A day in the life of Abigail

Life with Abigail is FUN.

No question about it. She is our funny girl and the one always making us laugh.

With all that fun comes TROUBLE. Not always intentional trouble...

she's just a little whirlwind that leaves a wake behind her.

For example:

Dumping out an entire 5lb bag of sugar onto the kitchen floor seemed like a brilliant idea.

Not only could she "swim" in it...

...she could also lick it. Yum. One of Abigail's first loves is sugar, so I suppose she just wanted to enjoy it in its raw form. She was having a grand 'ole time...

...until mean old mom told her we don't lick food off the floor.

(Not to mention we don't take food out of the pantry and pour it all over the floor :)

In her defense, I think she was just trying to have fun and couldn't see what she could have possibly been doing wrong. In fact, when I asked her what she was doing, she informed me she was a "kitty who was hungry". OK, at least that explains it :)

She is our fun-loving adventurous girl who keeps life interesting and keeps us on our toes.

She produces more laughter and tears (in both her and me!) than the rest of our family put together.

Like I've mentioned before, our little whirlwind will pause for only two things: food and babies. She loves to eat. And she loves to be a tender little mommy.

Her latest feat has been potty-training herself. Yep, you heard that right. She doing this on her own. I'm not quite ready yet, but she's decided she's had enough of wet, yucky diapers.

Honestly, all I've done is provide the little pink potty she's been asking for. She's the one who every 10 minutes sprints to her beloved chair. She's been amazingly consistent all week. I guess I should be grateful! The only down side is this kid really does have to go every 10 minutes...which had made for some really, really long outings (as a result of 5 trips to the bathroom)

Out of all of her wonderful qualities, my favorite thing of all, is her affection. She is a total and complete snuggle bug. If she ruled the world, she'd sit on my lap all day long. She'd eat dinner on my lap, have me carry her from place to place and she'd sleep snuggled by my side all night long. She's my precious little mama's-girl.

I thought it would be fun for my middle child to get a post all to herself :) Joe keeps telling me to stop referring to Abigail as a "middle child", since that can have so many negative connotations. The reality is, she is sandwiched between a big and little sister. I think God perfectly created her for this role...and I hope she grows to love how special it is.

I mean that seriously.

11 weeks

Sweet Ava Jean is just a few days shy of 3 months old.

Wow. That seems like such a big birthday in the first year of life.

No longer a newborn, fully into babyhood.

I have loved these past 12 weeks with my 3rd little girl.

Despite the craziness of the move and the constant care needed for my two big girls,

somehow I feel like I've still been able to sneak away and enjoy my precious baby.

Ava's been a much happier baby this past month. After two months of tummy pains and constant spit up, we decided to start her on Zantac, for her acid reflux. I hate putting her on meds at such an early age! But it had made her a much happier baby! Her crying spells and tummy pains have lessened so much, its only a rare occasion. That means more Ava smiles and coo's and also now day time naps not interrupted by spit-up. As you can imagine, this has made everything so much happier! With Ava being my first "fussy" baby, it has sure grown my compassion and respect for Mom's with true colicky baby's!!

I have looooved Ava's smiles!! She has such a happy, yet intense disposition. It reminds me sooo much of Alathea! Sometimes I have to remind myself which one of my baby girls I'm holding, it can feel like I've rewound the clock 4 1/2 years! Ava will stare you down, focusing intensely on your eyes and facial expressions. She loves to "talk" and will let you know she's not happy about you walking away if she's not finished. She's got that awesome "full body smile" I love so much about infants...they smile with their faces and then the whole body wiggles. So cute, especially because she always startles herself when she does it. As an added bonus, she started laughing this week.

I'm so grateful for this precious girl. I'm really loving being a Mom of three. Life is busy, busy, busy. I never seem to be able to get "everything done". Even the basics, like laundry and dinner can be hard to come by. And there is not a drop of down time. (I'm hoping one day just a bit of down time will return :) But I've really felt a lot of grace to enjoy this short, sweet season of my girls being little. The Lord's really helped me to keep proper perspective on what really matters. I know these years will fly by faster than I can imagine.

Melt my heart love

I know I've said it before (like two posts ago :), but the love that Abigail has for her little sister totally melts me. Every morning Abi is soooo excited to see her "Ava-Bean". She crawls in my bed and rubs Ava's peach fuzz head. They smile back and forth for a few minutes. Its super sweet. And that baby doll Abigail is holding in her hand...thats "Ava Jean" too, in case you were wondering. And don't even think about trying to convince Abigail that she's not real :)

Ava is one blessed little girl with two adoring big sisters.

Two Months

I should have posted this weeks ago, since Ava's almost 3 months now.

But for my own sake, I'm posting these anyways, since I know I'll love looking back at her sweet face as she's growing all too quickly! Updates to come soon!

the littles

I thought it would be fun to see how the girls size up next to each other...

Its funny how there isn't much of a stair step with Abigail in the middle :)

She's almost the size of her big sister!