Lunch Date

Today I had the loveliest lunch date imaginable with... my daughter. Hannah and I have spent the last two years and ten months in each others company, almost exclusively. I mean, we let Kevin hang out with us, but for the vast majority of her awake time, it is the two of us. However, since Abby's birth there has been this new interloper, who, although very cute and welcome, has changed our time together. We don't very frequently get to be just the two of us like we used to (I remember Kevin and I experiencing a similiar situation with Hannah's birth). Lately I have been too busy and too sleep deprived to honestly enjoy my time with Hannah.

Today the fates aligned to give Hannah and I something that we both desperately needed -- a lunch date with no interruptions or distractions (unless you count the very nice maintenance man who was fixing our sink...). Abby went down for a nap as soon as we came home from picking Hannah up from school and Kevin was on campus at a class, so it was just Hannah and I for lunch. We had a delicious lunch of peanut butter and strawberry jam (something Hannah rarely eats), with a side of blueberries for her and applesauce for me. During lunch I took time to ask Hannah about her day at school, listen to her tell stories, watch her make trucks with her crackers and just thoroughly enjoy my time with her. I learned that today at school she went to Kennan's house to have hot cocoa, that the maintenance man's crackling walkie-talkie was Pete calling him and that she really wanted my applesauce, too. It was a wonderful time where I got to appreciate my daughter's personality and marvel at the fact that she is growing up into such an individual.

Later on today Hannah amused me by telling me that she "is my Daddy's Princess" when she put on a princess shirt (she only has one to discourage a royal complex) and that "Abby is my (Hannah's) princess."

Here are some pictures of the princesses today.

Settling in

The last week has flown by, as we've gotten readjusted to our normal rhythm of life and time zone. Kevin started classes on Monday, which hasn't meant a whole lot yet, seeing that he has been to two classes so far. It is nice to have life smoothing out again after the busyness of not only the last two weeks of travel, but of the holidays and finals too.

I have some little snippets of information to share with you all that really encompass a wide range of things.


First, Hannah today decided to make a picture for her Aunt Kara (it will go in the mail tomorrow Kara) because Kara's birthday is coming up. I suggested to Hannah that she make sure to make a "H" on the page, a new skill Hannah is proud to show off. Well, Hannah thought that was splendid idea and proceeded to cover the page with "H"s. I was very impressed, even more so when she made a square that almost looked like a square.



Another funny story with Hannah is that today Kevin decided to be extra nice to me (I got cavities filled!) and take the girls to get kitty food. Now, he is always very willing to give me a break and today it showed because as Hannah was getting ready to go she asked if Abby was going ("yes") and if I was going ("no"). Hannah then said "Mommy gets to take a break," which cracked me up. And I did take a break, which was great!

Abby has been trying to roll over, which is so much fun to watch. She strains so hard to do it but really has a way to go. Hannah was 18 weeks when she rolled over (I don't know that off the top of my head--I looked it up!) and Abby is 15 weeks. Now we can see if Abby breaks Hannah's record! To encourage Abby we put a little rocking elephant chime toy by her that she stares at and bats. Hopefully soon I will post that she has accomplished her mission!

Abby can also now sit in her seat positioner. She likes it because she can look around and watch what is going on.
Now for just two cute pictures of the girls.

Hannah can finally wear a ponytail, which makes her look about 10 years older! I didn't know a simple ponytail could do that! Kevin is excited about it because maybe now he can participate in the hairstyling (I hope so but am not counting on it till her hair gets longer and thicker).

Abby also is perfecting laying on her tummy and holding her head up. She looks quite cute when she does this.

Okay, now something about Kevin and I. Tonight we finished a movie that we got from Netflix in October! We have tried, off and on, to finish this movie for months! I think we sat down to watch it at least 3 times. Well, finally it is done. I can't say it is the best thing I ever watched, but it was okay and now it is heading back to the closest shipping facility. Ahhh... Is this what two kids does a couple?

Also, I added a section of interesting links for your enjoyment. One of them is something that Kevin and I are really excited about -- reusable shopping bags! We had been intending to get some for quite awhile, but it took a huge shopping trip on Tuesday for us to say that we needed to stop putting off purchasing them.

(A side note: I don't think blogger's spell check is working because nothing popped up as spelled wrong. I've never claimed to be a good speller so please ignore anything incorrect--or could it just be that I have improved that much in my spelling? yeah right.)

Pictures

I want to post some pictures from our travels to share with you all. I have about a million that I could post, but that I would just post a few and then refer you all to our Snapfish site which will have a more complete album (I figure that most of you really don't want to see ten pictures of Abby being held by different family members...).

