Abby Turns Six

My sweet Abby turned six years old! With a new baby in the house, six is kind of blowing my mind. 

Abby is a great big sister! She leads Clara in all sorts of activities. She's very sweet to Grant and has always been a big helper when I needed things. She is absolutely in love with her baby sister! I couldn't have asked for a better first-born.

Before school, she really wanted to open a present. I let her open new earrings. The girls haven't changed their earrings since they got them pierced so it was fun to pick out a new pair to wear.

Being Halloween, she got to wear her costume to school, which was lots of fun. She also got to have her Grammy come to her class party.

In the afternoon, the cousins came over and when daddy got home, she got to open the rest of her presents.

Do you think she was excited about this mermaid Barbie that Ella picked out for her?

We ate Jack-o-Lantern pizzas and pink cupcakes.

Cupcake kisses for Uncle Roo.

We sure love our girl!

Abby's First Day of Kindergarten

My beautiful firstborn started kindergarten. And, like most first time school-moms, it's been an emotional experience for me. It's a strange thing for me to send my daughter off for six hours a day when I've spent nearly every waking moment with her for the past (almost) six years. I picture her eating lunch and playing outside and I get a little weepy.

She's been very excited to start school. She loved going to buy school supplies and a few new clothes for school. She picked out this dress for the first day and wanted her hair in a pretty bun.

Clara missed her sister. After we picked Abby up, they were practically glued to each other the rest of the day.

Here's Abby in her classroom. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Wilson and she's exactly what you picture a kindergarten teacher being--young and sweet and vibrant.

She seemed to really enjoy her first day. She had lots to talk about, especially since she hadn't really done any speaking for six hours. I hope she'll open up and talk to the other kids before too long.

Here are the pictures of her first preschool days. Oh, how she's grown.

Monsoon Storms

The kids have been enjoying monsoon season and have had several chances to play in the rain. We haven't had a drop of rain in months so it's been pretty exciting.

Usually, monsoon storms are fast and furious--a lot of rain comes down in a very short period of time. They also seem to occur in the evening.

On this day, it rained off and on for most of the late morning and into the afternoon. The kids had a blast playing outside, making mud pies and getting filthy.

It's funny how your perspective changes. When we lived in Philly, I used to dread rainy days. They always made me feel melancholy--especially when there were several rainy days in a row. Now, three rainy days in a row is cause for celebration!

Another One Bites the Dust

Abby lost another tooth, though this one didn't come about too quickly...

The tooth was wiggly for a while, but she refused to wiggle it. Since the first lost tooth included blood, she was very nervous about losing another one. Sam was starting to worry the new tooth was going to come in in the wrong place. We tried bribery, scare tactics and begging. Finally, Sam took her to his office without really talking about it, sat her in the chair and just quickly pulled it out. Then, he took her to the dollar store to pick out a prize.

When this girl puts her mind to something (or to not doing something), it's hard to get her to budge. She does seem more prepared and ready to wiggle the next lose tooth that comes along.

Lost Tooth

While Sam was brushing Abby's teeth the other day, he noticed that one of her teeth was loose. We expected it to take a while for her to lose the tooth because her personality isn't the "wiggle your lose tooth incessantly" type, if that makes any sense.

Two days later, the girls were playing Play-Do in the living room while I was in Grant's room playing with him. Abby started crying really hard and came running in. She was bleeding and her tiny tooth was in her hand. We didn't prepare her for the possibility of blood so it scared her. Once, she calmed down, she was very excited.

Being the dental daddy, Sam came home for lunch to check it out. I had mention to him that it looked a little strange to me and that I wanted him to take a look. The tooth had a funny shape and it looked like there was some tooth/root left in her gum. He took her in, took X-rays and dug around a bit only to realize that it was just her adult tooth popping (the first thing I typed was pooping, hehe) through.

I made her a little pouch to put her tooth in when she put it under her pillow. She had a really hard time going to sleep because she couldn't stop thinking about the tooth fairy. The first time Sam went in, she sat up so he had to leave and wait a while. She's never had a problem sleeping on Christmas Eve but maybe it was the prospect of someone coming into her room that was making her anxious.

This feels like such a big kid milestone. Stop growing up so fast sweet girl!

Mani/Pedi

We spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house. Philip and Merrick drove over for the weekend and we had a blast spending time together as a family. We had lots of fun eating, shopping, eating, playing, eating, talking and did I mention, eating?

 

I'm going to be honest, I didn't take any pictures of the main event and Merrick hardly took any either. I guess we were just too busy enjoying the moment to stop and take pictures. (Good excuse, right?)

 

On Saturday, the boys went to the driving range so Merrick and I decided we needed an outing too. We choose to do a lot shopping and get pedicures and we invited Abby along for the adventure.

 

We went to the perfect place for Abby to get her first Mani/Pedi. They had adorable little butterfly chairs that were just her size.

 

 

She loved it so much! Every time I looked over at her, she gave me the cutest smile.

It was so fun taking my little lady for our girls outing.

