Nightly Walks

Every night after dinner we take Abby on a walk. Most nights she babbles on and on, but last night she babbled for a little while and soon she was fast asleep. She must have had a big day at daycare.

And for some reason she fell asleep pulling her hair, she slept that way for almost 20 minutes.

And check out those teeth, finally the top two are through. The top side teeth are now coming in.... she's a drooling monster.

We finally have a nephew... Asher Robert, 9lbs 4oz, he finally made his appearance Saturday, Sept. 12th. Congrats to Michael, Erin and Lily on the their newest addition.

Just Chillin'

Abby is into everything. She just goes-goes-goes. She loves to look at her books, she has a little trouble sitting still during the book but she does listen while she plays (multi-tasking).

She has started growing attached to one of her burp rags. Yep, she has many beautiful blankets from so many different people and she drags around this terry cloth burp rag in her mouth. Gross. At least its small so its easy to take with us.

Last night she took one tiny step all by herself.. and then she did it again. But that was it, this morning she's trying to do it but there is lots of falling.

This dog is no ordinary pup, she is from a set of three that a co-worker gave Abby from a press junket. Abby loves "woof-woof's" so this is one of three she carries around in her mouth. And yes the dog is in a spacesuit, it's from the movie "Space Buddies."

Gotta love the drama look in this picture.

9 month appointment

Before the shots!

We took Abby to her 9 month appointment last week, and as always we are a little behind.

Abby is keeps getting taller 2'4, 59% & skinnier 17lbs, 22% with a massive head 92%.

Abby had to get both her flu vaccine and Hep B vaccine. One of them or the combination didn't agree with her, the next day she was up at 4am, had a light temperature and an upset belly most of the day. The highlight of the day? When she puked on me at her last "bugs" class. Gross.

She was much better after 24 hours.

Hopefully her follow up flu vaccine won't make her nearly as sick.

After her shots.

Sometime in the next few days Abby will become a big cousin, Daves brother Mike and his wife Erin are expecting their second child, they already have an adopted daughter, Lily. Asher was due on the 6th but has yet to make an appearance. Good luck Pleimanns!

Disney on Ice

Last week I received free tickets to Disney on Ice from work. So we invited Matt, Linda and Charlotte to go with us to see the show. Charlotte is 14 months old and enjoyed the show more than Abby. But Abby did stay awake and watched most of the show. A couple of times Abby thought the family behind was more exciting but for the most part she sat in our laps and clapped. We would have never taken her at such a young age if it wasn't for the free tickets. The theme was 100 years of Disney so each scene was from a different show which helped keep the girls interested.

Intermission in front of the "Small world" scene

Everyone on the ice for the finale

Trying to sneak out during the finale to beat the traffic, stopped to take this just as the fireworks started, can you see the fear in Abby's eyes.

9 months old

Abby has mastered standing at 9 months old. She's just got it down in the last week. She is so excited that she can do it all by herself. She's even trying to get up without help, it's so cute!

And Abby was back on tv today. They were doing a segment on the big Mizzou/Illini rival game this weekend and took some new pictures of Abby in her Mizzou cheerleading outfit for the show. Unfortunately I thought the segment was going to be Friday not today so I missed the whole thing. It's not on the website either, but here are the pictures they used.

Standing!!!!

She's just growing up sooooo fast!

A New Beginning

For daycare that is....

Last week we decided that Planet Childcare was just not for Abby. We had so many issues in Abby's five short days there....the biggest being that several workers there (that hold her) smoke. We simply were not okay with that (they also lost her blanket and change of clothes....in five days....isn't that ridiculous?!?....we really liked that blanket).

So, we decided to look at Goddard School. We had never even considered them before because we had heard how costly it was. So, Peggy called them last Wednesday to inquire about openings. To put it simply, we got amazingly lucky. They don't take part time, and we only need three days a week. However, earlier that day another family had taken their kid out in order to move to another Goddard School. The owner wanted to fill the spot immediately, so they made an exception for us.

So, Abby started at Goddard on Monday. She didn't give any more than a tiny whimper when I handed her off and left.

After I picked Abby up Monday, I realized that we overlooked the biggest reason to switch to Goddard. Abby was simply never happy at Planet. She was there for five days. She screamed every time I dropped her off in the morning. Three of the five days that I picked her up, she was either crying or looked like she had been crying....A LOT. One night, she did the hiccup thing for an entire hour after I picked her up (you know, the thing you do after you've been crying a bunch). She had never done the hiccup thing for that long before. So, she had to have been crying for a long long time. We had just assumed that this was still an adjustment period, and that five unhappy days was normal.

Let me tell you, it wasn't normal. When I picked up Abby on Monday, within two seconds I could tell she was happy and that this was the place for her. She was her bouncy, happy, normal self. And she was having a great time playing with the other kids. Don't get me wrong, she was still very happy to see me, but she was happy being there too. I picked her up for a few minutes, and she actually reached out for one of her teachers to be held (she NEVER did this at the old place). Right then, I knew they took good care of her. They were able to make her comfortable there in one day....something Planet couldn't do in five days, and probably never would have been able to do. This alone makes the increased cost completely worth it.

It's just amazingly good care. They take care of Abby just as we do when she's home with us. That's all we were looking for. They actually combed her hair today after her nap....to us this is a completely strange concept. We have absolutely no worries about Abby while we're away. We had worries everyday that she was at her last daycare.

Here's a couple of pictures from her first day. Yeah, they send us pictures during the day!!!

These are her new buddies. Apparently Abby hasn't been sleeping very long there because every time her buddies are awake, she wants to be up and playing with them.