Abigail's 9-Month Check-Up

Abigail had her 9-month check-up this morning, which went along with a shot this time. Poor little girly is taking a late afternoon nap as we speak to sleep it off. This was the worst of the morning, apart from the fact that she missed her morning nap, and loves her sleep, so this wasn't the highlight of her day :).

All in all, she is doing really well and has no concerns. She is now crawling, trying to climb and pull-up, is waving, says some words that Andrew and I like to skew as either "Mama" or "Dada", eats well, sleeps well, is happy all the time. She checked out at 100% and the doctor was pleased to hear that she was only really sick once around Christmastime, even with two older siblings in the house. She is eating more than Nate these days (Mr. Picky) and is still a tiny little girl. Here are her stats for the day:

Height: 27-1/4" (25th%)
Weight: 16 lbs. 6 oz. (12th %)
Head circumference: 17" (25th %)

The only other thing we need to do in order to give her a clean bill of health is to take her for hemoglobin tests, which will check for anemia and any other blood disorders. It is routine at 9 months. I cannot believe that the next doctor's appointment we will have will be when she is one year old!

Keeping Busy Outside

Today's weather certainly made up for the fierce thunderstorms and rain we had yesterday afternoon; it was perfect outside with blue skies, a slight breeze and low humidity. So, granted, we spent the majority of the day outdoors. The boys could stay outside all day long and even Abby loves it now that she can crawl. So much more to explore (and try to eat, much to Mom's chagrin)!

The activity of choice today was riding bikes and using the wagons early in the day and then the swings later in the afternoon. Here are some pictures I was able to get when someone actually was still enough for me to flash a photo. Enjoy!

Wagon rides were first on the agenda. We have two Town and Country's - one was Andrew's as a little boy and is now Ben's and one Nate got for his birthday this year from G and CC. The original wagon was repainted 4 years ago and got accidentally left outside in the rain last year so now it is in need of a new paint job. So, usually the boys fight over who gets to use the new wagon since the paint on the original one is "yucky." But, of course, today Nate decided to get the old one out and naturally Ben wanted that one, too. Come on, give me a break for once! I wonder what will happen when I give the original one a new coat of paint over the next few weeks? Maybe we will actually have two boys with two wagons that nobody will fight over. Probably not...

Ben pulled first to exert his true position of eldest sibling. Come hither! I will pull you, my two subordinates!

Yeah, so that was short-lived. Next thing I knew, Ben had wheedled his way into the wagon and actually had Nate thinking that the better job was to pull the wagon! I repeat, Ben exerts his true position of oldest (aka bossiest) sibling. And, yes, to all of you offended oldest siblings out there, I can say this since I am the oldest sibling. I'm not bossy in the least though. Must be the exception to the rule, right, Mike? :)

So, Nate pulls the 55lb. load that is Ben and Abigail...with a smile on his face, as always. Except in pictures. Seriously, he was perfectly happy the entire time he pulled even though he looks quite bored in this photo. He knew I had the camera so he put on his best poker face!!

I took pity on poor Natey and told him to hop in the wagon. So now I get to pull the 85lb. cargo around. This was after I weeded some much-neglected beds for an hour while Abby slept. Uh, yeah, I think I got my upper body workout for the day!

Once the notion that I was serious when I announced I couldn't pull them for another minute longer sunk in (and the begging and pleading ceased), Nate decided to walk around and fill up the wagon with sticks. I love child labor! This helped to clean up the branches that had fallen out of the trees during yesterday's storms.

But I guess Nate isn't quite as "green" as his shirt, as he proceeded to take one of his sticks and start scratching frantically at the bark on this huge tree. In the second photo, he is pretending to ignore me when I start telling him how he is hurting the tree and he needs to be nice to our green friends. Oh, how I wish I had one of those cantankerous, old, apple-throwing trees from The Wizard of Oz to get the point across :)

Hey you, gimme that stick! How'd you like it if I poked and prodded at you all day long, Blondie?! Hee hee.

Abby sat on the grass and watched all of the action. And then she remembered that she didn't need to sit on the blanket anymore and could go off crawling and exploring. She was not at all weirded out by grass, as both boys had been when they first crawled in it. And this didn't surprise me at all since she is probably content about 99% of the time. She just got around, picked up everything and had fun exploring.

Love the ruffly heinys :)

I love her!!!

Swing!

Like her brothers, Abby now loves the swing whenever we are outside in the yard. She just smiles and laughs the entire time. Here's our happy girl. Boo for the sun glare in two of the photos :(, but you get the idea...

She's off!

Here is Abby crawling. She is still a bit cautious with her new skill but has warmed up since even yesterday. So, the boys' days of undisturbed play may be coming to an end, thanks to the cute little sister :).

Oh, and don't mind the loud banging in the background; we were pretending to be a band with some of the kitchen bowls and spoons a few minutes earlier and Benjamin liked the idea of making mother-approved loud noises so I let him continue to do it while the rest of us moved on to something else since it kept him occupied. Believe it or not, I had actually tuned it out until after I had already filmed this, when I heard the loud din in the background via my camera during playback!

Pigpen and Company

So, yeah, we take playing outside very seriously here in the Martin household. Trucks, bikes and piles of dirt and/or sand are always a major part of the games. Boys will be boys, I suppose.

Here are Pigpen and Company taking a beverage break after playing outside for several hours this evening before bed. Seriously? One minute they were clean - hot and sweaty, but clean - and then enter Tonka trucks and large pile of dirt, and within about 5 minutes they now resemble Oscar the Grouch. But they had FUN! And after all of the fun was over, bathtime was quite the long process tonight, which prolonged bedtime even more so they were also happy :)

Crawling!