Happy Halloween 2013

We decided we'd better carve pumpkins again, since daddy missed out on carving while we were in California. Clara's  Jack-o-Lantern face was a bit abstract.

 

I am kind of in love with the girl's costumes this year. They turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. Honestly, I couldn't find very good tutorials for either of the costumes so I was mostly winging it.

Abby chose to be Merida this year. She picked it for the bow and arrow, which I was able to find at the Dollar Tree--score!  I used this blog post, mostly just for ideas. I thought her instructions were kind of confusing. My magnum opus was that wig. It took quite a bit of time but it definitely made the look. I used this method, though I didn't used quite as much yarn and I didn't crochet my own hat.

Clara's Rapunzel costume came almost completely out of my brain because I couldn't find any I liked very much. However, this guided how I made her wig. Again, less yarn. She only weighs 25 pounds after all.

I'm not sure what she was doing in the picture but she looks so angelic.

It's hard to get a good smile out of her these days. Her cheese looks like she's in pain.

Sam made her this Pascal, which was super cute. She didn't want to wear it though.

Here they are with their spoils. They actually got more at the church party in about 20 minutes then they did in an hour plus on Halloween.

They had a blast trick-or-treating with their cousins!

Abby Turns 5

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow, my firstborn child has turned five! We absolutely adore our Abby Drue. She is a sweetheart, always ready with cuddles and hugs. She is an amazing big sister and the best helper I could ever ask for. She is smart and funny and so fun to be around. We really scored big when she was sent to our family!

 

She is one of the best people to buy presents for because she is so excited about everything. Throughout the morning, she would say, can I open another present? She'd open one, play with it for a while and then get too excited and ask for another one. She wore that crown all day--the birthday princess.

 

 

 

We set up this balloon drop (Pinterest,  of course. Is there any creativity left in the world?) for her to have in the morning. Her reaction was so cute. They crawled under the streamers rather than walking through them.

She asked for donuts for breakfast. She choose a sprinkle one, of course.

 

My parents came to spend the day. They told her she could pick anywhere for lunch and she choose Filbertos, which is a 24-hour Mexican restaurant. They have these little drinks she likes and she couldn't get her mind off them. I guess she's a cheap date.

We went over to have dinner and go trick-or-treating with her cousins. We got Jack-o-Lantern pizzas from Papa Murphy's and Alisa decorated really cute.

Abby picked out some princess cupcakes I found on Pinterest. Unfortunately, there weren't any printables. I found pictures and cropped them to be the same size and then printed them on card stock. I asked Sam to cut them out, since my cutting still are kind of abysmal.

My frosting skills aren't the best, but I think they turned out pretty cute and they tasted delicious!

 

She had a wonderful day and it was so fun celebrating with her!

A Weekend in CA

My parents were heading to California for my nephew's first birthday, so the kids and I decided to tag along for the adventure. We had a blast! It would have been the perfect trip if only daddy could have joined us (and if my kids would have slept later!)

 

We went to a "pumpkin patch" one day. It was really just a carnival which also sold over-priced pumpkins, but it did provide some good photo ops.

 

 

We bought a few tickets for the kids and they decided to ride the tractors and the train.

The tractors were hilarious. They were like the ride-on Barbie jeeps. They all kept crashing into things/each other. We were laughing so hard watching them.

 

We ended up going to buy pumpkins at Home Depot instead. They each picked the perfect pumpkin.

After scooping out the guts (which Abby and grammy did for all of them), we let them draw faces on their pumpkins. Merrick carved what they drew and they turned out so cute!

 

The next day, we went to Knott's Berry Farm. It was the perfect day. The weather was gorgeous and there was hardly anyone there. We never had to wait more than like two minutes to go on a ride.

 

These little pump cars were so cute. They had to pump back and forth to make them go. Poor Clara was pretty slow. She finished, though, and didn't seem to notice she was running behind.

This little boy was good as gold.

 

That night, we had a birthday party for my nephew.

 

 

Abby loved wearing the party hat and eating a cupcake. The countdown is on for her birthday. (Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.)

 

We went to the park the next morning and the kids had a lot of fun. It was a cool park and another gorgeous day. Abby liked climbing the rock wall--like father, like daughter.

These two are the best of friends. They are always hugging each other and playing together. They helped Merrick bake some cookies and got to sample the dough, as all good helpers get to do.

Then, we went to the Halloween party at the church. Right before we left, Clara fell and split her lip. However, she was more upset that she broke her pumpkin bucket in the fall. Luckily, Merrick had an extra so a crisis was averted.

They had so much fun trunk-or-treating. They came home with quite the haul. Atfirst Clara kept scowling at everyone who gave her candy. She seemed a little overwhelmed with it all.

 

I was very proud of how the girls costumes turned out. I'll write more about them another day.

 

Grant was the cutest little shark. However, I think he looked more like he was eaten by a shark.

 

 

 

Inside, the kids played games and won prizes and sugared up good.

 

 

It was a wonderful weekend which ended with Grant puking his guts out in my parent's driveway. Hey, at least he didn't do it in the car.