Halloween 2013

We had such a fun Halloween!  Thankfully I was all healthy by that afternoon (had another nasty bout of mastitis earlier in the week), so we could all enjoy the fun together.

We met up with our playgroup friends for pictures in the park before heading out the the Mission Hills neighborhood for some trick or treating. By some coincidence all the kids had red costumes.  Not planned at all, but it sure made for some cute pictures.

Noel with Brooke, Charlene with Sebastian, Eleanor with William, and us

Sebastian, Brooke, Abby, William

I wasn't sure how Abby would take to the whole trick-or-treating thing.  I mostly expected her to not like it too much since she seemed very unsure of the trunk-or-treat we went to the previous weekend. But she surprised us both by really enjoying herself. She still would rather not have anyone put anything in her basket, but she loved going up to each house.  When all her friends were tired and leaving, Abby wanted to keep going.  And when we finally told her it was time to go, she cried the whole way to the car. The fun kept going at home where she spent quite a long time putting the candy in and out of her basket, before we made her go to bed.

Checking out the stash

 And here is one last cute picture of Abby in her daytime Halloween outfit.  What a cutie!

Visit from grandparents

We had a visit from my parents recently but never got some pictures up.  Wanted to post some, mostly for my parents to see.

We had a super fun day with them, spending the morning at the beach and then hanging out at our place for the afternoon.

We took them to a newly discovered portion of our favorite beach.  Abby had a blast, she'd probably be happy if we took her to the beach every single day.  It was great because she got to be as crazy and have as much fun as she wanted, while grandma and grandpa could watch and still relax.

Fun with the chair. :)

We took a nice long walk in the afternoon, showing them another new find of ours.  We wore Celestia out a bit, but it was still a fun time.

Thanks for visiting!!

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.