For the first time…

My in-laws are coming to visit on Wednesday (Mark’s younger brother, Alex, and his parents) and for the first time ever I think, I’m 100% excited about this visit and 0% nervous.

Recently we’ve (mostly me) worked through some issues Mark and I have had with dealing with his family.  Which is silly really since it’s not like his family is hard to “deal” with anyway.  It’s just challenging to feel like a part of a family when you see them twice a year at the most, and have lived at least 12 hours (currently 26 hours)away from them since you’ve been married.  AND I’m the type of person that over-analyzes EVERYTHING, which is a bad combination.

Anyway, Mark brought to his parents attention this past week some of what we’ve been going through and how I’ve been feeling , and it truly does feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  They know the whole story now and we’ve talked about it and it’s all out in the open, and even though nothings really changed, everything’s changed.

I’ve seen just in this past week how both of Mark’s parents have made an effort to try to “fix” things, that weren’t really “broken” in the first place, just misunderstood, and I truly appreciate that.

Donna and Brent, I truly am excited about your visit this week and I can’t wait to spend some time with you all before we head off to Italy. (You too Alex!) I hear horror stories people tell about their in-laws, and I realize how lucky I am to have you both as my second parents.  You are two of the kindest people I know and I know you would do anything in your power to make Mark, Abbie and ME happy.  I’m sorry this past week upset you, I know that wasn’t Mark’s, nor my, intentions.  But I am excited to move forward with you both and build a stronger relationship, even if we will be living on different continents soon.

Have a safe trip here and we’ll be waiting for you at the airport.  I am so excited!

So close!

It feels like for the past few weeks I’ve been telling everyone Abbie is SO CLOSE to crawling, and she is, but she still hasn’t.  Now she’ll get into the crawling position and stretch ALL the way out as far as she can without falling on her belly, and then can get back into the sitting position.  Her reach radius has vastly improved in the past week. 

She also has been pulling herself up on her knees by herself.  If you help her into a kneeling position, she can balance on her knees by herself for a while.  Pretty cute!

Tonight Mark and I were folding clothes and she was sitting on the floor playing.  She fell over backwards (landed on her blanket – wasn’t hurt), and I went back to folding my clothes because she usually just rolls over on her belly and plays and then screams when she’s ready to sit up again.  However, the next time I looked at her, she was sitting up again!  I’m not exactly sure how she did it, but somehow she sat up by herself.  Next time I’m going to watch her.

So we went back to folding clothes and the next time I looked at her she was pulling herself up on the coffee table and she was on her feet!  Granted, she wasn’t standing all the way up on her feet, she was in the splits position (legs straight out to the sides), but her butt was at least 6 inches off the ground and she was hanging on for dear life!  It was really cute!  She pulled herself up to her knees a few times and I’m quickly learning to keep all things away from the edges of the coffee table, unless it’s okay for her to have it.

I’m sure she’ll learn to crawl just in time for us to get on our 9+ hour flight to Italy and she won’t want to sit still for the entire flight.  Yay.  =)

“Military Wife”

I saw this online today.  Parts of it are fitting, parts of it aren’t, but I thought I’d share it anyway.  Enjoy.

Military Wife
Lots of moving...
Moving...
Moving...
Moving far from home...
Moving two cars, three kids and one dog...all riding with HER of course.
Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house;
Moving curtains that won't fit;
Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.
Moving away from friends;
Moving toward new friends;
Moving her most important luggage: her trunk full of memories.
Often waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting for housing.
Waiting for orders.
Waiting for deployments.
Waiting for phone calls.
Waiting for reunions.
Waiting for the new curtains to arrive.
Waiting for him to come home,
For dinner...AGAIN!
They call her 'Military Dependent', but she knows better:
She is fiercely In-Dependent.
She can balance a check book;
Handle the yard work;
Fix a noisy toilet;
Bury the family pet...
She is intimately familiar with drywall anchors and toggle bolts.
She can file the taxes;
Sell a house;
Buy a car;
Or set up a move...
.....all with ONE Power of Attorney.
She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.
She reinvents her career with every PCS;
Locates a house in the desert, The Arctic, Or the deep south.
And learns to call them all 'home'.
She MAKES them all home.
Military Wives are somewhat hasty...
They leap into:
Decorating,
Leadership,
Volunteering,
Career alternatives,
Churches,
And friendships.
They don't have 15 years to get to know people.
Their roots are short but flexible.
They plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come after them.
Military Wives quickly learn to value each other:
They connect over coffee,
Rely on the spouse network,
Accept offers of friendship and favors.
Record addresses in pencil...
Military Wives have a common bond:
The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands; his commitment is unique.
He doesn't have a 'JOB'
He has a 'MISSION' that he can't just decide to quit...
He's on-call for his country 24/7.
But for her, he's the most unreliable guy in town!
His language is foreign
TDY
PCS
OPR
SOS
ACC
BDU
ACU
BAR
CIB
TAD
And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.
She is the long- distance link to keep them informed;
the glue that holds them together.
A Military Wife has her moments:
She wants to wring his neck;
Dye his uniform pink;
Refuse to move to Siberia;
But she pulls herself together.
Give her a few days,
A travel brochure,
A long hot bath,
A pledge to the flag,
A wedding picture,
And she goes.
She packs.
She moves.
She follows.
Why?
What for?
How come?
You may think it is because she has lost her mind.
But actually it is because she has lost her heart.
It was stolen from her by a man,
Who puts duty first,
Who longs to deploy,
Who salutes the flag,
And whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military Husband,
She will remain his military wife.
And would have it no other way.
--Author Unknown

