This little girl had a birthday...

What can I say about this little girl?

Being the big bad mommy that I am, when the doctor called and asked to reschedule her 2 year check up to the morning of her actual birthday, I agreed. So we started off the day with a bang, and two shots. Hence the gloomy face in some pictures :)

I cannot believe she is TWO years old.

This year was even more fun for me than last year. I took her with me to pick out a cake pan for her birthday. I gave her four choices: Elmo, Elephant, Horse, or Monkey. I threw in the monkey at the last minute, just for the heck of it and of course she surprised me and chose the monkey right away- despite her obsession with Elmo, horses, and elephants.

The next day I took her with me to the grocery store to pick out what kind of cake- no surprise there: CHOCOLATE. I swear to you, this girl has a sixth sense and can detect chocolate from miles away. We have lots of funny stories about her "chocky" addiction, but we'll save those for another day.

Something else we learned right away about Abi, is that she does things in her own way, on her own time table- started from her 2 week late entrance into this world. If you remember last year's birthday, I made her a "smash cake" just for her to dig in and make a mess of. She cried when she touched it and hated it. This year, when we put her up by the cake to blow out the candle... she couldn't resist dipping her finger right in. Oh... and she loved it.

Charles and I splurged and got her this little tricycle and she loves it. I loved seeing her face light up when we rolled it out and she exclaimed, "Abi's bike!!" as she ran over to climb on.

She spotted an airplane in the sky :)

I just love this girl. She is quite the talker now. She surprises us every day now with things she says and does. Her most recent thing that had me laughing really hard was when I was doing her hair and she sat on the counter and gave herself 'knucks' as she said, "Knucks?? BOOM, blow'ed up," and then threw her head back and laughed. She learned that from Uncle Kyle :)

She loves animals. She loves music: dancing to it, singing along with it, or working out to it with mommy. It is amazing to hear her sing along to songs she hears on the radio because she surprises me with how many of the words she knows. She really loves horses. She loves going to the zoo. She loves being a helper around the house. She has to be involved in whatever I am doing. She is a girly, girl to the bones. She likes to brush and fix my hair, play with my makeup, and wear pretty dresses. She is a total sweetie and loves to 'shuggle' with mom and dad. She still sleeps with a pacifier, and very soon we will have to stop ignoring that. She has the most contagious laugh you'll ever hear. She makes every day bright in our home. We are so lucky to have her, and she is going to be a GREAT big sister. I might just move over and let her be mom. She'd probably do a better job that I will.

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Today was one of those days.

Need I say more? I feel like it is taking all I can do to keep my head above water lately. As I rushed home today to grab church clothes for tomorrow (we are staying with Charles' two younger brothers for the week) I had to print out my lesson to teach in church tomorrow, and found this video on the lds.org homepage.

I scrolled down and saw the title... scrolled back up and thought, I don't have time to watch it.

Then scrolled back down and watched it.

And cried. A lot. I needed this badly today. Hope it can give a few of you other moms out there a boost.

Now... on to printing that lesson...

Hallelujah!

With a little help from these bad boys...

Along with some stylin' Elmo panties... we have kissed diapers goodbye.

At least until December...

And when we started potty training... I thought, I will NOT miss diapers for a second.

- Until you have a cart full of groceries at Costco and she says,

"Potty, Potty!" with urgency.

- or when you have just managed to get every thing loaded up and are finally on

your way to the zoo, and she lets you know... NOW is the time

- Or when you have just gotten her all zipped up in her one piece jammies and are

just laying her down for the night...

Ok, so there are a few times I find myself wishing for a diaper. But for the most part- what a relief :) She did a really good job with it too, I was pretty surprised how quickly she caught on.

Diapers or no diapers... this girl is growing up too fast.

Peek a boo

Where on earth could Abigail be??

Oh good... I found her.

This little girl cracks me up sometimes. She was just hiding in this clear box, and giggling her head off when I would start looking for her. What would I do without her?

When we're helping, we're happy :)

This week we got after our carpets and got them looking like new. It took some work and some serious scrubbing in a few places, but it is done and the carpets look a ton better. We couldn't have done it without our number one helper. Abigail supervised Charles with the carpet cleaner. My favorite part about her doing this was hearing her every couple of minutes saying, "Hi, Daddy! HI! Backpack, backpack. Hi Daddy."

Then she'd get down and help me scrub out the stains.

That's right... I had our almost 2 year old scrubbing the floor

with a tooth brush. And she loved it :) Guess she will be a clean freak like her mom.

Yeah, if you have ever lived with me... you'll see the humor in that statement.

Did she really?

She looks innocent enough, right?

We have been working on potty training, and since we started, she has become very aware of when she toots. She has been announcing with excitement every time she passes gas.

Well, this afternoon, she let one go, and then looked at me and said,

"Mommy, you toot?" and then giggled.

Oh dear...

Poll my 2 readers...

Ok, I am starting to look at getting Abigail out of her crib, but I am torn between getting a toddler bed, and just skipping that and going to a twin bed, close to the ground. I'm curious what other moms think... what did you do??

Busy month...

