Busy Weekend

Abby and I will be running all over the place this weekend. Just as long as she gets her naps, it should be fine. I'm just relieved that we didn't go to Hooper's Island this year...the traffic on the Bay Bridge is a nightmare right now thanks to the decisionmakers in Annapolis who decided to shut down part of the bridge for repairs....on Labor Day weekend. Oy.

Anyway, this morning Abby and I went to the grocery store to pick up the weekly sale items and to get the ingredients for the mac and cheese and sausage cheese puffs I'm making for Claire's party tomorrow. Yum! Later we have to run to Ms. Erin's house to drop a couple things off and then we're running to BRU so I can take advantage of their rocking Labor Day sales and get Isaac and Ryan some gifts. At some point, I also need to find time to actually make the mac & cheese and sausage puff mixture.

Tomorrow we're going to Becky's for the par-tay. Hopefully the weather will cooperate since it's supposed to be outside. Then Monday we're going to the in-laws' house for my MIL's birthday. Actually, that reminds me of the other thing I have to do sometime in the next two days...pick up her card and gift. Oh, did I mention that Ed's playing in a softball tournament for most of today and tomorrow? Hopefully his first game won't be until later tomorrow morning so I can sleep in a little. Sleeping in makes me happy!

New Abbyisms

• We found a new favorite food...Mashed Potatoes. Yummy! I actually made dinner early tonight because Ed had an 8:00 softball game. She had already had her dinner, but we kept her in the highchair while we ate. I thought I would give her a little bite of my mashed potatoes to see if she would like it. Uhhhhh...yeah. She definitely liked it. When she wasn't eating them, she would look from me to my plate to me to my plate until I would give her another little bite. She's definitely her father's child!
• Today she discovered how to climb. She was having a "Daddy Day" and he called me at work to tell me that she managed to climb on top of her little Fisher Price table. He said he saw her put one leg up and before he knew it, she was in a crawling position on top of the thing. He tried to get a picture, but she decided to get down before he could. She is also working on climbing stairs. She can't really do it at home because we have the staircases blocked, but she's done it at daycare and at Aunt Becky's house. At daycare she'll actually knock the gate down, climb over top of it and get about three steps up before starting to cry because she can't figure out how to get back down. Gotta love it.
• Apparently she needs to work on her sharing skills. My daycare provider calls her "The Attacker" because if another child has the audacity to try to play with a toy, my daughter automatically has to have it. Oy. This also goes for pacifiers.
• The other day she decided to crawl to her nursery. The door was only halfway open, so she crawled in, sat in the doorway, looked right at us, gave us a big grin and proceeded to throw the door shut. Heh.
• Ed discovered that Abby has two new teeth! The ones on either side of her top teeth are just coming in. We were surprised because she's been in a really good mood for the past week. The only time she was unusually fussy was when she woke up crying at 6am on Monday. But other than that she's been a pleasant as can be...we weren't even looking for new teeth. Ed just happened to see them when he was giving her her bottle this morning.
• The funniest new thing that she does is to carry things around in her mouth. She figured out that if she keeps a toy or her sippy cup in her mouth, she can crawl around and still have it when she gets to the other side of the room. She'll also keep it in her mouth while she's standing. See exhibits A and B below:

Never a dull moment, I tell you! :)

So Much to Think About

Can you believe that it's almost September already? Crazy, I tell you! And thus begins the season of craziness around here. Between the end of August and the beginning of November, we have 12 major birthdays to deal with (if you count the yet-to-be-born twins). In order of date, there's Claire, my MIL, my BIL, Abby, my SIL, Ed's grandmother, my mom, Becky, Ed and my FIL. And that's just the family. If you throw friends' kids in the mix, there's also Meg's daughter Paige in October and our friends Dave and Deb's son Jeremy in a couple of weeks. And right after all that madness, it's the holidays. No wonder we're always extra broke that time of year!

Since fall is officially sneaking up on me, I'm really starting to think about Abby's birthday party. I'm going with the Sesame Street first birthday theme because she loves Elmo. S.S. is pretty much the only tv she watches...and she really only pays attention when Elmo is on screen...or when there's singing. I found a really cute Elmo "It's My First Birthday" shirt up for bid on E-bay, which I'm hoping to win for cheap. Don't anybody go bidding against me now! ;) I got some cool S.S. party favors for free from work, but now I can't remember what I did with them. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon!

