Abby, first day of Primary

And my little girl is growing up!  Abby has now had three full Sundays in Primary but here is her picture from that first Sunday. She was so excited and absolutely loved it. She really likes her class and teacher and also thought 'the big Primary room' was a lot of fun. 

Our Primary is teeny-tiny so it is just Abby and two little boys in her Sunbeam class, part of a total maybe ten-ish kids in all of Primary. I just got called as Primary pianist so I'm excited that I'll get a bit of a sneak peek into her Primary time.

Her last Sunday in nursery I subbed and it was a really fun time, so thought I'd include these cute Abby-Rudolph pictures.

And Rua too:

Christmas break - Cowles mountain hike

Over Christmas break, we decided to hike Cowles Mountain as a family. We've lived her over 5 years and to this point had not done the most hiked spot in SD. Abby was even game to try hiking on her own. It was about 3 miles round trip. We hiked up the back of the mountain to try to avoid the crowds and that was definitely a good choice because when we got to the top it was suddenly super crowded. Glad we didn't have those crowds while hiking. 

Some pics from our break up on top:

At the summit!

Made it to the top!

The hike back down was a little slow going as Abby started to tire. But she impressed all of us with actually finishing without us having to carry her.

Abby starting to get really tired. But she kept going!

A tired, but triumphant hiker! 

Christmas break - Rose and desert gardens

One of our favorite spots in SD is Balboa Park, which really is lots of spots. One of which are the Desert and Rose gardens. They are beautiful and it had been a while since we'd been. So we went for a day after Christmas stroll. Note to selves - while Christmas Eve may be a great day to visit Balboa as it was super empty, apparently the day after Christmas is one of the busiest, so don't go that day again! It took forever to find a place to park. 

But the gardens, as I already said, were beautiful. As was this little girl:

Abby loves rocks

Found another big rock

Christmas 2015

*Very unfortunate, but Eric, who took most of our Christmas pictures, inexplicably decided to delete all the pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So we have very few pictures. 

Christmas Eve was pretty quiet for us, spent the day at home before going out in the afternoon to take a family walk through Balboa Park and walk through the life size Nativity display they have there. It is a series of statues depicting the Christmas story, very nice. Of course, we also stopped by the ducks for the girls.

When we got home we had our simple Christmas Eve dinner of homemade mac and cheese, corn, and pigs in a blanket. In case anyone thinks of attempting it, don't use hot dogs you find in the freezer left over from the summer. Yuck. Can you tell we hardly eat hot dogs?

The girls acted out the nativity with help from us. Rua was Mary and Abby was a few things I think. They had a lot of fun with that. We left cookies for Santa for the first time this year.  Abby this time around has really gotten into everything Christmas and was very excited about it all. 

Christmas day was so much fun. Eric and I had stayed up til about 1:00 am the night before trying to finish our big Christmas project for this year - refurbishing a vintage rocking horse for Rua. It was a headache, especially since this is the first time either of us have tackled a diy project like this, and we almost gave up. But I'm glad we didn't because we both love how it turned out! I'll have to look around for a before picture and post that to highlight the difference.

Rua is holding the other big project for this year. I made big-ish cloth dolls for both Rua and Abby. It took a lot of time, but I've had it on my to-make list ever since Abby was tiny so I'm glad I finally did it. They are customized to look kind of like Rua and Abby (really, just short hair for Rua's, long hair for Abby's). I used this tutorial pretty much to a T.

A view of Abby's doll 

The few pictures we have from Christmas morning of playing with toys:

Christmas was very quite as we stayed in SD with no family visiting. And really, it was wonderful. The next week, we did have visitors - my parents and sisters Celestia and Lilly came to visit on New Years Eve. So that was fun getting to do our New Years Eve food and fun with them.

The girls got some grandma time:

We spent the day at Old Town since Lilly had never been. And Abby was excited for all the wagons to climb in.

Toddler in a cast

Put a toddler who just learned to walk in a full leg cast? Whose horrible idea was that?! But that is what we did. As we mentioned here we had this surgery planned, though somehow we didn't realize til the day of surgery that she would be getting this huge cast. Don't know how that happened but it was a shock for us.  And then the doctor says she isn't supposed to walk on it at all. Wait, what?

 Having fun before going in for the sugery

 

She loved the wagon!

 I was definitely worried about how the next six weeks would go. How was I possibly going to keep her down? The first couple of days were easy she was still pretty out of it and all she wanted to do was sit and cuddle. Then she came to life and did not want to sit anymore.

Here is a pic with the cast and also the bandaged up hand (we did decide to remove the finger)

It was an up and down battle. First week or so I was constantly pulling her back down if she'd stand up (which she hated) and then I started rationalizing that maybe she really wasn't putting that much weight on her foot. Then I would feel so guilty and go back to pulling her down. About half way through I called the doctor's nurse, so worried that she wasn't going to heal correctly. She told me not to worry so much and just try to minimize the walking. Life was much happier after that point.

 Who wants to see some cute Rua in a cast pics? Well here are a ton.

Girl loves her toothbrush. Really loves it.

Had to have Halloween in the cast. Boo

Finally, the Monday before Thanksgiving, th day came for the cast to come off. We were all so ready for it. Though really Rua by that point seemed so used to it that it didn't seem to bother her. She probably though that this was just what her leg was going to be like from now on.

Waiting at the doctors for our turn with the cast cutting guy

It was a little nerve-wracking watching the man cut off the cast see that blade so close to my little girls leg. But it was over so quick and she foot looked so great! The doctor was really happy with how it healed (whew! I was still a tad worried that we had ruined things with all that walking!)

Our only instructions were to keep her in shoes during the day for the next six months to protect the food and keep the big toe from shifting back out. And we can actually put shoes on her feet now! Before, we couldn't fit her feet in anything except some huge roomy moccasins (which sadly she can't wear now because they are too roomy. Sad

But what is not sad is this little girl. Rua is sooo happy to be walking free of a cast again!

We made it. We survived having a toddler in a cast. Here's hoping we don't ever have to repeat that!