Blessing Day

Today was a special day for us to be able to bless our little Abigail. Charles was able to bless her surrounded with several other worthy men who love her dearly. I know it was a very special experience for Charles to be able to hold his little girl and bless her with many great things as she grows into a young woman. We missed lots of family who wasn't able to be with us today, but were SO blessed to be able to have so much family here. Abigail is a very special little girl. She has an amazing little spirit in that body. She is such a calming, peaceful influence. I know great things are going to come from her. I can't help but think of the phrase- "Small things bring forth that which is great." Charles and I have both felt strongly that she has a very special spirit that is going to do a lot of good in this world. We feel so blessed to have her as a part of our family :)

Abigail's visitors :)

Abigail had some fun visitors this weekend here for her big weekend. Mom, Papa, and Brad all made the long flight to come up for her blessing today. Yesterday we went out to Point Defiance Park to the beach and walked along the water for a little bit. Here are some pictures from our day out, and me sporting my new Moby wrap :)

Abigail loved Papa, he was so sweet with her and got lots of big grins from her

Brad got her grinning a lot too- this smile is while he was holding her

These Hips don't lie...

Ok, I just got home from my first 'postpartum' run and WOW. I have to say, it did feel really good to get out there and hit the road again, but man oh man- I might not be able to move tomorrow. Maybe Abigail will start crawling tomorrow, so she can just come to ME when she's hungry :) I didn't know hips could hurt so bad, but man alive! Haha... I don't really have anything of importance to blog about right now- just thought I would document that these are not the hips they used to be :) Do they go back to normal???

6 Weeks Old

I finally got around to picking some pictures and putting a baby announcement together for Abigail this week. I put in a copy of it, and I am sending some out this week. If you are reading this, and don't get one, but want me to send you one- leave a comment with your address and I will GLADLY send one. Rather than try to track down a million addresses, I am taking a little bit of the lazy route and going digital to a certain extent. Anyway- Abi is 6 weeks old now and doing really well. She is getting REALLY close to sleeping through the night. We have had a couple of nights that she has gone 6-7 hours straight. Now she has been waking up around 3:00, but only for a few minutes and then she goes back to sleep. She is taking it easy on me for now :)

Smiles

Abigail is getting really smiley! She has the cutest little smile and I just LOVE her dimples! Today she let me take some pictures and I got a few of her cute little smile. She is getting so big too. She had her one month doctors visit last week and weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 8 ozs. She has been gaining about an ounce a day. She is so fun to have around!!

Robeez giveaway for girls

For those of you with little girls- I found this blog doing a giveaway of two pairs of Robeez toddler shoes. Check it out!

The Neighborhood Pet

This is Black Veil. She lives across the street from us. These pictures were taken back when we thought that we must be her favorite people EVER because we bring her the good grass and feed it to her. We even fed her some delicious Rainier Cherries! We'd always stop on our walks to feed her and pet her. She's a great horse. Whenever we would leave, she would let out a loud nay. Well, come to find out, EVERYONE feeds this horse! It's pretty funny actually. A guy from our ward drives over here from up the road to feed her apples and carrots. How can our grass compete with that?? The missionaries come feed her regularly too. Now whenever we go on walks, we have to wait our turn to feed her because there is almost always someone over at the fence feeding her or petting her. I guess it saves the owners having to buy any food for her :)

Fun pictures from Mom and Courtney's visit

Being a little preoccupied after mom and courtney left, I never got a chance to post pictures from their visit. We found lots to keep us busy while we were waiting for Abigail to make her debut. Lots of walking... here are some of the fun things we did.

we foudn these glasses at an antique store, haha

from our walk in the harbor

This is at the farmer's market they have every week in the harbor. They have live music, and artists that sit and draw for a couple of hours. It's pretty cool just to go down and check everything out, plus they have great produce and pretty flowers!

One day while they were here, they had "Chalk the Walk" in the harbor. It was a big side walk chalk competition. You register for a square of sidewalk, draw something, and then they judge it at the end of the day. They had everything from little kids, to artists doing it. Here are a couple we took pictures of.

These I just HAD to post. Meet the new neighbors :) This house is being built around the corner from us... 10,000 square feet. Courtney got a picture from the back, and the front that I had to show. This house is crazy, and really pretty! The pictures don't do it justice.

Our house... FINALLY

Ok, I have been having lots of requests to get pictures up of our house. After 3 months of living here... we are finally settled in enough that I could take some pictures and show you some of my favorite parts of our house. I didn't bother taking pictures of the downstairs because it is basically completely empty, other than a bed in one of the rooms for guests. So here are the highlights of the house :)

Living Room
These couches finally arrived last week and we have been LOVING having a place to sit!

Office
The first picture here is where Charles works. He gets to work from home pretty often which I LOVE. The second picture is my haven. This is where I "work." I have thought seriously about getting my diploma framed and hanging it above my sewing machine- just to prove that I am a SERIOUS stay at home mom- I have the Home and Family Living degree to prove it :) lol

The Kitchen/Dining Room
I LOVE my kitchen

Front Entry Way

Our Bedroom
Right across from the bed, is the dresser that I took pictures of Abigail on, so I won't repost pictures of that side of the room.

Master Bathroom


My work in progress... The Nursery :)
I had fun with this nursery :) It's a good thing she wasn't on time, because I had plenty of projects in here to keep me busy the two weeks I was waiting. In fact... I didn't finish the flowers for the wall until a few days ago. There are still a few more things I want to do, but here is her nursery. I assembled all the furniture myself, and made the quilt, bumper pads, dust ruffle, curtains, and the things hanging on the walls. Nesting anyone??? I had it BAD




These little boogers were much harder than I thought they would be, and if it hadn't been for my mom helping me figure them out, I probably would have thrown in the towel. If you don't look too closely- they turned out cute.

As for the rest of the house- there is one more full bathroom upstairs- think 1970's. Yellow tub, yellow sinks, yellow countertop- gotta love it :)
Downstairs there are two more bedrooms, a family room, a small bathroom, and the laundry room.

First Family Outting

We had our first family outing with Abigail. We went for a nice walk on the water in Tacoma at Ruston Way (I think that's what it was called). It was a lot of fun. We walked about 3.5 miles along this nice sidewalk. We found a little stand along the way and got hamburgers for dinner. Abigail slept through most of it, but it was fun to get out. Here are some pictures from our night out on the town.

our attempted family photo... better luck next time