At least her birthday is in the beginning of fall, when it's cool out, but not cold. That way we can still have people outside for the party, which helps when your house is as small as mine is. I just have to decide whether to do the cookout food (burgers and hot dogs) or not. I think I'm leaning towards doing it that way just because it's cheaper and easier to coordinate. I only have so many crockpots to prep stuff ahead of time, and it's a pain to do lots of things that need to go in the oven. Of course, I'll still do other non-grill things. I'm still deciding on the menu though...and I'm always open to suggestions/demands. :)

I'm hoping that Ed's friend Eric's wife will make Abby's birthday cake. She does beautiful work. Check out the wedding cake and groom's cake she made for her own wedding:

Hopefully we can afford her. She's actually met that Ace of Cakes guy and is on his short-list of go-to bakers to recommend to the customers he has to turn away. Pretty cool, huh? I'm probably just going to do the smash cake myself. AC Moore has small, 5-inch cake pans for fairly cheap (especially with a coupon). That way I can just decorate it with plain, white icing so I don't have to worry about dye getting all over her. I think about these things!

Okay, my head is spinning. I have to stop thinking for a little while.

Don't Wanna Go To Work!

It feels weird to still be home at 11:40 am on a Monday, but I have an event tonight, so I don't go in until 12:30 today. Which is awesome and sucks all at the same time. I usually hate Mondays because I have to be there at 7:00 for our Monday Morning Managers Meeting, but I skipped it today. I thought that meant I would get to sleep in a little this morning, but Little Miss Abby had other ideas, which I discovered when she started crying at 6:00. Not fun at all. I was planning on taking her to daycare at 8:45 and run a few errands, but that didn't happen. She started getting cranky again around 8, so I put her down for a nap and called daycare to tell them that we would be there even later than planned today. At least she got a couple extra hours of sleep (and so did I).

This weekend was fun. Saturday I worked (which actually wasn't all that much fun), but then I went straight to Becky's for Claire's family birthday party. Ed and Abby got there before me and had fun with the kiddie pool. Apparently Abby went under water by accident, but she wasn't phased at all. She just held her breath and then looked around once Ed got her up while everyone was fussing like, "What's wrong with you people?" She's a natural born swimmer, I tell you!

By the time I got there, she was very much ready for a nap, so we set up her pack-n-play and put her down. At least Ed and I got to eat without having to do the baby switch-off, so that was nice. Claire got lots of presents and was more than a little over-whelmed. All of her older cousins wound up opening the gifts for her. She just wanted to play with the opened toys in front of her. Can't really blame her there. :)

Yesterday was a nothing day. Abby and I ran to Target for a couple of things and then didn't leave the house again for the whole day. After all the running around we've been doing since late last week, she was very happy about that. Today, she was thrilled to be back at daycare with all her friends. And now I have to get ready for work. Happy Monday everyone! ;)

Fish Face!


Usually when I make the fish face at her she just laughs at me. Today she decided to try to mimic me. She's so funny!

TV Addict Moment

Did anyone else watch Project Runway last night? It was awesome. They had to design for drag queens. It was classic, I tell you. How many times on that show is the goal to be as over-the-top as possible?

In baby bargain news, there is a printable Target coupon available online right now for $1 off any Luv's jumbo. They're on sale right now for $6.99. Go to www.babycheapskate.blogspot.com to get the coupon. Personally, I love Luv's. They're nice and stretchy and I've never had any problem with them. I'm going to stock up! :)

Oh, and Superfresh is tripling coupons next week (actually, starting tomorrow) for coupons up to 99 cents. Plus they have lots of good sales coming up. I'm going to have to strategically plan my grocery shopping tonight so Abby and I can go after her morning bottle tomorrow. Yay for saving money!

So Sleepy

But I'm afraid to try to go to sleep until I know I can't keep my eyelids open another minute. Ed has to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn tomorrow, so he's been asleep for a couple of hours now. Since I won't get to fall asleep to the sounds of the television like I normally do, I'm just playing on the computer until I'm sure I need to go to bed. I'm just about there.

In happy news, I'm off for the next two days! Yay me! I had to work on Sunday and I work on Saturday, so I get two weekdays off. I was supposed to be off today and my mom was going to babysit as usual on Friday, but she did something to her knee (too much crawling around on the floor with the grandchildren) and was afraid that she wouldn't be able to handle Abby. So, I switched my schedule around (thank goodness my position allows me that power) so I could be off on Friday instead. Abby wasn't supposed to go to daycare today, but my daycare provider is awesome and was more than happy to take her anyway. So, it all worked out.

