Now that Abby sits up on her own, I took away the newborn sling and had her sit upright in her tub this morning for bathtime. Wow, did she like this! She had toys and everything to play with and loved splashing her feet :)
Something I have always wanted to do ever since I worked in the bakery in high school and over college breaks, is to take professional cake decorating classes. Well, I decided to go for it and signed up for the first Wilton class at a local Michael's Arts and Crafts store. There are at least three more courses to take there and the instructor also teaches private lessons at a local bakery and also in a community college. So, I am going to continue taking these courses to build my skills since it is something I really enjoy.
The instructor is Amy Recinos, owner of Amy's Creative Cakes - http://www.amyscreativecakes.com/ - and she is wonderfully talented. Check out her web site for some amazing cake designs, some of them are unreal!
My first course ended last night and I created three cakes in it. We learned borders, leaves, various flowers, characters, writing, and other techniques. Only a handful of the techniques are shown on the cakes and only 2 types of flowers. The last cake shown - the rainbow - was the first one we did and was pretty basic but a lot of fun. I brought it into Benjamin's preschool class at Indian Valley Nursery School (IVNS) the week that they were studying clouds and rain. What perfect timing...and what a hit Benjamin was with his teachers and classmates :)
Violets, roses, leaves and a shell border:
A cluster of roses, a bow, different leaves, cursive writing and a shell border:
Abigail had her six-month appointment at the pediatrician this morning. I can't believe she is in the second half of her first year already! :) She really is doing well and starting to get into things now that she is becoming more mobile. She's like a little person now - laughing, "talking," rolling all over the place, trying to crawl, watching everything around her. She has been eating solid foods for about a month now and is just waiting to get her hands on finger foods...but first we have to wait for some teeth to pop through :). She lunges towards our plates at mealtime and tries to grab cereal, pasta, anything she can!
Our biggest concern from the 4-month check-up was her tiny head (4th percentile). They wanted to monitor her to make sure it is continuing to grow. And, thank God, this is no longer a concern since she grew close to 1.5" and is now in the 25th percentile. The doctor said that she is meeting all of her milestones and likely just has a smaller head. This doesn't surprise me, actually, since my head is oval-shaped, my mom has a small head and Andrew's mom also had a long, thin face. I think she is taking after the rest of the women!
Our biggest "concern" now is that Abigail has a bit of eczema on her arms and legs but it has been here since before she started food and is not exacerbated by a change in diet. So, we will keep an eye on it and in the meantime, apply lots of lotion. She is fair and likely will outgrow the eczema for the most part.
Here are the stats for our tiny little girl. What a peanut!
Height: 25-1/4 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 13 lbs. 6 oz. (12th percentile)
Head circumference: 16.5" (25th percentile)
She had 4 immunizations today and is now peacefully napping as a result. Ahh, I love days that they get the shots. My kids are always sleepy from them instead of cranky, as some kids get. Until the 9-month check-up...
As I sit down to writethis, I realize that I don't have any photos taken of Andrew within the past week since his shoulder surgery.
In the meantime, Andrew is not able to do many of his regular tasks around the house so I have been helping him out. Here's today's lesson for me: Tractor 101. Look at me going all rugged farm woman on you as I mowed the lawn!
Today we broke out the baby elastics, some bows that haven't been worn yet and did some pigtails. What a big girl Abby looks like!
A few days ago, I made some bird feeders with the kids out of pinecones, peanut butter and birdseed. They love to watch all of the wildlife in our yard so I figured some birdfeeders would be a fun thing for them to monitor each day. We've hung them outside in our tree and watch each time we pass by to see if the birds have stopped in for a bite.
Spreading peanut butter on pinecones is serious business :)
Ta-da! Our finished masterpieces. Each boy got to come with me into the craft room and pick out a piece of colored ribbon to hang his birdfeeder from. So that was also a highlight...getting to use Mommy's craft supplies!! :)
Tuesday and Thursday mornings are when Benjamin has school this year. It is also when I get to spend some "no school" time with the two little ones. Usually Abby is napping for most of this time so it is actually my special time with Nate - which he looks forward to. She wakes up towards the end of the morning for her breakfast and bottle. This past Thursday, though, she did not want to take her morning nap and decided she would spend the morning with me and Nate. She was surprisingly pleasant for someone who was missing her nap, so it didn't bother us that she joined us.
Here are a few photos of brother and little sister playing together. Nate is really quite a gentle, nurturing little guy. He just loves to hold Abby...
Thanks to Craig's List we now own the smaller and more space-efficient Fisher Price Space Saver high chair and have made plans to sell our larger Graco high chair tomorrow (if all goes well!). Yay! I am so happy since the big high chair has never been my favorite baby item we own (to be nice about it).
I got a great deal on this less than a year-old high chair and am so pleased with it. We'll even be making some money since the big one sells for more than this one cost. I am very excited about this fast and easy transaction and Abby seems to like her new chair, too. Today was actually her first time using a high chair at all; we hadn't taken the big one out for her yet. She seems happy enough...
Yum, carrots and prunes! 
The boys LOVE their Lgeos. That's the understatement of the year - they are actually obsessed with Legos and play with them all day long. They build towers and knock them down. build cities and drive their cars through them, stack them up, line them up. And recently they have started to enjoy the actual sets that they have to construct specific things.
Well, after almost a whole day of playing outside, the boys needed some downtime later this afternoon so I got out two of their Lego sets. Aviation-themed for both of them so that there wouldn't be any fights :).
Here they are enjoying their Legos together, highly intent on their creations. Both boys have seen a major improvement in agility with their Lego sets in the past few weeks - Nate is starting to be able to construct his Duplos on his own and Benjamin enjoys doing the "real" Legos with assistance/supervision. Uh, that is until today when he decided he would do this one on his own.
So here is our just 4-year-old working on a 149 piece helicopter in 29 steps...alone. Yes, the box says it's for ages 6-12 but that doesn't stop our little mechanical guy! He only had a few minor questions for me and otherwise worked independently.
Cheesy smile always means that he is enjoying himself (and Mom is interrupting him for a few photos!!) They were so cheesy today that I needed to post two of them :)
No, we didn't get a new dog. Or a cat or a fish or a guinea pig either, for that matter. Well, then, what could it be??...
....It's a baby.....
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DUCK!
Yes, Andrew showed up with a duckling tonight after work and the kids were thrilled. Our friends were getting some and asked if Andrew wanted one, too, so he decided to go for it. I guess we are truly farm people now that we own fowl - lol!
He was named Isaac by Ben and Nate agreed (there's a surprise, right? Nate the Mellow and Easygoing :)). Isaac is fuzzy and cute and is a little lonely so he has been crying a bit. I guess we should have gotten two of them so he would have had company :). We'll watch him grow for a few weeks and then release him into the wild when he's big enough. For now, the kids are having fun with him!
Close-up of the baby....
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