July Review

Hello everyone sorry I have not blogged in a while. I will let you know all that happened in July. So in the begining of July we drove to Blackfoot Idaho to visit with Chris's parents and some friends. We got there on the 4th of July and enjoyed the fireworks at a park called Jensens Grove with our niece Ashlie who had been staying with Grandma and Grandpa Dixon in Blackfoot for about three weeks. The rest of the week we spent visiting and doing fun things. We went to a small zoo in Idaho Falls, saw the Titanic exhibit at the museum also in Idaho Falls and took a tour of BYU Idaho in Rexburg. We drove home on the 11th and took Ashlie home to California with us (she lives in Visalia, CA), she was happy to be home and entertained our girls on the way.
Then on the 16th Abby tuned one year old and we had a party for her at my parents house on the 18th. It was a water party and Abby had a great time on the slippin slide a little blow up pool with all the big kids.
On July 26th it was my Birthday and we just had a small celebration with my parents and brother and sister in law.
July 31st we went to see the local baseball team the San Jose Giants play. Elizabeth loves the mascot Gigante and Abby loves being outside. Both girls sat throughout te entire game and had a great time! So that was our fun month of July.

My foot story

Hello so some of you have been wondering what happened to my foot from the comments on facebook so I decided to do a post on our blog to give more detail. Well a little over two weeks ago I was at my parents house outside on their deck. My Mom was holding Abby and Abby started wiggling and she looked like she was going to drop so I ran over to where they were and missed the deck step. I fell and my foot rolled under me and then I landed on it squishing it. So the next day I went to have x-rays and it was not broken but very ouchy just the same. They wrapped it in an ace bandage (the second picture), gave me crutches and pain pills perscription with the thought that it would be about a week recovery. Well it's been over two weeks now and I am still not fully recovered but I am better. After two weeks I went back to Kaiser and got a walking shoe so I could limp around better (the first picture). I also wanted to say thank you to everyone who has helped me during this recovery process. Especially my Mom who lent me her wheel chair and shower chair, and my wonderful husband Chris who pushed me around and helped out as much as he could. I am very glad that I am getting better and able to do more things everyday.

Abby is 10 months

Messy ice cream face at whimsicle, I couldn't resist the bowl hat.

getting in trouble under the kitchen table

So I had to post some cute pictures of my cute ten month old. Abby is now crawling fast and getting into troubles. She can pull to stand and stand by herself for about 30 seconds. She has not taken what I would call her first steps yet but she is getting close. She also says mama and dada and waves bye bye very cutely.

Family full of Love

Last Sunday Elizabeth had the opportunity to give a short talk in primary. She talked about our family and how we are full of Love. She talked about the different things that she does with each member of her family and really had fun doing it. On the way home from church she was talking about it and said that my tummy was full of hearts because we are full of love then she added hearts and milk so I guess hearts and milk go well together. It was fun to have her give her first primary talk she is getting so big. She is past the toddler stage and into being a little girl. She is also mostly potty trained (ya!!) It's the mostly part that we have to work on now. but I am soo proud of her. The pictures are of us being full of love. In the top picture Chris was giving the girls horse rides but the horse got tired by the time the camera came out and the second one is us on our porch after we played with bubbles.

Abby is 9 months

She is creeping around and loves to jump when someone holds her. She likes real food and will not eat baby rice cereal. Abby is mostly patient when Elizabeth takes toys or knocks her down by acciedent of course. We love having her in our family. She makes us smile!

More Easter fun

So I was going to do a post about the girls easter baskets just because it is fun. The top picture, is a picture of Elizabeth keeping her loot from Abby, oh the joys of sibling rivalry. Elizabeth couldn't wait to get the candy, so she opened and ate the candy in the bathroom where the Easter baskets were hidden. Abby had fun discovering what was in her basket. She liked her yellow ducks to chew on.

After we colored the eggs we went up to Mt. Madonna and had an Easter picnic (Togo's sandwiches) and an egg hunt. It was loads of fun as always.

Elizabeth knew just what to do and went about collecting eggs, and had a wonderful time filling her basket. At one point the basket had gotten pretty full of eggs so Chris offered to carry it for her but that would not do because it was her basket and she wanted to carry it. So he let her carry it and she tripped and all the eggs spilled out but they had fun picking them up as fast as they could. The top picture is of Elizabeth and Grandpa looking at a bannana slug (you'll have to enlarge the picture to see it). Elizabeth has just touched it and is wipeing her hand off on her shirt, it was "too squishy". My Dad always did like bannana slugs for some reason. We ended the afternoon with some candy and a nice quiet ride home as both girls were tired from all the fun.

coloring eggs

Hello so I am finally posting some Easter pictures. Abby had fun spilling die and eating the egg (with the shell still on of course) Elizabeth had a great time coloring the eggs and her hand. Chris looks soo cute with his two bunnies, to bad we do not have some bunny ears for him.

Like to paint?

So this afternoon Elizabeth wanted to finger paint so I said okay. I knew she would get messy so I told her to take off her dress. She had fun painting then I thought well Abby might like to finger paint also so I stripped her down to her diaper. They were both having fun painting on paper untill Elizabeth decided it would be fun to paint on Abby's arm so I eventually just put them on the mat and let them be creative. They had a nice soappy bath afterwards and are not painty any more. I am glad that I only buy nontoxic washable paint!

