Laughter

No matter how much I love and care about Abbi, there are times when she gets to be to much. Last night was one of those times. When we were eating dinner, we were trying to watch tv. After a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to feed her dinner, we moved on to dinner. She then decided it was time to play and make a ton of noise and just be a pain. It was a rough bit there while we were trying to eat. Point being, while she's lovely and so on - I wanted to be honest enough to say that sometimes its not always fun and exciting. Sometimes its just tedious work. But I do love her a ton.

Cupcake

As a person who routinely makes fun of others based on different aspects of the day, I can only imagine how many different names Abbi will be called by me in the next 18 years. Currently we have things like pumpkin, princess, sweety, and so on. Here I suppose cupcake would have been a good little nickname for the moment.

Movin'

This kid is non-stop these days. Now that she is mobile, we are beginning to deal with her first bouts of tantrums. We will pick her up, and she won't like it, so she'll start to cray and flail around. We're trying to teach her that it doesn't really work that way. Hopefully in time she'll learn.

One thing we're doing to get that to happen is that when I hold her and she starts to scream, Jenn and I will calm her down together and then once she shows that she has stopped crying I'll give her to Jenn or we'll put her on the floor. Hopefully she'll associate the stopping of crying with getting what she wants. Hopefully.

Flipped

Check out these teeth! She's got 6 teeth in full now. I think the one front tooth has a bit more falling in to do, but for the most part its in there pretty good. Here you can see Abbi and I playing on the bed and her with a big smile on her face.

Announcement Dress Update

Be sure to scroll down a little to see the second picture posted here today. 8 months ago we took Abbi's announcement pictures in this dress. Yesterday for church she wore it again. It still fit her! That's crazy. As a result, I of course wanted to take her picture. Its amazing to see her in the same clothes only 8 months apart and see how completely different she looks.

Announcement Dress

St. Patty's Day

Obviously Wednesday was St. Patricks Day. Obviously we had an outfit for her to wear! This one is courtesy of Tina. More important than the outfit, it checking out how's she's been hog tied and loves it. You can see her upside down and enjoying every minute of it!

Cradle Time

This picture is almost 5 months old. We're not really using the cradle for Abbi anymore. She's just to bid these days. The other day I went in and turned her light on to wake her up and then left the room. A couple of minutes later when I went back in she was standing up crying for someone to get her out. So she certainly can't be in the cradle these days. We've moved on to her using the pack and play at this point, which is isn't to fond of. Hopefully she will warm up to the play pen a bit, but honestly - I don't really have high hopes for that. Looking at this picture though it seems like forever ago. She was only 3 months old when I took this picture. Crazy!

Mid Scream

Not in a bad way with the screaming. More so that she likes to talk. Loudly. You can see her here belting something out for all to hear!

Cute

Once we were done taking Abbi's pictures for 8 months, there was of course some additional time of taking pictures of her sitting around and playing on the floor. I snapped this picture of her looking up at Jenn while she was talking to her.

8 Months

She's moving. It took her about 2 weeks short of 8 months to start crawling and now she's on the move. Never to be still again! Its amazing to watch Abbi crawl around the floor. There are things that she tends to go back to (such as Jenn's pens, and anything remotely dangerous) but she does listen well. If we tell her "no", then she will stop and sit down and often turn around and head towards something else. Its absolutely amazing to watch her learn so much and crawl around.

With another month gone by, its like Abbi turned on a whole new level of baby this month. She's cuter than ever and like I said, moving around. Saturday we fed her cheerios and puffs and she was able to pick them up on her own and get them in her mouth. I was a proud papa. Again - absolutely amazing. I take for granted all the things that I know how to do because I've been doing them so long. Simple things like finger dexterity and walking are so foreign to Abbi, but she intrinsically knows how to do it and is slowly learning. Awesome!

Food wise, she's 1 food away from done with stage 1. Jenn got some prunes for her and thinks it best she try them, so once she's nice and regulated we're going to move on to stage 2 and start with the meats. She's already had chicken and pulled pork, but we'll do the official baby food jars this time.

She's back to sleeping like an awesome baby. She's been hitting the sack around 9 and Jenn gets her up at 7. This is all much better than the 11 and 11:30 bedtimes she used to have. She's also pushed through another tooth. She's now got 5 teeth and her second front tooth is working its way down. By next month she'll have a solid 6 teeth.

This month more than any other I've noticed such dramatic changes in Abbi's abilities and I can't express how proud I am of her and just how amazing I am at how quickly she's been able to learn. Only 8 months ago she was awake for about 2 hours a day and that was just to eat. Now, she sleeps for about 10 and the rest she's on the move, exploring or playing with Jenn and I. And talking about playing - we lucked out here. This little girl actually enjoys playing on her own. Again - awesome!

