Bath time

Both of my children LOVE their bath time - as I think most children their ages do.  Anyway - I had Aaron snap a few pictures of them in the tub together.  It is hard for me to get any most of the time because I am typically the one bathing them.

Abigail's 1st Birthday

Abigail had her first birthday on July 15th. Hard to believe my little girl is already 1 year old and won't be a baby for that much longer. Although, she just barely started doing the "army crawl" in the week after her birthday and she is on the small side, so she still seem like a baby to me. At her 12 month doctor's visit a little over a week after her birthday her stats were:

• weight: 17 lbs, 3 oz (5th percentile)
• height: 29 in (50th percentile)
  

I was surprised that she had gained less that a pound since her 9 month visit.

Abigail's 12 - month picture

A few things about Abigail at year old:

1. Her favorite thing: mom (the person and the food source - she is proving a little more difficult to ween than her brother)
2. She loves to eat! Even though she is tiny, the girl can eat. She especial like sweets (like ice cream) and demands that she gets some whenever we are having some.
3. Favorite toy - stacking cups and stacking balls.
4. She has the cutest little girly laugh and her daddy and brother can get her laughing the hardest.
5. She a very good little sleeper and has been sleeping through the night since about 4 months.
6. More often than not, she dislikes being put into her car seat and arches her back and screams until finally giving in.
7. She has never taken a pacifier. Instead she prefers to suck on her own tongue ( hey - works for mom and dad, at least she can't loose her tongue in the middle of the night).
8. At the time of her birthday, she had cut 5 teeth and loves to have them brushed.
9. She really likes to stand and frequently will refuse to sit when I need to leave her. So if I can't get her interested in something enough that she will sit, then I have to just lay her on her back, which she doesn't like.

On the day of her Birthday, we spent part of the day at the the Idaho Falls Aquatic center's outside wadding pool with Grandma Bendixsen. Abigail had fun there and ended up taking a nap in Grammy's arms, while her big brother played a while longer.

Abigail swimming in the wadding pool at grandma's feet.

I invited our family that was around and could come to a birthday party that evening. Of course, a 1-year-old doesn't get into present opening all that much, but she did enjoy her birthday cake very much. I made 2 identical "present" cakes, one for guests and a smaller version for Abigail to dig into herself. She ended up being very dainty with her cake. She just picked at the frosting with her index finger, until her uncle Nick and myself helped her brake into the cake part. Then she continued to mostly pick at small cake pieces with her thumb and index fingers. In the end, she did end up being pretty messy but it took her a while to get there and she didn't smear it all over in her hair like some 1-year-olds do.

The 2 "present " cakes.

Abigail trying to grab the candle.

Abigail at the end of eating her cake (she didn't eat all the red fruit-by-the-foot ribbons, some cousins gladly helped)

I took this picture a few days after her birthday when I had her birthday present from mom and dad assembled. She looked very pleased with herself to be sitting on her new horsey.

pictures with daddy

OK - so I have been slacking and have a lot of catching up to do on my blog. Here is the first of hopefully several posts. These pictures are from early to mid July.

Here is a picture of Abigail grinning on daddy's shoulders

We were hanging out with Aaron's brother, Nick, and his wife, Whitney, in her parent's back yard. Jackson got brave enough to take a ride on the jet ski with uncle Nick. He really liked it and talked about it for quite a while afterwords.

Jackson LOVES to read. In fact, he will go up to Aaron in the evenings after dinner and tell him, "daddy put your phone away and read to me." He won't stop until Aaron does read to him. He has even taken to bring books out to home and visiting teachers to have them read to him.

This night, Abigail was getting a kick out of putting a ball in and out of daddy's mouth. She has such a cute little girly laugh. It is so different from what Jackson's was at her age.

Sleeping Beauty

I went to take a shower a couple days ago about 9:30-10 am (unfortunately, this is the time of day or later that I usually get to taking my care of myself).  I left Jackson watching a PBS show and Abigail was playing with some toys on the floor.  When I got out,  I thought it sounded kind of quite, all I could hear was the TV.  When I went to check on kids, this is what I found.

Here is another cute picture of my little sleeping beauty just waking up that was taken about a month ago.

4th of July

We spent the 4th in Blackfoot at my parent's and sister's homes.  It was a nice relaxing day for us.  Jackson was excited for the fireworks because he had seen a few being set off around our neighborhood the previous evening.  We had a BBQ at my parents and then the kids went swimming with their cousins at my sister's house before there was a brief rain shower.  Then we helped churn homemade ice cream and enjoyed eating it.  We had thought about going back to Idaho Falls for the big fireworks show, but ended up staying  around my parent's for a home fireworks show. 

Jackson and cousin, Jeb

Abigail with cousin, Tayloranne

My sister put some warm water in the baby pool for Abigail and pretty soon all the kids were hanging out in that one because it was starting to cool off and get ready to storm.  As you can see it was sitting room only!

I had a kind of scary episode with Abigail during the swimming.  She is very much a mommy's girl right now and tends to get even more clingy to my when we are around more people. Anyway, I gave her to my  mom while I helped get Jackson dried off.  She started crying as I expected, and then holding her breath.  She had done this a little before, but always started breathing again before too long.  This time she really started turning blue.  She was blue around the eyes and blue from her nose to her chin.  I took her back from my mom and I think she passed out briefly because she went a little limp although she never really went completely unconscious.  She just laid in my arms for a while and then seemed to me fine.  Kind of a scary thing for a mom though.  Hope she doesn't make a habit of doing this. 

Here is a picture of Abigail I took at the beginning of that day in her 4th of July outfit.  

Summer Fun

So summer has been a long time in coming to Southeast Idaho.  After raining much of June we are glad for some warm summer temps so we can enjoy being outside.  Jackson loves going to the park these days and I love that he has become independent enough to climb up most things on his own and go down the slides.  It makes things a lot easier since I am usually carrying Abigail on my front or back.  Here are a few pictures:

Both the kids love swimming!  This is no surprise for Jackson as he is almost 3, but I wasn't sure how Abigail would take to the water being not quite 1 year old.  Well, the verdict is in and she LOVES it!  We went to a small wadding pool and spray park at the Idaho Falls aquatic center a while ago (unfortunately - I forgot the camera) and Abigail just splashed and splashed.  She didn't even mind getting sprayed in the face.  She like to touch the water streams spaying out and getting sprayed all over in the face.  Too bad I didn't get a picture of this, but here's one of the kids in a small pool at grammy's house.  Abigail's splashing in this one too.

Couldn't resist adding this picture in.  I thought it was just too precious of my little cutie in lounging in the grass.

Potty training

For the past month Jackson has been wearing big boy underwear and we have been attempting potty training.  I had tried a time or 2 prior to this but he just wasn't ready (mom has been more than ready for a while, of course, having 2 in diapers is no fun!).  We have tried many different tactics and I am proud to say that he stays dry most days.  He isn't to the post of telling me when he has to pee but if I take him regularly he will stay dry.  The #2's are a whole different story!  He refuses to poop in the potty.  I have tried a penny jar, candy for pooping, taking away favorite toys and cold showers (one I'm not very proud of, but I was a desperate mom who was willing to try almost anything to get her kid to poop in the potty!)  We are now down to trying 1 m&m for pee and 2 m&m's for poop.  At this point I am just trying to get him to go to the bathroom to poop, even if he doesn't do it on the potty.  Ahhh well, this time shall pass too right.  In the mean time . . . any suggestions I haven't tried?