At just a mere three days shy of 9 months old, Abigail finally started to crawl last night! She has been going from a laying to a sitting position, scooting and crawling backwards for a step or two for the past few weeks. But, just last night she started to crawl forward all of a sudden.

We have been trying to get her to crawl for a few weeks by shaking toys and taking out new things from around the house to explore and keeping them a few feet out of reach. But, she would try to get to them, become frustrated and lose interest. So do you know what did it? Last night Nate sat across the room with a bowl of Cheerios on his lap, having a snack. Well, the minute Abby spotted one of her familiar munchies, she just focused on them and crawled across the room to them (and to Nate telling her no, to get her that they were his!). So, she is on the move and is so proud of herself!

Cooling Off

It's been so hot around here lately and after a weekend of playing in the kiddie pool that Pop and Nana have at their house, the boys were asking for a pool to go in. Our old kiddie pool had an irrepairable hole in it so it wasn't much use. So, on our trip to Walmart this morning to get some household items, I let the kids pick out a new pool with some of the money they have "earned" by helping me set out our farm stand every day last week. Here is their choice...hours of entertainment this afternoon!


Miss Abby watched from the shade while attemping to get past scooting and actually crawl. Not quite there yet but definitely close (and definitely frustrated, too!!)

Benjamin got to enjoy the pool for about an hour longer than Nate while we waited for the little guy to wake up from his nap. Are we having fun yet?

Uh, yeah, I would say so :)

So, while the boys cooled off, Abby decided the pool wasn't for her (she much prefers a temperature-controlled bath at this point in life). So, she put her dignity aside and decided to cool off herself :)....

Ruffle butt!

Really letting all inhibitions go as the panties get cast aside too, after a brief second romp in the pool to see if time had changed her mind about swimming.

Uh, not.

But as a result, the diaper was kinda wet so she lounged around until I had a minute to run inside and get a new one. Didn't seem to mind much :)

After almost 2.5 hours (Seriously!), it was snack time. Apple juice and granola bars were the choice of the day...while Abby got Gerber puffs. Uh, apparently she doesn't seem to think these snacks are comparable to each other, as noted by her forward lunge toward what she thought was the remains of Benjamin's Quaker goodie. But the 4 year-old is too fast for her. His was already eaten; only the wrapper remained. Gah! Foiled again!

Oh wait. The dawdling 2 year-old still has some left. I see it with my very own eyes. I'll wait until Benjamin says something silly and the youngin' is distracted. Then I'll make my move!! Hee hee...

Ready...now!

So, yes, today marks the day when Abby stole about 1/4 of a peanut butter granola bar and started gumming and swallowing it before I even realized that it was made from probably the only highly allergenic food we really do try to keep the kids away from until they are 1: peanuts. Oh well, not the first time this has ever happened to anyone and so far, so good. It seems like we may have yet another child who does not have peanut allergies. Phew! We'll probably wait a few months before really giving her some Skippy, but at least this little preview didn't result in any drama. Never underestimate the mind and actions of an eight month-old!!

Anniversary Trip to NYC

This coming Wednesday - July 21, 2010 - Andrew and I will celebrate our 9 year wedding anniversary. NINE YEARS! We seriously cannot believe it. I feel like we were just meeting in college, just dating for 3 months before getting engaged, just almost making our mothers faint when we announced our quick engagement the day before college graduation and just walking down that l-o-n-g 250 foot aisle in Packer Chapel at Lehigh University. And now, 9 years, 2 houses, 1 (late) dog, a few -eh - pounds for both of us, and 3 children later we are still the same in-love people we were nearly a decade ago.

So, this past weekend we went to see my parents on Friday night and left early Saturday morning for a weekend in New York City alone while they watched the kids for us. I grew up right outside of NYC so I've been there hundreds of times before and also used to work there. But, living so closeby, I have only stayed overnight a handful of times for work or to visit friends. So, we decided it would be a fun getaway for us together and also one that would be convenient for us to leave the kids with my parents.

Friday was my mom's birthday so as a little birthday gift and thank-you for watching the kids, the boys and I made her this cookie bouquet. Benjamin decorated the pot and helped make the cookie dough, Nate decorated the cookies with me and they both had fun making a mess out of the floral grass as we assembled it.

Andrew and I left early on Saturday morning for New York after saying goodbye to everyone. It was the first time we have ever left Nate or Abigail and we have not left Ben since he was 11 months old. What the heck is wrong with us - lol?!?! :)

We decided to go to the Museum of Natural History for the afternoon since we both have not been here in over 20 years, we enjoy doing things like this together and a large, air-conditioned building that would take several hours to get through sounded PERFECT on this 100 degree day.

The Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium were two of our favorite areas. The boys would have loved seeing the planets and space shuttles but it was nice to be there without having to refill sippy cups and answer seemingly endless questions :)

Of course the dinosaurs were another favorite. This was the only thing I even remember about this museum since I was less than 10 years old when I was last here. I distinctly remember being amazed by this dinosaur, even before Night at the Museum made 'ole T-Rexy famous.

"The Big Rhino" as Ben refers to the Tricerotops....

...and "Spiky Guy" as he calls the Stegosaurus :)

We next spent some time meandering through Central Park. We love it here; it always makes you feel like you're not really in the hubbub that is Manhattan. Such a perfect day!

Andrew in Central Park.

The famous NYC boathouse.

Me, having a quick soak of my feet in the fountain after a full day of walking (in bad shoes, as Andrew always says, when I don't go sensible) :)

Andrew at his favorite store! We always think mega stores that seem like they should be stand-alones are so funny in the middle of a city. Of course we had to go inside and take a peek.

We stayed at the beautiful New York Helmsley Hotel on 42nd between 2nd and 3rd. It was lovely and, even better, we got a great deal on it at an online discount site!

Having a late dinner in the City at a little French restaurant we discovered.