Ho hum

Sometimes when I’m reading friends blogs on Blogger, I’ll hit the “next blog” button and eavesdrop on random people’s blog.  It’s a cheap thrill to read what other people write, little hints of who they are through one blog post.  Sometimes I feel so inadequate when I write my blogs.  There’s nothing special about them – just my ramblings.  I’m not a particularly good writer, and I don’t write philosophically.  Just whatever comes to my mind usually, which is usually nothing too deep.  I wish I could write like my cousin.  (See her blog here. )  But I just don’t think like that and I didn’t go to school for writing either, and she did.  It is definitely her calling.

A lot of blogs have AMAZING pictures in them.  Most of them have obviously been photoshopped.  I wish I knew how to use that program.  We have one of the harder versions of Photoshop and I would love to learn to use it, but I just don’t have time to sit down and spend hours messing around with it and figuring it out.  Maybe when Abbie gets a little bit older I’ll have more time to figure it out.  There’s a beginners course online that my friend Emily told me about and I’d like to take that once we get to Italy and I can take notes and stuff and not lose them in the move.  I have such a beautiful little subject to practice with, so I think that’d be fun.

While I’m learning Photoshop, I should probably learn to use my DSLR to it’s fullest potential.  I’m slowly figuring it out, but I wish I had taken a photography course to learn how to use it.  I probably should have thought of that before I had a baby, and I actually did, but never had the time.

Another thing on my list of things to learn to do is quilting.  I would LOVE to be able to quilt.  We went to the AZ State Fair this summer and I could have spent HOURS looking at all those amazing quilts.  But that would require me to get a sewing machine that works more than 25% of the time.  And I’m not even sure my sewing machine will work in Italy because of the wattage difference.  Hopefully it will.  (Along with my digital piano.  I’ll be REALLY bummed if that thing doesn’t work over there, even though I really don’t play it all that much here.)

Thanks to Facebook I’ve gotten in touch with a girl who was an exchange student from Poland during my senior year of HS.  She has a baby girl, Hana, who is 3 weeks younger than Abbie.  I am completely amazed by her ability to speak (and write) English.  She’s more fluent in English than most Americans I know, me included.  It just makes me feel so inept that there are people like her out there who speak 2+ languages easily.  I wish I had learned Spanish in college, and taken it more seriously in HS.  I really, really want to learn Italian while we live in Italy.  I’m taking a course online right now and also bought a travelers crash course through the online program, but it’s slow learning.  I probably should have started this last January.  Good thing we found out we were going to Italy a week ago…  LOTS of time to prepare.. Not.

Anyway, that’s my wish list for now.  I’m hoping to accomplish a lot of this stuff while we live in Europe.  While Mark’s deployed I should have lots of time, or maybe I won’t have any time since I’ll be chasing after Abbie.  We’ll see I guess.  Time will tell.

Close call!

Abbie hasn’t been sleeping well at all for the past 3 nights.  We’re not sure what her deal is.  I don’t see or feel teeth coming it, so I don’t think it’s that, but MAN!  The kid does not want to sleep at all.  And she’s been waking up in the middle of the night and crying a lot, so I’ve gotten up with her the past 2 nights to try to calm her down.  Not fun.

