Super Fun Play Date Last Wednesday!

I have to admit, I had been postponing Abby's playdate with her Gymboree friends for over a month because I was just too tired.  It's sad, but true and it's because of the pregnancy.  I still haven't gotten all my energy back yet.  Only a few more weeks, I hope.  But last Wednesday, we finally got together and Abby had a BLAST!  We first met up at Monkey Bizness and Abby, Ryder, Ryko and Rycon ran, bounced, jumped, slid and played for over an hour!  They had sooo much fun and the grown ups got to catch up too.  :)  Then we all went to lunch at this bar and grill place that had a sand box in the patio and Abby thought that was more fun than the bouncey house!  All the kids had sooo much fun with each other - it was so sweet to watch them play and interact.  These are the boys from Abby's School Skills Gymboree class and they spent all summer with each other.  Abby calls them "her boys" and tells me she misses her boys all the time.  Ryder gives great bear hugs and Ryko gave Abby a kiss when we left!  It was so sweet since Ryko is a shy boy.  :)  All the boys took 3 hour naps after our playdate except our little one.  She was up and at it until 9:15 PM.  Crazy child.  Here's a picture of all the kids at the restaurant.  It's a miracle they all stood together for so long!

I'm getting frustrated because I can't rotate this picture but here is the gang:

Ryder, Abby, Rycon and Ryko!

She actually let me put her hair up in pigtails because she wanted to show the boys.  :)

Houston Zoo and New Closet!

Abby and I spent this past weekend at Lao Nian and Lao Yie's house since Daddy was on a boy's weekend attending the LSU vs Kentucky game.  As usual, Abby had a blast with Lao Nian, Lao Yie and Jo Jo!  We played A LOT at home and made it to the zoo on Saturday.  The weather was perfect and the only good thing about my mom hurting her foot is we got to park up close in the handicap parking spot.  :) 

What a good lookin' pair all geared up in burnt orange!

Ruby, these shoes look familiar?

Who knew Franco Sarto made "glass slippers!"

For some reason Abby doesn't like chao fan (stir fried rice) but she'll eat the heck out of xi fan (rice pouridge).  Either works for me!  We are so thankful she is a great eater!

Abby still loves to help Lao Yie water the plants.  :)

Jo Jo, Abby and elephants!  Thanks Bobo for carrying Abby around all day!

Monkey and Abby.  I like her smile here.

Family photo!  We eventually had to get my mom a wheel chair.  Just too much walking at the zoo!

It only took almost 3 years but we finally got elfa shelves and installed it in Abby's closet on Monday.  The closet walls needed to be painted and the shelves were really easy to install (of course, Bryce did the brunt of it!).  It originally only had one shelf with one rod that extended the length of the closet.  Too much negative space for a growing child.  Here are some pictures of our project. 

Before we knew we were pregnant, we had new door frames, doors and base boards installed in the hallway and all the bedrooms.  They are still not painted because of my constant nausea so please excuse the raw wood look!  Otherwise, this is the freshly painted closet.

Voila!  Shelves installed!  Time to transfer everything back into the closet and OUT of our room!

Of course, my little helper wanted to help.  :)

Finally done.  Next project - our master closet.

Abby's going to be a BIG SISTER!

Just wanted to officially announce that Baby Baker #2 is in the oven!  We are due March 31, 2012 but if this one is anything like Abby, he/she will come around Ruby and my birthday.  :)

I'm currently 13 weeks and 4 days along.  This Friday will be the beginning of my second trimester.  It's been so hard to keep this tight lipped on the blog these past few months since all I've been doing is throwing up again.  I feel like it's more intense this time and it makes it hard to still take care of Abby.  I also feel like I've slept the past few months away.  It's the usual blah, blah, blah pregnancy story so I'll stop boring you. 

Abby is old enough to understand she is going to be a big sister and she already tells me she loves the baby and wants to hug him/her (aka my belly) all the time.  It's so sweet.  Bryce and I are so excited about this new addition and we can't wait for the next chapter in our life to begin!

Harmonica playing soccer ball kicking Daddy's little girl!

Last week Jo Jo taught Abby how to play his harmonica!  She had so much fun watching and learning and I was impressed with how quick she picked it up.   

I love this picture because I remember kicking a soccer ball around with my dad when I was a kid too.  :)

Abby really enjoys eating Daddy's Big Breakfast's.  Here they are sharing a plate and eating hash brown.

Mark your calendars.  Yesterday was the FIRST TIME EVER for Abby to let me put her hair up in pigtails!  And, it lasted over 2 hours before being ripped out.  Progress!

Daddy reading Pinocchio to Abby.  These two are quite the pair.  :)

Aussie Bound

Yesterday was a bittersweet day.  Ruby, Matt and Elliott caught their flight to Perth at 5:30 PM.  All the Chen's were there to send them off and they will be missed.  I don't think it will hit me until tomorrow how much I will miss my daily chats with Ruby on the phone that I now realize, I took for granted.  It started this morning.  I woke up and I heard the phone ring around 8:30 AM and I instinctively thought "it must be Ruby."  But alas, it wasn't.  And it won't be for a long time (what feels like an eternity to me already).  I've said it before and I'll say it again - the bond between twins is different than a regular sibling (no offense, Bobo!) or even your spouse.  Although we have entirely different personalities, I always feel like I'm half Ruby and she's half me.  You can't mention one of us without mentioning the other.  That's just the way it is.  And just like when she was in Nigeria for 16 months, I will have to endure people asking me how she is doing and be reminded once again how much I miss her.  But life goes on.  God bless Skype.

