Baby Party

The party goers.


The party was at a lull and Abby really only cared about her favorite toy Pink Fish.


Abby loves crawl up to other babies and to grab their faces. She is not shy and she cannot read social cues... yet.


So Abby, did you have fun?

Abby had her PEPs friends over for a party. She had a great time... this little baby girl is the life of the party. Although she wasn't too thrilled when all the kids wanted to play with her shopping cart. Something tells me we may have some problems learning to share... uh-oh.

My Little Daffodil

Mmmm... it looks so yummy!


I am a sucker for daffodils, they seem to be the first sign that Spring will be here eventually and today, there they were, at the store! So it may be a long ways off, but it's a sign, Spring will be here soon(ish). Anyway, because Abby was born in March and it seemed there were daffodils everywhere when she was born, I think of her as my little daffodil. I tried to get her to pose with one of the daffodils we bought, but she just wanted to eat it, so I had to give up and take it away. It was nap time, so maybe after her nap she'll be more cooperative? Not likely, but if she is, I'll post more (hopefully better pics then).




Looking cute and angelic while she eats her new favorite, mangoes and blueberries.

I feel like a new woman!

Maybe it's because we've been cooped up in the house with all this rain, maybe I'm taking this new homemaker role too seriously, I don't know, but I do know that I feel like a new woman now that my favorite sweater is pill free and all thanks to... are you ready? A SPONGE! Did everyone else already know about this? It was news to me, but somewhere (I think Real Simple) I read that a new sponge can remove the pills from a sweater. Today I found a new sponge in the cleaning closet and looked down at my favorite sweater (full of pills) and tried it. Lo and behold! It works! And I can't wait to try it on all my second favorite sweaters! Hallelujah!


Who knew? Just this plain old sponge could provide such magic?


Look at all those pills!

Getting Our Money's Worth

Abby the Wo'Pop musician


Abby the builder


Abby the shopper

Today we went to the Children's Museum. Abby seemed to really enjoy herself. So far she seems to value her sense of taste over most other senses and that's why I think we are going to get our money's worth out of those flu shots we got. Abby is so thrifty!

Sorry about the cell phone pictures. I have to find the little camera. It seems like too much of a pain to bring the big camera out to places like this but I can't seem to find the little one. New Year's resolution is to get organized, so it shouldn't be long before I find it!

Auntie Kelsey and Abby

I had to include this picture because it reminds me so much of my sister Kelsey for a few reasons. First because Kelsey has always been a die hard M's fan and this hat was given to us by Kelse, so there's that, but the biggest reason is that the expression on Abby's face is the exact expression I remember on Kelsey's face during basketball games when we were growing up. Neither Kelsey or I were very good basketball players. I disguised my lack of skill with fierce defense and a mean expression on my face, but Kelsey always had this expression on her face. Can you see it? It's a combo of "Who me?" and "I better run" (which is what she does now and is really good at)!

New Favorite Things...

I had to get this shot for all you Reading Rainbow lovers out there.


This is about 1/2 as excited as she was the first time.


Abby and I have some new favorite things to start off 2010. They are both Christmas presents and we love all of our Christmas presents, but these two are especially great.

Abby loves her Clap Your Hands book. The book is special because it has an Elmo finger puppet in the middle and Abby loves to watch the puppet read her the story. I wish I had a video of the first time I read it to her while using the puppet. She was thrilled. We have been watching a lot of Sesame Street the last week or so (Charlie and I both had the flu) so I think she now has a special bond with Elmo and she just recently learned to clap, so it is the perfect book for her right now.

I love my glamour gloves. I have always had dry hands, but all the hand washing and hand sanitizer that comes along with being a mom is killing me! I actually woke up at 2 a.m. the day before Christmas Eve and couldn't go back to sleep because my poor hands were cracked and painful... well I feel confident that that will not happen again now that I have these wonder gloves. They are made by Bliss spa and they are great. They really work!

Happy New Year!

After going to bed at 6:30 and letting her parents live it up for most of the night, this little party animal woke up for the big midnight countdown. When I brought her downstairs she was fully stunned for about 5 minutes... I wonder if she thinks we have a house full of party guests every night while she's asleep?


Abby's first New Year's kiss.


Happy New Year!


This is a babysafe toy, right? (I promise she only played with this for a second so I could get some festive shots)

We rounded out the decade in style, with out of town guests and a party! Our dear friends Roberta and Matt were visiting from London and spent the last couple nights with us, so to celebrate 2010 and their visit we had a party. It was very fun and I got to try out two new (and very easy) recipes: Barefoot Contessa's Bay Scallop Gratin (it's in the her green cookbook) and S'Mores (I'll try to get recipes for both onto the blog), but the S'Mores is something that I really hope you try! So easy and so good! My Mom made some marshmallows the other day (why else, because she was bored) and gave them to me, so I made a thick and buttery graham cracker crust, cut it into cookies, added a big homemade marshmallow and doused it in Dilettante chocolate sauce and viola! you have a delicious and super simple dessert (next time I may go the extra mile and get one of those torches to toast the marshmallows).