Since I'm off, tomorrow I'm going shopping with my mom (who's feeling better) and Abby sometime after her morning nap. Abby's nap, not my mom's. Then Friday Abby and I are going to visit Aunt Becky and Claire Bear so I can prep a couple dishes for Claire's family birthday party on Saturday. I work until 4 the day of the party, so I'll only be an hour or so late. Ed and Abby are going to meet me there so I don't have to waste time going home first. Should be fun and informal...Becky is ordering pizza since she can't really cook at the moment. I'm going to make my Garlic Salad Dressing of Death (aka Chiparelli's Salad) and garlic bites to go with it. Yum!

Okay, I think the final stages of exhaustion have set in. Good night!

Mommy, Look What I Can Do!

Now that Abby has discovered the joys of pulling herself up, she's doing it constantly. She finally figured out how to stand herself up in her crib yesterday. Good times. Hopefully she won't figure out how to climb out of there anytime soon.

To add to the crib fun, twice in the past three mornings she has woken up completely soaked. Apparently she is just a pee-pee machine. The first time we thought it was because we are still trying to squeeze her into size 3 diapers (up to 28 lbs my dupa), so we put her into a size 4 last night. She woke up this morning soaked again. Nothing like having to change crib sheets at 5:30 on a Monday morning. Blah.

Heh...as I was typing all that, I started to hear frogs croaking. Wondering how we could have gotten a sudden infestation of frogs in the attic, I went to investigate. Apparently the cat, who loves to try to sleep in the baby cradle we've been keeping up here, managed to step on the "soothing sounds" button on the side of said cradle and turned on the nature sounds. Silly kitty.

Must He Do That Now?

My darned next-door neighbor is doing some really loud yard work at the moment. Normally, I'm all for his lawn not looking like a jungle, but it's Abby's naptime and her room is on the main level of the house right next to where the neighbor is running his very loud yard equipment. As an added bonus, her window is open (gotta save on that BGE bill where we can). Luckily she hasn't woken up yet, but I'm just waiting for it. I guess it's a good thing we would keep the television on while she was sleeping when she was really young and in our room. She can usually sleep through just about anything, but even she has her limits. Hopefully he'll be done with the loudness soon.

Did anybody see Phelps' race last night? Holy crap, that was exciting! Hopefully his final race tonight won't make me loose another couple of years off of my life since last night's did enough damage. Whether you like him or not, you gotta admit that the man is amazing!

This and That

-I'm so mad that I fell asleep watching the Olympics last night. I totally missed all of the gymnastics. The women's all-around is one of my favorite things to watch too...and we kicked major butt. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...stupid 11:30 pm events.

-Speaking of things that pissed me off today...I found out that Warner Brothers has decided to push back the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to next July! I would boycott it if I didn't want to see it so bad! Stupid Warner Brothers...

-In the category of things that don't piss me off, Abby has officially gotten the hang of pulling herself up. Yay Abby! Now she's working on moving and standing at the same time. If only I could talk her out of trying to eat the couch every time she pulls up on it...

-Abby and I are going to go to Superfresh in the morning. They have some rocking sales this week. I love sales!

-We would also like to visit Aunt Kathy's new house, if she's available for tours tomorrow afternoon. Ed is going to a friend's house for a (stupid) fantasy football draft around 2, so we're free anytime after that. Let me know! Uhhh...I'll e-mail you as well just in case you don't check my blog as obsessively as some other people I know.

-My sister has reached the 30-week milestone in her scary pregnancy. Yay Isaac and Ryan! Keep on swimming!

-Speaking of swimming, I really need to blow up Abby's baby pool. How sad is it that it's the middle of August and I still haven't done it? We don't have a pump to speak of, so I'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way. I'll just do it in shifts. At least after it's too cold to swim in it, we can put balls in there and she can play in it downstairs. Anyone want to claim balls as a birthday present? ;)

-Speaking of Abby's birthday, her party is officially on Saturday, October 11th. Be there or be square! I'll be on vacation all that week, so I'll keep her in daycare Monday through Wednesday, so I can get the house in shape. I want to take her to Weber's Farm on that Thursday, which is her actual birthday. I think she'll get a kick out of that. Then my mom can babysit as usual that Friday so I can cook, cook, cook. Woohoo.

-I'm too tired to think of anything else. I think I'll go watch my DVR'ed Project Runway and chill until Ed gets home from umpiring. Buh bye!

The Olympics are Killing Me!

It's cool that the perfect 12-hour time difference between here and China means that we can watch some of the more exciting events live at night, but they typically don't start until 10 and then last until around 12:30. And me being me, I'm compelled to watch until the end. There's just something about seeing it live rather than find out who won the next morning and watching it already knowing how it turns out. This week is especially bad since it's swimming and gymnastics. Hopefully next week won't be as exciting because I need some sleep!

