7 Quick Takes Friday

--- 1 ---

I didn't realize how much I was looking forward to Spring until we had a few GLORIOUS days of sunshine and high temperatures and then I woke up this morning to cold, cold, cold. Sure the sun is shining but it's a tricky sunshine as you step outside and your toes curl into themselves to try to find warmth. Hopefully my Spring weather that allows for capris and flip flops is soon to be here!

--- 2 ---

Mornings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays have been fun since I started a Couch to 5k running program. On those three days I load Abby up into our jogger and run along the water front at Howard Amon Park for 30 or so minutes and then we play on the swings and slides for another 30 or so until it's time to go home for her morning nap. I love the squeal of delight she gives as we turn the corner at the end of my cool down and she sees the playground. She knows she's close to having a super fun time. :-)

--- 3 ---

Nate finally got the A-OK to begin work on a contract that he's been waiting on since January. I honestly don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand this contract has given him the approval to start charging for the overtime he works so we'll be bringing in a bit more income (yeah!), but on the other hand now that he's getting paid for his overtime he's wanting to work a lot (boo!). It's been a tricky balance trying to step up and recognize that he's not going to be home as much without whining about it. So long as we don't have a repeat of last Summer where he was studying for his PE (Professional Engineer certificate) and was completely unavailable for months on end I should be OK.

--- 4 ---

Abby had her first eye appointment last week. It was a basic baby checkup just to make sure that her eyes were developing as they should and she past with flying colors. Or, well, she's at least only as farsighted as she should be right now. :-) The Doctor was super nice to her and had fun techniques for checking out her vision. Instead of trying to put her in the device where you say whether option 1 or 2 is more clear he had her grab for tools while putting up different lenses to her eyes to see how she responded. He also watched her play in the waiting room to see how well her hand/eye coordination was. All in all he did very well with her. With all the insurance changes we've had due to Nate's jobs it's sometimes a pain to have to keep switching providers, but I'm glad we found someone who will work out for us for the foreseeable future.

--- 5 ---

After a month of the sick fairy visiting our house I'm hopeful that she's finally left for good. It's no fun being sick and it's even more horrible when you have to take care of a child. I haven't decided which is worse: being sick yourself and taking care of a sick child with all the whining and temper tantrums, or being sick yourself and taking care of a healthy child who is full of energy? Hopefully it's a long, long time before I have to contemplate that question again.

--- 6 ---

I'm looking forward to an upcoming trip where Abby and I will be joining Nate on a business trip. I'll get to catch up with friends and family that I haven't seen in almost a year. There's a few girls that were in my sorority in college that I'm especially looking forward to seeing. I usually only get to see them once a year so I really enjoy our visits. It's fun catching up with them and all the life changes that have happened to all of us. I just wish we lived closer so that I could see them more often. Honestly, unless Nate changes fields I don't see that happening. Seattle is not a pro-nuclear town. :-)

--- 7 ---

It's silly but I found the neatest thing that I'm looking forward to installing in our house. It's one of those Made for TV mesh screens to put on your sliding glass door. Abby has a hoot playing outside, and loves opening and closing the screen door, but tends to leave it wide open at times. This has led to a few flying bugs getting into our house (not a fan!). This screen is built so that it attaches to the frame somehow and then has an opening in the middle that magnetically shuts. Basically it's like a curtain that you walk through that will shut behind you. I think Abby will have just as much fun pushing the sides apart and watching them pull back together and it will mean less bugs in my house. Double win!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Abby Goes Boating

My parents have decided that only having one child to support (David has one more year of college) is awesome. So celebrate their freedom they bought a, would have been nice to own when we were younger and would have used it more often, jet boat. Or at least a boat that you can water ski and innertube behind. We were out of town the weekend they first took the boat out so to make up for missing out, they had us join them for a random Tuesday night outing.

