Winter has arrived, and we’re thrilled!

Winter has arrived, and we’re thrilled! December 1, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sally Ann @ 3:49 pm

Seems like folks either love cold weather or hate it—not a lot of middle ground. This family loves it! At least opposed to the sometimes scorching summer. I’ll take a freezing day anyday over a hot one! And yes, the cold days have arrived. The low last night was in the 20′s. Welcome to Arden, winter.

Abigail Grace

She talks pretty much only in complete sentences now, and the things she says can be so amusing at times. She’s trying to figure out time references (i.e. last night vs. tomorrow, etc), and will often just throw a reference out there hoping it works, “Mommy, we had pancakes for breakfast tomorrow night,” or “I didn’t go to time out lasterday.” The “lasterday” word cracked me up. Despite the confusion there, she does know what we do on each day of the week—just not the days of the week order. “I go to preschool Thursday and Tuesday.”

We’ve learned that Abigail will go along with pretty much any schedule of events so long as she’s warned, so most days, I’ll give her the rundown of our plans. Then she repeats it all back to me over and over. “First we go to Target. Then we go to the car wash. Then we go to the bank. I get a lollipop. Then we get home. I take off my shoes. I eat lunch. I go potty. I take a nap.” Or whatever. Kind of OCD, but kind of funny too.

She still loves to read and has started reciting books while we’re reading them. We checked out a couple of new books from the library, and Roly Poly Pangolin was an instant hit. There’s a video below of her reading it with me. She’s also started “singing” songs that we sing or that she’s learned in preschool; that’s been fun.

She has become pretty possessive over her toys if Madilyn gets near—”That’s MINE, Madilyn!!” and sharing is a constant battle, but what 2-year-old is a happy sharer all the time? Time out is the discipline method of choice and seems to work pretty well. Too bad she’s in time out several times every single day. Sigh.

Madilyn Joy

She pulled to standing in the crib on the same day I blogged last month about how she couldn’t do it. Oops. Guess she read my post. She’s figured out giving high fives and waves to people when she wants to. She is trying to figure out how to point and is starting to really understand certain words like her name, mommy, daddy, light, NO, come here, eat, water, etc). And just like her sister at this age, Madilyn loves ceiling fans and the pull chains under them.

She babbles most of the day and will sometimes just open and close her mouth without making any sounds at all—like a fish face. Some part of every day is spent drumming her index finger over her lips while trying to babble. Pretty funny.

She’s finished with purees and is 100% on table food. That’s been a nice change and happened earlier than it did for Abigail—mainly because we thought Abigail had to be on purees until later. Oops. Glad to be finished with the blender for a bit.

Not sure how time is flying so fast, but in two months, I’ll likely be finished with nursing because……she’ll be ONE YEAR OLD. Holy cow! Has it really already been a year since I was 7 months pregnant with Madilyn? It doesn’t feel like that long ago.

We had her 9-month appointment, and she’s 22.5lbs (back on the growth chart at the 95th percentile), 28.5″ long, with an 18″ head. At Abigail’s 9-month appointment, she was 20.5lbs, 29″ long, with the same size head.

And for fun, here are a couple of comparisons of the girls at the same age. Abigail is on the left in both pictures, and Madilyn is on the right. In both shots, the girls are 8-9 months old.
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Can’t believe how much more hair Madilyn has at this age than Abigail.
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9-month check-up in the same office, just 18 months apart!
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Notable Events

Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Savannah—The first weekend in November, I went down to Savannah with five other gals to run a half marathon in the Rock and Roll series. I had so much fun, and didn’t do too shabby considering I’d just run another 13.1 mile race 4 weeks prior and I didn’t have a running partner during the race. It took me around two hours and 5 minutes to finish. I’ll take it! Unfortunately, Madilyn wouldn’t take any bottles of pumped milk for David, so I came back in a hurry.

Happy Birthday—David turned 28 on November 9, and we enjoyed a fun day of celebration. For breakfast, we had very hungry caterpillar parfaits (I layered graham cracker crumbs/granola with yogurt and each of the fruits the caterpillar ate in the Eric Carle book. Too cute!), and lunch and dinner were Mexican themed per David’s request (quesadillas and enchiladas, respectively). David only worked a half day, so once he was home and the girls were awake, we went out to the Arboretum to explore a bit. It was a beautiful day, and we had a blast. The following weekend, compliments of David’s parents, we went to the…

Clemson vs. Wake Forest game—it was our first time back in Death Valley since graduating in 2006. Thankfully, Clemson pulled out a win, but it was their last win of the season. Thanks for pulling through for that weekend, tigers! We met up with David’s brother, Kevin, and his girlfriend, Brittany before the game and after for a campus stroll and dinner. So nice! The girls got to stay with my parents for the day and night and had a wonderful time as well.

Wee Trade Holiday Sale—What can I say? I love a good kid’s consignment sale. I was able to find a beautiful Christmas dress for Abigail, some Christmas pjs for both girls, and a couple of Christmas gifts for Abigail. All on the cheap. Score!

Daddy/Abigail play date—We’re working on letting each Saturday morning be a special time for just David and Abigail, and one of the November Saturdays, David took Abigail to the Mountain Play Lodge. They had a blast, and Madilyn and I went back with them after naps to check it out. Abigail seemed to really enjoy the one-on-one time with David and just being the center of attention for a bit when all of us were there.

A Finished Knitting Project—finally!—I knitted David a scarf. Unfortunately, I haven’t taken a picture of it in its 6-ft+ glory, but I will soon. Here’s the pattern, and it turned out just like that, only I used a darker gray alpaca yarn. I learned a lot through this project—especially considering I probably knitted a 9-ft scarf taking into account all the times I had to undo rows of stitches. Haha! Looking forward to my next project, whatever it might be.

Cookie Playdate—Abigail had a ton of fun at Jana’s house making sugar cookies. She got to mix the dough, roll it out, cut out shapes, and decorate them (and eat them!) once they were baked. Jana gave out precious aprons to the group to boot. So cute!

Thanksgiving in Boone, NC—We trekked up to Boone, NC where David’s parents rented a cabin for Wednesday-Sunday of Thanksgiving week. What a blast! We had delicious food, played fun games, took lots of brisk, hilly walks, and enjoyed the company of family. It’s a bummer we all live so far away!

First major colds of the season—With our favorite time of year comes our least favorite activity: being sick. Bahumbug. Abigail got sick (most likely) from the church nursery on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. By Tuesday midday, she was coughing, and by Wednesday, the snotfest was in session. She is at the tail-end of her cold right now over a week later. While she was sick, David and I caught minor cases while Madilyn got a horrible cold. She’s only five days in and hopefully over the hump, but a couple of 101.6F fevers freaked us out. Poor baby!

Photos and Videos

Again, there’s a slideshow of photos first, then videos, then the individual photo files. Enjoy! See you next month.
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Abigail saying the blessing before dinner
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