Happy Retirement!!

Happy Retirement Day Dad!! After a long career at Shell (his entire career), my dad completed his last day of work today and entered into retirement. He has plans on his first day off to go golfing. We are all jealous!!

Trip

Being a mom is a trip! Abby is at such a cute age now where she is proving how independent she is and she can really express what she is thinking to you. This evening we called my parents and my brother, just so she could say hi. She was the one who told me that is what she wanted to do.

Her favorite phrase right now is "No, Mama. Abby do it." She does everything herself! She climbs into her high chair on her own, drinks out of a non-sippy cup on her own, buckles her car seat on her own, washes her own hands, etc.

We have been talking about the potty a lot lately to get her ready for potty training in the next few months and she loves taking the baby potty seat, putting it onto the big potty, and then sitting on it herself (after climbing up on her stool).

I have been horrible with pictures lately and it has been keeping me from blogging. I do plan on posting all of the pictures from the last few months, as well as the cute Easter pictures that I'm sure we will have after this weekend. But, since so many cute things happen every day, I'm going to try to start blogging about them even when I don't have any pictures to go with it.

One of my favorite things that happened today was that she kept checking with me to be sure she was a "big girl". During the process of brushing her teeth, she climbed up onto her stool by herself, turned the water on herself (not on full blast but "just a little"), she put the toothpaste on her brush by herself, and when she was done she got down by herself. After each one of these accomplishments she would look at me as if to say "Did you see that!! I just did that all by myself!" She just asks "Abby a big girl?". I am so proud of her!

Christmas at the Heisler's

We spent Christmas day and a few days afterwards at the Heisler house. Kim's grandparents, David (with girlfriend Marisa), and Uncle Tom were there. Mimi, Kim's mom, was a great hostess and made fantastic meals while we were there!!! At both Christmas celebrations, Abby loved opening her presents. She had so much fun playing with each thing after we opened it. Therefore, she was always the last to finish opening her gifts. David took some great pictures of everyone while we were there.

Christmas at the Allen's

Fortunately everyone was well for Christmas so we were able to spend a lot of time with family. We spent a few nights before Christmas with Jason's family. Abby had so much fun playing with her cousins: Megan, Chase, Aubrey, and Julia. We had a wonderful time and were so happy to spend some time with everyone!!

Christmas in New York City

The week before Christmas, Jason and I went to New York City for a vacation. The day that we left a blizzard was planned to hit the North East. Our flight landed on time, and the snow waited until after we reached our hotel to start. It was crazy... there was no snow when we arrived and the next morning there was about a foot of it. The highlights of our trip were shopping on 5th Avenue and at Bloomingdales, walking through Central Park, and seeing the Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes at the Radio City Music Hall.

Here are some of our pics:

18 Months

Abby turned 18 months old on the 17th.

Her 18 month stats are as follows:

Height: 34 inches (95th percentile)
Weight: 19 pounds and 11 ounces (3rd percentile)
Head Circumference: 18 3/4 inches

Here are some of the her latest milestones:

- She talks up a storm. She is counting to 5, using "please" and "thank you" when she should, says the name of most of her toys, food that she eats, people that she knows, animal names and sounds, etc. If she doesn't know the name of an object, she will hold the object up to us asking us what it is. After we give her the word, she repeats it a couple of times (it is like she is trying to memorize it).

- She has started trying partial sentences. For example, we always ask Abby questions starting with "Abby, do you" (ex. want to go outside, want a snack, etc). She repeats "Abby, do you" when we say it. The other day she said something that sounded like "Here it is."

- When she is injured, she will run up to us pointing at her injury asking for us to kiss it by making the kissing sound.

- She sings along when we sing any song. She knows very few of the words, but she makes up words to go along with the song. A lot of the time she knows the sound that the actual word in the song starts with, so she will sing that. Her favorite songs right now are "Ring around the Rosy", "Old MacDonald", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Row Row Row your boat", and the Backyardagin's theme song.

- Her favorite TV show is Backyardagins and her favorite movie is Cinderella. She won't watch a full movie yet, but she sits through Cinderella the longest (close to an hour).

- At restaraunts she is an easy toddler in that if we let her out of her high chair to walk around, she won't run away. Instead, she will stay pretty close to us. Our favorite restaraunt is La Hacienda because it is super kid friendly. There is a singer named Jaun that sings cheesy Mexican songs, Elvis songs, and wedding songs. Abby loves him.

- She knows what Santa looks like and calls him by name and then says "ho ho ho" every time she sees him.

- Today we gave her a Hersey's kiss for the first time. We told her it was a chocolate kiss and as soon as we gave it to her she kissed it. Sooo cute!

Elf Yourself

We created a cute family video... check it out at http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/mGJ7tZyGxy37Be0Y.