It's different being on a boat when all adults vs. having a child on board, especially when it's your child. Normally going over the wake would be an exciting few bumps. Turns would be thrilling. Going fast is a must. However, when holding on to your own small child (who is in a too-large life jacket because you weren't able to find an infant one in time - this has since been rectified) that wake makes the boat jar up and down far too much. Those turns mean that your baby is sliding off your lap and towards the edge of the boat. Going fast means you have that much less time to react to anything negative. I'm sure my heightened fear was due to this being the first time out with her, but goodness I was thankful when Dad slowed the boat to a stop so we could enjoy eating dinner on the water. I'm glad she's still a few years away from riding behind in an innertube or jumping off the side to cool down.

Why are you wearing that funny hat, Grandma?

Abby was a little nervous herself. Whenever we were moving she would stiffly hold her arms up like you see here. I don't think she knew what to think. Me holding on super tight to her straps couldn't have helped either.

A view of the boat.

My goofy sailor girl!

What Are Your Favorite Blogs?

I was browsing around the web looking at various blogs and marveling at how many MILLIONS of blogs their must be. Millions? Heck, maybe even billions. I got to thinking (since I have a few followers of this blog) what are your favorite blogs that you follow? I'd love to check them out and see if they might be up my alley!

Abby Shares So Well

Normally when I say that my Abby is a great 'sharer' I am highlighting a positive, not today. :-) You'll be happy to know that after Abby's bout with a stomach bug (see blog post: Oh What a Night) she's doing much better. Her appetite is back to almost normal and we're just contending with the after affects of a stomach bug by going through a few changes of clothes a day due to blow/leak-outs of her diaper. No biggie. I mention that Abby is a great 'sharer' because she so lovingly shared this bug with me!

My goodness. This was not fun. I don't know which was worse, experiencing the bug affects myself or having to watch Abby go through them. All I could think about during my sickness was that my little girl had to go through this and I felt so sorry for her. Thankfully Nate is an awesome husband and father and really stepped up to the plate to take care of us. I started getting sick Monday night and kept at it through Tuesday morning. Once I'd finished the throwing up phase of this illness I basically stayed in bed sleeping or resting as that's all I could physically do. Nate stayed home and took care of Abby and the house. It's nice knowing that when I'm really out for the count I can depend so easily on someone else to take over.

Now that I'm better I'm praying that Nate avoids this sickness. I figure that if we get to Friday we'll be in the clear for sure. I'm also praying that this takes care of our family's illnesses for a while. The sick fairy needs to leave our house! In the past month we've had me come down with a horrible cold, Abby get a nasty rash from my stupidity (she's allergic to tomatoes and while I was sick with my cold I fed her Chef Boyardi (a tomato based pasta sauce) a lot that week - mom fail!), Abby get a stomach bug, and then I got her stomach bug. Normally it's Nate and Abby who get sick so I guess I was due, however I've now paid up so it's healthy time! No more sickness for us!

Oh What a Night!

Warning! This post deals with the subject of vomit. You've been warned!

Last night was a night that will go down in infamy. Nate had been out of town in Boston for the past week and was due home later that evening. As a treat to Abby and I for making it through the week without him, I decided to take her to Rosy's, a local diner, for dinner and dessert. Just as I took the exit to get on the freeway I heard Abby make a strange coughing sound followed by a whimper/whine. I started talking to her thinking she was wanting out of her carseat when suddenly that cough turned into hacking and the sound of her throwing up. I quickly pulled over to the side of the road, jumped out of the car, and wrenched open her door. What I saw was my daughter spewing forth vomit like in The Exorcist movie. It was everywhere! I quickly unbuckled her and swept her up in a hug as I could tell she was upset and needed her mommy. After a few minutes of hugs and telling her she was going to be okay I began the grotesque process of cleaning out the vomit, as best I could, from herself, myself, and her car seat and then strapped her back in and headed for home. (It was slightly funny as I was talking to myself telling me to just grab the darn vomit and not be a sissy about it. I hate having my fingers dirty so grabbing such yuck with my bare hands was a proud momma moment!)

