Five on Friday

1. Abby quickly picked up on how special Sara's blanket is.  She often tries to take it from Sara or if Sara leaves it out, Abby will pick it up.  This one day Sara set it down and got busy doing something and Abby picked it right up and carried it around for a while before Sara noticed.  It cracked me up.  Abby has her own blanket just like Sara's, but she hardly pays attention to it.  She has had a really hard time sleeping lately and I've really tried to get her to bond with something, but nothing works.  I wonder if I gave her Sara's blanket that would help...

2. Abby has found another throne, the mini trampoline.  She loves to climb up on it and while sitting, she'll bounce up and down.  She loves it.

3. One night Abby finally decided she was ready to take some steps.  Until now she would not even try to walk.  We'd try to hold her hands, she'd flop or pick her feet up.  She'd cruise around furniture, but ONLY when she wanted to.  No amount of encouraging from us would get her to move.  But then the night before Thanksgiving, she held on to my hands and walked all over the living room/kitchen.  And then we pulled out the walker and she did laps all around and LOVED it.  She was so proud of herself and had so much fun.  She'll still only do it when she's in the mood, but finally!



4. This week Sara had her 6 month post surgery check up.  I was anxious to go and get it all over with.  I thought it would be her last check up, but the doctor wants to see her in another 6 months.  So, we'll go again.  Her ear looks really good.  It's symmetrical with the other ear and neither developed quite right, so now they both look the same.  I'm really amazed at how good of a job the doctor did.  This has all made me so grateful for competent doctors.  It has also given me a new respect for all the families that have to attend Primary Children's hospital on a regular basis.  The surgery ended up being a much bigger deal than any doctor had anticipated.  And even though it was a pretty major ear reconstruction, it still wasn't a heart surgery, or a tumor removal, a skull reconstruction or a sudden, unexpected injury surgery.  Sitting and waiting for her to come out of surgery was the longest three hours of my life.  I didn't like her being under general anesthesia.  The anesthesiologist was fantastic and reassuring, but still it was nerve racking.  Although it is still healing, it is healing well and the scar is already much less noticeable. I'm so glad that this will all be over for her.  Pretty soon we won't even talk about it anymore and we'll never have to worry about it again.

You can see the scab above her ear still.  There are some on the inside flap too.  The first time she pulled her ear away from her head, I had a weird over dramatic moment of, "Oh  my goodness, that's the first time she's ever pulled her ear away from her head."  I know it was a bit silly, but I still had a small, super proud, moment.

We had to wait awhile so we took some fun pictures...

"Mmm, this pretzel is so good, but what's that over there? An even bigger pretzel stand?"

"These pretzels are making me thirsty!"

My brave sweet girl!

Almost done with this hospital!

 

 

5. Thanksgiving.  I really missed being with family this year.  Really missed it.  We won't repeat it next year.  That being said, we had a fabulous day.  We covered the table with butcher paper and the kids had fun decorating it.

Even Abby joined in on the coloring.  She loves doing what the big kids are doing.

While the turkey was cooking, we played baseball.  We had a ton of fun together.  The day was gorgeous and we loved our time outside!  It was fun to play together.  Sara has some natural talent and Kate, if she gets an ounce of confidence, it can carry her for hours, so one good hit off the tee and she was loving playing!

Sara wanted to make some placecards like we did last year.  I was flattered that she remembered making these last year.  It makes me feel like my efforts will be remembered!  So she made some turkey place cards for her and me.

 

We had tons of turkey and pumpkin pie.  We stuffed our bellies and then watched Rise of the Guardians.  It really was a great day.  Today, after we went to see Despicable Me 2 Sara said, "this has been the best off track time ever!"  Awesome!  Next year, hopefully, we'll have some family here, or we'll be able to travel somewhere, that's the only thing that would have made this all better!

Five on Friday

I've been thinking of ways to keep up on my blog so I thought I'd try this for a while. I've seen things like this done on other blogs so I'm not starting anything new.  But maybe it will give me a chance to keep up on pictures and get a few things off my chest. 

