Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Emily :)

A walk in the park

We have had GORGEOUS weather here lately. I've complained for about 6 months about the weather here... but for the last couple of weeks, it is hard to find ANY fault with this state. (well, of course other than the fact that it is so FAR away from Texas.)

One of the things we have done with these sunny days is take a short walk through one of the city "parks." Its just a huge forest with nice trails for hiking. One of the bonuses of living here. Abigail is loving her Moby wrap as much as ever, and daddy loves being my pack mule :)


So why was our walk so short in such a beautiful place, with such beautiful weather and a happy babe?
When I first heard of BEARS around in the city, I just about freaked out. I remember panicking last summer when Charles' mom told me about bears getting into the trash cans all along their street.

Seriously???

BEARS?

Count me out on that one...

Just be sure to keep your dog on a leash, don't worry about your CHILDREN! Hello??

Our Biggest Battle

Remember that famous tooshie that we ALL know and love?


That's right... that's the one...

Well, it just so happens those million dollar cheeks NEVER STOP MOVING.
Making it nearly impossible to get a diaper on, much less clothing after bath time.

Any tips from you expert parents out there?

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to everyone!

I hope everyone remembered their sunblock and sunglasses...

...I know we did.

We lathered up some sunblock on that bald little head...




And headed down to dip our toes in the ocean...

But Little Miss Thang didn't want anything to do with that water.
But we did take a nice walk along the beach in style.

What more can you ask from a holiday weekend?

New Video

Here is a cute video of Abigail this week :)

A few new tricks from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Friday Night on the Town

Last weekend the weather was PERFECT! We couldn't stand a second indoors. When Charles got home from work, we packed a quick dinner (leftover pasta and beef jerky... THAT kind of quick), and headed out to spend some time in the sun. We ended up at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma where we found lots of cool things and took lots of pictures.

Crunch

I thought we would give these a try this week.

They were a big hit. I think Charles snuck a few...

Starting early

Abigail's favorite thing in her room is crawling over to her shoes and playing with them. The only thing that can deter her is a book now and then. She loves shoes. The problem is... they won't stay on her feet.
More of those legs we all love...

One of those days...

This is what Abigail wore all day:



And this is why:

It started off looking like a really good day. I finished all of the laundry and cleaned the house the night before. Nothing to clean, wash, or fold, just a day to have fun and do whatever we felt like doing. I spilled oatmeal on Abigail's (PJ)pants during breakfast, no surprise there.

Then, we went to go get dressed for the day, and her dresser was all locked up. It has (had) this stupid locking mechanism on it that gets jammed now and then. This particular morning, it was REALLY jammed. Not a single drawer would open.

Normally this wouldn't be too big of a problem, because on any given day, there is bound to be a few of Abigail's outfits lying around the house in inconspicuous places. Not today. I had made sure that every article of clothing she owned was clean, folded, and put away in her drawers. Still not too big of a deal, because there wasn't really anywhere we needed to go that day.

Oh yeah, except visiting teaching- and, of course, it was a chilly, drizzly day(shocking, I know). Lucky for us, we had left some of Abigail's clothes at Charles' parent's house and his mom graciously returned them to us. Great timing, until I spilled her lunch on her only hope for wearing pants that day.

I think she enjoyed the freedom.

Daddy's Girl

Lately Abigail has been a big time Daddy's girl. She loves every second she gets with him. I have to practically peel her from him in the morning so he can go to work. She waves bye-bye to him when he leaves and crawls to the banister to watch him until he is out of sight. When she hears the door shut when he comes home at night she scrambles to the stairs to welcome him.

She's one lucky girl to have a Daddy like him.

Curls

She's got 'em :)

It's the simple things in life...

Yesterday, Abigail played in this box, with a spoon, for about 20 minutes. That's longer than she plays with any other toys by a long shot (except for the tupperware cabinet of course). Why bother with buying toys? I wonder what was going on in her imagination that made it so fun. I'm sure she wasn't just sitting in an empty diaper box in her mind. Why can't I be more like that? Just happy to have whatever life gives me. Why do we grow up and have to have the biggest and best of it all. Maybe I should find a little more satisfaction with the empty boxes. What happened to my imagination?

I learn a lot from this little girl. Hopefully I can teach her a thing or two.

Mommy's Little Helper

Abigail is really good about helping me get dinner ready. When 5 o'clock rolls around, her favorite cabinet opens, and I have as much time as I need to get dinner ready without having to entertain her. It's great.

She starts by emptying the cabinets.

Then she plays around in the mess.


Then she chews on some of them...

... plays peek-a-boo in some of them...

... and then wears some of them.

And then when she gets bored, we put them all away, and let her have at it all over again.

... and yes, I have to wash my "clean" bowls and tupperware before I use them, thanks to this routine.

Child Safety

One of the first things I did to baby-proof our house was to put those plug protectors in all of our outlets.


And I am so glad. Now Abigail has something she can pull out of the outlet, suck on, and then try to plug back in.

I'm so glad that I did such a GREAT job of making our house safe for our infant :)

Standing

Abigail is now pulling up on EVERYTHING. She isn't quite stable on her own yet... and we have lots of bumps and bruises to prove it. Her favorite place to get to is the books I have up on the fireplace hearth. I can't believe how big she is getting. Before long she is going to be cruising around the furniture... 9 months have blown by.