Once we got home I decided we would both hop into the bathtub and get all sparkly clean again. When we were both smelling better it was time to try to get a little something into her tummy and then tackle the car. I'll admit that hosing down the car seat was a bit cathartic. I turned the spray on high and just blasted away! Hee! Abby was cute sitting in her highchair in the garage munching on a piece of toast watching me. It was like I was this big entertainment show that she got to enjoy for free. I figured that after I'd gotten the car decently cleaned up and Abby fed we could settle in to watch a movie while we waited for Nate to get home (as he was due home in just an hour by this time). Instead the night took a turn.

About 30 minutes after her first throw-up episode Abby started to get really fussy and whiny and just wasn't content with anything. I just happened to be by the kitchen sink when she started vomiting again. Not quite as bad as before but definitely another stomach emptying episode. I got her calmed down and began to wonder what I was dealing with. I took her temperature (a little high but nothing abnormal since she'd had a warm bath a bit ago) and gave her some water to drink. 15 minutes later we were back at the kitchen sink for another vomit. 15 minutes after that I was once again holding my baby trying to speak calm words and rub her back while she threw up. It was at this time that I decided to go to urgent care. As a new Mom I haven't had to deal with a baby throwing up and wasn't 100% positive of the treatment regime. (I called my sister who is a nurse, after the second episode, who gave me great advice but after the third time throwing up I wanted someone to see her.) It turned out that as I was getting ready to leave Nate showed up so I, thankfully, had support in caring for Abby.

When we got to urgent care I found out that, while they do care about people, they are still a business. We arrived an hour before closing but as there were three people ahead of us they were concerned that they wouldn't be able to do any tests or really see her before sending us home at closing time. So they gave us the option of going to the ER or coming back the next day at 8am when they opened. As we were walking back to the parking lot discussing our options Abby threw up again and, since she was now throwing up only bile as she didn't have anything in her stomach, Nate decided we were going to visit the ER that night.

The ER was actually much better than I'd anticipated (if ever you are driving through Richland, WA Kadlec Medical Center is a fantastic hospital and you will be well taken care of there!) as there was no one waiting there and we were seen immediately. They confirmed that Abby didn't have a temperature and only had a mildly elevated heart-rate, which was most likely due to her dislike of doctors and them touching her. :-) We did have to wait a bit for the actual ER doctor to see her (during which she threw up twice) because he stepped into our room to examine her and then was called out to answer a phone call.

Now, this is where I had a bit of humor for the evening. I'd been trying to wean Abby for the past few days (I want to say the morning of the 10th was the last time she'd nursed) but she had become really upset and I figured I'd at least have her attach to see if that helped calm her down. I was a little surprised that she was able to get any milk, but I guess I can produce even after weeks of reduced nursing. (Aren't nursing moms awesome!) Well,when the Doctor came back into the room and saw me nursing he immediately turned to face the back of the room and looked up at the ceiling and said he'd wait until I was finished give me some modesty. I told him it was fine and to look at Abby. He again said he could wait until I was finished. Since I didn't want Abby to wait any longer to get looked at I popped her off and put everything back in it's place and called him over. First ear was clear of infection. As I turned her over to have him look at her other ear he again turned his back to me and told me he'd wait until I was finished nursing!

Okay, first of all what nursing session takes such a short time that a doctor can just idly wait by? Second, why is a doctor, particularly an ER doctor, who must see horrific injuries so concerned about a boob? I honestly did not get him. After talking to some friends there was mention that he was probably trying to be helpful in case I was wanting more of a discrete nursing session or that perhaps he'd been burned in the past by a breastfeeding mom and so was extra careful to go out of his way to try to make me as comfortable as possible with nursing. Odd that his demeanor actual had the opposite effect and made me a little uncomfortable. :-) I don't know what it is but I, who am a pretty modest person (shirts have higher necklines, fabric isn't too tight, skirts and dresses are at/or below the knee), am carefree when it comes to nursing. My baby needs to eat so I'll feed her as she needs. In fact it was Nate who got me to wear a cover as he said that he would appreciate me covering up so others couldn't see me. Anyhoo - back on track. Just thought it was funny how the doctor was more focused on me nursing than on treating Abby when I hadn't a care about who saw me.

So where was I...oh, yeah. So the doctor looked over Abby and declared her free of infection that he could see and it was probably just a stomach virus. A nasty one as at this point in time she'd thrown up nine times over the past two and a half hours. We got a prescription for Zofran and took our baby home to try to get her to bed.