8 months old

Abby turned eight months old on Monday. I was going to post a blog but I ran out of time. Abby is a sweet happy baby. She is begining to get up on her hands and knees and move around more. She is so surprised when ever she manages to move anywhere. She has the cutest giggle laugh when beining tickled or finds something funny. Abby has four teeth (two on the top and two on the bottom) and loves to bite and chew on anything she can get her hands on to get that sensory input in her mouth and new teeth. She is very happy sitting on the floor playing with toys and mostly enjoys playing with Elizabeth. We are so blessed to have Abby in our family.

Sacramento Train Museum

I think that Chris had the most fun at the train museum. We went on the tour in the begining and Elizabeth did very good at listening with her stuffed monkey George. When we were by the display of the mountians being blasted to make room fo rthe train tracks Elizabeth started singing her own made up song pointing to the words on the sign like they were the words she was singing. There was an older gentelman standing behind her and I appoligized for her blocking the sign and he just nicely said "oh that's okay mam I like the singing and I'm guessing that the men who worked on building this railroad would have liked to hear her singing as well" so I thought that was nice. We also go to go inside some of the old trains and see how they ate and slept on the train and learned all about the different engines and types of trains made from the 1830's to 1950's or so and the history. On the second floor they had toy trains, electric trains set up that you could watch go around a small village as well as the history of toy trains with lots of display cases full of trains. They also had two train tables set up with Thomas trains that kids could play with and Elizabeth had fun doing that.

Synchronized Swimming

So last weekend March 6th and 7th we had the opportunity to go to Sacramento to see our niece Alexandra Metcalf proform in synchronized swimming. We got there on Friday afternoon and Elizabeth had a great time watching them practice and running around on the grass. We were able to see her proform in a trio (three girl synchronized swimming together) with her super gelled hair and fancy suit with matching head piece. It was fun to watch. That night we went to Chevys for dinner and just relaxed at the hotel. The next morning (Saturday) we saw her swim in a duo and visited some more. Then in the afternoon we went to the Sacramento train museum.

Ice Cream!

So last week Elizabeth helped me make some play dough. She had fun making it and playing but we didn't have any play dough toys. So on Saturday we were out shopping and we let Elizabeth choose one play dough toy. She choose the ice cream making set from several different choices. I thought well she'll play with it for awhile but she already had plastic pretend ice cream that she did not play with very much. When we got home she played with it for over two hours and had a great time. I decisded that we needed to go to Cold Stone and get some ice cream and she choose blue (cotton candy flavored) ice cream with sprinkles. I guess she was inspired by her playing. She has continued to play with it everyday for at least half an hour witch is good attention span for Elizabeth. That was money well spent.

I'm not sleepy!

So now days it is rare that Elizabeth has a nap because if she does then she does not go to bed until late. But yesterday I knew she was tired because she woke up early and was acting grumpy so I told her to take a nap at about 2pm. She said she couldn't sleep and so I told her to just stay in bed and play there. She stayed there for an hour and then finally she came out again and said she wasn't sleepy so I let her come and watch some TV while I fed Abby, within 10 minutes of watching she was fast asleep so I had to take a picture (she slept for over two hours). I guess she was sleepy.

My Valentines

Happy Valentine's day card from Grandma Turner, and a kiss from Dad for Abby.

My two Valentines together, sorry about the glare from the window.

My seven month old happy girl

So it seems as if Elizabeth is getting along better with Abby. She still wants to play with Abby but is not always right in front of her face. Thank you for your comments they definatly helped. I think the main thing that changed was that I am letting Elizabeth just play with Abby more before I was so worried that she would get carried away and hurt Abby that I was always telling her to get away and giving her the negative attention thus she wanted to do it more. So I stopped, unless Abby was crying or I could see an unsafe situation I let Elizabeth play with her and she started giving Abby toys and they started to enjoy each other. It makes my time with them much more enjoyable. I love my Valentines Chris, Elizabeth and Abby. I am so lucky to have them in my life!

Help

This is a note to all Mom's out there who read my blog. Elizabeth will not leave Abby alone! Elizabeth has always loved her sister and always wants to be a big helper but lately we can not put Abby down without Elizabeth trying to play with her, tickle her, jump over her, pull her, or try to pick her up. Luckily Abby has not been hurt yet but some of these things really scare me. I don't know if we are just putting Abby down on the ground more often now so I notice it more or if Elizabeth does it more because we give her attention (negative though it may be) or what it is. We have started to put her in time out after a warning but that again is just more attention. If anyone has any ideas let me know. I guess it could be just a phase and hopefully in a few months Abby will be able to crawl and get away or hopefully not get bugged so much by her loving sister.

Pier 39 fun!

Hello everybody

Sorry I have not posted anything for a while. On Saturday we had the opportunity to go up to San Francisco and walk around Pier 39. The weather was beautiful and it was fun to just get outside and enjoy doing something together as a family. Elizabeth enjoyed seeing the Sea lions and going on the merry-go-round. We put her backpack on with a strap so she was free to walk around but could not go to far or get lost. Abby was in a riding backpack and enjoyed just looking around. We also enjoyed fresh doughnuts and lunch by the bay. We had such a good time that both girls fell asleep on the way home (well Abby decided she was hungry for the last 25 minutes of the trip and let us know, but Elizabeth kept sleeping through the crying). It's trips like that that make you glad you live in California.