Abby is 18 months old!

Our little baby is now a year and a half old.  {gulp!}  I must agree with what others say: this is the fun age!  They are chatty, mobile and still do everything you say.  It's bliss.  We had her 18 month well check yesterday and she is 33" tall (85%), weighs 26 lbs. 7 oz. (80%) and her head circumference is still, and I quote from the doctor, "off the charts."  :)  We love our little bobble head baby!  No wonder everyone thinks she's 2 years old already. 

Bryce was gone all week so Abby was super happy to see him (as was I).  Here are some ode to Daddy pictures.  :)

Haircut!

Abby got her bangs cut for the 4th time today.  The 1st was by Nancy a-yi, 2nd and 3rd by me and now 4th time by Nancy a-yi again.  It is sooo worth the trip to Nancy's salon to get a professional to undo the damage I did to Abby's bangs the last 2 times.  :P  I tried my best but I'm no pro.  The 1st time I cut Abby's bangs at home, she was still little and sat still for me.  This last time, she wiggled a lot and I was afraid to cut too much.  Now I feel like we're back at equilibrium.  Here are a few pictures that documented our morning. 

Oh my goodness, this poor child.  Here is the BEFORE picture.

Abby was a champ and sat perfectly still for Nancy a-yi.  Can you see my excitement?  Here we go!

Action shot.  Abby did so well!

We've all had this happen: of course her nose itched while wrapped under the salon cape.

Here we are back at home and you can see Abby's eyes again!!  Mission accomplished.  :)

Janice visit, Lao Yie time, New fave thing to do dujour, Tooth #13

Wow, this past weekend solidified my hunch that I'm horrible at taking pictures when there is a large group around.  As I mentioned before, Janice and Aaron were in town so we had a big get-together at Ruby's house on Saturday.  I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did!  :)  Here are a few of my pictures from our playdate.

My mom, Sophia and Abby. 

OMG Sophia is sooo deliciously chubby and cute!

Janice and Elliott. 

Karen and Annabelle.

Annabelle and Tom. 

Can you tell which parent Annabelle looks more like?  I love it!

Ruby and Sophia.  Gotta love that wrist roll!

Abby insisted on wearing Annabelle's super cute sandals.  :)  Thanks Annabelle jie jie!

Elliott taking a nap on Kim's shoulder.  :)

Abby found a new way to sit on the bar stool.

Our attempt to get a picture of the cousins in burnt orange.  Obviously I was unable to get a decent picture of all 3 of them so I picked the one where Ruby looks good - haha!  GO HORNS!

Then on Monday my dad, Ruby and Elliott came over again and we had so much fun again!  My dad was so happy to be with his grandkids and they loved it too!  Abby really loves her Lao Yie and was super sweet with him.  :)

Lao Yie and Elliott. 

Elliott is getting so big and he's so strong!

Elliott and Mommy. 

Ruby is so in love with her little buddy!

I just love how Abby is leaning on Lao Yie.  She was extra sweet for some reason on this visit: never more than an arms reach away from her Lao Yie.  :)

She was absolutely fascinated by Lao Yie whistling.  Just kept staring and staring and you could almost see the wheels turning in her head.  My ever observant baby (aka future engineer) who always needs to evaluate how things work.

Lao Yie was super busy juggling 2 grandkids.  I sense a little jealousy on Abby's part....uh oh!  She was actually trying to kiss Elliott's little hand here.  :P

I just love Elliott's smile in this picture.  :)

Abby's new favorite thing to do dujour is to have us read books to her.  We literally go through 10-12 books a day.  That's 10-12 books but she wants some read over and over so I probably read about 20-25 "stories" to her a day.  Because it drives me NUTS to read the same books over and over, I keep adding books to the stack purely for my own sanity.  This latest book has been a hit-and-a-half.  You can't go wrong with a Mother Goose book and I got it in this size so she could hold it too.  Here she is "reading" on her own (aka break time for me).  I hope she continues to love books as much as I do!