Here was another new experience for me as I tried get my baby, who was still throwing up every half hour, to fall asleep long enough to have her stomach settle with the Zofran and Pedialite in it so she could stop heaving. It wasn't until midnight that she finally had her last vomit bout and fell asleep for a good bit. The hardest part was seeing her little body kick and squirm while she gasped for breath while also throwing up. I know how horrible that feeling is and to not be able to do much more than hold her and give her comforting words was so hard. (The second hardest was realizing, after we put her down and thought she was done throwing up, that she'd actually thrown up by herself in her bed. We thought she was just coughing since we didn't hear any gagging so we let her stay in her crib thinking that she'd roll over and fall back asleep. It wasn't until we heard a second round of coughing that included gagging that we went to get her. I felt horrible when I realized that I wasn't there to comfort her when she was throwing up.)  Finally, finally she calmed down enough to pass out for the night (or at least a few hours as she woke up at 3:30am just as thirsty as could be). By the end she'd thrown up 16 times in a little under seven hours.

This morning she woke up just as chipper as could be! She's drinking Pedialite and water like it's going out of style, isn't eating too much but enough to make us happy, and has had a massive blow-out of yuck so we know that whatever hit her has worked it's way out of her system. I have no idea what that virus was but I'm so thankful it was quick to come and quick to go. Prior to her throwing up in the car she was the happiest baby on the block, so to speak. At first I thought that she must have gotten carsick somehow. It wasn't until throw up number three that I began to think otherwise.

The positive out of all this is that I now know the steps to take when I have a vomiting baby. Plus, I feel more comfortable taking her in to see a professional when I get worried. The ER doctor was very nice in telling us, when we asked if an ER or urgent care visit was necessary if something like this happened again, that seeing a professional is actually helpful and we shouldn't hesitate any longer than we feel comfortable to do so. Seeing her while in the midst of her sickness helps them determine if something bigger is occurring, especially at her young age. So all in all a night I don't care to repeat again anytime soon! Hopefully your neck of the woods isn't experiencing any sickness like this, or if it is, that you escape it without harm! We are so thankful our Abby is back to normal!

Allergies, Allergies, Allergies

Abby has been a sick little girl as of late. A constant runny nose has been the most recurring ailment of all the things she's been catching. During a doctor's visit it was suggested that she may have allergies so we decided to get her tested to see if this was the case. Oddly enough, we were surprised to find out that Abby only had one seasonal allergy (to the Box Elder Tree) when we thought she may have many as Nate does. However, we did find out that she does have a few food allergies. She's considered slightly allergic to cow's milk and peanuts (the test states that any result equal to or below 0.10 is considered not allergic whereas Abby showed a 0.14 to cow's milk and a 0.15 to peanuts) and moderately allergic to bananas and tomatoes (I believe it was 0.69 and 0.85, respectively). This was especially surprising as we've been feeding Abby bananas weekly without any obvious signs of allergies. But we decided to cut out the bananas and tomatoes as removing them might help with her runny nose and other 'sick' symptoms. (We decided that the cow's milk was so low, and with it being pretty normal to have a sensitivity to it at her age as her body transitions from getting breast milk to cow milk that we wouldn't worry too much about this one. As for peanuts, she doesn't get any nuts due to only having two teeth so we just try and not feed her any items with peanut butter in them, but don't freak if she does happen to have something.)