Anyway, so last night Mark and I were going in to check on her like we always do before we went to bed.  Mark had shut her door all the way when he put her to bed, so I spent a good 2 mins trying to QUIETLY open the door since the hinges and the door handle make noises.  I finally got the door open and was tiptoe-ing inside her room and Mark was right behind me.  Unfortunately, Mark had worked out that day so his “shoulders were bigger than normal” (according to him) and he bumped into a picture I had hanging on the wall just inside the door.  Nice.

Abbie IMMEDIATELY popped her head up and looked in the direction of the door.  Since we both knew if she saw us, it’d be all over and we’d spend an hour trying to get her back to sleep.  So I ducked down and hid behind her changing table and Mark jumped out of the room and around the corner out of site.  HAHA!  I felt like we were breaking and entering or something instead of checking on our baby.

Luckily she put her head back down so I was able to get out of the room and close the door, but it was a very close call!  Mark and I had a good laugh about it afterwards, but it would have been a completely different story if she’d seen us.  I need to fix that damn door!

 

Introducing the Ergo

Our Ergo and backpack came in the mail on Friday.  Abbie seriously loves the thing, almost as much as we do.  So far, I’ve worn her on 2 walks around the neighborhood and in the grocery store, and Mark wore her on our hike in the White Tanks.   As you can see, she does love the thing, and it is VERY comfortable to wear.  Since the waistband is wide and padded, most of her weight is on your hips.  It basically feels like you’re wearing a book bag, although I remember my book bag in college being much heavier and a lot less comfortable.

The hike in the White Tanks was beautiful.  I wish we had bought a season pass to this park now.  It’s about 15-20 mins from our house.  We did the Waterfall Canyon trail this time, which is only a mile or so long, but as you can see, beautiful.  We figured (along with LOTS of other people) we’d check out the waterfall since we’ve had so much 

rain here lately.  You had to climb way back in the canyon to see the waterfall, or tip-toe across a few scattered rocks, neither of which we were willing to do with Abbie with us.

So Mark climbed back and got pictures of the waterfall while Abbie and I sat on a rock and watched people fall in the water.

(I really need a hood for my camera.  Then you wouldn’t see my hand blocking the sunlight….)

 

It seems as though Arizona is more beautiful this time of the year.  The weather was PERFECT for the hike – low 60’s and mostly sunny with a nice breeze.

Abbie really enjoys people watching.

 

 

 

Apparently the thing is comfortable too because Abs fell asleep on the way back.  The Ergo has a sleep hood on it though so we just put that up and it prevented her head from bouncing around.    It was a beautiful day and we had a great time hiking with our little one.

Ci stiamo muovendo in Italia ... Credo che

Translated, that means “We’re moving to Italy… I think.”

So here’s what happened.  As I said before, all 5 guys that were supposed to go to Spang, volunteered for Aviano (Italy), so we were back to square one.  Two of the guys already have their household goods (HHG’s in military acronyms) on the way to Germany, so we’re assuming that they’re going to Spang, but we really don’t know for sure.  The three guys left were Mark, Chris and Dave.  Mark volunteered for Aviano first and Osan (Korea) second.  Chris volunteered for Osan first and Shaw (South Carolina) second.  And Dave volunteered for Aviano first and Shaw second.  They ended up giving Chris Aviano because his wife is also in the Air Force and that’s the only place they could get them together.  They gave Mark Osan and they gave Dave Shaw.  Well Chris and his wife both didn’t want to go to Aviano, so they said that Chris could go to Korea and then Mark and Dave would have to decide who was going to Aviano together.  Dave is currently up at Nellis AFB in Vegas so Mark called him and they both wanted to go so Dave suggested that they use his friends iPhone that has a random number generator on it and Dave said he’d take number’s 0-4 and Mark could have numbers 5-9, and whichever number came up would determine who got Aviano.  Mark agreed and they pushed the button and a 7 came up, so Mark got Aviano and Dave is going to Shaw.  My dad is taking Mark to Vegas with him bc that’s the 2nd time he’s gotten an assignment based on luck.  Although we all know how that first assignment turned out….

It’s hard not to get excited about this assignment now, even though we still don’t have orders for it yet and we have no clue when we’ll be heading over there, if at all.  I’m scared to start planning and to get excited because I’m scared the rug is going to be pulled from beneath us again.  I guess all I can do is pray that this assignment sticks and that in a month or so we’ll be in Italy.