The Baldwin and Chen Family

I'm really going to miss this little guy.

Family Photos

We had another jam packed weekend of family, friends and fun!  Unfortunately I was really bad about taking ANY pictures at all.  I need to get better about that...if only I weren't so tired all the time.  Anyhow, on Friday night we had a wonderful dinner with our old family friends at Peking Cuisine and it was so great to see everyone together again.  Luckily Ruby took pictures that night.  Then on Saturday we went to a friend's birthday pool party where Abby had a blast because she got to see all of her friends.  We think she has a thing for the birthday boy.  What does it mean when she is non-stop looking for him and yelling his name out at the top of her lungs?  Who knows...he's such a sweet little boy too.  Then we hit up ANOTHER pool party back in my old neck of the woods, Clear Lake, to watch the UT game.  Abby slept for 45 minutes in the car, played in the 2nd pool for another hour or so and didn't go to sleep until 10:45 PM!!!  I thought for sure 2 pool parties in one day would wear her out.  But alas, we were wrong.  Crazy baby.  Again, no pictures of any of it.  Then on Sunday we went to the Baldwin Going Away Party at St. Arnold Brewing Company and we had a blast catching up and seeing old friends.  I can't believe they are officially moving in one week.  I'm going to miss seeing my sister, chatting on the phone every day and knowing every little detail of her every day.  And of course I'll miss seeing Elliott and Abby grow up together for a few years.  And I'll miss seeing Matt too!  :P  Sure wish I took pictures at St. Arnold's - who knows when we'll all get together again!  The super sad part is that I had my camera in my purse during all occasions.  I'm just that lazy.  But here are a few random pictures from around our house where my camera is only an arms reach away. 

I love it when Abby wakes up in the morning because she's such a cuddle bug!  She loves to play with her own hair and has graduated to playing with my hair now too.

Abby needed a family photo for school so we took several casual pictures just at home.  I realized of ALL my blog pictures, we have only 2-3 of the 3 of us.  I need to get better about taking family photos as well.

Then we took a couple of goofy pictures.

Sad faces.  Abby's is the best.

Kissy faces!!

This was taken after pool party #1 on Saturday.  She loves lollipops!

This was taken at the UT game watching party.  Another rare family photo.

HOOK'EM HORNS!

This was taken on Sunday after St. Arnold's.  Both Daddy and Abby hit a wall and slept like babies from 4-6:30 PM. 

*I love this picture*

And finally, Lao Yie came over yesterday and these two are quite the pair!  Abby sure does love her Lao Yie!

p.s.  Today was Abby's 2nd day of school.  Drop off was a success again!  :)

Abby's 1st Day of School!!

{sniff, sniff}

The whole idea makes me want to cry but really, neither of us shed a tear when I dropped her off.  We met her teachers on Tuesday and we've been talking/prepping Abby for the big day and she was a champ!  I packed her lunch and showed it to her so she knew what to expect.  She said "Mmm, that looks yummy Mommy!"  :)  I had her shirt all picked out but she requested her green cow shirt that Daddy got her so she even ended up picking her own first day of school outfit all by herself!  Such a big girl.

We were the first to her classroom (of course) and she couldn't wait to go inside!  Of course, I made the rookie mistake of leaving her sippy cup at home so I had to go back and get it (a 7 minute round trip so no big deal because we were early!).  She went straight into the class and didn't even give me a hug and kiss!  So I called her back, we hugged and kissed and she was OFF!  This is my first time to have 5 solid hours of ME TIME right smack in the middle of the day since she was born so needless to say, I don't know what to do with my time - besides blog.  Here are a few pictures from the morning.

Backpack - check.

Lunch bag - check.

Here we are waiting outside of the classroom until the teachers are ready for us.  Abby is in the Lady Bug class and you can see her name tag on the wall behind her.  This is where she hangs her backpack and nap mat.

This is her "Why can't I go in yet?" face.  Later she had her hand on the door knob waiting to go in.

When I snuck back in to give her teacher her sippy cup, I finally saw Abby joining the other kids at the Center Table.  She was playing off by herself so I had to tell the teacher to encourage her to join everyone else since she's so shy and takes a while to warm up to ther kids.

Bryce was more nervous about Abby's first day then either Abby or me.  He's dying to know how and what she is doing right now but as for me, I'm enjoying my quiet FREEDOM.  :)  We were both so proud of how the first drop off has gone so far.  We can't wait to hear her tell us about her day in a few hours!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~UPDATE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pick up was not as great.  She fell asleep at nap time.  Her teacher said she was a late napper so she was still asleep when I got there.  I think the combination of being woken up too early, the new kids, the new schedule, etc. was traumatic for her.  She insisted on being held on the way back to the car and wouldn't sit in her car seat so we could go home.  All she wanted to do was cuddle with me in the back seat - for 10 minutes.  I finally got her in her car seat and we made our way home.  I asked her all sorts of questions about her day and according to her, she did not have fun in the playground, did not like the other kids in the class, did not like all the loud noises, did not have fun during any activity and didn't even enjoy her nap time.  But she said she liked her teachers and she missed me all day.  :(  So we are continuing the cuddle-a-thon while watching her favorite, Ni Hao Kai Lan.  And she didn't eat her lunch really well either so I've got a sleepy, hungry, needy baby.  But I love it because now she's eating anything I give her and being a snuggle bug.  Let's hope this doesn't make next Tuesday's drop off traumatic as well!