Not having allergies myself (or at least knowing of any) means that I'm not too familiar with remembering to restrict items from our diet. This came to a head when I caught some random bug (that no one else in the family got) and went into survival mode for a week. If it didn't absolutely have to get done it didn't. Feeding Abby became an option of what quick-heated up item can I give her today? I happened to have Chef Boyardi in the cupboard so she ended up eating that for lunch every day for a week. Are you familiar with this stuff? If so, you know that it's pasta in TOMATO sauce. Yep, for a week straight for at least one meal a day I fed my daughter an item that she was pretty darn allergic to. Towards the end of the week I noticed a funny rash on her right side and only on her right side. It started out in a pretty small spot but as the week went on it got bigger and bigger. I was pretty concerned so Nate and I agreed to get Abby in to see the pediatrician. He also thought it was an allergic reaction and so we must have spent a good 15 minutes going over all the environmental changes that may have happened over the past week which could have caused this. In the end, without anything coming to mind, we decided on a course of steroids to quickly get rid of whatever was inside of her that was causing problems. Would you believe that as I left the doctor's office parking lot heading towards getting groceries at Wal-Mart a light bulb went off and I suddenly realized that I'd been feeding Abby tomatoes all week. I felt like such an idiot!

Thankfully the steroids did the trick and cleared up the nasty rash. Abby does seem to be feeling better as well. Hopefully I'll start doing better on remembering no bananas and no tomatoes!

I first noticed her rash on March 29th during bath time.

Then on April 2nd I noticed that it had spread from just on her side to around towards her tummy.

On April 9th it was evident that there was a problem that wasn't going away.

Her small rash had turned into hives!

What had started out as a smallish spot on her back had traveled around to cover her tummy and up all the way into her armpit and down onto her hip.

She was not happy that I took that last picture! Is it wrong of me that I find this picture of her crying totally adorable? :-)

Happy Easter!

He is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

Nate, Abby, and I had a fun and relaxing Easter Sunday. We started off the day bright and early by heading to the 7:30am mass. It was crowded like I expected but not overly so. Normally I would have gone to the 9:30am mass which is like a zoo (mass is held in both the church and the school gym and it's so packed that, literally, every available seat is full and the narthex (lobby) is jam-packed with standing bodies), but with Abby's normal wake-up time being 7am we figured we'd rather wake her up a few minutes early and have her fully awake at mass rather than get there 30 minutes before she would be wanting to go down for a nap. The timing worked beautifully! Abby was fantastic throughout mass. She happily played in either Nate, mine, or my Mom's arms (Grandpa was on the other side of Grandma and out of reach) or on the kneelers. After mass we even had two different groups of people stop by to tell us how great she was. The people behind us and another couple whom Abby gave a fabulous grin to while we were walking back from receiving communion/a blessing. It's always a nice parenting pat on the back when others acknowledge what you already know. That your child is awesome! :-)

After church we went out to breakfast with my parents and with some good friends of ours whom we'd seen at mass - Rick and Danica Garcia with their daughter Adria. Danica and I both enjoyed breakfast at SagePort Grill as we'd both commented on how we'd planned an elaborate Easter brunch but sickness (mine) and other time commitments (hers) kept us from grocery shopping. So it was either a yummy brunch out or scrambling for cereal for the family. I think the families agreed that out was better.

Once home we spent the rest of the day out in the beautiful sunshine working in the yard. We'd been invited to and Easter dinner with my sister and her boyfriend's family, but my cold kept us home. As of today I've been sick 16 days and while I'm getting progressively better each day I'm not over it yet. It was still a fun time, though. Abby played in her playhouse or in the rocks and Nate and I worked at removing tree roots from one of our rock areas. The roots, while having taken a beating, won the war that day. It's going to take at least another weekend before they're gone or at least buried far below ground.

The end of Easter had the three of us sitting on the floor in the living room just talking and laughing. It was the perfect ending to a great day. I will admit that I'm looking forward to next year when Abby can participate in an Easter egg hunt. She's not a fan of crawling on grass so hiding eggs outside was out and she got to distracted by all the other fun stuff in our house to hunt down eggs inside. She did enjoy opening one and eating the M&Ms from it, though. :-)

A picture of the family after mass.

Abby Updates

I noticed it had been a while since I'd posted any Abby updates so I went through my cameras and found a few pictures that I thought you would like. Without further ado...!

Abby loves her dolls! Randomly one day she picked one up and started rocking and patting its back. It's the cutest thing to see and you can definitely tell she's learned to mimic what Mommy and Daddy do.

The nice part is that she's willing to play with her dolls for quite a while on her own. It's not all the time but every once in a while I get a good 20 minutes of Abby playing dolls by herself which frees me up to either have a much needed break or to do a non-Abby-helping chore.