So Aviano is about an hour and a half north east of Venice, right at the foothills of the Alps.  The Adriatic Sea is about 45 mins south, and Rome (where Mark’s brother is) is about 5.5 hours away.  Vienna, Austria is 5.5 hours away, Switzerland is 6.5 hours away, and Prague is about 8.5 hours away.  Living in Italy will give us AMAZING opportunities to travel all over eastern Europe – in a lot of the countries you don’t really like about when you think of Europe.  We’ll be VERY close to both Slovenia and Croatia, which will be interesting.  We’ll also be fairly near Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria and Montenegro (where the Bond movie, Casino Royale, was filmed).  Greece will be a train ride away (long train ride, but still a train ride) and quite a few people have told us they’ve gone to Egypt while living over there.  How cool would that be?

So I’m not holding my breath, but I’m praying that we do get to move there.  I know about 3 words in Italian and there’s a whole new set of road blocks about moving to Italy.  Abbie and I need special passports and visas to live there and we don’t have a whole lot of time to get those done.  We’re hoping we’ll get more information on all of that this week.  I’ll keep you updated.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Or not..

So yeah, please disregard my “lucky day” post that I posted a few hours ago.  Funny how everything can change in a few short hours.  My stress level was on the downhill slide, only to now be sky rocketed.  Such is life.

So, here’s the scoop.  There are currently five guys scheduled to go to Spangdahlem.  As I posted before, one of the squadrons at Spang is closing, so they’re combining the 2 squadrons into one, which means that one squadron is already overmanned.  So they decided TODAY that sending 5 guys to Spang isn’t a good idea.  Mark called me at 1pm (and he had a sim from 1:30-2:30pm) and told me that either we could still plan on going to Germany and pray to the AF gods that they don’t make us go somewhere else as soon as we got there, or we could volunteer to go to either Aviano, Italy, Osan or Kunsan, Korea or Shaw, SC.  We decided to volunteer to go to Italy instead of being volun-told to go to Kunsan or Shaw.  We had about 30 seconds to make that decision.  So I was wound up about that, and shaking and nervous, but I was dealing with it okay.  Italy wasn’t the end of the world by far and we could deal with this bump in the road and change direction somewhat.  So Mark goes to his sim, comes home, goes back in to take a test, I pick him up on base and he drops the bomb.  Apparently ALL five guys volunteered to go to Aviano, so now we’re back to square one.  And now I am freaking out.  It just seems to be one freaking thing after another and I had gotten myself thinking that Aviano wasn’t that bad and now it looks like they MIGHT send 2 people to Aviano, at the most.  So if all 5 guys want Aviano, the odds aren’t in our favor at all.  So Mark and I decided to volunteer for either Aviano or Osan, Korea.  We’re hoping to have a better idea tomorrow about where we might end up, but at this point it is completely up in the air, and I am completely drained.

Both Aviano and Osan have their positives and negatives and I’m going to try really hard not to think about it until we have orders in our hands for the base we’re headed to next.  Not that that really matters all that much since the AF can pull the rug out from under you any time they’d like.

And no, Donna, you don’t want us going to Shaw.  Mark will be deployed all the time if we go there – more than any other base, along with many, many TDY’s.  He’ll miss quite a bit of Abbie’s life if we end up going to Shaw, which is why it’s been our 2nd to last choice all along.

My lucky day!!!

It sure has seemed like lately, when it rains, it pours.  Quite literally.  It’s been raining here for the past few days, and I absolutely love it.  It feels like home and the dreary weather is a nice break from all the sun.  I know that sounds funny, but being from IL, we’re used to this weather.  360 days of sun is nice, but I welcome the break in the sunshine.  Plus, this weather is totally getting us ready for Germany, where it’s 360 days of rain and fog.  AZ is flooding though.  There is standing water everywhere.  Apparently the ground here doesn’t soak up the water like it does at home.

This past week I’ve been on edge.  It just seems like its one thing after another.  First the whole dentist thing which completely freaked me out, then Mark being gone all next week while I’m frantically trying to get appointments for me and the dogs to get ready to go to Spang, then we tried to get the Jetta oil changed and the stupid drain plug was stripped so we had to take it to the dealership and $190 later it’s fixed, then we found out we need 2 keys to the Passat in order to ship it and we only have 1 and a new key costs $350, etc.  So this week just hasn’t been good, BUT today is my lucky day!!!

I went to a different dentist today and he spent a good 20 mins looking at my teeth and x-rays and he didn’t find ANYTHING wrong!  He said I have a chip on one of my teeth, but it’s not bothering me and it’s not major so he said nothing had to be done to it.  And I don’t need a crown and I don’t have any cavities.  I cannot believe it.  I am dentally cleared to go to Germany now!  SOOO freaking excited.  Those rotten bastards at the other dentist…. Grrr..

