When we were visiting my parents last week, my mom gave Abbi some jewelry that her sister had sent to her to give to Abbi. As you can see here, she loved the necklaces and bracelets, and rings. So much so she had to wear them all at once. She did after a while decide that Jenn should be wearing the silver portion of the jewelry, so she shared that part of her stuff.

Jewelry

Last Friday for Thanksgiving we went down to see my parents and after dinner, my dad wanted to show Abbi some lawn decorations that they had put up. Abbi was definitely interested in seeing them, but not so interested in posing next to them. I managed to snap this picture off before she started to stand behind the figured and hide her head between them. I found it particularly funny to watch, and she of course had fun playing hide and seek.

Thanksgiving

The biggest development for Abbi in the past month, especially a parents perspective is that we're "done" with the laser treatments for Abbi's birthmark. I remember the first day she was alive in the hospital and the nurse came in to talk to us about our options and how to move forward. I'm very thankful that we live close enough to a fantastic hospital like Johns Hopkins that was able to treat her and work with us to reduce the presence of her birthmark. Even though its always there, after almost 2 and half years it is a lot harder to see at times and I'm incredibly thankful for it.

Abbi is also old enough now that I'm pretty sure she understands that we won't be going back to the doctor anytime soon. She at least seems to understand, and be happy about that fact.

This past month we got to celebrate another Halloween with Abbi and now that she's older that means more that she can do. This year she got to decorate and help carve our her first pumpkin. Once I cut out the top of the pumpkin, Jenn and Abbi were going to clean out the insides. In a classic face of "no!" Abbi was grossed out by the pumpkin insides and wanted nothing to do with cleaning them out. She did however thoroughly enjoy putting her stickers on her own personal pumpkin.

Also, with it getting into the holiday season (especially since its taken me an extra 10 days to write this), Abbi is very aware Santa now. Being the twisted person I am, I like to tell her things like "Santa will eat your brains" and such, to which she doesn't understand, but still tells me "no". When asked what she wants for Christmas, she goes on a long story about Mickey, Minnie, Goffy, Donald and so on, and usually repeats herself a few times. She's even a little afraid of Santa coming to our house and leaving presents. And I'm not entirely sure why, because I haven't made any jokes about that...

Just like the other months, she keeps growing and getting bigger and smarter. Some days she's got this nasty little attitude and others she's the sweetest kid you'll ever see. I love her the same both days, I just hope for less attitude and more sweet as we go along!

2.4 Years

I post pictures of these two somewhat frequently it seems. Probably because they get photographed together pretty frequently. Regardless, here's a shot of Abbi and Attila that I took Saturday at Brandon's championship football game. If you're curious, Brandon's team lost :(

Cousins

The other night (last Sunday I think), Abbi helped me print out a set of pictures of Jenn's students to be hung up on her bulletin board. Abbi played with the pictures, sorting them and laying them out over the next two days. Once the pictures were at school permanently, Abbi decided to get out her cards and do the same thing. Here she's in the process of cleaning up her cards after having spread them out all over the floor. With the student cards she impressed us, because without our suggestion she chose to sort the boys from the girls. And on top of that, she gave me the boys and Jenn the girls. I love my little girl!

Cards

Yesterday while we were watching the Ravens game, Abbi decided that she wanted some paper so she could draw/write for a while. I thought she looked really cute hunkered over the paper working so intently on writing things down. Just prior to this I had traced around her hand to draw a turkey, so I think she was mimicking that behavior and making her own again.

Writing

I know I've said this before, but pictures like this make me glad that we have friends like Ange and Jake, and I hope that as the girls grow up they'll continue to be good friends a have a lot of fun together, just like they did last week on Halloween.

Friends

Last Thursday, a week ago today, Abbi had her "final" laser treatment to try and lighten/remove her port wine stain birthmark. I'd like to think that we've had really good success over the past 2 years with her treatments. She went a total of 11 times for treatment, plus our initial visit when she was just a few months old. Its crazy to me now to think about how long ago it was, and all the emotions that Jenn and I felt when we first took her into the see the doctor.

The doctor that we saw each time was amazing. She was always very caring and took time for both us and especially Abbi. There's not much you can do to calm down a 2 year old, but they did the best they could and they always made sure to help accommodate Jenn and I as well.

Abbi did about as well as usual this last trip. She's fine in the waiting room, but once she heads back to the actual treatment facility she realizes what's up and get upset and starts to cry. Then of course she absolutely hates being strapped down, which I know has always been the hardest part for Jenn to watch. We've clearly had success in removing the part of her birthmark that ran up the center of her forehead and there's been significant lightening on her cheek.

Moving forward, we just kinda keep a watch on it and if we think she needs to go back, take her back and let the doctors take a look at it. They recommended that we bring her back in before she starts school if we don't end up bringing her in before then. It has certainly been an emotional process over the past 2 years with Abbi, but I know I speak for both Jenn and I when I say that I'm glad we did it. I'm also very thankful to have such great doctors nearby and so readily accessible to us.

As for this picture, as you can see, with or without birthmarks, she's a smiler. She loves to smile and does so all the time. I can only hope that as she grows up she continues to have such a happy personality.

All Smiles

In addition to carving our family pumpkin, Abbi got to decorate her own little pumpkin. At a recent birthday party she got stickers to decorate the pumpkin and we put them to good use on hers this year. She really seemed to enjoy putting all the little stickers on the pumpkin and in her words, giving it a "scary face".

Her Pumpkin