Abby's Twelve Month Stats

Since I forgot to post this in her Abby Turns One! blog posting I'll add it here.


                 Height          Weight               Head CM
Birth           19.5 in.         7 lbs. 0 oz.
1 Week       19.0 in.         6 lbs. 9 oz.         33 cm
2 Months     22.0 in.       11 lbs. 6 oz.         38 cm
4 Months     24.75 in.     15 lbs. 6 oz.         39.5 cm
6 Months     26.75 in.     18 lbs. 6 oz.         41.5 cm
9 Months     28.25 in.     21 lbs. 3 oz.         44 cm
12 Months   30.0 in.       23 lbs. 0 oz.         46.7 cm

This puts her at 79th% for height and 78% for weight. Her head also seems to have caught up and now is in the 75th% as well. My little girl is very slightly above average!

Her big milestones include learning to stand without holding on to anything, climbing up on our furniture, "walking" while holding onto something as she pushes it, giving high fives and kisses, occasionally waving bye-bye, playing peek-a-boo with herself, starting the "I'm Gonna Get You" game and then squealing in delight when you play along, blowing raspberries on any uncovered skin she can find (or make uncovered by lifting your shirt), and the beginnings of following instructions (laying down in the bathwater when we tell her it's time to wash her hair). Still no teeth, which I have no problem with, but also still not sleeping through the night. I do hope this comes sooner rather than later, if my wishes have any input in the matter. A loving little girl who delights in hugs and kisses but also enjoys roaming around the house playing with whatever strikes her fancy.

Abby - A Year in Review

Pictures of Abby from birth to a year!

Birth

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months

Six Months

Seven Months

Eight Months

Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

A year!

House Interior Remodel: We're Back Home

Well....this post is a little late but we're officially back in the house. We've been back for two weeks now and our move was pretty much just as hectic as our move out. Saturday night (my last blog post was about the Friday night before) we got the official word from Bo (our carpet guy) that all the flooring was in the house and he was officially turning our key back over to us. Nate and I raced over to check out the look of our new home. Oh, my gosh was it pretty! I love how the wall colors are no longer yucky white, how the floors are pretty and clean without stains or burn marks, how the paint has crisp lines, how my whole house feels like it's brand new.

After admiring our new home the craziness began. Saturday night we got the a-ok to move home, Sunday afternoon we celebrated Abby's first birthday party with family and friends, and Sunday evening we were sleeping in our own beds again. We still had a full garage but at least we were home. We appreciated my parents letting us stay at their place for the week, but, like Dorothy said, "there's no place like home." Since that Sunday two or so weeks ago we've got Abby's room, the living room, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom, and office all set up. The guest bedroom and bathroom and laundry room still need work. Actually the Laundry Room was our first 'breaking in' of the house. While putting the washing machine and dryer back in place the linoleum lost the battle. :-)

Our two small holes in the floor in the Laundry Room

A closer view

Thankfully it should be an easy fix of cutting out a square patch around the tears and replacing with new linoleum. And thankfully it was in an area that isn't going to be seen by a lot of people in case it is slightly noticeable.

I'm hopeful that with a little pushing we will have our house 100% back together by this weekend so I can post some before and after photos. I just hope they do justice to what my new house looks like!

Abby's First Birthday Party

On Sunday, February 12th, we celebrated Abby's first birthday with family and friends. We invited everyone over to my parent's house (as ours was in the interior renovation project) for a 1pm luncheon. I actually was proud of myself for two reasons: 1) I didn't attempt to do the "perfect" party by making all the food and drink items from scratch, but instead purchased a good amount from Costco, and 2) I DID make the cupcakes from scratch. The decorations weren't as fancy as they could have been had I ordered the cupcakes from a bakery but I had a lot of fun thinking of the decorating I wanted to do and then actually making them.