And as a side note, tooth #13 made a surprise appearance.  Top right incisor.  She's been fussy the last 2 days and you'd think I would suspect teething by now but it still always surprises me.  :P  One of these days I'll wise up. 

Houston Zoo - finally!

We finally took Abby to the Houston Zoo today - a much overdue trip.  Bryce took the day off and we met up with the Baldwin's, Janice and her son Aaron!  Ruby and I hadn't been to the zoo since 1995 (I guessed 15 years and turns out I was spot on.  For those that don't know, Ruby is our family historian).  We will definitely be going back soon since the weather is so nice now. 

We started the morning off with some Daddy tickles!  She was sooo excited to hear his voice when she woke up today.  I sometimes wonder if she knows it's a week day and Daddy should be at work.  :)  In any case, she loved it.

We were supposed to be looking at the sea lions but Abby was more interested in seeing "baby" (that's what she calls Elliott) too.

What are we looking at now?

Elephants!

The mama elephant is named Tess and the baby girl elephant is Tupelo.  She was just born on Oct. 3 - only 12 days old!

Our attempt at a sitting mini-pumpkin patch portrait.  No smile but plenty of pumpkins.

Our second attempt at a standing portrait.  Again, no smile. 

As usual, the smiling picture is blurry - bummer.

Yet another sort of blurry picture but I had to post it.  I love it - it's the cousins!  I think Ruby has a better picture on her camera so I may repost it later. 

The bald eagle stood VERY still for me - thanks bald eagle!

Aaron is showing interest in walking.  He'll be 1 in less than a month.  Go Aaron!

The tortoise and Aaron.  :)

I just love this picture.  :)

Abby and the bison statue.

She insisted on riding the baby bison.  "Up!"

A-yi got a big ol' hug!  :)

We all went and grabbed a bite to eat afterwards and of course, Abby conked out on the car ride home.  What a wonderful day today!

Lazy days and sewing!

Once again, I feel like I'm go-go-go but based on my recent pictures, it looks like we haven't done much besides enjoy lazy days in our pjs.  :)  Abby's vocabulary is constantly growing.  It's too much to keep track of but my favorite is that she blows kisses...again.  I say "again" because she did it months ago and sort of stopped but picked it back up and it's more deliberate now.  Here are a couple of cute/funny pics of Abby lately.

Abby helping Daddy with his weekly picks.

Abby riding her "ma" (aka horse).  It was so funny!!  She would proceed to crush it and land on her butt and do it all over again.  :)

My dear friend Janice sewed a bunch of super cute burp clothes for Ruby and I decided to take a stab at it too for a baby shower I recently attended.  I'm definitely a beginner with my sewing machine but slowly getting used to it.  This baby shower was for a baby girl so I picked out a pink, flowery pattern (anyone surprised by that??  NO!).  The stitching is not very straight but it looks good from far away.  I'm excited to make more and hopefully get better with each new project. 

Another random update...again

Almost another week has gone by and I can't recall exactly what we've been up to but we've made lots of little trips outdoors to enjoy the beautiful weather.  Here are a few random pics from the week - enjoy!

Her BabyLegs fit now!  They used to be too tight for her chubby thighs.  :P

I am so jealous of her long eyelashes.  They are longer than mine!  We have Bryce to thank for them.

We lent Elliott Abby's Bumbo but look who decided to squeeze herself in.  She actually fits in it quite well.

I just love how cute Elliott looks here!  He's definitely got his dad's smile yet he still totally looks like Ruby (to me, at least)!  I can't wait until Elliott is big enough to play with Abby!

Messy baby and more cousin time

Although I'm a neat freak, occasionally I indulge in watching Abby make a complete mess of her meal.  After all, she IS a baby.  :)  Today for lunch she had a PBJ with nutella (courtesy of Daddy who is much more creative than I am with meals) and she loved it.



Abby just loves her cousin Elliott.  We know this because she can't stop kissing him.  Maybe a little too much.  :o  Here she is playing footsie and kissing Elliott's little toes.  Too cute!