Abby has learned to drink out of a straw! Granted she still enjoys sucking up the water and then letting it spill out of her mouth, but if I've forgotten a sippy cup at a restaurant I know she's still able to get some liquid in her.

Aunt Katie and Cousin Haylee bought Abby a sandbox set. This wagon has gotten much use pulling Abby and getting lots of rocks dumped in it.

Nate had a business trip in Corvallis, OR so Abby and I came long. One of the days that Nate was working Abby and I headed to a local park. There were a few kids there already so Abby had a blast learning to swing (she'd been on one before but it'd been since last summer) and watching how the big kids did it.

While working in the kitchen one day I turned around and found Abby sitting in 'her' drawer. :-)

She LOVES to read books. More often than not if I can't find her I only need to look in the office where she'll have surrounded herself with all the books on the bottom book shelf. I gave up on any sort of organization for that shelf long ago.

Abby still isn't walking but she's perfected her standing. She can now squat and play with objects for a minute or so before standing back up. She actually took her first step the other day! We think she tricked herself in that she was holding on to one of my shoes, casually took two steps, then looked at the shoe and realized she wasn't holding on to anything steady. That's all it took for her to promptly sit on her bottom. Any day now we figure she'll get up enough courage to try to take more steps.

I was babysitting Cousin Haylee one day and the two girls had a blast! Haylee ended up pulling Abby around the yard in her tunnel. I could hear the giggled all the way in the house. :-)

See those two beautiful, pearly white teeth. Yep! Abby finally got teeth! It was a week or so after her first birthday when the first tooth finally popped through (when looking at her it was the one on the left) and then another three or so days and the second one popped through. I keep feeling her gums but I'm not feeling any more teeth right now. Considering these first two took over a year to come to fruition I'm not holding my breath for any more any time soon.

More patting and playing with baby. (By the way, all her dolls are called Baby. Much easier to keep them straight that way!)

Abby LOVES to climb on our couches. I get tired just watching her climb up and down them all day long.

My little goober with her walker. She's making that scrunched up grin with her eyes closed all the time now. It's adorable!

While getting breakfast ready one morning Abby decided to help. Climbed in the freezer all by herself then sat there until I finally pulled her out. You'd think her little tush would have gotten cold.

She loves to bounce now. At one of the open gym sessions she must have crawled up and bounced on this toy for half the session. Part of me wants to get a mini trampoline for at home but the other part wonders how many toys is too many!

Just a pretty picture. :-)

Yep, there's that goofy grin again (of which I love!).

After dinner this Friday we had a rare family night off of responsibilities. So we took Abby to the park and then out for ice cream. Nate hasn't had a chance to see her on the swings (darn that job!) so it was fun showing off her abilities to him. I think he was amazed at how mobile she is right now and how much of a 'big girl' she can be.

Finally, Abby and I going down the slide. She did a lot on her own but I thought this was a cute one of the two of us.

Well, there's your update! I think I've gotten all the important major milestones in there (standing, squatting, first teeth, first steps, and overall cuteness). Hopefully I'll be more on the ball and you'll get actual individual posts for the next big events that happen in our family. :-)

Happy 32nd Birthday to Me!

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear me,
Happy birthday to me!

I have been remiss on posting updates on this blog! The only excuse I have is a series of books by George R. R. Martin called A Song of Ice and Fire. Since I had no idea this was the actual series title you may better know these books as The Game of Thrones which is actually the first book in the series and an HBO TV series. Oh, my, goodness. These books are right up my alley: medieval setting, intrigue, murder, crimes of passion, a bit of fantasy with dragons and some magic. I started reading the first book when I had a bit of downtime and I enjoyed it so much that I quickly went back and bought the next three books in the series. I then spent all waking hours reading only pausing when Abby needed attention, the housework chores wouldn't wait, dinner needed prepped, or Nate needed attention. I went through the first four books in the series in about a week or so. I'm holding out on book five until it comes out in paperback (please don't tell me if it already has! My house needs me!) as I've already spent too much time on these books. I did watch the first episode of the TV show (our household is cable free so I have to wait until either Amazon or Netflix has shows available to be able to see them) and I'm liking it so far. I imagined the characters a little differently but as I think Sean Bean and Lena Headley are great actors/actresses I'm happy to see this version of the story play out.

