Horsies

The weather has been really nice here lately, so we have spent LOTS of time outside this week. Abigail just can hardly stand to be inside and not out exploring. I love that we live right across from a horse pasture that always has at least 2 horses for us to go give grass to.

But I think Abigail loves it more than I do.

In the first video, Abigail is picking grass and throwing over to the horse and saying "Thank you"

Untitled from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

And in this one, she is having a hard time saying goodbye.

Bye BYe Horse from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

On a side note: Did I mention that on Saturday, I spent the whole day at training, and now I am a certified Zumba instructor?? I am really excited. Don't know what Zumba is? Check it out here.

And... did I mention that we are going to Hawaii on Thursday, and that Courtney and Daniel are meeting us there?

I'm pretty thrilled about life right now :)

I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Today when I went to pick Abigail up from the child care center at the gym, I found her sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street with her new friend. Her new BOY friend. She had her head on his shoulder, and would sporadically sit up and scratch his back.

ALREADY??

We are in for it....

HELP!

This little girl has me questioning my decision to "retire" the pacifier this week.

After many weeks of sickness over the holidays, Abigail became VERY attached to her binky, and her two favorite dolls. It has gotten where she basically has to have all three, all the time. If you leave the house with out one... Well, Heaven help us all.

So, after debating for a few weeks, on Monday I decided it was time to get rid of the binky. I gathered them all up, except for one. The one I left out, I snipped the end off- I'd heard this is the way to go. Well, for the most part, she is totally fine. She doesn't ask for it anymore. She plays all day just fine with out it. She has become less clingy, and doesn't need her dolls all the time anymore either.

The flipside? She doesn't really sleep.

Well, sometimes she does. But nap times are a huge struggle, and some days just don't happen. And we've had 2 nights now where she has been up for about an hour and a half just fussing. I give her the snipped pacifier, but of course, that isn't what she wants.

SO... I'm need help! Do I just need to stick it out a few more days? Do I just give in for now, and hope it will be easier in a few months? I don't mind her sleeping with one. I just don't like that she was needing it ALL the time.

Any words of encouragement, or discouragement? haha... hurry fast, before I give in and go get the ziplock baggy out of the kitchen cabinet!

Candid camera...

There are things that I catch with my iPhone, that I wouldn't ever catch if I had to take time to grab my real camera. Here are a few moments I snagged up this week.

Here is Abigail ready to say a blessing on the food before lunch.

She was mesmerized most of the time we were at the zoo.

This peacock opened up right in front of us as we were walking down the side walk. It was cool to see it ruffle up its feathers and spread them like this. So pretty :)

And... here is what I found after I got out of the shower the other day. Toilet paper through the bathroom and bedroom. When does this fascination end??

Killing Time

Yesterday we were waiting for Aunt Courtney to get online and video chat with us... but she was late for our date :) So we were killing some time, and this is what we came up with.

Abigail's "I don't know" is probably my favorite thing that she says :)

Killing Time from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Night, Night

Abigail's latest obsession has been, "Night, Night."

This makes bed time and nap time a breeze. She gets her dolls and binky and tells us, night night, and we put her to bed.

She uses night night whenever she wants to snuggle up too.

Her favorite places to snuggle up are in our bed, or... on the floor watching Sesame Street :)

18 Months Old

...and man, has the time flown by.

We had a great visit with the doctor today.

Great, because it was her first time for a well child check without any shots.

She weighed in at whopping 22 lbs... putting her in the twentieth percentile.

She has gained just about 2 pounds in the past six months.

Our little shrimp measured in at 29.5 inches, up a whole inch from her 12 month visit.

Fifth percentile for height :)

It works out for us, she's been in a lot of the same clothes for a year now.

I can't imagine what life would be like if we didn't have that smile looking up at us every day.

Or if I couldn't hear her giggle, or hear her sweet little voice calling me mama.

And of course, I can't imagine life without our constant games of hide and seek...

Here she is in her favorite spot to hide :)

So... what did YOU do this weekend?

I think Charles took my last post as a challenge. How dare I say that we have had nothing going on that was worth blogging about? He made sure that I would have something for my readers to enjoy today.

Thursday he informed me that he had planned a special date for us and that it was a surprise. All he told me was that we needed to be in Seattle at 3:30 Saturday, and needed to be dressed in comfy workout clothes. I went through all of our normal date options... grocery shopping, Dinner, play basketball, popcorn and a TV show... I know, you are all jealous of how we spend our childless nights lately, there was even our fancy anniversary date to Home Depot and the mall- we were actually completely thrilled about. None of those seemed to fit the description, or the need for the drive to Seattle, so I was totally clueless.

Lucky for me, Charles can't keep a secret to save his life, so by Thursday night, he had completely divulged his plan. He filled me in that he had already paid for and scheduled for us to have a flying trapeze lesson in Seattle on Saturday.

