Christmas in July

Maybe because it is hot as crap and I am wishing for cooler days, or just nesting and being very sentimental right now, but I saw these links on a message board and thought I'd share. If ya'll have any of your own that you like, please share. I am really wanting to work on building fun traditions this year for abby since she'll be old enough to get more than she did last year. I hate how things get so busy that traditions sometimes get pushed to the side. As a kid my favorite memory of christmas (and I know my cousins share this as one of their favorites too) was being at my grandparents for christmas eve and then only agreeing to go home after our parents threatened us that santa was in flight and wouldn't stop at our house unless we were in bed. We'd all high tail it to the cars, looking for santa in the sky the whole way!! I guess it's the family and food that makes that memory special. Also, on Thanksgiving day or shortly there after, we would go to CoCo Hollow Christmas tree farm (which is closed now, but is all of 2 miles from my house). The Bettes Gang and I would all pick out our favorite tree and stand by it, and the parents would walk down the line and look at the tree that we picked. Then they would get the final pick, cut the tree, and then take it home to lots of cussing and arguing about how that tree trunk that seemed so straight at the farm became so crooked when it got home. I can't even count the number of times trees got tied to windows with fishing line to keep them from falling over. But every year, the tree was the most magical part of christmas. Chris and I have started getting our tree from Billy's grocery store in Cataula because they have the most beautiful perfect blue spruce trees - so even though we don't cut them down ourselves, i am loving the new tradition. For abby, last year I would stop at every salvation army bucket and give her money to put in. I would talk to her about why we need to do things for others...maybe that will be something we can expand on this year. we also try to read the christmas story from the bible and in years past have attended a christmas eve mass. That's hard with kids though, but i think they offer earlier services than the one we go to at midnight. It was funny to see my parents at their first catholic mass:-) Other than that, traditions still involve a lot of food and family time with me and chris and my parents and the ever growing extended family. This year, we'll really have so much to be thankful for and to celebrate...but hopefully things won't be too rushed and tired to focus on the true meaning of christmas.

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/holidays-special-occasions/2783-low-cost-christmas-holiday-traditions.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?10-Free-and-Low-Cost-Ways-to-Give-Kids-the-Best-Christmas-Ever&id=101822

http://frugalliving.about.com/od/christmas/tp/Homemade_Gifts_for_Kids.htm

http://www.santas.net/aroundtheworld.htm

http://beingfrugal.net/2007/11/07/50-frugal-christmas-ideas/

Abby at Two...

I can't believe that the last two years have flown by and Abby is two. I saw my cousin's little girl this weekend who is 16mths and she seems like a baby in comparison. I just wanted to list some things that are going on in Abby's life right now as we mark this occasion from baby to big girl.

Abby, a day in the life:

• She still is loving Gymnastics and I am glad that she's finally turned two since she's been in the 2yr old class for a couple of months.
• Elmo was replaced by Barney and now Barney has been replaced by Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She watches MMC while holding:

1. A Mickey Mouse that my mom got her (I think Disney has kids coming out of the womb knowing who MM is?!)
   
2. A Care Bear that she got for her b-day
3. any of a number of babies that she has
   

• She also likes to watch Little Einsteins (I like it because they play the actual music vs the synthesized crap that Baby Einstein plays on their cds/dvds)
  
• While watching TV, she will talk to her posse on the couch and tell them to 'look' or talk to them about whatever is going on on the TV...it's too cute
• Her new favorite thing is her tunnel and tent that she got for her b-day. She has all her favorite books, pillows, a flashlight and a blanket in there and loves to spend time alone or with anyone who comes to visit
• Mommy is for some reason the only person not allowed in the tent.
• Whenever Chris and I are spelling something because we don't want her to know what we're talking about, she starts to say her ABCs. The best is 'LMNOP'...sometimes she starts substituting letters and rearranging them - it's cute. She also likes to count to 10, and most of the time will insist on a game of hide and seek to accompany all the counting. Once again, Thanks to Tucker for teaching her to count, and to Jessie and Kristi for the ABC fridge thing for teaching her the ABCs:-)
  
• She is talking up a storm...normally in sentences and it really helps to be able to know what she wants
• She is getting so grown up. For her 2 yr check up, she didn't cry and cooperated the entire time. She didn't even cry when they pricked her finger! Church and eating out are also becoming a lot easier because she's able to sit and be quiet for long periods of time. It's amazing how much calmer she is - but still very independent and confident - and not afraid of anything (which is sometimes very scary for us!!)
  
