Mission trails - Abby pictures

We went to Mission Trails this past weekend for a short walk. It was such a nice, misty morning so we took advantage of that and snapped some adorable pictures of Abby.  Thought everyone might enjoy them too!

Little Red

Abby had her first taste of Halloween Saturday night at the church Halloween activity.  She seemed unsure of all the strange costumes around her, though she did find a boy dressed as a rubber ducky and followed him around a good portion of the evening, saying duck over and over.

She is Little Red Riding Hood this year, and perhaps we are just completely biased being her parents, but we think she was the cutest kid there. :) For the trunk of treat portion of the activity, she was a little wary of the cars, specifically the people at the cars trying to put things in her basket.  So she walked down the middle of the cars, as far away as she could get.  Which was just fine - she had fun looking at all the other people, and we had fun looking at her.

Looking at the glow stick someone was giving out.  She also got some playdough - great non-candy ideas!

She obviously doesn't look too excited here.  We'll definitely make sure to get some better pictures on Halloween night!

Kitchen helper

I've decided to try to involve Abby more in meal prep!  Usually I try to do all the dinner prep during her nap since that is just easier, but then those precious two hours quickly go by and I feel like all I've done is clean and spend time in the kitchen.  My own list of things I'd like to/need to get done never seems to get any shorter. 

She has always liked to watch me cook, but the most she's done to sort of help is snapping green beans with me. Today I propped her up on our kitchen step stool and had her place veggies as I cut them into bowls. Then she handed me the eggs I needed to crack (I had my hand right there too!) and then whisked them up.  And she absolutely loved it!  She cried when I told her we were all done whisking the eggs. 

I know that this will make it a lot longer of a process and we won't be able to do it all days since often we are out and about.  But to at least free up some time for me and to have Abby hands on with the food, I think it's worth it.  I think it will be great to familiarize her with the different veggies. Today she was sticking raw sweet potatoes, bell peppers, and onions, into her mouth to try them out.  The onion experiment didn't end too well... 

All in all, day one on the job for Abby went well and I'm excited to start cooking with her!

Sea-shelling

We went to the beach bright and early last Saturday to see if we could find some good shells. We handed Abby her sand bucket and pointed out the shells and she caught on so fast.  She had a blast, picking up every broken piece of shell or rock she could find.  I figured she might enjoy it since right now she loves putting things inside of bags, baskets, etc.

She followed her Dad and got mad whenever he started going out too far or too quickly for her. She only almost lost all her shell once when a bigger wave threatened to tip her over.  But, with mom's help both Abby and shells came out ok. :)

If you're happy and you know it

If you need something to smile about, watch these videos of Abby.  We're singing 'If You're Happy and You Know It' and Abby definitely shows that she's happy. Right before we made the videos, we were singing it and Abby stopped at the part where it says 'then you're face will surely show it' and gave the cheesiest grin ever while pointing to her smile.  She had never done that before and it was so adorable.

Both videos are similar, but we just can't get enough of her so I'm putting both up.

Spruce Street bridge

We found this really awesome suspension bridge last weekend after a friend had mentioned it.  It's a few blocks away, just a short walk from our house, and we never knew it was there!  San Diego is full of little canyons and this bridge goes over one of them, but is tucked away from the main roads.  What a great hidden gem!

Abby acts like a dog

Abby loves dogs. She gets so excited whenever we see one. Dog was one of the first signs she learned, and she signs dog over and over when we pass a dog, hear a dog, or talk about dogs. For the past little while, she has also added panting out loud when she signs dog or sees a dog. I think it started when we were last visiting my parents.  They have a big, constantly panting dog.  Since she spent some close-up time with this dog, I think she know associates panting with all dogs.

This video is from earlier this evening.  We were reading a book about dogs and you can hear how she pants the whole way through.