Sorry about neglecting the site . . . again.  Things have just been so crazy around here with still being pregnant sick, having appointments, getting Abigail’s big girl room ready, new baby planning, moving furniture, organizing, and prepping for Abigail’s birthday, along with the usual housewife stuff I need to do.

Our house looks pretty rough right now– as far as clutter and organization.  I’m typing from in the DINING room.  We used to have an office, but now, that’s turning into Abigail’s big girl room.  As I look around the dining room, there are SIX tables/desks in here: the kitchen table, my computer desk, Jonathan’s computer desk, my sewing machine desk, Abi’s play table, and the new baby’s changing table.  Wow.

Over the weekend, Jonathan and I cleaned out the office/guest room/storage closet.  Then he tore out an intercom and patched it up with drywall, primed the room, and painted the baseboards.  Then, we tediously measured and taped off one wall.  Thank goodness my measurements I had done earlier in February were accurate!

Then, I took Abigail over to my parents to take a nap so Abigail and Baby wouldn’t be around all the fumes and noise.  Earlier that week, our friends offered to come help Jonathan paint the room.  Yea for good friends.

And here’s what the other walls look like:

Definitely very pink.  Oh well, Abigail loves it.  So, we just have to replace the outlets and switches and covers, get new carpet, insulate the windows, figure out what I’m gonna do for window treatments (any ideas, when the windows are narrow and don’t touch the ground?), move in her furniture, and it’s all hers.

If I get any comments/emails about the block wall, I’ll try to do a tutorial of how to make it happen . . . but not this week.  I’m getting my braces off (!), buying stuff for Abigail’s party, making the cake and dip and drinks, etc, and working on Abigail’s video of year 1-2.  I can’t believe she’ll be TWO on Sunday.

**Oh, and by the way, since our Vday project, here’s what I had to do for Jonathan: 1) Write and perform a rap song about Jonathan, 2) Watch a Sci-Fi movie of his choosing (YUCK!).  Here’s what he drew for me to do: 1) Bring Lori a blizzard, 2) Play wii with Lori.  Now, who do you think got it rough?!

• This might be one of your longest sentences: “I wish the Uncle Daniel and the Uncle Josh were here.”
• You have started saying things that we have said (only days after we first said it) like: When you were feeding Sabra her dog food, you said, “It’s good to share, Momma.”  And when you were playing with something I told you days before that you shouldn’t play with, you said, “It’s dangerous for little girls.”
• Lately, you’ve been taking 1+ hour(s) to fall asleep some nights.  You just lie in bed talking and talking and talking.  Here’s one thing you said that made us laugh, “Abby is trying to get out of the crib.”  Also, after GramB’s birthday party, you yelled in a demonic voice, “Happy Birthday GramB . . .” about 100 times.
• Can count to 10 every time perfectly (which is in the video).  We’re working on 20 now.
• You’re getting so much better with your colors.  You always know orange, yellow, red, and green.  You normally call blue “black.”
• You have conversations with yourself.  You’ll says things like, “I’m going to the living room.  Wanna come?  Oooooookay.” or “This polar bear is white.  That’s right, Sissah (what she calls Sabra).”  or “Abi wants to get the box; I can’t a reach it.  Oh, Abi help.”
• We still love to hear you pray every night.  Here’s part of your prayer from last night, “Dear God, Thank you for the two doors over there.  One, two, three . . . Yeah.  That’s right!”
• You’ve memorized several of your books, like “The Monster at the End of the Book”, “Brown Bear” “Jamberry”, and “Safari Animals.”

Here’s her video below (If you’re reading in RSS, you’ll probably have to go to the site to see the video.  If you don’t have facebook, and you want to see the video, let me know.).

Go here to take the “Is it a Boy or a Girl?” poll.