• Her favorite place to eat is....wait for it....COUNTRY'S!!! She LOVES the french fries and 'dip dip' (ranch dressing). She also loves their black eyed peas and butter beans
  
• Time out is our 'punishment' of choice. She's only had to sit in time out twice - but now all we have to do when she won't listen is say "Abby, do you want to do X, or do you want to sit in time out?" Amazingly she picks X every time:-) It really helps with getting her to pick up her toys, which is really the only thing we ever have to threaten to use time out for
• She weighs 36 lbs and is 37 1/2 inches tall - over 95% for height and weight. Hopefully she'll slow down the growing at some point??
• She LOVES blueberries and blackberries. Our Branch pres has a ton of blueberry bushes so my family went over and got a few gallons this weekend. Abby has turned blue from eating so many berries. Also, I bought a pint of blackberries from Publix and she had them eaten in a day. On Sunday, Dad, Chris and Uncle Jerry took abby on a blackberry hunt and she was eating the blackberries as fast as Chris and Jerry could pick them. It took three baths to get the stains off her hands, feet (don't ask) and face.
• Abby loves the water! I had her signed up for swim lessons but was luckily able to get out of it since they were $130!! Maybe I'll look into something next year, but not for $130 for 8 days!!
• We are really having fun being at home together - she loves to be at home with her things and going to visit our neighbor friends
• We go to story time with Ms. Lynn at the library on mondays, and then toddler aerobics with Ms. Kim on thursdays. she especially loves the parachute at the end that they all get to play under while the parents lift it up and let it fall down on them.
  
• Potty training is still a distant dream on the horizon. She started off with her Elmo potty like it was a prized possession, but now Elmo sits alone as a cold hard plastic monument to the failed dreams of mothering...LOL. My mom said it would take a while, and although I was so excited in the beginning that she was going to potty train in a week - I now realize that it's a process like everything else and that I will in all likelyhood have 2 in diapers!!
• Abby is finally and completely in her princess bed. Everyone that comes over gets a tour of the princess bed
• Abby LOVES music and LOVES to dance!! She has started this thing where she just waggles her butt. We're like, "who taught you that?" She said "Papa" (I would agree). We were walking in Lowes the other day and she was holding Chris' hand. Stevie Wonder was playing and she stopped, let go of Chris' hand, and then just stood in place for a minute and waggled her butt. When she was finished she took Chris' hand and started walking.
• When we got in to the car, Death Cab was playing, she said "No, Beck". I didn't think I heard her right so I said, "you want to listen to Beck???". She said yes and then got her groove on as soon as i changed to Beck's 'Guero' album.
  
• Everything is 'mine' or 'this is mines' - even when it's not. She sounds like the seagulls in Finding Nemo - I was going to look on U Tube and see if I could get a clip so you could know what i'm talking about, but i am sure most people reading this know without the clip!
  
• we work on sharing every day
• when she 'belches' or 'toots' she says 'skuuuze me', then laughs
• chris is trying to teach her to belch the alphabet. I hope this is the one thing she doesn't learn from him. Apparently while i was gone this weekend, Chris, Dad, Mark and Jerry were having a belching contest WITH ABBY - abby thankfully did not win:-)
• Abby is excited (ok, not really) to be a big sister. We read the "I am a big sister" book every night and when we ask her what song she is going to sing to Libby when Libby comes, Abby says "La La La Baby" (kind of to the tune of Elmos World)
• Abby says when Libby is born she is going to say "Hi Abby". We'll see on that one
• She is a tomboy, which is good, but also likes to get dressed up and wear a tu tu. I need to work on fixing her hair more often so she'll get used to it. I need my cousin Kimberly to teach me to braid hair!!!
• We just love her more and more every day. She is such a sweet little girl and Chris and I are grateful that she came to live with us and that we get to be her mommy and daddy!
  

A wonderful, wild and wooly week

Last week was the busiest week of our year, starting off with our Anniversary on Monday (6/30), then Abby's b-day on Wed (7/2), then mom and dad's anniversary on the 3rd..then of course the 4th of July activities that come along. For our anniv this year, Chris and I discussed lots of options for where we wanted to go, but I ended up just wanting to go to Atl and have a relaxing weekend, hitting some nice restaurants and shopping for abby's b-day (the bad thing about having her b-day so close to our anniversary is that we've spent the past 2 anniv shopping for abby - but that's ok i guess). We also hit the outlet to start shopping for.....Libby/Ellie/Natalie/Leah.....baby tba. The outlet had an INSANE sale going on, so we got a lot of cute stuff. After trying for a year to get pg, I got mad last oct and sold all of abby's baby clothes, so we are starting basically from scratch. All we need now are some layette items from carters and we'll be all set...except for diapers, formula, etc - you know, the important stuff:-) We stayed 2 blocks from the Atl temple, so it was really neat to keep driving by and remembering where we got married. Seven years has flown by so fast - I can't imagine how fast the next seven will go with kids.

