daffodils, the 2012 version

Recent Going-ons

Cutest thing ever:  Abby saying good bye to Ryan's "magic" train the other morning.  It was time to leave to pick Ryan up from preschool, so I said something along the lines of let's go to the car to get Ryan.  She walked into the family room, did her adorable little squat that makes my knees creak just watching her, got right up to the engine of the train, waved, and said "bye bye train bye bye."  Soooo sweet!!

Yesterday we had a picnic in the back of the van with Ryan's friends Asher and Graydon [and all the sibs].  I love listening to four and three year olds talk!  One snippet I heard that made me smile: "I have a Grandpa too!  What's your Grandpa's name?  Grandpa!"

Thanks to my wonderful hubby for taking the kids to Chickfila this morning for breakfast and playplace time [and for picking up breakfast for Mommy too!].  As they were leaving and giving Mommy hugs, Ryan said "get some good rest Mommy for you and the baby in your belly"  Love that little guy :)

UPDATED:  I forgot to mention my parrot:  I missed a call from Abby's pediatrician Friday morning, so I called back and I said this was Amy Chase calling.  From the backseat Abby shouts "Amy Chase! Amy Chase!"  I bet she said it ten times.  She was so loud, the lady on the phone could hear her and had a laugh too!

And yes, in case you were wondering Abby still calls SpiderMan "bad guy."  She always refers to Ryan's oversized action figure as "bad guy" and then when we were at a friend's house a couple weeks ago, she took a SpiderMan magnet off the fridge and brought me "bad guy!!" 

conversations and interactions

Abby says so many words now that I gave up a couple months ago on keeping a list of them.  It still amazes me how well she communicates!  I can understand what she wants almost all of the time.  And she's starting to put words together too.  "Mommy shoe" "right there" "two babies" that sort of thing.  She can also answer questions pretty well.  She knows that Ryan goes to "p-school" and just this past week she's starting saying "work" when I ask where Daddy goes.  She tries to sing her ABC's too.  She knows the melody, but the letters are rarely in the right order.  She gets "ABC" right most of the time and she will usually shout out "W!" when we get there.

Another fun thing is listening to Ryan and Abby talk.  I love when Ryan will ask Abby "what does that mean" or "what are you saying" or something along those lines.  The last few times we've been driving together, they've been talking a lot about their surroundings.  Abby has started calling out "bank" or "p-school" or whatever and Ryan tries to correct her.  "That's not a bank, that's the elementary school" [I was impressed he knew that word, I've been calling it the big kid school].  They also love seeing the animals and some sort of unspoken contest has emerged to see who can yell "MOO!!" the loudest to all the many cows we pass. 

I love seeing their personalities emerge and I love watching how well they've been interacting recently!

Welcome February

We're one more month closer to summertime, yay!  Although it's hard to complain too much this year since it's been such a mild winter.  But nonetheless Ryan and I enjoy talking about all the fun things we can do when it warms up: going outside, swimming in the pool, playing on the swingset and in the playhouse, and all sorts of other summertime favorites!

But we're making the best of winter until then.  We've had several playdates recently.  And Abby's even had a couple of her own with some of our friends in our new small group.  It's exciting having lots of little girls around, we're not used to that.  We had Olivia over last week and I loved that Abby talked about "Libya" the rest of the day!  We've also been up to Chickfila and then Lowe's for the Build and Grow workshops; I didn't realize how age-appropriate they were.  Ryan had a great time building a bug box [although he keeps his HexRobot in there] and a dinosaur.  Mommy went out to Atlanta Bread Company with Christa and Alicia for some much needed girls' time.  And Mommy and Daddy had a date night!  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Bahama Breeze and saw Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  We've also done a few projects around the house [pictures to come eventually, I have to put the finishing touch on the family room adventure first]. 

So that's about all I can think of for now.  Happy February!

our crazy kids!

