Catching Up

Well, it has been quite a while since I have posted anything.  Life has been busy, and every time I have thought about blogging I have talked myself out of it.  It always seems there is something more important I should be doing like laundry or cleaning the house or playing with Abigail.  As much as I would like to document Abigail's early years, it is so much more important to me that I give her the attention, love and play time she deserves from her mom. 

So, here is the past month in fast forward.  My birthday was on February 5th.  I am 24 now, which just feels like another year.  For my birthday, Matt made me hashbrowns and eggs for breakfast before work.  After work Abigail and I took a nap and then I had a continuing education class I was participating in by conference call and online.  Normally Abigail is in bed by 7:30, but since her nap went extra long she wasn't ready for bed at her normal time.  So, I asked a friend to come over and watch her while I was on the conference call.  Abigail was teething and just needed her Mommy.  About 30-45 minutes before the conference call would be over, I excused myself from the call to take over.  It took about a half hour, but I was able to get her to bed.  Then I joined back in for last couple of minutes.  It was nice, because I stayed logged in online and I was able to see everything that had happened since I had left to take care of Abigail.  To my surprise, shortly after the conference call was over Matt arrived home with an icecream cake and a movie. It was the perfect ending to my birthday!!

 

  

  

Earlier in the week we also decided to make a family outing of going to Temple Square.  We hadn't gone since we moved to Utah, so we thought it might be fun. We left around 6 pm after I got home from work and we were able to get everything organized to go.  We only had time to go to a few different places, but we had a lot of fun just being out together, as a family. We went to the visitor center and the Beehive House.  We only had an hour or so before Temple Square closed and we were hungry and cold, so we ate dinner at the restaurant on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We had a great view!!  The food wasn't great.  Oh well!!

 

The view of downtown SLC from our table at the restaurant (plus our reflection in the window)

... and the view of the Salt Lake City temple (also from our window)

 

  

The host of the restaurant took a picture for us.

 

When we got down to the first floor we decided to take a picture!!

I think I could explore downtown SLC forever as long as we made a family outing of it!! It is so pretty to walk downtown in the evening.

For Valentine's Day, we had quite an extravagant weekend.  That I will have to save for it's own post, however we had quite a good time at the Grand America Hotel in downtown SLC.

 

This is a picture I found online, but it doesn't do it justice.  I will have to post some of the pictures I took of the inside of the hotel when I get a chance to blog about Valentine's Day.  It is just exquisite!!

In the past month, Abigail has developed quite a bit.  She is getting more accustomed to the baby food and eating a lot more.  We have started giving her stage 1 fruits for dessert after she finishes her veggies.  She is also starting to eat some of the whole grain and oatmeal cereal for breakfast.  

Abigail is now crawling.  She has been crawling for about 2 weeks now.  At first she would only go a couple of strides at a time, but now she will go after whatever she wants.  Yesterday, Matt got up with Abigail so that I could have a couple more minutes of sleep.  I still couldn't sleep as I could hear Abigail in the other room talking up a storm and getting louder and louder.  I decided to get up and just as I got to the bedroom door, I realized why Abigail was getting louder.  She had made her way to my bedroom to come find me.  It is fun to see her interacting with us in this way.  This week Abigail has also started pulling herself up to standing position and holding onto the couch for balance.  It won't be long before she starts trying to walk along the couch.  Unfortunately she has also been doing that in her bed when she is supposed to be sleeping.  We need to move her mattress down into the lowest position, as I fear she will try to jump out of bed while she is calming down to go to sleep.

Here are some pictures I took of Abigail this month.

Playing in her room with Violet.  She hasn't been able to press the paws, but I noticed last night when she was supposed to be sleeping that she she was pressing the paws and making Violet sing the "Abigail" song and the "Pal" song to her. Check out those long eyelashes.  She definitely has her Papa's eyelashes.

 

Gearing up for bed!

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention.... she is wearing either 12-18 month or 12 month pants (depending on the brand) and 12 month shirts.  Most of her onesies are still 6-9 months, those won't last her much longer.  After I took this picture, I decided it was time to go buy her some bigger pants for those long legs.  She is quite tall.  Two weeks ago she was 17.7 lbs and 27.5 inches.  I am positive that the night after her well-baby check-up she had a growth spurt during the night.  She was felt so much taller in the morning when I picked her up than when I put her to bed.  She had been bulking up, but then she thinned out when she had a growth spurt.

 

After bath time!!!

 

I forgot to mention, Abigail has completely mastered sitting on her own.  It is so much more fun and easier to go grocery shopping now.  For the past couple of months I have put her in the shopping cart, but then I have to put something to the side of her so she doesn't fall over.  Now she can sit on her own like a big girl!!  Of course, she knows that there is food in all those packages I put in the cart, so she is always trying to get ahold of whatever I put in the cart.   She is just trying to grow up faster than her little body will allow.

 

Abigail loves playing with the little link-a-doo rings that Kim and Cathy gave her, especially now that she is teething.  Some of them have little animals on the end of the ring, and I love taking the opportunity to practice saying and signing the name of the animals.

Sometimes when I am feeding her a bottle before bed I will put one of the rings in her empty hand to keep it busy.  Otherwise that hand is so busy it will bop the bottle right out of her mouth.  Now she will wap me in the chest or nose (or whatever is in the line of her swing) with the ring, but at least it isn't counterproductive to her eating.  Sometimes I think she has too much energy for her own good.  She is a very busy girl, but I love her!!