I love my little girl, and its incredibly exciting to watch her grow up. Its a little sad to see it happen so fast, but - that's how it goes. Last night I dreamed that she was walking, and I know its not that far off. She already stands up with the ottoman or chair and turns with only 1 hand for support and smiles at me. She's the best!

Toys

Here's another picture of Abbi playing with her Duplo toys. We got her this particular Duplo set because of all the animals that it came with. She's been playing with individual blocks each night this week. Last night I used one as bait to get her to crawl towards me on the floor. It was pretty cool :)

Nom-Nom-Nom

My parents had these rings for Abbi to play with when we went down. She seemed to enjoy them, at least chewing on them. I love how she's holing on the main toy while holding on to a single ring as well. This is how she does things right now, she loves to have things in both hands, even if she's not using whatever is in the other hand.

An update on her crawling - its on. She's mobile. She's not so fast you can't catch her, or that she's into stuff before you notice, but she's moving around. Its really cool to watch her see something she wants, and then go after it.

Peek-A-Boo

Now that Abbi is crawling, we put her down in one place, look away and she's somewhere else. Not somewhere else like another room, but she certainly moves around a room pretty well. And it happened pretty quickly too! The other night she started out near our couch and ended up a few feet away playing with her blanket. In this case, she decided to play peek-a-boo with Jenn and I. We were up on the couch, she was on the floor. Regardless of the distance she seemed to have a good time doing it!

First LEGO's

A few weeks back the family and I went to the LEGO store at the Mills and we got Abbi her first LEGO set. Its actually Duplo, but its still made by LEGO. The week before we were with Jake and Ange and Abbi was playing with some of Audrey's Duplo bricks, so we decided to get Abbi some of her own.

I was very surprised to see all the different Duplo sets they offer. Its safe to say I don't really keep up on the current Duplo offerings. We got her a little set with a few bricks and plenty of animals. They are all big enough to hold, chew on and most importantly, not choke on! We played together for about 10 minutes before she was ready to move on to something else.

Crazy Face

Not a whole lot of changes over the weekend for Abbi. She is however getting better and better at crawling. She's working on moving forward, and will crawl to Jenn if she's got the right motivation. She's also working on standing up on her own and doing a phenomenal job of it!

Last night we got together with one of Jenn's co-workers family and Abbi and their daughter got to play together. We don't see Abbi play with other kids close to her age ever, so it was fun to see. Katelyn is 14 months old, so she's up and moving, but she still sat on the floor and had fun with Abbi.

Crawling

So last night was the night. March 4, 2010. Jenn and I saw Abbi crawl forward for the first time! It was very exciting to see her crawl forward. She's been on the move for a while now, but certainly not directly. She gets from one spot to another, very slowly, but she gets there. I'm still not 100% sure on how she's doing it, I just know she is. Its incredibly exciting to see my little girl growing up each day. Its awesome!

Joy

I think this face easily defines how Abbi is doing these days. She's on the move (not forward) and happy about it. I wanted to share again just how fun it is to see her learn, grow, smile and generally be happy!

Floor Play

Abbi has been making all kinds of developmental strides the past few days and weeks. This morning Jenn pointed out to me that another one of her teeth finally broke through for her, so now she's up to 5 teeth. We're still waiting on that other front tooth to come in, but I'm sure its working its way out.

She really enjoys playing on the floor and moving around. She's still working out how to crawl, but she's doing better. We're waiting on new furniture for our living room and so we've been watching tv in the bedroom where we lay on the bed to watch tv. She loves to climb on Jenn and I while we're up there too. Its all fun!

Vintage

This little piece of sleepwear that Abbi is wearing was once worn by her mother was well. Hopefully when Jenn wore it, it fit a little better. Abbi wore it one night, and then Jenn said no more. Its to small. She did have it on long enough for a picture though, so I suppose that all that matters.

Grandma & Grandpa

This past weekend Jenn and I took a trip down to my parents house. They were of course ecstatic to see their little granddaughter. Its amazing to me to see just how enthralled they can be by such a little girl. Abbi doesn't do the most amazing things, when compared to an adult. I mean she does awesome things, but they are baby awesome, not adult awesome.

Regardless, here you can see both of my parents sitting on the floor with Abbi having a good time with her. While you can't see her face, I'll tell you she was smiling. She enjoyed all time she got to spend with grandma and grandpa just as much as they enjoyed spending it with her.