Tooth #15 & #16, Lao Nian Lao Yie time and Friends

I forgot to mention her bottom right incisor came out about 2weeks ago and the bottom left incisor just came out a few days ago.  We finally have a complete set of teeth!  I measured her height at home and she's already 34"!!  We weighed her at my parents house too - 29 lbs!  It's amazing - she's outgrown some shirts that she could wear just 2 weeks ago! 

We've had another whirlwind of a week!  Bryce was away for work again last week so Abby and I spent 3 days with Lao Nian and Lao Yie again.  Here are a few pictures from this past week.  :)

We had a little flashback when Bryce decided to swaddle Abby with the couch throw.  As usual, her little arms always found their way out.  :*)  Seeing this makes me miss my little baby {sniff, sniff}!

One day Abby decided to take her afternoon nap in her "house" tent so I obliged.  :)  I covered it up with a bed sheet so it was nice and dark and the next thing I know, I hear soft, sleepy breaths from inside.  So sweet.

Back at Lao Nian and Lao Yie's house, Abby didn't forget about the pail to water the plants!

Nevermind the fact that these plants are half dead from the cold - they still need water and Abby was more than happy to oblige.  :)

Yet another example of Abby's love/scared relationship with Zeus.  She gets sooo excited to see him yet always keeps her distance - even when there is a door between them!

I love that she has developed an imagination.  Here she is putting a blanket on Ruby's learning doll.

I always read the Sunday comics (which my parents now save for me!) and Abby saw it in the stack of newspapers and stopped dead in her tracks to just stare at it.  She loved it!  My dad started reading it to her and she was completely absorbing it in.  One of her new words is now "tartoon" (aka cartoon).

Ruby and Elliott spent one day with us and Elliott is just so big now!  He's such a BIG BOY!  Look at how good he is at standing now.  :)

We are still working on the act of sharing.  In fact, she was boxing poor Elliott out with her butt.  Where does she get these ideas?!?

One morning my dad took Abby out to see the ducks again but I didn't get a picture because I was too busy making Xiao Xiao some french toast!  My dad used to make this for us all the time and I love that Abby gobbled it up.

We just hung out on Friday and Abby found a super comfortable seat.  :)

Abby didn't mind cuddling while Lao Yie took a little afternoon siesta too.  It was a cute sight to see!

Yesterday was another St. Arnolds One Pot Showdown practice night so we had a few friends over for food and fun!  Abby just awoke from her nap and was being shy in the beginning but warmed up to her friends really quickly!

This is cutie K.  Eventually they will be in Kindergarten together.  :)

Big brother M was having fun pulling these two around.  These are two of the sweetest boys I know and they sure do love their mama!

These two boys aren't used to playing with girlie toys but they apparently liked the tent!  Cutie K looked confused by all the baby dolls everywhere.  :)

Abby loves to imitate her daddy so here they are relaxing in the evening while eating some pears I cut up.  Like Daddy, like daughter!

Another accidental candid picture that I really love.

Since Abby's vocabulary exploded like a huge volcano recently, I've been diligently writing them all down so here we go: cookie, toys, watch (as in TV), garbage, broken, zang zang (Chinese for dirty), hug, horns (working on LONGhorn now...), cartoon, turtle AND wu gui, skate, help, Zeus, key, noise, work, chicken, green beans, fish, froggy, bunny and the colors brown, orange and green!  Oh - and she can count to 3 in English now too!  She's not quite making sentences yet but she says 2 words at a time now (i.e. Daddy work.  Nite Nite diaper.  Da-dack hot (which means her jacket is making her hot).  Mommy down (when she wants me to sit with her on the floor).)  Oh, and she knows the letter "U" now too.  That's it for now!

Abby is 21 months old!

I just now realized I never acknowledged Abby's 20th month with a post because we were in Kansas for Christmas.  So without further ado, Happy 21st month Birthday, Abby!  I have been meaning to post for about a week now but it's been so hectic lately.  I typically post in the evenings after Abby has gone to bed but lately, I've been reading books instead.  Just finished The Girl Who Played with Fire and in the middle of The Glass Castle now.  About to pop in the Swedish movie of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I used to read 2-3 books a month and I really let that go since Abby was born so it's nice to pick it back up.  Can't post without a few pictures of our Xiao Xiao!

Abby is officially a toddler now.  Not just because she's wearing 2T or 3T clothes now but because she has learned the art of "fake crying" to get what she wants.  Here she is trying her best to squeeze out a tear.  I wish I took a video because then she even has the audacity to open one eye to see if we are falling for it.  *Sigh* It reminds me so much of myself as a child.  :)

Title: Gangsta' Baby

Here she is wearing a Rockets hat backwards while making her gangsta' pose.  It's hard to look thugged out when she is so cute!

