Update on Abbie

Before I forget everything, I need to do an update on the kids. Abbie at 21 months-ish OK so Abbie at 21-22 months.

Abigail

She really started talking over the holidays and now can say just about anything she wants to say. She went into the holidays just knowing a few animal names but most all of their sounds. Now she says the animal names from dog & cat to giraffe & elephant. She still is an animal lover.

and she's a chocolate lover :)

 She also learned her colors. All of a sudden she can name and identify objects that are red, blue, yellow, green, pink, purple, orange, black, and white. We've also learned that she loves purple. It started in Utah that she would prefer to use the purple spoon, or plate at meal time and now she has her favorite purple socks and bows. She now has opinions on what she wears which makes things interesting. I can normally get her to wear whatever but she'll put up a fight some days. I will let her pick out her own bow every day. We rotate between purple, pink and sometimes red.

Abbie loves Elmo, and I guess the feeling is mutual

 She loves the Alphabet, she will sing along with the song and knows parts of it. It pretty much sounds like A B C ......G! .....P!....S!...V,W,X,Z! now.. know ...Cs ...with me! OK Yeah I should insert a video of her singing it here. It's on my to-do-list :) She can identify a few of them, A, J, M, & W consistently. She is learning shapes, circle, triangle, heart, star, and working on the rest.

Jackson's example has helped her to learn so quickly

She has gotten amazing at puzzles and its her new favorite toy. While she used to be (and still is) our little book reader, now puzzles are climbing the ranks. She plays with puzzles and books more than toys for sure. She can quickly figure out new peg puzzles and now has started doing basic 9 and 12 piece puzzles. She can memorize them and then do them easily. We have 4 of these puzzles that she does over and over. She also loves her two Alphabet puzzles and has those about memorized too. We just need to work on getting the letters the right way sometimes.

She is still an amazing sleeper! She'll take a 2-2 1/2 hour nap and sleep 12 hours at night. She rarely wakes up early. She still goes to bed without a fight and loves cuddling up with her blanket and binkies. The only time she gets them (or wants them actually) is in her crib and I think we'll phase out around the time baby comes around.

She's getting to be a pickier eater. Dairy is her favorite food group, cheese and yogurts are some of her favorites. But sometimes she'll even refuse fruit which is crazy to me since it's Jackson's favorite food group. I have started feeding her baby food pouches again and she'll still devour those! She would prefer a spinach/pear pouch than pear slices - silly girl. But at least I can get her to eat veggies that way!

She is such a sweet girl and has completely melted our hearts! But oh she can be drama. She has become even more of a mama's girl lately, I don't know if it's because I'm pregnant and she senses times are a-changing or what, but it's gotten ridiculous. She had been getting better about it, and now its gotten bad again.

This face...

If I had a dollar for every time she said, "mama hold you" during the day I'd be getting a mani/pedi every night. Literally. Especially when I'm in the kitchen or bathroom so yeah I end up setting her on the counter next to me a lot and she'll sometimes be satisfied with that and other times keep wanting to be held. I used to be able to go upstairs for a few minutes and she'd be fine downstairs with Jackson but now she freaks out if I leave whatever story of the house she's on and will notice immediately and start heading up the stairs crying. Oh and now she has refused to climb downstairs. She can do it just fine, but just will scream "mama hold you" and sit at the top. I normally don't have the time so I just carry her but occasionally I'll force her to at least climb half alone but it is such an event.

I was trying to go outside to shovel the driveway but of course she wouldn't let me...

She loves her brother so much and if he asks her nicely for a toy or book she's holding, she'll hand it to him 99% of the time. I wish it went both ways :) But oh their relationship is so stinkin cute and one of my favorite things as a mother.

They love each other

And she also loves and talks about her best friend Alice all the time!

Her new love, the kitchen! "What you want mama? Hot dog and Orange Juice?"

There are a few different friends who we've left Abbie with, the Pulleys, Rawcliffes, Holbrooks, Morris'. And it's always such a scene when we leave. She screams and won't leave my lap until I force her off and pretty much run out the door feeling awful. I normally get a text 2 minutes later. Abbie is totally fine, happy, laughing and playing with toys! That little teaser, kills me every time but she really does great in nursery and at play dates other than that initial drop off.

She is our little princess and we're loving our time with her as our youngest :)