Goodnight, Elizabeth...

Libby's one month birthday was Monday and since I have been extremely bad at taking pictures (the second child syndrome is hitting already), I thought I'd post some of the past month.

The reason I haven't taken many pictures (by many I mean hundreds, not thousands like with abby) is because from the moment she was born, I just wanted to take in the experience and document it in my mind - I feel like i'll never forget this time with her. We love Libby so much. She is the sweetest most calm baby. Whenever anyone is stressed, all they have to do is hold her and the stress goes away. We love to hold her and cherish every minute we get just to look at her since she's awake more every day. She started laughing today and smiles and coos a little. It's so precious to be there for the beginning again. A lady from my church who has 5 kids and 25 grandkids told me that she and her daughter in law were talking about how different kids are and how God gives them to you in the order that you can handle them in. I can see how that's true - I needed to start off with abby. I love her so much - her spirit and her determination and I understand her because she is me in a 38 lb, 38 inch form. With Libby, I just want to watch and be there for every breath...she is so amazing and I am glad that she is here and that I am able to appreciate her and being a mother this time. The first time it just turns your world upside down so much because you go from being a wife and an employee to something you never experienced and can't possibly prepare for. The second time, it's all about the love:-) One down side, it's like they take shifts sleeping - not fair. When one goes to sleep and we think, "YES - one more hour till we have to get up" the other invariably wakes up. Oh well. Such is life I guess.

One funny story about the girls personailites....the first week Libby was home, Abby was having a hard time adjusting to sharing Mommy. One morning she came into our room and wanted to be held while I was feeding Libby. Chris put abby up on the bed with us and she started pitching a huge fit because she wanted me to hold her. So, here I am, feeding Libby with Abby thrashing about, chris and i trying to keep abby from body slamming into libby. Sweet libby was steadily just chomping away, happy as a milk drunk clam, not bothered by all the yelling and craziness. It reminded me of me and kimberly. I would be thrashing around pitching a temper tantrum because kimberly got something or did something that i wanted, and she would just keep right on doing what she was doing, not letting my fit bother her in the least. Maybe someday they'll appreciate each other like we do, right Kimberly Erin?!?

Get ready for the cuteness!!!

The second 'first hair cut'...
After months of debating hair length and fear over abby not cooperating with the hair stylist, I bit the bullet and took her for her first big girl hair cut. This is actually the second official haircut, but the first one was 18 mths ago (on her first b-day) and was more of a trim.



Anyway....here's the result. We LOVE IT!! She calls it her princess hair cut. She was so wonderfully behaved and cooperative!! Even the other moms in the shop were commenting:-) (she got lip gloss as a treat for being so good - I have caved BIG TIME!! It was clear gloss with sparkles - and it's princess gloss after all.)

Edit: yes, the clip is to grow out her bangs. My dad, mom and chris were against it, but I tried to explain to them the never ending internal struggle girls have about growing out vs cutting their bangs. We'll see how long I can hold out!

abby...sweet abby-iet. hard hearted harbinger of haggis

100 points if you know where that's from. Claire - you are disqualified from guessing since you know. Let's just say there's a reason I still can't sing along to songs with spelling, and it's the from the same movie. There you go - I gave you all the hints you'll need!

This post is about our little Abby - she is a wonderful big sister who LOVES Libby, and like I tell people, sometimes love HURTS! It's been a rough adjustment for Abby and I think being 2 1/2 has a lot to do with it. She loves to hold Libby and give her kisses all the time. Whenever Abby wakes up or comes into a room she always wants to know where Libby is and is very protective of letting anyone hold her or come near. If she hears Libby crying, Abby always goes to comfort her. Unless of course she is the source of Libby's tears, in that case she runs in the opposite direction.

Things are going well otherwise. Abby still likes school and loves to play with her dolls. She is really into Dora, Diego, and Mickey Mouse clubhouse. She really misses Halloween and as you can see in the picture above, still wants to wear her 'pumpkin shirt'. I think I have finally convinced her it's not Halloween anymore, but she did cry when she came home on Tues and all the pumpkins were gone. She is loving seeing the Christmas lights that are already up and has been calling Papa Ho Ho (santa) to let him know she has been a good big sister and that she would like pink babies with pacys for Christmas. We are getting really excited for Thanksgiving next week - My niece Kathryn is in the Nutcracker and on Wednesday we are taking abby to see a dress rehersal so she can see Kat as a ballerenia. Also on Wed we are getting the tree and a smoked ham from Billy's. Yummy!! It's a weird tradition to buy a tree from a grocery store, but they have THE PRETTIEST Frazier Firs around. Anyway, Thurs is a quiet dinner and decorating for christmas, then Friday Chris leaves for South Dakota for a week. Please feel free to invite us over for dinner cause you know I can't cook!!!

Oh yeah, the pictures -
the Krispy Kreme is from a couple of weeks ago. Daddy took abby to get her first KK...and boy did she LOVE IT!! She came home dancing and smacking her lips and saying 'yummmm-yyyy'. I got it on video, but it won't load for some reason.














This is abby's first time playing in the leaves. My mom was off thurs-mon and she and dad kindly had abby over for a lot of the weekend. When I went to get abby on monday she and my dad were playing in the leaves. if you've been to my parents house, you know they live back in the woods so there are gazillions of leaves and my dad was steadily raking them for abby to jump in. My mom told me that at one point abby ran in the house saying "Gammy, Papa missing". My mom ran outside to help her find Papa and didn't see him anywhere till she saw a bit of grey peaking through the leaves and realized that abby had covered my dad up completely in the leaves. Needless to say, they both had a great day.

This is m&d's dog CC (chocolate chip). She is a German Short Haired bird dog. CC had climbed up in dad's lap and was all hunkered down when abby decided to give her hugs. Poor CC. You can see her looking at me like, "please get this kid off of me". CC is THE BEST dog - she just ignores abby as abby tries to hug, pull, ride, etc. We love you CC!!

A delicate balancing act

Sorry it's been so long...so much has happened with the world and our family this last month, and I've gone over and over in my mind what I wanted to say in the blog, but for now I'll just keep most of it to my self (See - I am growing - I have learned to keep my mouth shut!). So much of what's been going on has bothered me, and I have been grateful that Chris and I have been able to have some really good discussions.

I will post some stuff of the girls...still sounds weird to say that:-) Here's one from last night. I was giving Abby a bath and Chris was sitting in Libby's room reading her a story. Abby got done with bath and wanted to read the story too. This picture was a sweet and calm moment that made me think two things...

1. That life has it's sweet moments and we should capture them and hold them in our heart to get us through the rough times...and having a 2 1/2 year old has given me some rough times lately
   
2. Chris Ricker is THE BEST dad on earth! He really is, and both girls are so blessed to have him as their dad. I love him so much and I rely on him to keep me sane and functional.

With all the craziness in the world, I am so grateful for my family. Libby has truly made us feel like a family - we aren't just playing house anymore!!