The day itself was great. The weather was bright and sunny, almost all of the people invited could make the party, Abby's nap was perfectly timed so she got up 15 minutes before guests arrived, and there was lots of talking and laughter with everyone. I don't think we'll do this big of a party for every birthday (I can see it being just family until Abby starts having her own friends to invite to her parties) but I'm glad it was the big affair it was. My baby is one and I wanted to celebrate this milestone with as many of my people as possible. So a big THANK YOU to everyone who came and to everyone who had Abby in their thoughts over her birthday and day of celebration.

Abby's birthday cupcakes. Not so fancy, but full of love.

Abby has no interest in her cupcake. Yet.

Nate and I blowing out Abby's first birthday candle with help from Cousin Haylee.

"Ooh, this feels neat. I wonder what it is?"

"Mmm. Tastes good!"

Abby showing off for Grandma Akers' picture. She loved the cupcakes!

Abby kicking her feet, flirting with the camera, and eating her cupcake.

She had so much fun eating her birthday cupcake. Actually two cupcakes as Haylee thought Abby needed more sugar. :-)

A view of some of our guests. I've been friends with the majority of these people since I got out of college and I love celebrating my and my family's life milestones with them. A better group of friends you couldn't ask for!

Helping Abby open her presents.

Once Abby understood that she could rip the paper and that their were toys hidden in the bags she got into opening her presents too.

My cutie pie. She loved the tissue paper.

It still amazes me that my Abby is one. It's so true what they say. The days are long but the years are short. I look forward to seeing what this next year brings as Abby goes into Toddler-hood, starts walking, gets teeth (still no teeth at a year!), and begins to talk. I can't wait!!!

House Interior Remodel: Day 5

Paint is done! And my goodness what a good job our painter did. If you're looking for a recommendation Chris from Color Effects is who we used. He did a fantastic job going above and beyond as we had him paint our new molding that still wasn't up, touched up the bottoms of the walls where we tore out molding a few times, and fielded our many phone calls. His prices were reasonable and our house looks superb. We also had our linoleum in the dining room, kitchen, and laundry room go in. It's a bear to do as it's one loooonnnnng section of the house, but it was put in really well. I was a little concerned that our linoleum was a touch to grey in color but having the mixture of greys and browns really works out well. I think it was any more brown there'd be too much of that color going on, so what we have fits perfectly.

Our finished Guest Bedroom. The piece of molding is missing as this was our  comparison piece for  purchasing the new molding we needed in the house.

A view of the Office and its closet. I like how the white closets really offset the new wall color. I know you won't be able to see them much but I still think they're pretty.

Our Living Room. Since the kitchen floors were being done all the appliances were hanging out here. On a side note. I never thought to clean the sides of the stove before as they're tucked in between the counters. Oh. My. Goodness. Were they nasty! Definitely an item to add to the spring cleaning list. 

 

A great view of the new linoleum. This is also the first time Abby's been set down  on the floor in a week. I think she misses her house. :-)

 

Oh, I love my new house! Here's a view of the new house colors (ceiling, wall, and accent wall) with my new linoleum.

Abby Turns One!

Today is Abby's first birthday.

My beautiful baby girl is a year. I know it's cliche to say, but where did the time go? I kiss her chin and rub her head and I remember the feeling of her head tucked perfectly under my chin as she slept after nursing as an infant. I heft this girl on my hip and remember the weightlessness as I first held her in my arms. I smell her sweet breathe and remember the night's where I'd just breathe her scent in as she passed out in a milk comma. I hear her giggle and remember the first time. I see the joy in her eyes as she experiences something new and am reminded again how so much is new to her. I'm ready for her to take her next milestones; teeth (her first is just only showing signs of popping through), walking, sleeping through the night and yet I feel that each milestone is too quickly achieved. It's been an absolute joy to watch her grow up and I can't wait to see how she changes in the years to come. I am so blessed to be her Mother and feel so lucky that she's in my life.