Mark also found out today that his trip to Shaw for next week is cancelled!  Whoo-hoo!!!  SOO excited about that too!  And the dealership is working with us on the Passat key, they gave us $100 off the price AND the Jetta is officially sold!  Now we just have to sell the Explorer and we’ll be good to go!

Hopefully this move will be smooth sailing from here on out!

Grins galore!

Seriously, this kid is ALWAYS grinning now!!!!

   

Abbie Rose is 8 months old!

Really?  She’s going to be a year in 4 short months???  I can’t believe it.  I have to admit, I was really questioning motherhood those first few months and I was fairly sure she was going to be an only child.  But this little girl is just so much FUN now.  When Mark and I see on our video monitor that she’s awake, we race each other to her room to get her up.  She is just all smiles and grins and she’s making THE most adorable noises now.  She’s saying a lot of “mamamama’s”, although I don’t think she’s relating that with me yet.  She will soon though. 

Her new thing is her right hand  pointer finger.  She CONSTANTLY has that thing sticking straight out and she has to touch everything with it.   Every time we give her a bite of food she has to stick that little finger out and touch the food very lightly and then she opens her mouth.  Pretty cute.

She’s got the “pincher grasp” down pat now and can easily feed herself small bites of things.  She loves bread and cheese, although I try not to give her too much cheese because it binds her up like crazy.  We have a good supply of prune juice on hand, and that seems to help a lot.  She’s still not crawling, but she’s SOOO close.  She scoots around while in the sitting position quite a bit and she’s trying hard to start pulling herself up on things.

She’s in size 2-3 diapers now, and she’s wearing mostly 6-9 or 9 month clothes.   It’s kind of sad because I’ve been putting a lot of her baby things away.  She doesn’t use her swing or bouncer anymore, or her baby bathtub.  We just use the big bathtub now, which is interesting…  (More on that in a second.)  She doesn’t use pacifiers at all any more, except to chew on and she’s getting good at using the sippy cup by herself.  She’s taking 2 naps a day ranging from 30 mins –2.5 hours.  Usually she has one short one and one long one, or they’re both about an hour or so long.  We put her to bed between 8-9pm and she gets up between 7-8am.  I nurse her 3-5 times a day and she’s on 3 full meals a day now too.  She loves her food!

So the other night Mark and I were giving her a bath – as we do every night.  Ollie always acts a little weird, as in, he’s VERY interested in what we’re doing to her and he gets really anxious and starts whining.  I don’t know if he think we’re going to hurt her or what, but he acts really funny.  So 2 nights ago he took a running leap and jumped into the bathtub with her.  While he was in there he kept nudging her with his nose and licking her.  Really odd, but cute too.  Here are the pictures.   I think she was quite surprised to see a weina in the tub with her at first. 

Where to start

I haven’t posted in a while, and because of that, I don’t even know where to begin.   So I will begin with a picture of  my most adorable baby. 

Our life is absolutely crazy right now.  Trying to figure out this OCONUS (military term for outside continental US – aka overseas) move is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  In the dark.  It’s ridiculous.  Mark has a 7 page list of stuff he has to get done before the move and to get his orders cut, and that’s just on the military side of it.  It doesn’t include any of the logistics of moving our junk over there, getting the dogs and cars and us over there.  I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get us hotel reservations here in Phoenix, in LA, in Baltimore, and in Germany, and then trying to get the dogs on our flights with us, etc.  It’s exhausting.

I need a damn dental clearance to go overseas, along with a medical clearance, which I’m not worried about.  But this damn dental clearance is turning out to be a huge PITA (pain in the ass).  I had an appt scheduled for today at a place I called a week ago.  I asked if they accepted my insurance and they called my insurance and then called me back and said they did.  Great, sign me up for a cleaning and an exam.  So I get there 15 mins early, wait for 25 mins to be taken back, get FIVE x-rays taken (that in itself took 10 mins or more), wait 15 mins for them to be processed, talk to the dr for 5 mins as she looks at my teeth.  So by the time I’d been there an hour, I’d had 5 x-rays done and talked to the dr for 5 mins.  Nice.  She told me I had 2 small cavities that they could fix, and that one of my fillings had chipped and she recommended that I get a crown done on that tooth so it doesn’t cause more problems.  Great.  (Did I mention how much I HATE the dentist??)  So how soon can they do that?  Today.  Okay, how much will it cost?  $1900.  . . . WHAT?!?!  Are you kidding me?  Oh, we don’t do the metal fillings, we only do the composite ones which happen to be 4 times more expensive and instead of your insurance covering 80% of the fillings, they cover $50.  Ha.  Nice.  And the crown that I need is $1500.  You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.  So I’m about in tears at this point because I need them to sign this damn paper to give me my dental clearance and if they don’t, I don’t get medically cleared to go to Germany, and they’re not going to unless I get $1900 of work done and I can’t get ahold of Mark.  Not my day at all.  So I said fine, sign me up for this appt at 3pm today and I’ll be back.  On my way home I called my insurance company and come to find out, that damn place isn’t even covered by my insurance, even though they told me they were.  And that’s why they wanted me to pay for all that stuff upfront and then reimburse me whatever the insurance covered later on.  So I cancelled that appointment and I’m going to try to get into another dentist that is covered by my insurance asap because we need my dental clearance before they’ll give us orders.  Ugh.