Yes. You read that right.

My first thought? Hmm... how can I pick just one? Has he lost his mind? Doesn't he know I am terrified of heights? Can he get his money back? Would it hurt his feelings if I am not thrilled about this leap of faith? And my final verbalized thought to my husband... "That sounds, fun?"

I had to call Mom and Courtney immediately. They would get a kick out of it for sure.

What I was not prepared for was one of the most fun nights with my husband that we have had together in a REALLY long time. We had a blast, and Charles was actually REALLY good at it. So, for your viewing pleasure... our circus act of a family on the flying trapeze. I'll show 2 of our first tries, and then our last ones. Charles made the "catch" to the other trapeze... I did not :(

Charles on his first attempt... a total natural

Charles's Knee Hang from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Me trying to be brave... haha

Circus Heather from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Charles getting caught

Charles' Catch from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Me missing the catch

Heather's missed Catch... :( from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

If you live around Seattle... I HIGHLY recommend it.Give these guys a try Emerald City Trapeze Arts School. You won't be disappointed!!

In Case you were wondering...

We are still here. Just nothing noteworthy to blog about.

Except for her... she's been really fun this week!

Here is a funny video of her yesterday. I had the input volume up too loud on our computer, so make sure your volume isn't up too high :)

If You're Happy and You Know it from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Before I got married, I was a firm believer that there is no such thing as a perfect match. I thought that there were probably a whole handful of guys out there that I could be perfectly happy marrying. No such thing as a one and only, and certainly no fairy tale endings.

Three years later... I feel a lot different about things.

Happy Anniversary, Babe :)

A VERY Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. It was so much fun to see Abigail get excited about opening her presents, and her excitement when she saw what they all were. She is still just ecstatic to get to play with all of her new things. Any time we are home, she is just running around giggling and playing. It has been a lot of fun. Here are just a few pictures of the madness on Christmas Day :) Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Special Day

Abigail's Uncle Sammy had a very special birthday last week.

He turned 8 years old and got to be baptized.

And as you can see, she is a quite fond of this particular uncle of hers.

We are proud of you Sam :)

A little run down...

This will probably be boring for most of you, but one or two might care what we did while were were in Texas for so long. Here is the run down.

We finally took some family pictures while were were all together. By we... I mean WE. My sister in law's dad was nice enough to come take the big group ones for us so we could all be in them. I don't have those yet, but I had to post this picture of my parents with all the grandchildren. It captures the essence of our family. Haha. This is why posed pictures don't work with small kids. Logan is my favorite... too bad he's nothing like his dad.

Gogurt is a wonderful, dangerous thing.

Gettin in a little workout at Mimi's

You can't tell by the look on her face here... but Abigail LOVED getting to play with her cousins.

This is my nephew Logan, zonked out after the turkey trot, with a candycane in his mouth. That was a rough 1K!

Here is all the Turkey Trotters! Kyle, Alissa, and Henry were there to support, but had already taken off when we took the picture. Big time props to Mimi and Pops who did their first 10K and to Annie and Logan for "winning the race" and getting blue ribbons :)

Here is Abi and her cousin Jacob and their matching Thanksgiving shirts. I had to make them shirts for the Turkey Trot. Had to. Can you tell that Jacob is actually about 10 months younger than Abigail? (is that right becca?) Yeah... same weight, same size clothes. He is delicious.

Yet again, the picture does not tell the story, but Abigail loved taking the four wheeler or one of the EZ-Goes (not sure how you really spell that) out to the pastures to see the cows. Bonus?? The dogs followed us out and chased the cows around a bit. She just ate it up. I think she's definitely got a little Texas in her :)

Where have we been?

Well.... I don't want to make you jealous with all the details. But lets just say,

we've had a FUN three weeks at our house.

I might be getting excited early, but I think since Abigail only woke up TWICE last night... instead of waking every hour, screaming in pain, I THINK we might be over it all.

If you are feeling jealous, I'm sorry- we should have come and visit you. It might have helped with the cabin fever.

Cows

Abigail hangin' out at the corral with the cows

I have lots of pictures from our trip. It was one of our most fun trips to Texas... I think that we think that every time we go :) I just keeps getting better. One of the best parts of the trip was taking Abigail out to see Papa's cows. We went out to see them every time we went to Nana and Papa's house. Then we went out to the main ranch to see the house that they remodeled this summer and yes, checked out the cows there- wild turkeys were a bonus siting. Then on the way home from there, we stopped by another one of Papa's ranches to see the new baby calves and their mamas. Abigail LOVES looking at the cows. As soon as she saw them, she'd just start mooing and pointing. Here is one picture of her, just about to jump out of the car window to get to them.

Boy, oh, boy... do I miss those sunsets