Thanksgiving

I don't have too many photos of Thanksgiving this year, mostly because... Instead of overeating & taking a walk down to the golf course we were instead dealing with some really sad news.

My grannie had been in the hospital all week dealing with an infection so we all took turns going to visit her. I gave her some of the lemon meringue pie that I made which seemed to make her smile a bit. She's really not too well these days and we all are hoping for some recovery & relief for her.


The really sad news came when we arrived at grannie's house, Larry (my uncle) had passed away after having a sudden heart attack that morning. We are all very, very sad for Clinton, Stacey and Ivy especially and will miss him very much. Here's a photo of their wedding last year, I'm so glad Larry was still here for it (he's the one in the tan suit on the left).


Here's the only photo I managed of the thanksgiving activities. The kids playing on Gran's piano - such a hard day.

KariO (weet)

Kari Olsen was in town for Thanksgiving so we went out for dinner and drinks on Wednesday night. Since our names sound the same our families came up with a few nicknames for us when we hang out together. I can't believe I'm admitting it but Kari is weet, and I'm newt, my mom broke those right out when she came over that night :).

It was so great to see Kari and catch up, we were always together in high school and I miss her company dearly, such a good friend.

Some Recent Abby Activities

I've got it in my head to finish the bathroom floor project that was started last February. The door jam needs to be filled in with a piece of marble so we went to home depot to get supplies.

Abby loves riding around in the little car part attached to the carriages.

They also had this kid workshop going on for kids so we stopped to build a tool box for abby.
For all the parents out there, the everett home depot has a a kids workshop with real tools every saturday at 10am. Who knew? Oh, and it's free.


Last weekend we met up with Maya and Max Morse at the Childrens Museum. Abby is loving the blue man group part. She also seems really into the golf balls room where they have all these little tracks & slides to play with. I'm hoping I have a combo enginner-musician on my hands :).



I have to admit, I have a serious weakness for buying cute clothes for Abby. I can hardly resist sometimes when I see something I like. Mostly I like the clothes that look like I would wear them except they are in tiny sizes. Check out my latest purchase.


Oh yeah, Abby's been into asserting her will more and more these days ;). Usually, when she doesn't get something she wants the following three things happen.

1. confused look on her face

2. Whining

3. Hands down on the floor (like the photo below) followed by laying down and crying.

It's pretty funny, I have a feeling I was pretty strong willed as a child so perhaps this is payback ;).

Big Girls & Little Babies

My oldest friend Andrea had another baby a few weeks ago. Here I am holding her, isn't she so cute and teeny tiny? Elisabeth is so excited to have a baby sister and I enjoyed getting to visit this new little addition. She looks a bit more italian than Andrea's first (darker skin) and just beautiful!

Abby's been into trying anything that a grown up would do lately and often demands 'no-help' when she wants to try something herself. She can put on her own shoes now, this one is jussst a wee bit big :).

Pee-pee on the potty has become somewhat of a regular activity too (at least once or twice a day) and she officially pooped on the potty yesterday (thanks to me making her sit there for about 10 minutes). For Abby I think the fun part is the routine associated with using the potty... especially the 'wipe' part.


Big girl helping mom cook.

And getting a serious rock gear obsession going on (oh wait, thats me ;)) check out my new stuff and my pretty model !

Not a baby anymore?

I just got back from a week long business trip to Philiadelphia and I swear Abby looked bigger when I got back. It was only 6 days! Lately, I really get the sense that time is flying by too fast, especially when I think about Abby not being my little baby anymore. I think she might actually be a kid now. :) She is way more fun this way than when she was sleeping all day long, but I know I'm going to miss her snuggles as she gets even bigger.

Check out this series of photos taken at the same spot in the Museum of Science.

Dec - 2007 - 1 year ago ~ 10 months

April - 2008 - 14 months

November - 2008 - 1 year, 9 months

Abby's first airplane flight

Abby was a good kid on the plane :) I'm a very lucky mommy I think. On the way there the flight went smoothly, no delays or anything. We got on the plane, got her all excited about flying, played with her dolls a bit and then like clock work she went right down for a nap. I sang her 'you are my sunshine' (her goodnight song) and then she was out for the duration of the flight. I actually had to wake her up for the landing!

The way home was a bit more challenging but still fine. Our flight got cancelled so we got stuck on the broken airplane for 1.5 hours and then had to get re-booked on a new flight. Abby was awake for most of flight but in a good mood and was fun to play with.

Here she is running around Logan.

Sitting in her seat with baby doll

About 15 minutes later

Halloween weekend in Chicago

We spent Halloween weekend in Chicago with the Hawkins family. Abby finally got to meet the rest of the Hawkins/Walsh side of the family.
We went trick or treating with Abby's cousins: Cici, Katie, Maddie, and Michael. Abby was a princess (thank you Maya Morse for donating the dress). Cici was a kick ass Indiana Jones (totally cool costume idea in my opinion). The twins were pretty cute too, Katie was a witch, Maddie was Tinkerbell and little brother Michael was a monkey.

Abby wasn't quite sure what the whole trick or treating was all about but once the candy started flowing she was into it. It never did sink into her little head that the idea was: collect candy now > eat most of it later. Basically at every door she got confused & looked at the people like, excuse me why did you put it in the plastic pumpkin? I want to open it right now! I guess when you are 1.5 though you are allowed to be all about instant gratification :).

One thing I learned about her was that she especially loves lolipops, or pops (pronounced pawp).

After trick or treating we headed back to Beth's house for dinner and dancing. The music for the dancing was provided by Chris' very cool player piano. I think it is totally cute how Abby taps her fingers to the music and even trys to play the keys at one point before yelling out "Song!".

I've been a bit nostalgic for my ballrom dancing days lately. Chris Walsh has taken a few lessons so he lead me in a dance to the player piano music too. Check out Katie and Maddie trying to copy us :)

On Saturday we drove up to Rockton, IL to visit Tighe's sister Laura and her family. They are building a new house so we went out to the building site to view the progress. Tighe's parents were very happy to have almost all of their grandchildren together in one place for the first time. The only one missing was the oldest grandchild Tasha who is spending a semester in London. Someone will have to Photoshop Tasha's face over Carrie's in the photo below.