I love this picture of Abbi. When we were down at the beach she was out in the sand dancing to her own beat. I snapped this picture, and I think it perfectly conveys her joy of dancing!

Dancing Girl

Last Friday after work Jenn and I took the kids to Papa Johns farm to get some pumpkins. They have pumpkins to choose from, mums, and all kinds of other locally grown things. Like giant sweet potatoes. Here's a picture of the kids with all of our pumpkins. A giant family pumpkin. Abbi's large pumpkin, and Cole's little mini-pumpkin that Abbi picked out for him.

At the Farm

The other night we took Abbi to get her first real haircut. I say real, because she went once and had about 3 hairs trimmed on her bangs, and it didn't matter to much. This time was different. This time we went in, she knew what was going on and what was about to happen. In the end, she got about 2 inches or so cut off the end. As Jenn calls it, the scraggly part.

Abbi behaved immaculately. I couldn't have asked for better behavior. I would have liked a few more smiles about it all, but then again, from her perspective it probably didn't warrant to many smiles.

First Haircut

Yesterday we went up to Aberdeen to celebrate one of our nephews birthdays. While we were outside for the party, I took this picture of Jenn and Cole. The smile on his face sums him up pretty well. So long as he's not pissed off about something. But thats only an occasional occurrence.

Jenn and Cole

I love this picture. The other night Cole was playing on the quilt on the ground. The thing he's looking into hold little plastic balls, which he had already taken out of there. That however didn't stop him from continuing to look inside for more and more balls.

Looking

Over the past month there have been a few developments for Abbi. The first one is her speech. Like I mentioned last time I wrote, she just kinda woke up one day and realized how an "s" is used in a word. She used to say "prin-tha", and where now she actually says "princess". Another example being "Mack" or "Mak-they", now she says clear as can be "Max" or "Maxy".

She's still the best big sister around and Cole loves her to death. Which I still can't figure out.

She's really learned how to use the computer this past month as well. Before Jenn or I had to sit with her while she played her games online. So Jenn sat down with her and worked with her on using a mouse. Unfortunately the mouse she used was older and not very good, so we quickly transitioned to using the trackpad on the laptop (the computer she usually uses). I also worked with her on understanding how the arrow keys can help her re-frame the content so she can see all of what she's trying to do.

What she really likes to do on the computer is play games on disneyjunior.com. She loves that site. Once we take her to the main site she is fully capable of navigating around and deciding what she wants to play and figuring out how to play it. For that, I'm very impressed by her.

I mentioned last month that she would be starting back up in her Fall activities and those are in full swing. She's in Rainbows (a church activity) on Wednesday nights, and then Thursdays she's in dance class again. She loves them both. I don't really think I could say which one she likes better (but if forced to do so, I'd say dance). We really like her participation in both activities since they promote different things and each gives her and opportunity to interact with other kids.

And speaking of her involvement, I've mentioned over the past 3 years how Abbi has impacted our lives and such, and these new activities are definitely having an impact. Its a whole new adjustment for Jenn and I to figure out how we're going to get Abbi to each of the activities and bring her home. Making it that much more complex to figure out is what to do with Cole during that time. Much like everything else, we'll adjust, but it will take time.

Finally, the last time I wrote Jenn had just gone back to school so the effect of not seeing her as much hadn't really set in on Abbi, but now it has. Abbi misses Jenn. A lot. And you can really tell. As such, I tend to get the crappier end of the stick from Abbi on many occasions. Abbi is very keen on understanding Cole's needs, but as soon as she sees a window of opportunity she pounces on Jenn. Example: If I offer to hold Cole for Jenn, Abbi immediately says "Mommy, now you can hold me. Hold me mommy!" and of course Jenn picks her up for a few minutes. So its clearly been an adjustment for us all, and we'll continue to work through it.

Abbi 3.2 Years

Last Friday we had homemade pizza for dinner. Abbi and I made the pizza after Jenn made the dough. I took pictures of Abbi throughout the process to make this collage at the end. She really enjoyed every little step of it to, and the pizza, of course, tasted delicious.

Making Dinner