Dress Up!

Abby spent the day at Grandma and Grandpa's while Bryce and I went on a date!  We had lunch at our favorite pizza place, watched True Grit and had dinner at Hillstone's (formerly Houston's - same menu, just different name).  These were all places we used to go when we were DINKs and lived in the Galleria area.  But before dropping Abby off, we played dress up and she had LOADS of fun!  We will definitely be doing this again soon.  :)

Silly Baby

We had a fun experience today.  The heater went out sometime during the night and it was 65 deg F in the house when I woke up.  Did you know if you call your home warranty and tell them your heater is out and you have a baby in the house, then they will escalate your claim to an "emergency" status and you get immediate service?  It's awesome - thanks Xiao Xiao!  We were back in business (and were finally able to shed a few layers of clothes) by 1 PM so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Poor Xiao Xiao looked like a little oompa loompa all morning.  :) 

Because of the colder weather lately, we've been indoors more.  Luckily we have a ton of new toys from Christmas to keep Abby busy.  We've had some fun around the house and here are a few pictures from the last few days.

Her newest learned alphabet letter is "Y" and she finds a lot of branches/sticks on the ground shaped like a "Y" so that's our new game.  She can spell her name now!

Putting Abby to work.  I hate picking those little newspapers up.  They always throw them in obscure places and 9 times out of 10, we drive over them, it rains, turns into paper mache and we just wait for another rain to wash the remaining debris away.  We are terrible.

Once again, I'm in my pjs but we were cuddling and I love it!  :)

My dad spent the day with us today and Abby had lots of fun reading with her Lao Yie!

Abby was doing all she could to delay her nap but it looked like she was losing the battle here.  :)

Title:  In and Out

This is funny and disgusting at the same time but this picture is titled "In and Out" because Abby is simultaneously drinking her milk and dropping a deuce.  That's all I'm going to say. 

It's midnight now but I just got done reading a wonderful, wonderful book.  It's called The Elegance of the Hedgehog, written in French and translated into English for our benefit.  I'm not one for writing book reviews but here are my two cents anyhow.  This book reads like poetry.  At times it gets a bit too philosophical for my liking but in the end, you understand why.  I always judge a book by what I feel the moment I read the last word and this book left me shocked yet deeply at peace.  It's a must read! 

Brrrr!!!

When the weather is nice, Abby and I have gotten into the habit of playing outside for a bit after her afternoon nap (2-5 PM).  While I would be perfectly content cozying up to a book on the couch in the warm house, Abby insisted on going outside despite the cold (for Houston) weather.  I know this because she kept pointing at her feet and saying "boops" (aka "boots").  So I layered her up big time while I threw on a jacket over my pjs and we played outside until Bryce came home. 

Starting from the top: hat, heavy winter coat, long sleeve shirt (tucked into pants #2), mittens, leggings, fleece lined pants over leggings, socks and boots. 

Needless to say, she was ample warm and had lots of fun!

{Despite this looking like an angry face, it's really a squished up face with excitement!}

Best part of the day: Daddy's home!

Bring on the cold weather - we are RHABBY!

Eat. Play. Love.

That's all our little bao bao seems to do lately.  :)  I'll start off with a few of her new words.

bock = box

fock = fox

da-dack = jacket

boops = boots

bofe = both

cah = car

tuck = stuck

mit = mitten

peas = please

peet = feet

elbow

rock

juice

broccoli

bowl

plate

mine

Abby's

heart

wand

nite-nite

That's all I can think of now.  The rate at which she is picking up words is astonishing to us.  We really have to watch what we say now!  :)  She has number flash cards from 1-10 and she can't say all the numbers yet but if you ask her to pick out the appropriate card, she gets it right!  Woohoo - go Abby!  We are working on more alphabet letters, colors and shapes now.  As the title to this post suggests, we have been doing a lot of eating, playing and loving lately.  Here are a few pictures - enjoy!

I was inspired by a friend who makes her kids lunch box healthy and fun so I jazzed up Xiao Xiao's PBJ by cutting it into a heart shape with a cookie cutter.  She now calls it her "heart bao bao!" 

I looked over one day and saw how long Abby is in her chair now.  Made me think back to when she first started using it at 5 months old.  :*)

Lao Nian fits waaay better in Abby's tent.  Therefore, it's safe to assume Ruby a-yi fits in it too.  :)

Playing at another local park.

Abby loooves eating the spinach I make for her.  Oddly enough, even though I don't cook for Bryce and myself, I actually do 99% of the cooking for Abby.  I like knowing exactly what goes into her belly.

