Learning to Stand

Jenn and I this week have been working with Abbi on standing up on her own. She seems to have roughly mastered sitting up on her own, so now we're working on standing. She's got incredibly strong legs already, so I think she's off to a good start. We had her standing up on the ground and holding on the coffee table, which you can see here. Its tons of fun teaching her new things and helping to reinforce the things she already knows.

Smiles Again

Its been a rough few days in our house this week. Abbi was sick with a bad cold all last week that continued into this week. I picked up her cold, so I'm feeling fantastic. Abbi is also working on cutting both of her upper front two teeth right now, which of course puts her in a bad mood, and she's still coughing some. So its been rough. Luckily though, last night Abbi was showing signs, like this picture that she's feeling better and working those teeth out.

That Smile

Its pretty cool to see Abbi smile. She does it pretty frequently but that doesn't really take away from its charm! The other night her and I were playing together on the floor when I took this picture. I got her to laugh like that by tickling her with my foot of all things.

6 Month Photo Shoot

Jenn was off yesterday because of a furlow day the county put in place so yesterday afternoon we decided to take Abbi to get some pictures professionally taken to commemorate her 6 months alive!

We went to Sears at Marley Station to have the pictures taken. Overall the experience was pretty good, although a bit long. The photographer took quite a few pictures, and we think she got a least a few really good shots of Abbi. I wanted to get a package that would enable me to get the original images on CD since they shoot digital now. So we did (it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't the most expensive thing either).

Since I got the CD, I was able to go home and post process the images myself and then put them online. We of course also got some sheets of pictures to share with friends and family, but to me the real prize is the original digital images.

This picture below was our favorite of the batch. You can click here to see all the pictures that were taken yesterday!

Teeth

Over the weekend Jenn noticed that Abbi is started to get her top two teeth. This little is working on not 1, but 2 teeth at the same time. At least all the drooling these days is for a purpose!

I took this picture last weekend when Abbi was hanging out in the bathroom while we got ready. Therefore, she brushed her teeth while we brushed ours!

Big Cup

She just keeps getting bigger and doing more fun things! The other night I was holding Abbi and drinking water and she was intent of having some too. So...since she's old enough for water why not! She did pretty good with it, with a lot of help of course to keep her from spilling it all out. As you can see, she was putting her tongue out to get the water, not necessarily trying to "drink" it.

Interactions

The other day I read a post on DPS blog about taking pictures of your kids all the time. Not just the posed pictures. So this past week I've tried to take a few pictures of Abbi just doing the things that she does. One of those things she does is smile at Jenn and put her hands towards her. In this picture she's reaching out to Jenn as Jenn bent down near her to talk to her.

As for Abbi's cold, she seems to be draining out pretty well, but she's got a pretty bad runny nose at this point. She seems to take it well, she's just a bit more mellow than usual.

Max and Abbi

Sunday Abbi was dressed up for church (of course) and Jenn tried to take a few pictures. Max was very intent on being involved in this effort, and you can see the results. Abbi seemed to enjoy his involvement quite a bit.

An update on Abbi's sickness: she's apparently got an upper respiratory infection, or a cold. We were given some nasal drops to help clear out the phlegm and told to elevate her mattress a bit so that the fluids would drain at night and not just pool up. She's in a very good mood even though she's feeling a bit ill. Its mostly just this nasty little cough.

Quilt

Last night I took some pictures of a quilt that Granmom Cocolin made for Abbi. Jenn's been on me about taking some pictures of it for a while now, and we finally got around to it. After I took the picture of the quilt, there was of course time to photograph Abbi with her quilt!

As for Abbi, she's got a bit of chest congestion going on today and yesterday, so Jenn's taking her to the doctor this afternoon to get her checked out and hopefully she can start feeling better soon.

"Love"ly Shades

On Saturday we headed out to the Queenstown outlets so that Jenn could visit the Coach store. While out there, we obviously hit up a few other stores (like Carters) and then Old Navy. Sitting up by the register were they glasses, so of course Abbi had to be photographed wearing them!

6 Months

Two days ago Abbi turned 6 months. Crazy! I feel that its a remarkable feat for both Jenn and I that we've managed to keep another human being alive for 6 months without any prior training or assistance. Its certainly had some rough patches, but things seemed to have smoothed out somewhat.

Abbi has grown a considerable ammount in the last month. There are new things that she's doing, and new foods that she's eating. As for foods, she's up to her full amount of cereal a day (6 tablespoons) and two weeks ago we started giving her other foods. We started with carrots which we're unsure if she liked, and now this week we've started giving her sweet potatoes. I think she's still on the fence about all these news foods, but I know exciting for me to be able to feed her and have her try new things.