Abby enjoys the flight...
Hannah does not....
The girls with Great-Grandma May
Abby modeling a cute dress
Abby meets one of my (Alisa) college roommates, Christine
Hannah "read" herself to sleep in Placerville
Abby with her aunt and uncles in Merced
Hannah and Josh are jumping beans (and about the same height)
When Hannah does this, you know she is sick. Sure enough, she has an ear infection.
Ahhh... the girls back home again!

Reflections on travel

I thought I would share with you all a collection of insights gained through my family's recent travels (we just got back today, so expect more posts in the future!).

Toddlers can tell, no matter how friendly the toilet is, that it is not their toilet and, therefore, cannot poop on it. Hannah went two weeks with maybe two or three poops on the toilet, the rest went to the pull up. Tonight, on our return home, she went on her potty in the first 5 minutes.

A close cousin on Murphy's Law is the Travel Sickness Law, which dictates that while traveling, one family member must get ill. Last Saturday Hannah started crying and saying that her ear hurt which lead to a trip to the ER (only place our insurance will go out of state) where she was diagnosed with an ear infection. And leads to...

Medicine that must be taken, but deemed "yucky", can be more palatable if you do a 50/50 ratio with antibiotics and chocolate syrup. However...

You can stick medicine in a toddler's mouth, but you can't make them swallow. However, if you spill that same "yucky" medicine on the table and ask them to lick it up, they will do so willing and joyfully (don't ask).

Aunts and Uncles will act in ways that surprise you, especially when you are not looking. Hannah and Abby are very lucky to have a quite a few aunts and uncles that will bend over backwards to make them smile. Who knew our brothers and sisters could be so goofy?

Grandparents will always state (most likely repeatedly) that grandchildren are the very best, which leaves you wondering where you rank on the scale...

Even great sleepers decide that sleeping in strange beds means that extra night time wakings are necessary. Have two doing this and you have parents who resemble zombies more than they do people.

Two year olds can be surprisingly gentle and sweet when dealing with great-grandmas who don't feel well. Hannah loved being around her great-grandma who sometimes didn't feel well, at which point Hannah would go give her a kiss to make it better. She delighted her great-grandma and made her parents very proud of how caring she was.

The smart parent calls dibs on caring for the baby for the 7 hour flight, leaving the other parent to deal with the toddler. Babies sleep for at least half the flight time, or, in the case of Abby, the majority of the flight. Guess which parent was smart? :)

Clever toddlers know that the best way to torture their parents is to fall asleep on the plane -- during the landing of your final destination. Seriously! Could she had not fallen asleep just a hour earlier?

And lastly, as nice as it is to travel and see family, nothing is better than coming home and sleeping in your own bed.

And [we left] on a jet plane...

Well, first of all, this is a picture-less post because Kevin forgot our camera cords...

Second, let me just say how good it is that I waited to post till now. You'll see why after I finish this post. :)

We left Friday afternoon from Philly. Hannah had not flown for a year, so she pretty much had no memory of ever flying. It freaked her out. The airport was crowded, the plane was noisy and she was tired. Not a good combo. What is weird is that she even seemed to spike a temperature on the first part of the flight. We got some Children's Tylenol in Chicago which helped. By the time we landed in Portland the fever was gone, though the medicine was worn off. The next day she was perfectly healthy, so we think it was just her having a hard time. Abby was wonderful the entire time, maybe three bouts of 30 second crying total. I must also praise portable DVD players -- made it much nicer! I have two cute pictures of the girls on the plane, but I'll post those later.

We landed in Portland at 9 Pacific time, so midnight our time. Hannah was wide awake, having slept a couple hours on the plane. When we got to Kevin's parent's house, we took Hannah up to bed right away, however at this point the day had caught up with her and she just would not get into bed. So, after a long time negotiating, we compromised and made a bed for her in our room. Still, Hannah was not happy. She kept popping her head up, saying she wanted to sleep with us (side note: the bed was a double bed, not big enough for the three of us). Out of sheer exhaustion, we agreed. Still! Did not work. At about 11:15 I said that if Hannah wanted to talk, that she could go in the other room, because this bed was for sleeping. Out of nowhere, Hannah said okay, Kevin took her in and she went right to sleep. 1 and a half hours after we started! The next morning she was up at 5:30, having gotten barely any sleep.

Having survived that night, we prepared for the worst the next day, which was totally unnecessary because Hannah was great and happy. She played with her (3rd) cousin Grace, who is almost 6 and had a great time. The weekend was full of family and friends coming to see us and the girls, which has been fun. Hannah has been great with all the visitors, enjoying being the center of attention. Abby has been Abby, just sort of hanging out. I'll put lots of pictures of her visiting with people later.