Now, back to my birthday! :-) Today has been pretty great so far. My in-laws are in town and the family celebrated three birthdays at our house today. My Father-in-Law, myself, and my Grandmother-in-Law. Our birthdays are within a week of each other (FIL is March 27th, mine is April 1st, and GIL is April 3rd) so since Nate and I have been together we've celebrated these three together. My contribution to the day was actually quite a bit in hind sight (especially as I ushered in my 32nd year with a nasty cold). Two casseroles that are famously known as "Aunt Lily's Casserole", two seven-layer salads, and a German chocolate cake with coconut icing. It was my first time making this cake from scratch (not from a box mix) so I was pleased on how it turned out. It's definitely a lot of work but I'm happy to make it for special occasions. I only wish people hadn't eaten so much! I was looking forward to leftover cake tomorrow morning. :-)

I also received some very neat presents. People know how much I love to scrapbook so I got a Cricut cartridge (electronic die-cuts) and a Creative Memories gift certificate. The best present was from Nate, of course. He surprised me with tickets to see Madame Butterfly in Seattle! I've never seen this opera so I'm really, really excited. Not only an adult night out, but a fancy one at that!

All in all this was a great birth day. It's a little weird to think that I'm 32 now. I remember when my Mom turned 32 and I thought she was on the other side of ancient. Now that I'm this age it's a weird feeling. I don't feel old but at the same time 32 seems to be such an 'adult' age and I don't always feel like an adult. I still play hooky from work (see above paragraphs on my book obsession), I still don't have life all figured out (although 42 is supposed to be the answer), and I still enjoy jumping on and then riding the grocery cart through the parking lot (seriously, who doesn't). If anything, I'm looking forward to all the fun and exciting things this year, and being 32, has to offer!

Nate and Abby with Nate's Grandma Sylvia

My sister hates having her picture taken! More often than not we see the back of her head or a hand over her face. I don't know why as she's gorgeous. She needs to flaunt her looks!

My beautiful German Chocolate cake. It was definitely a process to make (I think I dirtied 8 bowls between the cake and the frosting) but well worth it. Mmm mmm good!

See...once again Katie hides!

I have no idea what I was telling Haylee but I was obviously into the telling!

The birthday people blowing out the cake candles. It's been a while since Great Grandma and Grandpa have had to share blowing out candle duty. :-) They were so fast Haylee and Abby didn't get a chance at the candles, so we relit them and blew them out again.

A view of some the spread. Overall we had Aunt Lily's casserole (a meat, noodle, sour cream, and cream cheese concoction), a broccoli salad, a seven-layer salad, deviled eggs, a veggie assortment, garlic bread, cucumber sandwiches, cheese and crackers, pink lemonade, homemade ginger ale, cherry cheesecake, two flavor of ice cream, and my German Chocolate cake. Leftovers tomorrow are going to be awesome!

Miss Abby before gobbling up dessert. I was a mean Mom and took away the plate and made her eat off of her tray. She was already getting special treatment by eating in the living room I wasn't about to give her an object to fling across the room.

Dave opening a bottle of Bombing Range Red wine from my parents. We used to live on Bombing Range Road in West Richland, WA so this was a nostalgic bottle. Back in the days of World War II we had an actual bombing range (practice of course) and the dirt road eventually became a paved road and took on the name of it's previous history. 

Haylee helping me open my birthday gifts.

Abby also helping me open presents.

Abby's Grandma and Great Grandma (Nate's Mom and Grandma) both use wheelchairs. Abby is in love with these toys! She loves to sit in them and then have us push her around. I think she'd do this for hours if we'd let her. At Nate's parents house they even have an electric wheelchair that Abby knows how to operate to move around. I can only imagine what a terror she's going to be in a few years when she'll really understand that wheelchair's joystick. Oh, the banged up walls of our future!