Weekend in NC

Joe, Abby and I went down to NC over the weekend to go to the Kids Exchange (baby sale) and to celebrate my dad's RETIREMENT!!! I am still in denile that my dad is retired... it makes me feel like I have forever to go =) I have only been working for 5 years which by my dad's standards I still have about 30+ to go! Woohoo... The baby exchange was overwhelming but good. They had a lot of everything - toys, clothes, strollers, books, screaming kids, preggos, etc. They have another one in July which will have fall and winter clothes. I would suggest shopping for clothes on Sunday because everything goes 50% off! Jennifer went shopping for Abby (and me) and came out with about 15 outfits for $25! So that is a steal if you ask me.

We were actually able to surprise my dad. I really did not think that we were going to be able to pull it off. My mom and dad are ALWAYS together so it is hard to go shopping and be secretive, but I have to give it to my mom, she was able to pull it off. =) My Aunt and Uncle and cousin helped with the little white lies that had to be told to get him to the church, so thanks guys! We had the surprise party at my parents church. There were some people there from their sunday school and also family came from Greensboro. So we had a good time celebrating the occassion. My dad racked up on Golf Gift Certificates from his kids so he has something to do when he goes for visits ;)


My dad cutting into his huge cake. It tasted just like a twinkie! Yummy!

While we were in NC we were able to spend some time with the Weirs'! It is always a lot of fun seeing Ben. I think he grows an inch every time we see him. I don't know how keen he is about Abby in his territory. As you can see from the picture he is shoving Abby, and letting her know that, that is HIS MOMMY =)


"step away from my mommy" =) Can't you just feel the love!

Also while we were at the Weir's Joe had to ride his future bike. Don't worry in the picture the bike was not on, but Abby was prepared with her helmet =) I think she looks like a carebear!

"I don't know about this..."

We were also able to spend QT time with Aunt Jennifer and Declan! He is so cute and getting so big! Youjust want to squeeze him...He already rolls over and has been doing so since he was probably 2 months old. The little over-achiever! Jennifer said that she actually was a little perturbed the first time he rolled from his stomach to his back because she wanted him to have tummy time =) He showed her what he really wanted to do!


Little Old Man - He has the pants and the facial expressions down =)

She did it!

She rolled over! Today I had off of work for inauguration and Joe was able to work from home. So that means play time with Abby all day =) I had her on the floor having some tummy time and she just decided to roll over! It was so exciting. I had a feeling she had already done it at daycare, but of course that doesn't count because I didn't see it =)


My new favorite picture, it makes me smile everytime!

Watch out!

So last Sunday I got a stomach virus which lasted about 3 days and it was really nasty. Thankfully I had Joe there to take care of Abby! So last night Joe started feeling sick and has been at home all day with the same stomach virus that I had last week. I think that the house is sick now. Once Joe is feeling better we are going to have to clean the house from top to bottom! I am convinced the house is now sick =)

New Foods =)

Abby started eating sweet potatoes last weekend. She seemed to really like them! I am going to try to make her food. There are some really great books out there for making your own baby food. The sweet potatoes were extremely easy to make. You cook them just like you would for yourself. You just don't add all of the sugar, cinamon and marshmallows ;) Then you can freeze the leftover portions in ice cube trays and take out what you need when you need it. We get to introduce a new food every 5 days, so the new one is peas. I think she might like them even more because she has now started making mmm noises.


The food all over the face is inevitable!

Peas oh yeah!

4 Month Appointment

Abby had her 4 month appointment yesterday. She is a little older than 4 months but with the holidays this was the earliest appointment we could get =). I was really excited about this appointment (minus the 4 shots and an oral vaccine), because I could ask the doctor about introducing "other" foods and I also wanted to know how much our little chunk weighed. She came in at 14lbs 7.5oz and was 26 in long! So she was in the 75th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for height. She is growing like a little weed =) Abby loves the doctor that we go to. She always just watches what she does and smiles. It is just when the doctor leaves she knows what is about to happen to her and lets us know. She did very good this time with the shots. She just cried a little bit when she was getting the shots and this time we had kind of a slow nurse, so that just prolongs the pain. I love it when the nurses have the shots open and lined up and they just go a quickly as possible. This one was kind of fumbling around but Abby did a great job despite the slow pace.

The doctor was as excited as me about introducing new foods. We have to start out slow and steady introducing one new food (veggies first) every 4-5 days just in case she is allergic to anything. I got a baby food cook book for Christmas and I stopped by the library today to pick up another one. So before I start I am going to read up on some stuff first. It looks like the first food Abby will be trying will be sweat potatoes. mmm. We will have to video her reaction =). She has already been practicing with the rice cereal and has been doing great with the spoon and swallow technique!

Polar Bear Plunge

So I decided to start out 2009 with some STUPIDITY!!
My younger sister, Jayna, myself, and a friend from church, Daniel, decided to do the annual North Beach Polar Bear Plunge. Basically what you do is on New Years Day jump into the Chesapeake Bay. Smart, right??

We all successfully did it, and might I add, Daniel and I went topless too!!
Let me tell you, it was extremely refreshing to go into the water, but man was it freakin cold.

On a sad note, I decided while I was running/waddling into the water to roll my ankle over. I was planning on going full into the water much farther up to prepare myself, but when I got about thigh deep in, my ankle buckled, and I as you would say, "Tipped Over".

I did something similar to my other ankle last year, but that was much worse and painful. Jayna said she saw me running into the water, then all of sudden I just fell over.

I got up, realized what I did, and hoped over to Christina for sympathy. My ankle got pretty swollen right when we got out of the water, and not so fun to walk on. As you can see there are not a whole lot of pictures after the run into the water, bc I was not very photo-genic at that moment.

We went over to the Ambulance just to make sure everything was ok, since they had one there, and he asked me if I was in any pain. I told him that I just ran into the Chesapeake, and boy are my arms tired!!hehehe. No I told him everything was pretty numb so I could really answer the question. He said it just looks like a bad sprain and to do the usually for the healing process.

So now I get to tell people I screwed up my ankle again, however, this time it was jumping into the Chesapeake Bay in January.

Teeth

Our little pumpkin finally got some teeth, and they grew really really fast!

Always playing catch up!

Abby had her first Christmas! She was definitely NOT as interested in it as her mom and dad. She woke up about 7am on Christmas day so I fed her and we decided to go downstairs and open presents. She made it through about 2 presents and was ready to go back to bed. She only had about 3 presents so we were kind of planning on the lack of interest (and we knew her grandparents and aunts and uncles were going to spoil her!) After she woke up from her nap we went over to say Merry Christmas to Ma-moo, Pop-pop, and Aunt Jay-Jay. Then we were on the road to NC. We drove over 1000 miles over the weekend visiting family and friends. The first stop was visiting Grandmother in the rest home and then on to Grandma's house for the Edwards' family Christmas. It was really great because this year there were 3 babies, Declan, Abigail and Sophia! We are expanding like crazy let me tell you! Then we drove to Garner to spend the night with my parents. The next day we went to fayetteville to hang out with Jennifer and Declan. We had a blast and Abby and Declan seemed to get along. Just wait till next year and they are both waddling around =) On Sunday it was back to Greensboro for my moms side's Christmas lunch. We had italian which was such a nice change from the traditional turkey or ham =) Then that night we went to Steven and Christina's for our last Christmas celebration with my immediate family. We had a great time. After we opened presents we challenged each other to the Wii and passed the babies around =)