 

1. Sara learned to cross her eyes recently and now thinks she is pretty much the funniest thing on earth.  As if she didn't think that already!  She is always making faces.  Sometimes, I'll look over at her and say something and then she'll just cross her eyes at me.  Pretty funny.

 This is her most scariest face ever.

2. There is a running store here in town that I love, RunGr8.  Every Saturday they have a group run just for girls and on Tuesday nights they have a pizza run where they run to a pizza joint and then take their RunGr8 bus back to the store.  They are also big sponsors in a lot of community races.  On top of that, they put on little community fun running events several times a year.  I like taking the whole family to them and everyone always has a fun time.  The most recent one we went to was to celebrate Runner Awareness month in November.  Who knew there was such a thing right?  And aren't these awareness weeks/months a little out of control?  Anyway, they had a night run and everyone was required to wear something reflective or have lights.  So we had headlamps and glo sticks and ran from the store to a nearby park for hot chocolate and scones.  It was one of the coldest nights we'd had and we haven't had one as cold since.  Oh well, it was a lot of fun!

3. I posted before about Abby climbing up on this hearth.  Well now she loves it and has made it her personal throne.  She'll sit over there and pull toys out of her toy box and is a very happy little camper!

4. Another funny thing she does lately is she'll pull these pillows off the couch and then sit on them.  I guess she has thrones all over the house for herself!

5. This tree is right outside our kitchen window and I love seeing it all day long.  It has been so pretty the last couple of weeks.  The leaves are pretty much all off of it now, but it made me smile every time I looked at all that gold.  We have a landscaping company paid through our HOA that rakes up leaves for us.  I actually really hate it.  Plus they came once before many leaves had fallen off and then didn't come again for a month.  I was glad because my kids need some jobs to do.  They hated me for it because we have a lot of trees crammed in our small back and front yards plus our neighbor's tree in the front blows into our yard.  It was good for them to work though and they did a good job at it.  We'd put on some music and talk and ok, fight, but hey we got the job done every week!

Wow, 5 already and I didn't even get to post about the things I've been thinking about lately.  Like, for example, how anyone who was ever really annoyed with my Mois's World fetish can rest assured that Kate is avenging all of you.  She is constantly talking about this Harry Potter world she created and even signs her school papers Kate H C G which stand for Hermione, Cho (Chang) and Ginny.  And when she's in her Harry Potter world she talks in an English accent.  Oh. Wow.  Most of the time it makes me laugh, but sometimes it all just really gets under my skin!  So you can all rest assured that pay backs are in the process!  She also has this new obsession with learning French.  Hmm, interesting!  I do love her for it all though.  She has an amazing imagination.  

Sara's 6th birthday

Sara has been counting down to her birthday since her half birthday in May.  And I'm sure once all the excitement of her birthday and party wear off, she will again start counting down to her half birthday.  That's how she is and I love it!  Sara is a sucker for any toy advertised on commercials, but there are some toys that really stick with her.  The new nerf bow and arrow, marketed to girls, was such the toy that really stuck with her.  That's all she's been asking for for a while.  We were more than happy to oblige because what an awesome thing to ask for, right?  She was very excited when she opened her gifts.  It was open and many bullets were shot before she left for school.

 

 How cute is she?!  She is ruthless though.  Luckily, she has been inspired by Merida from Brave and not Katniss from The Hunger Games!

 After school I had planned on taking her to lunch at McDonald's, but all she wanted to do was play with her toys so that's what we did.  She has never been one to pass on McDonald's, but I didn't mind.  Another gift was the KidzBop 23 album.  She loves to sing and dance so she was excited for that.  While I was laying Abby down though she just colored while she listened to music.  I laid down with her and we colored and sang. 

 On Saturday we had a small friend party.  It was very low key and actually a lot of fun.  Sara picked the games which were totally easy ones, hide and seek, duck duck goose, red light green light, tag and a piñata.  The piñata cracked me up because here choices were a princess castle, a flower, hello kitty, a gift box and a bull.  And she chose the bull straight from Ciudad Juarez.  The girls all had a great time together!