It has been a month since I blogged last... but boy has it been a busy month! We got to fly down to Texas for a quick visit over Mother's Day weekend. We were lucky enough to be there for little Baby Aaron's debut :)

We went to the stockyards in Fort Worth one day for the daily cattle drive, and Abigail loved that. It ended up being quite an eventful day for us. Have you ever seen a horse that smiles on command for a camera?? We have...

We did lots of fun things while we were there... but I think Abigail's favorite (and ours) was just getting to spend time with some of our favorite people. Of course, only a few of those favorites are pictured here...

We got to see Logan's last soccer game :) He's a stud!

We also had our first ultrasound and saw the baby and heard a good strong heart beat. As a result of that ultrasound... my due date also got pushed back two weeks. So Dec. 4th is the day, at least that is what they tell me. And, I think I am finally out of the nasty, sick phase- and I welcome that change. We find out the gender in a month, and I can't wait to know :)

Our last big change this month is with Charles. He heard about a start up company that he got kind of excited about, and heard that they were looking to hire programmers. One thing led to another and before we knew it, he had an offer on the table and we had a big decision to make. After a lot of thought and prayer, he took the job and started this week. The company is called Vote iQ- and instead of trying to explain what they do- here is a link to an article that says it better than I can. We are excited about the change, but Charles will miss getting to work with his Dad on a daily basis.

You Win.

We lose.

Today I think we both gave up being parents for a little while.

Our living room shows the ramifications of our choice.

After trying to get Abigail down for a nap, we finally gave up

and just let her out. We didn't give up on our own hopes for a nap though.

Charles and I both were totally exhausted today. She was playing quietly in the living room, so we both layed down on the couches and dozed off without realizing it. When we woke up, the room was a disaster, Abigail was naked, and her entire drawer of pants, skirts, and shorts was emptied and spread throughout the house. She had tried on every pair. We just watched her for a while as she would struggle to pull on a pair of shorts, and not quite make it over her little cheekers. She'd walk around proud as can be with her hiney hanging out.

She even managed to try walking around with one leg in one pair of pants, and the other leg through another pair of pants, holding them each up with her hands. She is such a funny girl! Can't imagine what things will be like with another little one running around to shake things up even more. My guess... not many more nap times in store for mom and dad.

A few things I failed to mention...

First of all, we had a great Easter. Abigail enjoyed her first Easter egg hunts.

She was a natural. We still have jelly beans coming out of our ears from all the eggs she found at Grandma's house.

The next thing I failed to mention... A couple of weekends ago Charles ran another

half marathon. Without me this year :( He ran the same one that we did last year.

I didn't get any good pictures of him running, lets face it,

we are lucky we caught more than a blur :)

We had A LOT more people run this year!! Some 10k some half marathon, but we had a huge group of friends and family and had a lot of fun.

What about us? Well, the three of us made terrific cheerleaders.

Which brings me to the last thing I have failed to mention.

Yeah, there was a reason I didn't run. Baby Himmer #2 is on the way.

Since you asked...

yes i know, the picture has nothing to do with the post...

Since we decided to make our blog private, we've had a few of you asking why we decided to make the switch, so I'll give a quick explanation. I've been thinking about it for a while, as more and more of my friends go private, wondering if it is something we should do. I never really felt like it was too big of a deal, and that if something happened that made me feel like we should, then I would do it.

Well, last week Charles took an hour from work and went to an internet safety class put on by someone who used to work for the police department and did a lot of work basically hunting down internet pedophiles and things like that. She told some pretty eye opening stories about things that have happened in our sheltered community. Charles came home and told me about some of the things he'd learned and we decided that if we waited for something to happen that made us take our blog private, that would be silly.

I have never been very cautious about what pictures I put up, or what I say about our lives in our blog, and I don't really want to have to be. The whole reason we have it is so that our close friends and family that don't live around us can stay up to date on us, and especially our growing Abigail. This way, we can keep our family in the loop... and keep the crazies out.

Going Private

We have decided to join the masses and make our blog private. We don't want to lose any readers, all three of you mean a lot to us :) Send me your email addresses in an email to heatherhimmergmailcom or leave a comment on here. Thanks!

It is nap time in the Himmer house...

Don't believe me?? Just ask Abigail.

She has found a bed for everyone...

I love this girl :)

iPhone pics

I love having a camera always on hand with my phone, it helps me snap a quick picture now and then without being noticed. Not the best quality... but oh well :)

This is how Abigail relaxed while we listened to Conference last weekend. Nothing like a good wood floor to cuddle up on... silly girl.

Ok, so maybe my snap shots don't always go unnoticed... she was ready for these.

Backwards

Sometimes it isn't about what is IN the picture...

but it is about what is NOT in the picture.

This is what is left from Abigail's snack today. Because of Abigail's profound fixation with Sesame Street, and especially with Elmo, I got her these crackers last time I went grocery shopping. They are cheddar crackers that come in two shapes... Elmo, and Big Bird. Same flavor, different shapes. Well, Abi will only eat the Elmo's most if the time. She either tries to feed me the big birds, or she just leaves them alone.

This girl LOVES Elmo.