A picture of my Abby at exactly one year old. 02/10/12 5:45pm

Mom Fail: Abby Falls Down the Stairs

Had another Mom Fail moment last night. We've been staying in the Bonus Room (more like suite as it has a Bedroom, TV Room, Bathroom, and Craft Room) of my parent's house while ours is being remodeled. Last night I was upstairs in the Bonus Room getting Abby's breathing treatment ready while she played up there with me. I heard her crawl away and knew that she was heading towards the stairs as she's been having fun going up and down them but I figured she'd stay on the top three like she's been doing. Suddenly I heard silence. I don't know what about the silence alarmed me but alarmed I was. I started calling out to Abby and walking towards the stairs when I heard a weird thump. I just knew she was now falling down the stairs. I ran to the top of the stairs in time to see Abby barrel roll down the last four stairs and crash onto the landing. I raced down as fast as my feet could carry me and swooped her up before the second cry. While holding her I listened to her crying and determined that she was definitely scared and a little shaken but not really hurt. My feelings were affirmed when she caught sight of the cat, stopped crying to check him out a bit, then turned back to me and started crying again. We had another pause when a neat commercial came on the TV, too. So she was scared but other than a probably bump or two just fine. We got an obligatory picture for the scrapbook and I continued with putting Abby to bed.

It was around this time that I felt my left knee. This troublesome knee has been an issue since I got pregnant. It gives out randomly when I'm walking, pops funny when I turn just right, and overall is my weak point. I think running down the stairs devil-may-care tweaked something that continues to be unhappy even the next day. Of course, forgetting that it hurt and kneeling on it to get Abby in her car seat hasn't helped matters. Hopefully my knee issue goes away as quickly as the bruise on Abby's knee from her fall.

Abby checking out the cat in between cries.

My baby girl was scared!

House Interior Remodel: Day 4

My new accent wall is painted! And I have carpet in the house! And linoleum!

Granted the carpet and linoleum are still being cut out and are mostly just laying in the rooms, but they're in the house. I'm so thankful they look good together. I was really concerned as we had carpet and linoleum picked out and then were told that the carpet that we picked wasn't really the greatest quality. (Oh, the things you learn.) So we went back to the drawing board and picked out another carpet that was of a higher quality and then found another linoleum to match the new carpet.

Side note: It's amazing how competent or completely useless sales people can be. We found some great people that really worked with me throughout the process. I mentioned my budget, fiber requests, color preferences, and they showed me right to the samples I needed to look at. Others expected me to walk around the entire store, find something I liked, have them determine the price, and then decide if it was in budget or not. Really? That meant that sometimes I'd pull out 10 samples just to find out they were all out of my price range. (I have great taste!) Ugh. So frustrating. Additionally, no one wants to cut off samples of linoleum to take home to view. I understand the reasoning why they don't want to do this, but to then not have any samples in stock of the desired linoleum meant that I had to decide whether this plastic wrapped roll 20 feet in the air was a color and style I would like. It just amazed me how poor customer service was in some places.

My new accent wall in the kitchen! It's hard to tell here but it's a really awesome reddish-orange color. I'll make sure I post before and after comparisons for the biggest changes at the end of this process. I think the accent wall compliments the new overall house wall color great. You also see Bo and Matt laying our new linoleum.

New carpet in the Guest Bedroom. It's just laying down, not in yet, but I love the color! It matches the walls just awesomely.

Another view of the new carpet and walls in the Office.

Abby's room has the pad showing with rolled up carpet.

Update on Abby - Croup!

Well, after lasts weeks diagnosis by the ER as bronchitis I really expected that the five days of antibiotics would solve our problems. 'Our problems' of course being Abby's nasty cough, runny nose, and overall sickness. I was surprised that, while her cough did get better, her symptoms did not completely disappear. After talking it over with Nate, we decided that even though we were between pediatricians we wouldn't wait until her 12 month well check-up and instead take her in early. My concern was having a doctor who had never seen Abby before try to diagnosis what might be wrong when they had no baseline. I'm thankful that I was convinced of the error of my ways. Dr. Dizon (from Lourdes West Pasco Office - yep, we officially made the switch from Kadlec to Lourdes due to my sister's convincing discussion points) was extremely competent and quickly ascertained that Abby had croup. After listening to Abby breathing, and an overall ear, nose, throat exam, she expanded upon my description of Abby's symptoms by mentioning the little things that Abby was probably doing that I hadn't already mentioned (figuring that mentioning everything might overwhelm and distract from focusing on the biggest problem of breathing difficulty). It was then that Dr. Dizon said Abby had croup and started us on our breathing treatment regiment.

