Artwork

I just had to share some of Sammi's most recent artwork! The first two pictures Sammi worked very hard on at preschool. Aren't they so cute! I just love them! (sorry the picture quality from the camera isn't the greatest).

Sammi also made this little guy at preschool yesterday. How cute is he!! They made him out of a water bottle! I think I will keep him around to display in future winters. And I'm definitely getting frames for the other pictures to hang up somewhere, probably in the family room.

I think this is my favorite. She made this picture of her and me at home one morning. I just LOVE how she spelled "from" (fum) at the top and "to" (too) at the bottom. The innocence and sweetness of it just kills me.

Our little side stepper

Saturday Abby turned 13 months old! She is little closer to walking, yet still not quite there. I'm pretty sure her biggest obstacle is mental, not physical! She can stand on her own for about a minute, and if she wanted to could do it longer. However, the only time she stands on her own is when she doesn't even realize she is doing it. As soon as she realizes it, she panics and immediately looks for something to grab on to or sits down! I caught her on camera, just as she realized she was not holding on to anything and a second before she sat down!

She loves pushing this stroller around and is getting pretty good at it! More evidence that physically she could probably walk if she really wanted to. The stroller is really barely holding her up.


The funniest thing is that when you try to practice with her, she always side steps!! I guess it's because that is the way she cruises. It's just so funny b/c you can't get her to really walk forward and follow you. She always does this side step. We just crack up at it! One of my friends said she will be a good marcher in the band, already knowing how to side step! ha! Here is a little video of her marching skills.

Thanksgiving 09

I'm a little behind, I know......

But, we had an awesome Thanksgiving! It was really fun to have it in our new house with both my parents and brother and Brandon's parents! Pap Pap and Nana came out Wed. and stayed till Sat. morning. So it was really nice to have them stay for a few days. The girls of course had a blast playing with them! Brandon is always in charge of meat for big events, and here is his finished product! Yummy!


I am in charge of the desserts, so here are my pies! I made a pumpkin and a pecan, which I had never made before. Both were delicious if i do say so myself! :)


It was awesome that everyone was able to fit at our new dining room table. And we still had plenty of space in the room too! So maybe someday we'll be able to get all of our family here!

Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal! Afterwards, we watched our traditional Thanksgiving movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Apparently, everyone likes watching me roll on the floor in laughter more than they like watching the movie! ha! I just can't help it though.......when they are headed the wrong way on the highway and they squeeze through those two trucks and John Candy turns into the devil......I just totally lose it!! I guess you just have to be there to experience it, but I have to admit no other movie makes me laugh like that one does!

Black Friday I went out shopping at 4:30 AM for the first time ever! It was definitely a little crazy out there, but I had fun and it was neat to experience. Not sure I'll do it again, but still worth the experience and I got some good deals. And I came home and crashed by 7AM so it wasn't really that tiring. The rest of the day we just relaxed, and later did some shopping with Nana. Then of course watched the Pitt game, which we won't talk about!

And Saturday night, we put up our tree and decorations earlier than we have ever done it in the past! I think having a new house to decorate was just exciting so we went ahead! It was fun, although the kids got bored waiting for Daddy to put the tree together. You can look at my previous post here, as to why we now have an artificial tree! Although, this artificial one whacked Brandon in the lip and he got a big fat lip from it, so maybe it's not all that great! ha! So anyways, the girls and I decorated our little tree that we put up in the family room with all the big, bulky, kind of ugly ornaments! ha! And once we finally got to the ornaments for the big tree, they had a lot of fun putting theirs on.

And Abby had fun untangling the garland beads. She just loves the tree and points to it first thing in the morning and we go look at it for a few minutes. And surprisingly, she doesn't really try to touch it or get the ornaments off or anything. I think she is a little in awe of it, so she is too nervous to actually touch it! Oh, and of course everyone loves playing with their Little People's nativity set. I hid baby Jesus again this year and the girls will have to find him Christmas morning!


The new few weeks are really busy with a tea party tomorrow, then a play at church in the evening. Sundaes with Santa at Sammi's preschool on Saturday, our annual Holiday party with my friends from highschool on Sunday. Then, Brandon's work Christmas party the following weekend, plus helping to decorate the church on Sunday. Plus all the school stuff going on during the next 2 weeks, and then it's practically Christmas which involves a lot of traveling this year! Whew! It will all be very fun though I'm sure and I am looking forward to enjoying every minute of this Christmas season!

Reading books!!

Somewhere in the past few weeks, something "clicked" with Sammi and she is now reading books! We were at my Mom's tonight and she told me how Sammi read a book to her last night. I didn't really believe it and thought she just had the book memorized. But, then she read another book that was new and I know she couldn't possibly have memorized. And she read the entire book, with very little help. She has been able to sound out words for a quite a while, but each word took quite the effort and getting out an entire sentence was difficult. But, now she can read sentences coherently and seems to have a lot more word recognition. She does not need to sound out each and every word. And if she does not know a word the first time, she either asks for help or sounds it out. Then the next time she sees the word she recognizes it! I am truly amazed that my little baby Sammi is actually reading books. How is that possible? It really almost brings me to tears thinking about it!

