Happy Birthday, Abigail!

Abby is 6 months old today!

Abby is full of smiles right now. She smiles when strangers say "hi" to her, when we sing to her, and when we play games with her. She especially likes peek-a-boo, "riding the animals," and bouncing on someone's legs. She is always busy exploring new toys and watching what Anna is doing. She loves it when Anna plays games with her. Her favorite is when Anna reads the book, From Head to Toe by Eric Carle. Each page shows a body motion like clapping or kicking your legs. Anna does the motion and asks Abby if she can do it too. Abby tries to do it herself, although sometimes she gets some help from Mom.

Abby is still busy moving all over the place. She seems to have (temporarily?) lost interest in getting up on her arms and knees. Instead she's been getting faster at her military crawl. If she wants to get somewhere (usually to Anna) she can really do it fast now. She can't sit up on her own yet, but she can sit up in the high chair now. She enjoys sitting with us during meals and sometimes she eats along with us. In addition to green beans she has tried peas and carrots, both of which she liked a lot!

Happy Birthday sweet Abby Jane! We love you so much! We're so thankful for all the joy you have brought us in the past 6 months!

Halloween fun!

We had a great Halloween! To get ready for the big night Matt and Anna took a bunch of walks around the neighborhood to check out all the "spooky" decorations. Anna loved looking at our pumpkin all lit up as well as some extra skeleton decorations that Matt and Anna put up on Halloween day. Anna was especially excited to put her Mini Mouse costume on and go trick-or-treating! She was a little tentative at the first few houses, but she caught on quickly. It was so cute to hear her say, "trick-or-treat" after knocking on each door. She was really excited to fill up her pumpkin with treats! Abby was a really adorable horse. She enjoyed trick-or-treating too. And it was extra fun to have Corinne join us for the celebrations as well!

After the girls went to bed, Matt and I had fun reminiscing about past Halloweens and we both decided this was our best Halloween ever.

Pumpkin Carving!

Anna, Matt, & I carved our pumpkin today.

First, we separated the seeds from the glop so we could cook them

then we cut out the face

ta-da!

Exersaucer!

In the past few weeks Abby has been busy with a new toy:

I'm busy spinning the wheels, chewing, and making music!

Green Beans!

A few weeks ago I posted about Abby's first meal of rice cereal. We ended up taking a little break from the solid foods after she had a few nights of crying spells after her cereal. In the past few days Abby has tried a new food: green beans! She seemed to enjoy them 2 out of the 4 times I gave them to her - so I guess I would say we've had mixed reviews. But now that we've tried them for a few days we can move onto something new tomorrow!

Happy Halloween!

Anna, Abby, and I kicked off the Halloween celebrations today by attending our playgroup Halloween party. Anna was excited to wear her Mini Mouse costume. Given that it was a little warm here today and the party was inside, I decided not to stuff Abby into her furry horse suit (which she will be wearing Sunday night). Instead she went as Eli Manning:

Anna the Artist

Both at school and at home Anna has been busy painting:

apple prints

painting done with special paint brushes Anna got from Nana

water color

a sunflower

a pumpkin!