In baby news, Abby is really starting to pull herself up more. Yay! She still needs some work, but it's definitely getting there. So far, I'm her favorite thing to pull herself up on. Go figure.

Photo Dump

As promised!

We've pretty much got the sippy cup down...she just occasionally needs all four limbs to accomplish the task.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...cookie.

Camera straps are fascinating. Ignore my pasty leg.

Catching a glimpse of the outside world.

And a short video of the clapping genius!

10 Months Old (a couple days late)

Yes, my little Abby-doo turned 10 months old on Saturday. Would have posted sooner, but I never even got on the computer all weekend. We celebrated in grand style by going to Target and visiting Aunt Becky. And, of course, taking her monthday picture. Here it is (in all it's cuteness):

This month was all about exploring. She is getting into everything now. Ed and I have learned to keep the doors to the upstairs bathroom and our bedroom closed when she's playing in the living room. As soon as she hears one of those doors open, she off and crawling to try to get in before it's shut again. She is getting quite fast with the crawling too...and she's getting fearless. She all about climbing over the two of us to try to get to where she wants to go. We're still working on the standing, but she will do it every so often...usually when she's trying to get to something.

As for food, she is now an expert at chewing the tender pieces of the level three foods. We've been giving her little bits of regular food and she loves bananas and cheese the best. That child would eat nothing but cheese every day if I let her. We really need to try to give her a bigger variety of real foods, but we're slackers. For some reason, she doesn't like the Gerber fruit dices at all. I don't get it, she loves the fruit, but just doesn't like it in that form. I guess she just needs to get used to it.

She's clapping and babbling away. Her favorite word now is mamamamama, which just makes me smile every time. Especially when she keeps moving her mouth like she saying it after she's done with the talking. So her mouth makes that funny popping sound. It's very funny when she does it. She had my mom and I rolling on Friday.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll do a photo dump a little later. :)

Just One Word

Heh...skipping the 7-layer thing and doing this one that I stole from my friend Carrie. :) You can only use one word for each.

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Where is your significant other? Driving
3. Your hair? Brown
4. Your mother? Generous
5. Your father? Heaven
6. Your favorite thing? Abby
7. Your dream last night? Weird
8. Your dream/goal? Security
9. The room you're in? Office
10. Your fear? Loss
11. Where do you want to be in 6 MONTHS? Home
13. What you're not? Rich
14. Muffins? Chocolate
15. One of your wish list items? Money
16. Where you grew up? Baltimore
17. The last thing you did? e-mail
18. What are you wearing? Outfit
19. Your TV? Off
20. Your pet(s)? Cat
21. Your computer? Laptop
22. Your life? Content
23. Your mood? Sleepy
24. Missing someone? Always
25. Your car/truck? Honda
26. Something you're not wearing? Shoes
27. Your summer? Hot
28. Love someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? Work
31. Last time you cried? Saturday
32. Who will copy this? Becky

Weekend of Blah

Man, I feel so old! Didn't get home from the midnight release party until 2am, and it's taken me all weekend to catch up. Of course, when I was younger and up that late all the time, I didn't have a baby waking me up at 7 am or so the next morning. At least Ed decided to play the role of the good husband and took care of Abby yesterday morning so I could sleep in. He did bring her into the bedroom to see me before he put her down for her morning nap and she gave the biggest squeal when she saw me. That definitely made my day. Other than that, yesterday was pretty boring. I never even got around to getting on the computer at all. Weird.

Today was a little better. Ed's softball tournament was today, so I started out bored. Then around 3 I couldn't take being in the house anymore, so Abby and I went for a ride. We were hoping to be able to drop by to check out Kathy's new house, but she and her dad were just leaving for Ikea. So I decided to just go to the softball field early (I was planning on getting there around 5). His team wasn't playing for a couple of games, so Abby got to hang out with her daddy for awhile. He had fun showing her off to everyone since just about everyone in the league was there watching the games. As a bonus, she got to swing at the playground, which she seriously loved today. She finally started to get cranky around 5:30, so we went home.

I really don't want to go back to work tomorrow, but I gotta do what I gotta do. We aren't having our usual 7 am Monday Manager's Meeting, but I'll still show at 7 so I don't mess up our daycare schedule. Hopefully Abby will be happy and not-too-sleepy when I pick her up from daycare so we can try to see Kathy then, but I won't hold my breath. The daycare sleeping still just isn't happening. My daughter just doesn't like to sleep when there are others in the room with her. She would much rather play. I hope we can work it out so she never has to share a room, but with our small house she may have to suck it up one day. But that's still pretty far in the future.