Fighting croup is turning out to be a little harder than simply giving liquid medicine a few times a day. We have a nebulizer and three times a day Abby sits (or nurses) for her breathing treatments. This means that twice a day I'm holding Miss A for 20+ minutes (when she gets two types of drugs to breathe) and once a day for 10+ minutes (only one drug) so that she can breathe in her meds. Do you know how hard it is to have my little energizer bunny sit still for that long?! Thankfully her Doctor said that nursing while getting the treatment would be just fine, otherwise I think we'd have more of a battle.

Already we're noticing improvement. For the past month or so Abby has been waking up 2-3 times a night and sometimes she's up for a few hours. This has meant that I get little to no sleep and it's affecting our family life. No sleep for mama means less chores are done as I'm too tired, I'm grumpy a lot more often, and I have a much shorter temper. Last night, after just her first three treatments, she woke up only once and went back to sleep after a quick nursing session. Hallelujah! We have at least two more weeks of treatments, but I'm hopeful that at the end of these two weeks I have my happy and healthy baby girl back!

ETA - Abby is now 23 lb.s 1 oz. and 30 inches tall with a 46cm head circumference. She's 81% for height and weight. Continues the little head with a slightly above average height and weight.

House Interior Remodel: Day 3

Linoleum is going in!

Today we stopped by the house to find Bo and Matt (our floor guys) putting down the glue for the new linoleum. It's actually an interesting process as they apply a layer, wait for it to dry, apply, dry, etc until all the grove lines from our old linoleum has been filled in and the floor is a nice flat surface for the new linoleum to lay on top. I didn't get a picture of it but there was a moment when both were laying down the glue and were totally synchronized in their trowel movements. :-)

We also had more rooms painted in their new colors. The house is definitely coming together!

Here's Bo laying down the glue for the new linoleum. You can see our new wall color on the left by the bay windows. No more mustard yellow!

Okay, I had to add this in! We brought dinner to eat at the house but with all the furniture out we didn't have any spots to set down drinks. Without even thinking about it both Nate and I set our drinks (mine a pop, Nate's beer) on Abby's tray. Without hesitation she picked up our drinks and tried to get a taste! Fortunately, mine was all but empty and Nate's was too heavy for her to tilt up to take a sip. But we did get some funny shots. :-)

Mmm. Beer.

What? Why are you taking so many pictures of me?

I actually think the cold bottle felt good against her gums. She's been trying to pop through a tooth for the longest time.

My beautiful Guest Bedroom with it's new wall and trim colors.

The Guest Bathroom

Abby's room without flooring.

The Office with its new colors.

House Interior Remodel: Day 2

Today's big remodeling excitement was that the wall colors were started. We liked the original color theme of the house (mustard yellow in the living room and brick red in the living room) but the colors themselves were a bit on the dark side. That and the only splash of color in the house was in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Every other room was white, white, white. With our remodel we (and by that I mean me as Nate didn't care too much so long as it wasn't too dark or too ugly) decided to put color in all the rooms, keep the accent wall, but tone down the overall brightness of the colors. I'm really hopeful that we succeeded with our paint choices. Anyhoo, so the wall color that is going throughout the house has been started.

Here's a wall in the Living Room. The old mustard color is still up in the middle, but you can see the new shade along the floor, ceiling, and around the light fixtures. There's also another peak at the ceiling color.

Another view of the difference between the old and new colors. I'm really loving the lightness of the new color.

Here's a view of the Guest Bedroom as it transforms from white walls to our new color.