Luckily my friend Emily is visiting so she did a good job calming me down and distracting me. We went and ate at Chick-Fil-A and then went for a few short hikes in the White Tank Mountains by my house.  It was 79 degrees (sorry, I know you Midwesterners don’t want to hear how nice it is here, but just remember that when it was 79 degrees there it was 120 here…) so it was a beautiful day for a hike.  Em showed me how to wear Abbie in the mei tai (that she made me) on my back and Abbie LOVED it back there!!!  The White Tanks are beautiful and the fresh air and good conversation was just what I needed.  I wish I’d taken advantage of living so close to the mountains more.  Lesson learned and the same mistake won’t be made in Germany, that’s for sure.

 

Em was wearing Sierra in an Ergo baby carrier and I SOOOO want one!   They’re a type of mei tai, but instead of tying it on, like I do with mine, it has buckles which makes it very easy to get into and out of.  And I’ve heard they’re great for toddlers and they have little packs you can get that attach to them.  Talk about absolutely PERFECT for traveling around Europe with.  I want one.  But they’re $108.  (Which is actually cheap considering some of the carriers Em showed me online today.  Some of them were like $250!!!)  I’m trying to talk Mark into it.  We’ll see.

Anyway, today was kind of a rough day, but no matter how bad my day is, one (almost) toothless, winkled nose grin from this baby, and I forget about everything else.

Changes galore

It seems like in the past week Abbie has been changing in leaps and bounds.  I just can’t get over how much fun this little thing is.  I was so worried about being a stay at home mom – I thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  She definitely keeps me on my toes and she’s just so much fun to be around now.  Her little personality is really emerging now and she’s always smiling or laughing at something.

For not being able to crawl, she sure moves around a LOT.  If she’s on the tile floor, she can slide all over the place while sitting up.  She’s incredibly good at basically folding herself in half while in the sitting position to reach things.  She can hold herself up with one hand and reach as far as she can with her other hand, and if it’s out of reach, she’s smart enough to switch hands and hold herself up with her other hand and reach with the opposite hand.  It’s really fun to watch.  If she drops something, she’s already looking for it before it hits the ground and she’ll follow it if it rolls somewhere.

In the past week she’s learned to get food into her mouth by herself.  Her favorites are the little cheese puffs, followed by the yogurt melts.  And she has 2 bottom teeth now and when she grins you can see the bigger one.  It’s too cute.

She’s getting pretty good at standing up now, and she’s moved her feet a couple of times while holding on to my hands.  I stood her up yesterday and put her next to one of her taller toys, and she stood there by herself for about a minute, hanging on to the toy.  That was a first.

We’re doing sign language with her and the main ones we work on are milk, eat, all done, more, daddy and dog .  She hasn’t signed any yet, but she watches me do it and I try to be consistent in doing it, so hopefully she’ll catch on soon.

She’s such a happy little thing and it’s just the cutest thing ever when Mark gets home from work.  She gets SO excited and starts waving her hands and doing her “excited snort” where she breathes funny out of her nose while grinning from ear to ear.  Today I was laying on the bed with her sitting next to me and Sadie came and laid down next to me and in front of Abbie and the next thing I know Abbie is trying to suck on Sadie’s foot and then she managed to get the end of her tail in her mouth.  She thinks it’s the greatest thing when Sadie lays next to her and gets a real kick out of Sadie’s wagging tail.  (And Sadie’s tail is always wagging.)  It’s fun to watch the 2 of them interact and I’m so glad Sadie seems to like Abbie as much as Abbie likes Sadie.

I really didn’t think it was possible to love someone you’ve only known for 7 and a half months this much.  Mark and I get so much joy from this little thing and I don’t even remember with life was like before she came along.