Car Rdies

I took this picture last Friday sitting at a light on our way to Grandmoms for day care. For a week or so these necklaces have been hanging out in Abbi's carseat. They stay in the cupholder during the day so she can play with the each morning. I turned around while at the light to see her wearing them, after prompting her to say cheese, I snapped this picture.

Cheese

Our kid has officially become a ham. She responds really well with a camera pointed at her and asking her to say cheese. She says something like cheese, and makes this smile with her teeth pushed together. The other night she was playing with Max and I took some pictures of them. I'd say he's still in the process of warming up to her, 19 months after her arrival. He's just taking his time I guess.

Hangin Out

Yesterday Abbi wanted to play at the playground at the school, so Jenn took her over and then I headed over and I finished up shoveling the snow and such. She seemed to have a good time, and as you can see her here, she's nicely bundled up for snowtime fun. I'm just personally glad we're able to use the snowsuit that we bought her.

Big Smile

Yesterday Abbi had a fantastic time playing in the snow. She played with us, then she played with the neighbors. I snapped this picture when she was up on top of some of the playground equipment. One of the new things she's started to do is to smile when you ask her to say "cheese". She's definitely learned how to ham it up for the camera!

19 Months

Abbi turned 19 months old last Sunday and so its time to write about her and how its all going. I've heard many time, from many different people that there are ages of your children that you wish you could freeze time within. This is one of those ages. She is absolutely wonderful to spend time with. She loves to spend time with Jenn and I, so much so she's unhappy if forced to play alone sometimes. She loves to play tent, and whenever she gets it out, she heavily encourages me to sit inside with her.

She's at an interesting point of mixed independence. In one way she's able feed herself a lot of foods, get the foods, and even tell us sometimes what she wants. And then at the other end, she's still in diapers, we still prepare a ton of food for her, she needs help getting in/out of the car, getting in to the crib and such. Then there are times she's trying to prove she can do something that she's just not ready for.

The point is, this is one of those times I'd like to freeze and I'm pretty sure Jenn would agree. Abbi always has such a happy personality and such a beautiful smile. I hope she's always able to have or at least find the same level of happiness that she has these days.

I commented to Jenn the other night about how different I think things would have been if Abbi was a boy instead. I wonder how I would have treated my kid differently and I said to Jenn that I really feel having Abbi has softened me up quite a bit. At least taken a little bit of the edge off, and for that, I certainly love my little girl.

As for Abbi - she's plugging away at life. Learning words, numbers, colors, shapes and such. The kid can name like every part of her body, its really cool to work on that with her. She's really starting to like TV. Stuff like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Backyardigans and Blue's Clues. She also likes Wonder Pets but Jenn and I absolutely hate it, so we try to avoid that one where possible. Basically - she's awesome!

Little Lady

She looks so grown up here. Last weekend Abbi wore this shirt and as Jenn put it "I want a picture before she can't wear this anymore". She keep growing and growing, and looks so grown up these days. As you can see her hair is quite long these days. We're waiting for it to get long enough to pull it back behind her ears, but clearly that's a slow process.

Spoon Skills

Jenn took this over the weekend. Abbi has figured out the necessary skills to use a spoon! Here she's eating her own yogurt! She does really well with applesauce too. She clearly gets a good bit on her face, but the majority does make it into her mouth!

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day from Abbi! This morning after getting her ready for the day, but before we left, I sat her up on the counter to take a picture of her to send to Jenn. This is the picture I sent. I think she looks incredibly cute.

Another Cute Shot

Here's another cute picture of Abbi. I shared the best one of these the other day on my other blog. But of course this one is almost just as cute. The smile isn't quite as big, but she looks happy regardless.

Things with Abbi have been tough the last few days. She's been sick, and we've been tired so there have been some cranky times getting through the first half of the week. She's a trooper though, and she's feeling much better.

Lounging

Jenn took this picture last week of Abbi lounging around the house. She's in her pajamas, most likely watching a little bit of TV before bed. But this is a somewhat common occurrence with her. She loves her "mouse" for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and LOVES some of the other shows on Nick Jr.

Shutterbug

I almost posted this picture on my regular blog today, but figured I would share it here instead. Over the weekend I got a new camera, so I took the old one and let Abbi see it for a few minutes. She immediately put it up to her eye to try and take some pictures. Its amazing to me how quickly she picks things up by watching those around her. I also think its really funny that when we hand her a little pocket sized digital camera, she still puts it up to her eye. Unlike most kids her age, she sees her parents use a dSLR that uses a traditional viewfinder, and so that's what Abbi pretends to do. Unlike most kids that see parents use the new live viewfinder type cameras. She of course like everyone loves the immediate feedback of digital.

Bay-Bee

I'm very excited to say today, that last night Abbi made an awesome breakthrough in her speech. She's been saying some two syllable words, but nothing really concrete (other than Daddy). Last night she busted out "baby" as good as jenn or I would say it. We're incredibly proud of her, and immediately started helping her with other words, and she's doing awesome!

This by the way, is how she treats Max. As her personal play toy. He seems to tolerate her. He loves that she feeds him, and last night he actually responded to her loud call of "Maaaaaaa". He usually just ignores her.

Boo!

As promised yesterday, this is a picture taken at the end of peek a boo, just as Abbi is yelling Boo!

Peek A Boo

We've longed played peek a boo with Abbi. Recently she's gotten even better at, where she will yell "Boo!" and move her hands out of the way in an attempting to scare us. She's really good at it too. Tomorrow I'll share a picture of how she reacts and says "Boo!" at us. I also want to say, about this picture, I love that you can see in her eyes that she's smiling underneath of her hands. So cute!