Note to Brandy - we went to the Melting Pot. It was really good but next time, unless I started at 5, I don't think I could eat another 3 hour meal!! Plus, the people in the next booth had their kid with them who was playing his PSP with the sound on!! It was driving me NUTS!!! Who pays $100 for dinner and then takes a kid - and then lets them play video games with the sound on?!! I finally got up and asked them to have him mute the sound, and that was better, but honestly people - it's not a kids' restaurant!!!

We got home Sunday night and packed Tues,Wed & Thurs with fun abby activities and getting ready for her b-day. We found a sandbox/picnic table in atl, but luckily our Sams had it too, so Dad and I spent most of Tues getting everything and then Chris and Dad put it together for abby that night. She LOVES the sandbox - and loves to take sand from it to the pool...and vice versa. Ughh!

Anyway, Mom and Dad came over Wed night to open presents and make pizza for Abby's b-day. We got her a train set, tent and tunnel (LOVES IT!!), barn and animals, barney video& tennis raquet. Mom got her a tea set which she LOVES. Abby runs around saying 'tea party' all day now. She also got her a Mellisa and Doug chef set and flashlight with a whistle. Mom hit it out of the park with the flashlight - although everyone else regrets that it has a whistle that abby LOVES to blow -all day...she had fun though.

Thursday I had a small party for three neighborhood kids that abby is friends with (read:mommy is friends with their mommy's). I woke up with sciatic nerve pain but of course brushed it off cause i didn't have time to deal....didn't slow me down and i continued to lift and move way more that i should of things that were way heavier that i should have lifted.

So, all in all I was on my feet for basically a week straight...which lead to Friday morning - I got out of the bed and couldn't stand on my feet. I started freaking out, but abby was with me so i tried to put on a happy face as I used whatever I could to lean on to get to the bathroom...on the way back to my room i made a game for abby of crawling around on the floor cause I couldn't make it one more step. by the time i reached the bed i was really freaking out and i called for chris (it was July 4th and he had the day off). I told him what was going on, he helped me back in bed, and we researched what to do for sciatica in pregnancy (being the 3th, OB office was closed). basically the advice was to rest and stay off my feet...so i did. i was an invalid who moved from couch to couch to bed for 3 days. I HATED it!! I felt so lazy and helpless - but it WORKED!! I feel a lot better today, although it's taking all I can to sit here and type this - need to go lay back down:-)

Friday night our neighbors had a huge fireworks display...I was worried that abby would hate the noise but she loved it - she and our neighbor's little boy who is 3 mths younger than abby - loved every firework and would clap. The next day she kept saying "miss denise go boom" and then putting her hands up in the air. It was cute - can't wait till the next firework holiday!

In other news, Dad and Chris started painting on Sat - it's the most HORRID shade of leprechaun green you've ever seen (yes, I picked it out). I came home from my mom's on sunday and was so upset...but we picked a 3rd shade that hopefully will work out better. More details to come on that I am sure. We went to home dept yest and got most of the wood to do baby's room - we (dad, chris and hopefully uncle jerry) are doing a bead board wainscot...with some shade of non horrid green!?!

On a last note, Abby is so sweet and precious. She rubbed mommy's 'owie' and checked on it every day. Even today she patted my back and said 'mommy back owie?' to see if I was ok. We love her so much and are amazed at the little girl she is. Even though she is in the 'terrible' twos with a few meltdowns here and there when she's tired or hungry, we wouldn't trade her - she makes us laugh and keeps us on our toes, and we wouldn't have it any other way. But do you think I could possibly be - blessed - with TWO very active girls?! We'll see...

Here are some pictures from the past week of abby adventures...
Tues - Abby making pretzels @ auntie annes with the PICP - it actually tasted really good!









Wed - abby's first bowling (also with the PICP)...she lasted 4 frames and that was about it, but I was so proud of how she carried that ball around and tried so hard to get it up on the ramp.










And then her b-day... yes, of course I made the cake - from scratch - took a cake decorating class last year w/PICP (but the outfit was bought this year:-)












And the cupcake party the next day (made from left over cake batter) - l to r, Devin (5) Taia (15mths), Abby, and Lawson (20 mths). They are snacking on their favorite treat - fruit rolls ups!