Here are some of the things you’ve done this past month:

• Before I put you in your crib for a nap, we sing a few songs, unless you say, “Get in bed.”  Well, for the last few days, you’ve been requesting songs.  Like today, I said, “Do you want to sing a song?”  You said, “Yes, Blue Skies [and] Rainbows.”  So we sang that.  You help fill in the words when I pause.  Your other requests were: “Twinkle, Twinkle,” “B-I-B-L-E,” “Book of the Bible,” “Sunshine (You are my Sunshine),” and “A B Cs.”
• You can count to eight and then, you stop.
• If we ask you, “What color is this?”  You normally answer “Pink” to everything.  But if we say, “Bring me the red (or blue or yellow or green or pink or purple) cup, you do that!
• You always recognize these letters when I point to them, and you say: A, B, C, F, O, P, T, W, and you know a lot of the others, too.  I’m pretty sure W is your favorite letter.
• You don’t say your ABCs by yourself, but if we say A, you’ll say B, then we say C and you’ll say D on down to Z.  So you know them well.  (There’s a clip of this in the video below.)
• Same with the books of the New Testament.  It’s so cute to hear you say “Thessalonians” or Philippians” because they have so many syllables, but you pronounce them so well.  (There’s a clip of this in the video below.)
• In the mornings when I come to get you out of bed, I’ll say, “Is Abi awake?”  You say, “Yes.  Sleep sack off; humidifier off; get out of the bed.”
• You’re still not so great in the eating department, but we always make sure to get you out of your high chair on a happy note.  We taught you to say, “Thank you for the food.  Please may I get down” (which is what my parents made me and my siblings say when we were in elementary school).  When you say it, you can’t help but smile and bounce around.
• You help Daddy make and eat pancakes every Saturday while Momma tries to get a few extra minutes of sleep.
• Instead of saying, “You want the book/cup/toy,” etc like you used to do.  Now, you say, “May I have the book, please?”  I love teaching you good grammar so young!
• You’re starting to do imaginative playing: you’ll “squirt” us with your water faucet from your play kitchen.  You’ll let Mr Bear drink your milk.  You tell me you’re cooking pancakes in the morning.

Here’s your Monthly Video:

Every month we’re amazed at how much you learn and change.  We love watching you grow.

Abigail was so fun to watch this Christmas.  This year, she was able to open presents by herself and say things like, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I like Santa Claus.  Santa Claus says, ‘Ho, ho, ho.’  Thank you for the present.”

Abi had 6 opportunities to open presents:

1. On Christmas Eve, we opened one present each.                                  



2. On Christmas Day, Jonathan, Abigail, and I opened presents at our house. 
3. Then, we went over to GramB and PapaBon’s and opened presents with my siblings, their spouses, and our nephew.                                                                                                



4. On the 26th, a package came in the mail, and she opened a present.
5. On the 27th, while Jonathan’s parents were here, she opened some more presents from them.                                                                                     



6. On the 28th, she opened some presents from my aunt and uncle.

On the 29th, she woke up and said, “May I have more presents [to] open, please.”  Umm, no, but nice try.

Other highlights:

• My parents got a toy dog that Abi named “Mr. Floppy” because his ears would flop as he sang a Christmas song.  At first, she was a little timid of him, but then, she started asking every two seconds to “Push Mr. Floppy’s paw” so she could dance, jump, and spin to his music.                                              



• It snowed about 7 inches early, early Christmas Eve.  In fact, the snow is still on the ground at our house.                                                                                          
• You can see more Christmas pictures here on the updated Photos page.

So yesterday, Jonathan and I went to see our fetus again.  Here are some things we learned from the appointment:

1. Baby weighs about 15 oz.  The Perinatologist (sp?) predicted that Baby’s final weight could be 8 lb, 8 oz.                                                                                        
2. Baby has my toes (the second toes are longer than the firsts)
3. My placenta is low lying.  This isn’t a bad thing now, but it could be of a concern if it doesn’t move up later on.
4. Baby is breech now, which isn’t a bad thing now.
5. They didn’t see anything wrong with the kidneys, at this point.
6. I have another Sonogram scheduled for February, and I’ll probably get another one after that!

Here are some other pictures: Arm, Leg, Head & Chest

Last night, Jonathan felt Baby move several times for the first time!  Yea!

And, we’ve decided to refer to Baby as JoJo, as suggested by Jonathan’s sister.  I’m not sure of her reasoning, but here’s our reason: if Baby is a boy, his middle name will be Jonathan, and if Baby is a girl, her middle name will be Joy.  Hence Jo for Jonathan and Jo for Joy, so JoJo.

