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!