8 Months

I'm a few days late this month. It seems like the older Abbi gets, the more fun I have with taking her pictures because she has such a personality. But then it takes so much time to go through them all, that I end up posting several days after the month mark!

This month wasn't as huge as last month, but she is still growing and learning like crazy!

At 8 months, Abbi:

• Loves to make faces. Her favorite ones right now - blowing her lips and fish face. I don't know where she learned the fish face, but just started doing it out of the blue one day. Now we just have to just say "fish face" and she'll usually do it for us! The cutest thing ever.
• Started the month hating solids, but ended the month loving them! Her favorite is still sweet potatoes and she still hates anything with a texture. Which has made giving her homemade baby food quite a challenge.
• New foods she tried this month - bananas, pears, carrots and peas.

• Still has so much baby fat, which I love! Especially those knees - what other time in your life are knees that are that chubby so cute?
• Crawls faster than you would believe. (Which is one reason I'm surprised she still has so much baby fat!) If I look away, I may have to go searching for her since she moves so fast.
• Is really good at both getting up and getting down. In fact, she now has it figured out how to bend her knees down so that she can pick things up while she is standing.

• Will stick everything and anything in her mouth. I can't leave her in the grass and we can't leave the dog food on the floor anymore. I can't tell you how many times I had to fish dog food out of her mouth. (Gross!!) Now poor Max doesn't have a food dish on the floor all day!
• Loves to play with everything she's not supposed to play with. She would rather play with anything that is not a toy, and she is quickly learning the word "no".
• Still loves to say "ba-ba-ba" but that's about it. I keep trying to teach her "mama" and "dada" but she's not saying them yet.

• Is really good at picking things up. She can pull a single blade of grass or pick one small little thing up off the floor. And she manages to find every little thing on the floor - I have to be very careful to keep things picked up!
• Still only has her two bottom teeth. She's really been acting like she's teething lately, though, so I won't be surprised if a few more come through this next month.
• Loves to give big, wet kisses. It's mostly just her opening her mouth wide open and sticking it on your face, though! I love them, except for when she decides to bite down. Those little teeth are sharp!

• Knows who mommy and daddy are. And I think she has it figured out that mommy is the one to go to for comfort and daddy is the one to go to for fun. I'd like to think that I am fun too, but I sure to love our snuggle time when she wakes up in the morning or from a nap!
• Was a really good girl for everyone who watched her while Josh was in the hospital and I was with him. Everyone said she barely made a peep, and my sister even called her an angel!
• 2 new tricks she learned this month - clapping and bouncing. All you have to do is say "clap, clap, clap" or "boing, boing, boing" to get her going!
  

• Would rather be standing than anything else. Forget changing her clothes or her diaper these days. Impossible!! Whether she is playing on the ground or in her high chair, she is always wanting to stand up.
• I shouldn't admit to this, but she's still not sleeping through the night. I need to let her cry it out to re-train her, but I feel bad waking Josh up when it's so hard for him to sleep right now. But I told him that we are letting her cry it out 2 weeks from now - he should be sleeping better by then!

This was the hardest picture of the day to get. I think she was tired of the photos at this point, plus like I mentioned, she is impossible to keep down if she wants to stand up! I literally only took a couple of pictures of her in the chair because she kept trying to stand up!

Today...

I saw this on another blog, and thought it would be fun to do every once in awhile.

Today outside my window…it is nighttime right now! But today was a beautiful day - too bad the temp is only supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow!

I am thinking about…how I should be in bed, but I'm on the computer instead.

I am thankful for…a husband who tells me he loves me every day!

From the kitchen…absolutely nothing. Ended up having Lean Cuisines for dinner since I was so exhausted. But they sure did taste good!

I am wearing…my pjs - capri yoga pants and one of Josh's old t-shirts.

I am reading… "The Time Traveler's Wife" But I'm having a hard time getting into it. Maybe it's because I'm so tired lately so I have a hard time staying awake, or maybe it's because it's a bit too Rated R. I do have a feeling the movie is going to be quite different from the book, though.