She now has two teeth on the bottom of her mouth that have come in real good. The doctor said on Wednesday that she didn't have any more working their way in at the moment, so for now she's stuck with 2!

With those teeth she bites. And it hurts. At first I thought it was cute she wanted to grab my hand and chew on a finger or two, until she had those little chompers and bit down nice and hard on me. Jenn learned a lot quicker than I did about putting hands in her mouth.

Last month I commented that she's gotten stronger, and thats only continued. She's finally big enough these days to be tossed into the air, and flipped upside down. She loves getting piggy back rides. I think she likes being up high and able to see everything.

The coolest thing that I think she's doing now, she just started this week. We were playing peek-a-boo with her and she got the hang of it so that she would pull the blanket over her face and back. It was very very cute to see her do it.

From my perspective, Abbi and I have been growing together. It hasn't been easy caring for her over the past 6 months sometimes, but thats how it goes I suppose. When she's upset, she seems to only want Jenn sometimes, and that sucks. But we're working with Abbi to help teach her that we can both help her and soothe her.

I can't believe how quickly 6 months has gone by. It literally seems like she was just born the other day, and now BAM! She sits up. She eats real(ish) food. She makes talking noises. She notices the dog and wants to pet him. Its just incredible! I can't wait to see what the next 6 months and beyond have for us!

Baby Blues

Check out these eyes! We didn't have the time last night to take Abbi's picture for six months, so hopefully that will happen tonight. After a ton of shots at the doctor she was a little worn down and went to bed early. Enjoy this cute picture until tomorrow!

Half Birthday

Holy Crap! My little girl is six months old today. SIX MONTHS! It doesn't really seem like that long of a period of time, until you've just completed the first six month of a little kids life and being one of the two people responsible for taking care of them.

Tomorrow I'll post my thoughts about her over the last month as well a picture that we'll take tonight. For now, you get this picture of her from the other night after her bath. Doesn't she look cute in the little bath robe!?

Also, on the right over there you can see updated stats on her, but here they are again: weight: 17 lbs 9 oz.; length: 27.25 inches.

Fans

Sunday for the Ravens game Jenn obviously wore her jersey, but she put Abbi is full on Ravens apparel as well. After the game, Jenn wanted me to take a picture. I figure they looked pretty cute together!

Carrots

Over the weekend we gave Abbi her first taste of non-cereal foods! We decided to start with carrots. We bought a box of "first foods" from BJs a few weeks back in preparation and it had a few different vegetables that we could choose from (sweet potatoes, carrots and green beans) so we decided to start with the carrots.

She did well eating them, and seemed to like them pretty good. We used up 1 jar over the weekend, kinda working her into the new food and of course making sure she wasn't allergic to them. Below is a picture of her getting her first bites of carrots. Also, check out the banner. All new pictures for her upcoming 6 month birthday!

Smiles

Here she is, smiling! I took this last night after her bath. She still loves bath time which makes it much much easier to give her a bath.

Today is a big day for Abbi and us. We'll be giving her some new foods tonight for dinner for the first time. Not sure what it will be, maybe peas, or carrots, but something basic, a "stage 1" food they call it. Either way, its very exciting to have her starting eating newer foods.

Concentration

Here's a picture of Abbi with one of her new Christmas toys. Angela and Jake got her this toy that is a clock and sings the alphabet. As you can see, she's concentrating pretty hard to figure it all out.

Audrey and Abbi

We finally got a chance to get together with the Sofinowskis this past weekend which of course meant an opportunity to photograph our children together. No matter how hard we tried we couldn't really get both Audrey and Abbi to look up and smile at the same time. I think we got some nice pictures, but this was the best "smiling" picture I got.

Sitting Up

Here's another picture of Abbi sitting up on her own. She can't always get into this position, and she certainly struggles to stay here sometimes, but she's definitely starting to get a good idea about how to balance herself. Last night when we were holding her she just kept kicking and kicking as if to say "put me down, I wanna move on my own". Unfortunately for her, she doesn't really have that kind of mobility. Yet.

Sippy Cup

In just a few weeks (about 11 days) Abbi will turn 6 months. She's got a doctors visit lined up for that day, and there are all kinds of milestones that we're quickly approaching. We're only days away now from starting Abbi on different foods. She needs to be eating 3 tablespoons of cereal for two week before we're supposed to start her on other stuff like carrots, peas and so on. So this weekend will be very exciting for that reason.

Also, as you can see here, we've started giving Abbi a little cup to drink from. She doesn't quite have the hang of it yet, but it will come in time. She loves to hold things, and obviously put them to her mouth, so we've been giving her the little bottle with about 1 oz. of formula to let her drink on her own. Exciting times!!!