Anyways, here is a little video of her reading a Barbie Step 1 book. It has been a while since we read it and I know she doesn't have it memorized. Plus, it is pretty obvious that she is reading each word. I love how she sounded out the word "one". Too cute!

Before and After

Brandon requested that I do a blog post on our little bathroom project. So here it is!

The Before:

Don't know why anyone would want to put Parkay flooring on a wall, or even a floor for that matter! But it was darn ugly and the room stilled smelled funky like the whole house use to smell.

The ugly wall is gone!!

So we started Halloween weekend and finished last night. A few weeks longer than we were hoping to get it done, but that seems to be how things always go. It took almost a week to get the new drywall up and tape it and skim it a few times, since it takes almost a day for each coat to dry. And even though it's a small room, it still took a few days to paint it since there was a lot of trim work with the window, door and ceiling. Then we had to install a new toilet since we couldn't get the bolt off of the old one. And we also put in a new sink, light fixture, mirror, shelf and toilet roll holder. And I am proud to say that I actually installed the toilet roll holder all by myself! I even used the drill!!

The After:



I think it looks a thousand times better than before and it doesn't smell funky anymore either! It was a challenge b/c most of the time we didn't have a light fixture so it was kind of dark in there. So it isn't a perfect job, but I still think it is fabulous! Thanks to my hubby for being so handy and doing a superb job!!

Abby's First Birthday Party!

We had a small party at home for Abby's first birthday with a few friends and family. To follow tradition, we had pizza, which we have had for each girl's first birthday!

My attempt at a #1 cake. The icing didn't spread too well, but I don't think Abby cared :) She had her own little smash cake made out of the parts I cut out for the #1.

Here she is with her birthday cake! I love how she is waving in the beginning of the video :)



She really got into the cake! She was sucking all the icing off her fingers. I think she over did it a bit, because she spit some of it up later on. But, she definitely thought it tasted good!


Abby's friend Dillon helping her open gifts!!

I just love this face!!


Abby with her friend Avonlea!

Here she is doing her birthday dance! She "twists" when she hears music or you say "dance"! It is the cutest thing ever!

And finally, this is what I mean when I say she likes to get goofy with Sammi :)

Sammi also learned to play Happy Birthday on the piano! She got a book for her birthday that had colored keys and the colored notes. So, Sammi taught herself some of those songs pretty quickly and it didn't take her long to memorize them so she didn't even need to look at the notes. Anyways, so I put the same colors on pieces of tape and put them on the piano keys. Then I wrote out the notes to Happy Birthday in the colors and she learned to play it that way! She missed a few notes in the video and needs help with Bb, but still pretty impressive I think!



Overall, Abby seemed to really enjoy her party! She LOVED all the attention and it was nice that everyone could just play with her and enjoy her.

Abigail turns 1!

I can't believe my baby is one year old today! How did that happen??!!

Here are some pictures from a year ago!

Minutes old!! Born at 4:15 PM. 5 lb 15oz.

So tiny, yet such chubby cheeks!

Sammi and Maddie meet their new sister!

So sweet!


Maddie has always been such a caring, sweet big sister. She is like a little mother to her and constantly is helping her with food or getting her a toy. She is so caring and loving!

Sammi and Abby have developed a special bond too! They like to be goofy together, always giggling and being loud and crazy!


Look how tiny she was in Uncle Dave's hands! How in the world did she go from this tiny little peanut......

to such a big girl!!!

It's hard to believe Abigail is a year old now. And amazing how much she has grown and learned in just a year! A few weeks ago she said her first word (besides mama and dada)......."Uh Oh"! And of course now her favorite game is to throw her cup the floor and then say "uh oh". She can also say "all done", which sounds like "ah da" but so far I think she has just repeated it after we say it after meals. And she still LOVES to eat! There hasn't been much she hasn't liked and is eating 3 full meals plus snacks now and can pretty much eat whatever we eat, including meat. She also tried her first taste of cow's milk and she likes it!
Abigail is such a sweet little baby and is crazy about her sissy s. They are the first thing she is looking for when she wakes up and gets so excited when she sees them. She hates to be alone, but that usually isn't an issue since there is almost always someone around to play with her! She still loves to snuggle and seems to have a blankie attachment possibly even more than Maddie does, if that is possible! She has no interest in walking, which is very strange to me considering the other two were practically running at a year old! She cruises around the furniture very well, but can't stand on her own yet and isn't interested in trying to walk even with help. She would just rather crawl. But, that is just part of her laid back nature! She is also a good sleeper. She sleeps 12-14 through the night and usually still takes a morning nap and later afternoon nap.

We couldn't be more blessed with 3 sweet little girls and are so happy to celebrate our baby's first birthday today! Happy Birthday Abigail!!