So out of the blue the other night, Abby starts doing this crazy stuff.  I've never seen her do it; we didn't prompt her or anything.  She's just spontaneous and happy and full of life!  And of course, monkey see monkey do, Ryan had to try it too :) 

[and believe it or not, Abby gets a little camera shy, she was even more into it before I started filming!]

Pizza Dinner

Last night we took the kids to pizza for dinner and to tell Ryan about the Baby in mommy's belly!  It was so much fun!  We went ahead and told him it's a girl [on the off chance it is a boy, I'd rather him be surprised  & excited, then disappointed it's a girl].  He asked if it could be a boy, but we said it wasn't up to us and that it looks like God's going to give him another little sister.  He took it in stride and moved right on.  He then started talking about all the things he's going to teach the baby to do, like walking and rolling over [hopefully not in that order :)]. 

We also gave them Big Brother/Big Sister gifts; I was in a great mood at Hobby Lobby and couldn't resist buying them something!  We gave Ryan some UGA dogtags.  I wasn't sure if he'd love or hate them, but he seems to love them, relief!  And I finally gave in and bought Abby the UGA cheerleader doll.  The last two times we've been to Hobby Lobby she's carried "baby" around the whole time.  I just couldn't say no again! 

We are so blessed with our two kids and with a third on the way!  I'm so excited that it's 'real' now and we can relax and celebrate a little! 

Baby Chase is on the way!!

Tennessee

We spent Saturday up in Chattanooga.  We have a season's pass to the TN Aquarium that's about to expire so we have to get in our money's worth!  The kids had a great time.  I loved watching Abby wave to the animals and yell "hi!" to the tanks.  And Ryan's getting so verbal and smart, that everything's fun and exciting.  We talked about spider crabs in particular for several days afterwards [I think he was s-c-a-r-e-d of them.  He wanted to know where they live, would they be at the beach or in the pool, would they bite his feet, that sort of thing]. 
After the aquarium we explored the Chattanooga Choo-Choo complex.  I thought it had a lot of potential, but it's old and not well marketed or anything.  The kids enjoyed it though and we took a trolley ride.  We had the trolley all to ourselves, so the conductor gave them special treatment including pulling the string to ring the bell. 

chasing away sugarbugs

Ryan had a dentist appointment today and he did really great [well most of the time ... positive reinforcement though!].  He has ten teeth on top and ten on bottom; twenty total!

And ... while we were there Dr. Miles took a peek at Abby's teeth too.  She's too little for the real cleaning, but he brushed them and flossed them.  She looked so little in the big chair, sitting on a sleep positioner sort of thing.  She really did do great; no fussing at all!  She has eight teeth on top and eight on bottom; sixteen total.  [I had no idea, so I was excited to know :)].   The dentist could see the two- year molars starting to erupt; they should be here within the next six months and then she'll have all her baby teeth too.

2012 Fun

So we've been in hibernation mode around here :)  Is it spring yet??  Fortunately this winter has started out much milder than last year, but the constant rain will start to mess with your mind after awhile!

The last two weeks have been lazy, relaxing ones broken up by some family & friends time.  David and Kelley, a couple of our best buds from high school, moved back to the east coast and we enjoyed catching up with them a couple of times over break.  And of course lots of family around for Christmas and New Year's; we enjoyed getting to visit with both Aunt Mackenzie and Uncle Jason too.  We had one of our favorite playdates - Catch Air and Pizza Hut with Asher and Graydon [and an ever growing number of sibs :)].  We also partied with Olivia from our new small group at her second birthday party.  It's cool watching Abby make her own friends; more often than not she ends up playing with Ryan's friend's siblings, which is great, but it's fun to see her with girls her age!  She was super cute feeding Olivia goldfish.  And somewhere in there we enjoyed a nice dinner with James and Rachel and Jake and baby Lily.  We also had a family breakfast at McDonald's - family, pancakes, and the playplace, yay!

whew, maybe we haven't been as laidback as I thought; it sure sounds like a lot when you write it all down in one place!  Hope everyone's new year is off to a happy and healthy start!