things and moving on their own? I mean really? Wasn't she just born?

Seems like yesterday when I was in the NICU, trying to teach her, with her PT, how to suck a bottle.

Seems like yesterday when I was begging her, pleading with her to please, please, PLEASE sleep longer than 2 hours at a shot. Well, now that I think about it, it sort of was yesterday. She's just in the last 2 months been sleeping through the night.

Seems like yesterday that we tried giving her cereal.

And now...she's crawling. And she's not looking back. William is up ahead and she's undoubtedly missing out on something!

Video coverage of the checked-off milestone coming. But right now...we're off to Sky City to do a little bouncing!

Game

Remember those Where's Waldo books? I've got my own version I'd like to share with you.

Where's Abby?


Sometimes I have to look twice, too, so don't worry if you don't spot her right off.

Give it another shot. I promise you she's there.

Okay. Maybe that was too easy.

How about this one?

Where's William?

I admit, this one is harder than the first.

I sneakily took these game photos from my iPhone so they'd be a titch blurry. Makes it harder to play. (Is sneakily a word? No red squiggly line showed up under it so I guess it is.)


One last one. Where's Abby?





Find her? Me neither.

How about William?




NO?

Well...I'm off to find my kids. I know they're here somewhere...under all this mess.

Filling In The Blanks

ALL these photos were taken with my phone, so sorry for the poor quality.


Always with her tongue out!


On St. Patrick's Day. Both William and I wore blue that day (I think the only people in our entire town that didn't wear green!), but only because there was poor planning on my part, since we wore our green duds the day before.


In the double stroller, alone of course. William just has to walk.

Yesterday she sported yet another new hat.

William pretty much plays t-ball everyday. He'll be playing for our Angels soon. Well, as soon as he realizes that he's not supposed to hit the tee.

In the afternoon we went grocery shopping. I'm not sure why I actually expected them to both look at the camera, but whatever. William usually sits in the basket, but since he's been a bit hard to handle while shopping (standing up, pulling things off the shelf) I decided to try having them both in the front. It worked great!

Almost

Abby is so close to crawling. She sees William walking around and she wants to be right in the action.

Story Time

Bedtimes (or anytime involving going to bed) are not William's favorite time of day. He will do whatever it takes to stall the inevitable. However, bedtime stories time seems to be that proverbial spoonful of sugar to make it okay. His current fav is How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen. Since we read it several times a day, he's got it down pat. He even remembers to *click* his tongue when we get to the part where "Mama comes in to turn off the light".

So, without further ado, I leave you with a bedtime story, as told by me and William.

8 Months

Wow...time has sure flown by. It's been 8 months since our daughter's surprise birth and we love her more each day!

Grandma A wrote this beautiful poem, and she graciously gave me permission to share it.

DEAR ABBY~ANOTHER MILESTONE HAS COME YOUR WAY.....
YOU'RE 8 MONTHS OLD TODAY....=)
YOU'RE CUTE & SWEET AND SO MUCH MORE
WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT TO SEE WHAT'S IN STORE.

FOR SOON YOU'LL BE A SWEET YOUNG THING
RUNNING, AND LAUGHING, & ASKING TO "SWING"
THERE WILL BE TOYS & DOLLS & TEA PARTIES WE KNOW
SO HANG ONTO OUR HATS, CUZ' OFF WE SHALL GO!

ONE DAY YOU'LL BE A BIG GIRL, WITH IDEAS OF YOUR OWN
LET THE DAYS SLOW DOWN, AT LEAST TIL' YOU'RE GROWN !
FOR NOW YOU ARE A SWEETIE PIE, JUST 8 MONTHS OLD,
WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MUCH MORE THAN GOLD!

(Her feet are so tiny that her fancy ruffle socks just will not stay on!)


We love you both, sweet children!

Sun, Fun, & Wind

Yesterday I took my kiddos out. The plan was to go to a local lake and have a picnic and play in the sand, but after getting there I found out that our national park and recreation pass was no good there. Bummer. So, we headed off to the ocean, since William was insistent on seeing the water. We soon got to the beach and quickly discovered that the wind was a little more than we could handle. We walked on the sand for a few minutes and wow. Sand was in our mouths, eyes, and hair. I quickly picked William up and made a dash for the car. It was funny....when we got back to the car I realized that the wind had blown one of William's boots straight off! He was just concerned with all the wind that he didn't even realize it. So, after hunting down the missing boot we left the beach and went to the fish hatchery. There was no wind there and the sun made everything so nice and warm! William got to feed the fish and have a picnic.


The trenches were black with fish! They would literally jump out of the water to get the food.


Miss Abby, showing off her tongue.

Abby has to do everything William does, so sitting in her carseat while we ate our picnic lunch was not happening for her!

The kids are not allowed to watch TV during the day, but occasionally I let him watch his Leap Frog DVDs. He's learned to count to 20 and can say the entire alphabet already simply by watching those things. I was cleaning up the table and both of them were unusually quiet so I looked around the corner and William had decided to sit directly in front of Abby, blocking her from playing with her pop-n-pals toy. But for some reason I don't think she minded!

I hesitate to even post this but it's so darn cute! I'm assuming sooner rather than later Abby will be busting out with her alphabet!