Saturday afternoon these three all spent quite a while playing legos.  I didn't realize that at some point Matt got the ipad and was playing it, but still they were all getting along together for at least an hour.  I just had to take this picture to document it!

 

At 6 Sara's biggest life goal is to be on America's Funniest Videos.  She is always asking me to video things.  We haven't gotten a funny enough one yet, but we're hoping!  Her favorite color is red and her favorite food is tomato soup.  She is becoming more aggressive and often uses her blanket as whip on Matt and Kate.  She loves to be physically active.  I have to get her to ride her bike and run around with me or she has a hard time going to sleep at night.  She is a sweet and sensitive girl and is a little bit afraid of her kindergarten teacher.  She is reading easy books and does very well in school, but would prefer to play.  Recess and drama class are already her favorite subjects in school!  She is a joy in our family and is always cracking us up with things that she says.  We are so happy to be with her!

 

Here are a couple of videos from her birthday.  One is singing Happy Birthday and the other is her shooting her bow and arrow.  The look at the end is PRICELESS!

 



Abby the Entertainer

Abby has certainly livened up our house.  We all love that she interacts with us more.  I love how when she sits up at the top of the stairs she can see who is sitting on the couch downstairs and she'll yell at them until they look up at her.  It's really funny.  She really likes to yell down the stairs and one day started doing it when all the older kids were at school.  I'm sure she was yelling down at Matt like I frequently do.  While I love all the interacting, sometimes I wish she could just sit down and play the ipad for 30 minutes so I could get something done.  But I don't want to forget some of the things that make me laugh and make me sigh at this age!

This is a daily occurrence.  This is one of the things I just turn a blind eye to and step over all the plates because as soon as I clean it up, she pulls them all out again.  I can't lie, it's a bit annoying and I look forward to her passing this stage, but I know someday I'll laugh about it!

 

 She loves to bug the kids when they are playing the computer or ipad.  She's already got them all figured out.  She knows how to use the mouse and she'll hit the ipad or my phone screen.  What a different age to grow up in.

 I don't have to wake her up very often, but when I do I think she just looks so sweet.  She is such a funny sleeper.  She doesn't hardly move at all.  She's always flat on her back and her arms are either up like this or straight out.  I was dreading this time change thinking she'd be up at 5:30 every morning, but she only woke up that early on Sunday morning...and we were still almost late to church.  She has been taking two naps a day until this week.  She refused to sleep yesterday afternoon and she will finally pull herself up in her crib so if she doesn't want to sleep, I don't think she'll even cry herself to sleep.  I'm ready to stop that morning nap, it's hard to get any errands run or anything. 

 

Today we had playgroup at our house which is another funny thing.  I hadn't even thought about it, but another girl in my church approached me about it a few months ago and there are a few babies about her age so we've been having a playgroup for the last few months.  At first I was not really looking forward to it, but I decided I needed to make the effort for Abby's sake.  And I remember when Matt was young and we had a playgroup one of my now friends came even with child 14 and 15 so if she can do it, I can too.  I've had fun getting to know some people I wouldn't have otherwise.

 

Anyway, today she actually interacted with her little friend, Jean.  She'll be one in December.  Abby was trying to play peek-a-boo with her.  It was really cute.  But then she spent the rest of the time trying to get to a sitting position on the fireplace ledge thing.  She kept falling off because she couldn't turn her body around.  It was really funny.  When she finally got it figured out, she was VERY proud of herself and did all the rest of the day!

 

I love this turquoise vest on her.  It makes her eyes bluer than blue.  If only she would sit still for a picture... 

 It's pretty easy to make her laugh.  She's so funny!  Sometimes she'll make this evil Wahaha laugh.  I've got it recorded, yea!

Halloween 2013

Just a few pictures from our fun Halloween!

 

 Sara wanted Abby to be a cow to match her cowgirl costume.  My dad offered to send a kid's rope, but he thought that might be trouble for Abby!  He was probably right!

 Matt was a creeper to go along with all things Minecraft!

 A creeper, Cho Chang, a cowgirl and a cow.  Random, but fun!

 Pumpkins that were mostly carved by the kids.  A creeper (shocking) and two scary faces.

All lit up!