Here’s what I looked like last week:

Here are some things you did in your 20th Month:

• Besides talking about family members and friends, here are some cute, random things you have thanked God for in your prayers: Mr. Bear, the big ball, rabbit, humidifier, the turkey, Santa Claus, towel, bed . . .
• You love stairs, which you call “big steps.”  We can’t keep you away from them.
• You have your pronouns mixed up when you say things like, “Mommy, hold you please.” or “You want the big ball, please.”  We do correct you, but we do kinda like it.  Other than that, you’re still amazingly advanced with speech.  Strangers can understand you and carry on conversations with you.
• For the past two Sundays and a Wednesday night, you have cried when we left you in the nursery at church.  This is confusing to me because you love going to bible class, and they say that soon after we leave, you do great.  I guess you’re getting attached to Momma again.
• Also, two times during this past month, you have woken up early from your nap crying.  I’ve gone in there and done something I’ve never done before: gotten you out of bed, sat in the rocker with you, and you actually cuddled me and stayed still for more than 30 seconds.  I’m not sure how much of these times you were asleep, but you held onto me for about an hour each time, and I loved every second of it.
• Your canines on top have poked through, but they’re not fully grown yet.
• You have been fussier lately when we’re out in public.  You had never cried or pouted in public until a couple of weeks ago.  So, that hasn’t been much fun lately.
• You’ve been better with eating this last month.  Hopefully that will continue.

As always, we love you tremendously.  Here’s your 20th Month Video . . .

We had two Halloween parties: one the night before and one on Halloween.  We took Abigail to the first one but decided to let her stay the night with GramB and PapaBon for the second one.  I forgot to take many pictures of the first one.

I’ve got a Bun in the Oven, and Jonathan’s the Bun Maker

You can click on the pictures to see the details of my costume.  It was simple to make, and it was super cheap!  We only had to buy the apron ($3), chef hat ($3), spray paint, and a hot glue gun.  We had all the other stuff on hand.  The oven box is made from Abi’s Huggies diaper box.

As you read here, she was a little lamb.

Halloween night we went to a party thrown by our besties, Tiffany and Justin (Tinkerbell & Peter Pan).

Nancy & Jacob came as a UPS worker and his package

The Bookers were the Swine Flu

Our team won in charades

And our pumpkin tied for first in the Pumpkin Contest

So, at the end of the night, we went home as winners of the “Date Night Package” (a Chili’s gift card, wine glasses, and roses, in a cute basket.

Better late than never, right? Here’s my post Halloween post (well, one of them; I’ll post another one of Jonathan and my costumes) . . .

Abi was too young to participate in carving a pumpkin last year, but we decided she could help this year.  We tried looking for a cookie monster design but couldn’t find one, so Abi decided she wanted to make a pumpkin face of her favorite shapes.

She liked watching Daddy drill the holes.  And she loved playing with the pumpkin seeds and helping Momma separate the seeds from the gooey stuff.

When she’d wake up in the morning and after nap time, she’d say “go see pumpkins.”

This is her cute costume that her Daddy picked out: She’s a little lamb.

We did Trunk or Treat at our church, and Abi learned at the first car that saying, “Trick or Treat” would get her a prize/candy.  So cute!

When people would ask her what she was, she’d say, “Baaaaaaaa.”

She also would tell the candy givers, “Thank you” and “Happy Halloween”

What a joy she is to us!

What were your kid(s) for Halloween this year?  Or previous years?  I’m already thinking about what she should be for next year.

Near the first of October, we took Abigail to a Corn Maize.  First we made sure to have her do the “insert head into cutout”

With pumpkins

She loved feeding the animals: goats, sheep, donkey, chickens, ducks, pig

They also had the cutest little baby maze made out of stacks of hay.  I think she could’ve spent hours playing hide and seek

Here’s a short video clip of her playing in the maze.

Then, she took her first hayride out to the pumpkin patch

After that, we did the actual corn maze, but she wasn’t such a fan because it was dark, and we had to hold her.  But she loved the animals and the baby maze.  And it just so happens that we’re going again tonight with Jonathan’s work.