A's bed

Well, her bed is finished now, actually has been for about two weeks. And it's changed since this picture too. Lots of pillows and Joel built a railing for her. While she was sleeping, her legs kept drifting toward the side and she would slide out of bed or wake up as she was about to. Several times a night! So he built a railing and it's been great! Just one more thing he's been doing!!

Po-ees

That's Abigail's word for pony tails. I only have a second, so I'll just post that picture for you! Enjoy!

Recently...

Joel has been busy around here with all kinds of fun projects. We finally saved up enough money to get a mattress for Abigail, so she's sleeping on that now (it's on the floor for now) and we moved the crib into Eli's room. I think I mentioned that I found two matching headboards and footboards in the trash. Joel sanded one set down and bought some wood and made connector pieces today. We use those bowed-wooden slat things here for under mattresses, so he made the pieces to fit one of those, stained them to match the bed pieces and I think we'll be bringing it up to her room tomorrow. Really it's just a temporary bed for her, I'd like to get her a more "feminine" one some day, but we really needed to get Eli into the crib. She was excited!

He is getting so mobile! We still had the bassinet feature in the pak-n-play and he would rock himself in it! Somehow he ended up ripping the siding away from the bottom even! I couldn't find his binky one day and finally found it inside the bottom of the pak-n-play and wondered how it got there and then noticed thread and discovered a hole in the siding. Then that evening he was moaning in his sleep and I went up and his head was stuck in the hole which was then about 1 1/2 feet long! I got him out of bed and took the bassinet out and put the mattress in the bottom. It was just as well because he is starting to pull himself up on things now! Crazy!!So we got A's new mattress brought up the other night and we were both wondering how well she would transition, so we all were playing in her room for awhile. We left the crib in there too. She was really enjoying her mattress, walking all over it, etc. Then we asked her what should we do with her old bed since she has a new one?? She was just looking at it...so we asked if we should give it to Eli and she said, "Yeah!" So then we moved it into his room. Then Joel did story time with her, prayed with her, told her the new! sleep rules (i.e. don't get out of bed or your room!) and left the room.

Meanwhile, I was feeding Eli and putting him to bed and he cried for about an hour that night! He was so upset because of the new environment and (I'm pretty sure) frustrated that this new bed doesn't move! So I was in his room, holding him, sitting with him, looking at his "new" room with him. Finally he started reaching for his bed and batting at the sides, then trying to lean in to it. So I put him in and he played for awhile then eventually got sleepy enough and fell asleep.

We even let play around in it before bedtime!

This morning he cried for about 45 minutes before finally falling asleep...which for him, 2 minutes of crying is a lot! Once he finally got into his sleep schedule, I put him in bed, he grabs his bear/blanket and he goes to sleep. Then again tonight, he was frustrated and up on his knees trying to rock and crying! It was about 45 more minutes of trying to calm him down before he finally fell asleep. Poor little guy!

Here we thought Abigail was going to have a rough time and it was him! I didn't think he would have any problems adjusting...apparently I was way wrong!! Hopefully tomorrow will be better for him!
Joel is about to go to bed and checked on the kids. Abigail was sleeping beside the bed, with her body on the floor and her head on the mattress...I think we're going to need to do a side rail or something! : )

Cooked carrots

(We're having a thunderstorm right now and lightening and thunder just struck at the same time. Wow!)

Okay, so on to cooked carrots...

The other night we were having steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots with a cheese sauce to make them tasty. : ) Abigail liked taking the broccoli and dipping in in the sauce and then just licking it off. Toward the end of the meal we asked her to eat just one of the carrots. She didn't want to but in the end she finally put it in her mouth. And held it, and held it, and held it.

She just held it there for about 5 minutes! We kept telling her to chew and then chewing something ourselves to encourage her. She would appear to be chewing and then would open her mouth and the carrot was still just sitting on her tongue. I couldn't help laughing because I remember doing the exact same thing when I was little and having everyone around the table encouraging me to "just swallow!" So I could commiserate with her a bit. And Joel doesn't like carrots, so he felt bad asking her to eat it in the first place. : )

I thought you might enjoy hearing that little story! I don't have any pictures, because I didn't want to encourage her. But it was funny!

Birthday Boxes!

Dear Papa & Gramma and Great Gramma,

Thank you for the shus, the ak (octopus sprinkler), the nek (necklaces and bracelets), the ha (hats) and all the koz (clothes)! I really like the shus, the nek and the ha! I like pink. I love you. Love, Abby

Thanks for all those great clothes! You're right, there are some really cute outfits! It's nice to have multiple shirts for the same pants/shorts too. The one shirt that says "I can always play the Cute Card" is super cute and soooo true! : ) And she loves the jewelry...although, I'm going to set them aside for awhile. She doesn't understand that you can't just pull them on and off like her other ones and I don't want her to ruin them. And the hats are super cute! She put those on right away as well as the shoes. She's worn both pairs already today and it's only 1:30! She'll get some good use out of those!

Joel has to get an attachment for our hose for the sprinkler, but you can see in the pictures that she likes it already! She's going to have fun with that, thanks for getting it for her. I'll get pictures when she uses it.

Thanks too for the two shirts for me! That was sweet of you! And the clothes and hat for Eli are great too! I told Joel that sleeveless one makes his arms look muscular! : )

Abigail has been carrying the birthday card around all day asking to have it read to her. I think I have it memorized now! Thanks for sending all the gifts! I know it costs A LOT so, thank you! It's worth it!

We're heading down to LJ today. The Jackson girls are going to babysit for us and we're going to go out for dinner. We're both looking forward to that. Maybe we can do a video call tomorrow morning your time?