The great news -- both girls slept till 8:30 this morning! It took a couple days, but they seem to be totally on West Coast time. That needed to happen for Kevin and I to survive the trip.

I'll post more later when I can include pictures.

Acting like a little mommy

So, Hannah lately has been imitating what she has been seeing, which has been pretty cute (and luckily she has not once told her dollies to stay in their seats till they have three bites of broccoli).

One of the ways she has been role playing is with her dollies. She has three dolls (Emma, Sally and Olivia) and one cow (Cow) that she is quite attached to and sleep on her bed (sometimes we wonder if there is room for her on her bed). Lately, in morning, we are greeted with phrases like "cow wants to eat breakfast with me. He wants his family to come too." She then leaves her bedroom with her arms overflowing with cow and his "family." The other morning she then proceeded to set up an area for cow and the fam to sit and eat breakfast. If you look closely, you'll notice that there is not one seat left for Kevin or I. She informed Kevin (right after she picked out what yogurt she wanted Kevin to eat) that he could stand where his chair usually goes to eat breakfast. So, Kevin was displaced for a cow (well, technically I think Sally stole his seat...).

She has also been bringing her dolls all around the house and setting up rest areas for them (today she told me that Emma needed to take a nap in the hall -- I kindly suggested that the hall was not a suitable nap area and that her bedroom might work better). Walking through the living room can be tricky because you don't want to tread on one of them.

I think my favorite thing she has been doing just started recently. She has decided that Cow needs to go in a sling, just like how Abby goes in a sling. However, she doesn't have any fabric sewn in a circle, so what she does is attempt to "sling" him in her blankey. It looks more like a wrap then a sling, but... a girl has got to make due with what she has.

Really, what is so sweet about all this is how gentle and loving she acts towards both her dolls and her sister. I was holding Abby as I was attempting to read a story to Hannah, but Abby was getting hungry and fussy. I tried to keep going, snuggling some with Hannah, but then Hannah shook off my arm, put her arms around Abby and softly told her that "it's alright" and gave her kisses. Kevin and I feel so blessed to have such a caring daughter (who can be a whirlwind at times) who genuinely cares for her sister and expresses love towards her. Hannah does not always give Abby the softest touches, and sometimes in her desire to wish Abby goodnight she wakes her up, but she almost always acts out in a way trying to express her love. Example: tonight she was repeatedly slamming our door shut as Abby was in our room asleep, but when we started talking about why she did it, she said that for Abby to sleep the door needed to be closed, just like her door is closed when she sleeps. The problem was that our door doesn't shut well and often pops back open (got to love seminary housing!). I'm glad that I just didn't get mad at Hannah (which was the direction I was going), but talked to her about why she did it. Her intentions were good, the outcome was bad (Abby woke up). In the end, Hannah learned a bit about doors and we learned a bit about how the mind of a 2 year old works.

Well, I've got to post a picture of Abby to make up for all these Hannah photos! This was taken today during lunch. This is to give you an idea of what Abby looks like when she has a cold. She got sick at the beginning of the week (she heard we'd be flying soon and thought that she would add a little stress to her first flight) and today saw the dr, who said she was doing pretty good and flying was okay. It surprises me how happy she has been even with not feeling good. This kid continues to impress me!

You know you're a mom when...

So, you know you are a mom (of a toddler) when the following statement comes out of your mouth: "No Hannah! Get your fingers out of the butter! We do NOT dip our fingers in butter! Butter is yucky! BLEGH! Kevin, stop laughing! Hannah, we do not eat butter!"

Honest to goodness transcript from dinner last night. Sad but true.

I think you also know you are a mom of two when you are wiping your oldest bottom from pooping on the potty while trying to not drop the younger one, who is breastfeeding. That comes courtesy of Hannah's habit of needing to poop while I feed Abby (a ploy for attention?). The day that happened I felt like I had finally arrived as a parent of two.

Abigail Fern

I thought I would do a post on Abby's name, which has a lot of meaning for us and also, we've gotten some strange looks (Fern?).

Abigail was chosen as her first name at Hannah's birth. When Hannah was born, we had two girl names that we absolutely loved, but wanted to use Lorraine (after Kevin's grandma) for the middle name. We thought Hannah went better with Lorraine, so, our first daughter became Hannah Lorraine and Abigail was set for the next girl. One of the reasons why we love the name Abigail is because it means "father's joy" in Hebrew (which, anyone who has ever seen Kevin with his daughters knows is true). It also is the name of one of King David's wives -- she is described in the Bible as smart and beautiful (the smart comes first!) as she courageously does what is right in a tough situation. It should also be noted that this year, for the first time in many years, Abigail is NOT on the top 10 list. :) We were excited to see that -- the popularity of the name (and Hannah) has always been a count against it, but never mattered enough to keep us from using it.