Abby loves curry so my mom showed me how to make her super easy Chicken Curry dish.

Eating almost an entire peach by herself while cuddling with Daddy.

We actually ate in town this past weekend and Abby only ate the hotdog part of the corndog.  She loved the sweet potato fries too (of course).  Her Daddy taught her how to dip food into sauces so she was dipping her fries in my honey mustard salad dressing.  Such a silly sight - goober baby.

We all got to open some belated Christmas presents and Daddy got a nice bottle of tequila which Abby promptly fed to her baby like a bottle - haha!  It was so wrong but so funny.  

Baby slept well that night {wink}.  ;)

Our "too big for this wagon" baby insisted on squeezing herself into this tiny wagon...again. The wheels buckle and all you hear is plastic on plastic as we push her around.

January 2011 and July 2010 

Sunday was a nasty, rainy day so Bryce made this de.li.cious lasagna with a layer of fresh mushrooms and steamed broccoli.  I'm so glad we have a ton of it left because it's SO GOOD.  It's pretty much half meat and half veggies so it's somewhat healthier.

We had our first busted lip.  Don't worry, it wasn't Abby's - it was mine!  We were playing in her tent and her head hit my lower lip which jammed into my buck teeth and I had a swollen, bloody lip for the evening.  Abby's head of steel was not injured in any way and by this morning, the only evidence on me is a small scab on my lip.  Congrats if you made it this far!  Until next time...

Holy Messy

This is how my baby girl eats her cheese ravioli.  Poor fork, all alone and neglected.  I had to look away after taking these pictures or else I would have wiped her clean but she looked like she was having so much fun so we let her go to town.  She learned another new word - BIG.  I love how her vocabulary is exploding in the last few weeks.  I feel like I'm starting to have actual conversations with her now.  I say something, she responds coherently, I say something else, etc.  We are finally getting a sneak peek as to what is going on in her head - it's awesome.  :)

New words and emotions, Homemade Pasta, Fun with Lao Nian & Lao Yie!

What was with this warm weather all of a sudden in the end of December?  I took the opportunity to have Abby wear one of her tank tops that was too big up until now.  She kept calling it her "af" shirt.  That's how she says "giraffe."  :) 

Some new words lately: fork, spoon, bowl, plate, boots, jacket, heart, milk (instead of her nai-nai in Chinese), bed, bath, and eyes (which is what she calls sunglasses).  I wanted to note that at around 20 months of age, Abby has started to act shy and even gets embarassed once in a while.  She gets really quiet around strangers now and she has felt embarassed twice in the last week or so.  She freezes in place, stares down at the ground and won't move or blink an eye!  So of course I'm always close by and I tell her everything is ok and hold my arms out and then she runs over to me and buries her face in my shoulders.  It's soooo sweet and I find myself getting into hyper-protective mode because I don't like for her to feel uncomfortable.  Gone are the days of absolute sheer and naive happiness.  It is just amazing to watch our little baby develop into a little person. 

Bryce got to play with one of his new Christmas presents!  He has always wanted to make his own pasta so I got him the appropriate KitchenAid Pasta Roller attachments for the mixer and voila!  Yet another delicious meal a la Bryce.  He made fettucini with a simple red sauce.  Homemade pasta is definitely worth the trouble!

Abby and I spent Sunday at Lao Nian and Lao Yie's house and we had so much fun again!  They were babysitting Elliott as well so the cousins got to spend more time together.  Of aaaaallll the words Abby has learned, she still can't grasp the word "SHARE."  She is quite possessive so poor Elliott will have to learn at a young age how to fend for himself.  But for now, all the grown-ups have to keep an eye on Abby.  Here are a few pictures from the day. 

Ruby and her teething baby!

I'm in the middle of saying "share" and you can see how tensed up Abby is because Elliott has his hand on the laptop.  She soooo doesn't want him there - it's a WIP.

Wish I had a better camera or Photoshop or something.  I love this picture except that the sun was in the back.  :)

The ducks are coming!  The ducks are coming!

They are huge.  The 2 white ones are the leaders of the pack.

The grandparents, grandbabies and ducks.

Elliott is in that exploratory phase where he loooves to look at his surroundings so you can imagine how interested he was in these strange beasts!  Look at how he has his neck stretched out!  Too cute!

Abby giving Lao Nian a big ol' hug.  :)

Keep the baby's head warm!

Abby and her Lao Yie!

Bye Bye ducks!  Come back again to visit soon!

We can't end the day without playing with the piano!  :)  Thanks for a fun day, Lao Nian and Lao Yie!

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On a side note, Abby got some new "eyes" today and she loves them!  I like these shades because they are 80's-esk.  :)