I am looking forward to…Josh's knee to be fully recovered so we can get out of the house and do something.

I am hearing…crickets outside of my window.

A few plans for the rest of the week…The laundry! I've been attempting to finish it for days now, but always get distracted. Also, hopefully a photoshoot of my sister's family - as long as the weather cooperates!

I need to remember…to relax and take some time for myself.

A picture to share…

I did some senior photos for 3 friends this afternoon - what a fun bunch of girls!! I knew this would be a favorite the minute I took it. I can't wait to get to the rest of them!

Feeling Overwhelmed

Who would have thought that being a stay at home mom would be so much work?? I seriously give it up to any of you moms who work and then have to come home to take care of a home, a husband, and kids. I don't know how you do it.

Maybe it's the fact that I've had an extra person around all day to take care of lately, but my life has been feeling so chaotic and overwhelming. I finally cleaned the bathroom today - for the first time in almost 2 weeks. The rest of the house is a mess, I'm hardly even cooking dinner anymore, and I wake up exhausted in the morning, wondering how I can do it all again. But it has got me thinking. Why is my life so crazy? And it's not because just being a mom and a wife has kept me busy. That is a huge part of it, but not all of it.

I tend to take too much on myself. And I have decided that I want a simple life.

I have felt this coming on for months now. I look around at my house, and I want to purge. Get rid of it all, except what we really use on a daily basis. I am surrounded by too much "stuff". And I have begun to realize that not only am I surrounded by too many physical things, but I am filling my life with too many responsibilities. And today, I decided to get rid of the first of one of my responsibilities - or at least put it on hold. After getting a rude email from someone, basically berating me for slacking on the Foodie Giveaway blog, I decided that it was going to be the first of my time stealers to go. It makes me sad, because I really see potential in making some money off of it one day, but for now, I just can't do it. And you know what? I feel better already!!

I'm taking baby steps right now. I've been really concentrating on getting things together to start my photography business (I'll write more about that later), so if I ever start getting business there, something else may have to go. I love my food blog and have been doing it for so long that I can't imagine not doing it, but that right there would probably give me at least an hour of every day back. But I decided that this blog is my most important one - one that I will continue to keep. I used to be really good at keeping a journal, but I have been quite a slacker with that for the last 4 years. This has really turned into my journal. Maybe not a super personal journal, so maybe it's my journal and my scrapbook all in one. (Since scrapbooking is something that I haven't had time for either.)

I just want things to be simple and easy. Baby steps.

Wordless Wednesday - Reason #84 Why I Hate Jammies That Snap

We Now Return to Regular Posting...

Let me just say this - don't ever try to take on a job of being a live-in nanny and a live-in home nurse at the same time - unless you are getting paid a lot of money. Otherwise, just be prepared to have zero time to yourself!

Ok, so that makes it sound like it's all been bad around here, and really, it hasn't. Just busy. Crazy busy. You wouldn't think that it would be that crazy, since Josh basically is just laying around all day, but attending to him, helping him move if he needs it, and trying to keep a very active, mobile little girl away from hurting her daddy or playing in all his physical therapy equipment is more than a full time job. But we are all anxiously awaiting the day when this is behind us and Josh is functioning once again - without pain!

Just a quick overview of the surgery:

We went into the hospital on September 14th at 12:30pm. After filling out paperwork and doing all the pre-op fun stuff, they finally wheeled him into the operating room around 3pm. The surgery took about 3 hours, (thanks mom and dad for keeping me company that whole time!), and then he was taken to his room. He was in good spirits after the surgery. They had given him an epidural for the surgery, and it was supposed to work for the next 2 days. They were also supposed to hook up his pain medication machine right out of the OR, but we had some not very smart nurses that first night and he didn't receive the pain medication machine for about 2 hours. By this time, his epidural had worn off for some reason and he was in serious pain. It was so hard to watch. I've seen him in pain before - when he broke his collar bone and when he originally messed up his knee from the dirt bike accident - but this was way worse. Way worse. I should mention that Josh has a high tolerance to pain medication, which is why they had him on the epidural to start off with. The nurses were horrible. That first night was just such a bad experience. Finally, they called the anesthesiologist, and he came back in and gave Josh another shot of epidural. By this point, it was after 10pm, and my poor mother in law was still at home with Abbi. The epidural helped, so I headed back home. I got home, got ready for bed, crawled into bed and fell asleep. About 20 minutes later, my phone rang. It was one of the nurses. The epidural had already worn off again and Josh needed me back at the hospital. Of course I was going to be there for my husband, so I got in the car with Abbi and we headed up. (Did I mention the hospital is about 40 minutes away?) We got there and the rest of the night was horrible. Josh was in so much pain and the nurses were useless. It was really one of the worst experiences I have been through, so I can't even comprehend how horrible it was for Josh. Thankfully, Abbi was wonderful and slept through it all.

The next morning, the doctor came in and unfortunately was kind of a jerk about the whole situation as well. But he did have the anesthesiologist come back and re-do the epidural so it was on a drip. Thankfully, because of the epidural, the next day was so much better.

The rest of the stay in the hospital was back and forth. They had to remove the epidural after the first 2 days so that Josh could start physical therapy, but luckily, by the time they took it out the worst of the pain was over. There were still a few flare ups, but he made it through it.

Now, he's just dealing with the day to day pain that is getting better little by little. He has a machine he has to be on for several hours a day, and some exercises he has to do. He is up on crutches, but doesn't last too long before it starts hurting or he is just wiped out because of how much effort it takes. And he's having a hard time sleeping because he can't get comfortable. But it is getting better every day. It's already been over a week, so hopefully these next few weeks will fly by and he will be up and recovered soon!

A HUGE thanks to my family and Josh's family for taking care of Abbi so much, for the prayers and the blessings, and all of the support you have given us!

For Kim

I know I still want to post some of Mindy's maternity photos from last week, but I had to sneak in one for Kim from last night. I've been dreaming of doing a shoot in a sunflower field for weeks now - thanks Kim for indulging me!! More to come!

Wordless Wednesday - Sunflowers

Worthy of the State Fair??

I have been such a bad gardener this year. Last year, I used the excuse that I was pregnant. This year, I've had 2 excuses. 1 - it's too hot to be outside roasting while pulling weeds, just to come into a hot house. Since our a/c has been working so poorly this summer, our house is pretty warm, and it's just too hard to cool down. 2 - I can't really take care of the garden and Abbi at the same time. Therefore, I have to wait until she is napping, then run out and try to get all the weeds pulled. Not so much fun. So after about half the summer was over, I gave up. The garden is now totally overgrown with cucumbers, squash, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, melons - and lots of weeds. Seriously, it's hard to walk out there. And if that wasn't bad enough, several of our tomato plants somehow seeded, and now there are TONS of tomato plants growing every where. I told Josh that we are doing square foot gardening next year or no garden at all!

So the other day, I went out to pull a couple of veggies for dinner, and realized it had been much too long since I had gone out to pick anything. I came back into the house, asking Josh if he thought we could get an award at the state fair for these veggies!


First - the mammoth zucchini. I had to put my shoe next to it just so you could see how big it is. And I don't have small feet. A big size 9 here!! And the sad thing is that this was not the first one that I let grow this long!

And then the cucumber(s). I had to laugh when I picked this - it looks like 2 cucumbers morphed into 1!!

If anyone needs any veggies and is willing to dig around though a weed/bug/spider infested garden, feel free to stop by! I just picked 24 pounds of tomatoes today, and I barely made a dent in them!

{One For Mindy}

My wonderful cousin Mindy let me come and take some maternity pictures for her today, and I couldn't go to bed without posting just one!! I'll post a few more soon!

Wordless Wednesday - All Smiles