For the middle name, I should tell you that Kevin and I have always joked that we would give our daughter the middle name Dogwood -- my mom and sister have the middle name of Trees (old English name, so I've been told) and my grandmother's middle name was Fern. However, we thought Dogwood was just a little too mean. :) Fern was my grandmother's middle name and her mother's first name. I never knew my grandmother because she died a few years before I was born. We wanted to do a middle name after that side of the family and surprisingly really liked how Abigail Fern sounded together. So, just like how Lorraine is a tribute to Kevin's grandmother, Fern is a tribute to my mother's family and my mom. Plus, Charlotte's Web is a cool book and Abby's lovey is a pig (which we bought before we decided on Fern).

A funny sidenote: whenever I call Abby "Abigail" around Hannah, she corrects me and says "no! Call her Abby!" We always intended to use Abby primarily, but with Hannah on patrol, Abigail is pretty much never used.

I'm also including a picture of Hannah reading to Abby in her bouncer. I took this the other day when Kevin and I were busy making dinner and Abby needed entertainment. Hannah takes her big sister role seriously -- when Abby cries Hannah will say "Abby needs her big sister," and then yell "I'm coming Abby!" It is pretty darn cute!

Abby -- 11 weeks (2 1/2 Months)

I thought I should do a post updating everyone on what Abby is doing. We pretty obsessively track her growth (I weigh her every Monday to mark her week-birthday). She is now at 11 weeks (2 1/2 months) and weighing in at 13 lbs. 3 oz. HUGE! Just like Hannah, she is a bulking up fast, which I am very aware of -- I cannot eat enough to keep up with nursing her, I am always hungry! It is strange how closely her weight gain mirrors Hannah, she was just a couple ounces off Hannah's 2 month weight at her 2 month mark.

Her talking continues to amaze us. Making eye contact is about all it takes to start quite a conversation. She is also very generous with her smiles, which delight us all. She has lately taken to smiling at Hannah, which is even more exciting than when she smiles at us. She also has recently shown us that she knows her name -- the other day Kevin and I were talking while he held her, she was just staring at her toes until I started saying "Abby" repeatedly, at which point her head popped up and I got a big grin.

Lately, when put on her tummy, she lifts her head up very well, which I know will make her Aunt Julie happy to hear. She will hang out there for up to 10 minutes happily, but sometimes much shorter.... it is a work in progress.

Kevin and I keep marveling at how laid back and happy she is. Hannah was what we thought an easy baby was, but I think Abby might be even easier. Don't worry, we don't confuse easy baby with easy toddler! Abby loves her bath time, loves pretty much anything that has her dealing with people. Sometimes she can get a little annoyed when ignored, but if she is getting attention, she is soaking it up and loving it.

Sleep wise she is doing well (not great). Last night she went down by 8:45, woke up at 4 to nurse and then slept till 8:30 -- not bad! I wish she would go all night, but I also know Hannah didn't do that till 9 months. Nap time mostly happens in her bed, but not always. Sometimes we are more of the problem then she is (Kevin loves holding her while she sleeps, just like he did with Hannah), sometimes she just refuses to be put down.

Well, that is a lot of info on Abby! I feel bad for excluding Hannah, but I think she will get over it.

Welcome 2008!

It is hard to imagine, but 2008 is here! For some reason, I still think it is like 2002... only 6 years behind!

Our big plans to ring in 2008 was to go to bed early and sleep right through it -- plans that parents of newborns everywhere have! Alas, Abby thought otherwise. Normally Abby goes to bed somewhere between 8:30 and 9 (something we worked hard to make happen). In fact, it has been about a month since she last stayed up late. So, of course, last night Abby stayed up till 11:30! She desperately wanted to ring in the New Year, but just couldn't quite make it! Kevin and I enjoyed some sparkling cider, then turned in. So, we got to see the New Year come in, from bed. Wish we had been asleep by then!

Our real big plans for 2008 were to have a New Year's Day Brunch, which we did. It was great! We invited over friends, cooked a lot of food, and just had a good time. It was a good excuse to actually clean our house (something that hasn't truly happened for about 6 months...), and spend some time in the kitchen (another thing that hasn't really happened). Hannah was quite the hostess, answering the door, offering drinks, etc. It was pretty hilarious!

After our party, Hannah and I napped while Abby and Kevin watched some football. Then, we started working towards our New Year's goals -- get Kevin a job! He has been quite busy writing letters to churches and searching websites. It is a challenging process that we are trying to be very prayerful about, knowing that we are not going for a location (though location matters!) but searching for the right call. Please keep the whole process in prayer.