When I was pregnant with Abram and left my Olive Oyl costume in the closet and went with a "cowgirl" look. It wasn't too difficult since I had boots, hat, jeans, and plaid shirt. I rented a fringed vest, bought a sheriff's badge and I was set! Well, once again, my belly prevents my Olive Oyl costume from fitting. And when I found a fringed leather vest at a yard sale this summer, that sealed it. Cowboy costume for Abram! It was a bit challenging getting all the elements together, but I searched diligently and was very pleased with his costume.
The only think I ended up making were his chaps (and bandana). They turned out SO cute! I made them from fleece I had leftover from his hat last fall and then embroidered some designs (stars are his favorite) and sewed on some buttons.
I bought the hat at a party store and find the vest at a consignment shop in Sellersburg. My neighbors had some boots that fit him...barely!
"Howdy, partner!"
"Yee-haw!"
I facepainted again at this years "Fall Festival" at our church and Curtis brought Abram out for the "Trunk or Treat". It was SOOOO cold!
I took a break from face painting, shucked my coat and walked around with him while he got candy.
He didn't quite "get it" yet, but he was more than willing to get pieces of candy out of the bowls! Unfortunately, most of the candies were the hard kind that he really can't eat....and I really don't like!
We had someone take our picture before we bundled back up (Daddy, the belt didn't fit...oh well). Curtis took Abram up to see the petting zoo, where he got scared by the goats, and then they headed back home to warm up! I finished face painting, made much warmer by the hot chocolate Curtis brought to me. Such a good man:-)
Abram is now the official "taste tester" of the beaters. This one passed his inspection!
Curtis was commissioned by a co-worker to make the groom's cake to be served at his rehearsal dinner last week. He requested a "Block O", the logo for Ohio State, and so, that is what we made!
We had a few snags with this one.
1.A white cake that didn't come out of the pan clean, requiring another cake.
2. Bought a few buckeyes from a local candy store, only to find that they weren't really "buckeyes" but rather chocolate covered peanut butter balls with a dab of peanut butter added to the outsidHad kind of a nipple effect...and they would fall off...not good. So I got a recipe from my mom, sized it down from the 300 it was meant to make and made 37, two of which we used on the cake.
3. Tried my hand at chocolate leaves. Process involved painting several layers of melted, colored butterscotch chips onto back of real (washed) leaf, freezing, then peeling off leaf. Time consuming but effect was well worth it!
4. Getting the perfect "O", with much measuring and calculating by Curtis and much "eyeballing" by me.
5. Getting the icing to stick to "raw" sides of white cake that was so crumbly! We probably won't use white box mix again. We've got to make something that's a bit denser.
6. Making the right shade of "gray" icing...not as simple as adding black to white! It looked lavender and after a bit of googling, we went with my first instinct and added a bit of yellow. Perfect!
It was a challenge, but we faced it together and we were both very pleased with the final product! And so were the bride and groom and their family!
Lookin' snazzy for the wedding the next day. Mom and Dad were here and watched Abram for us so we could use this as a "date night".
Rather than make a cake for my birthday, we made a cake for one of the cleaning ladies for the Bats. She was also born on Oct. 24th! I had fun making chocolate shavings/curls and Curtis worked on basket weave and shells. He's getting pretty good! We used the scraps (the destroyed white cake and the tops left from leveling) from the grooms cake and this cake to make some "cake balls" for me. Yum! We've had way too much sugar this month!
The weather has gotten cooler, so my crocheting has started again! I've been working on several different projects, including these two Newborn beanies that I gave as a baby shower gift this weekend. Newborn beanies are so quick and easy...and SO cute!
Usually I'm a pumpkin carver and I've had tons of fun carving out intricate designs the last few Octobers, but Abram's a wee bit young to start putting blade to gourd. So I pulled out the acrylics and we painted our pumpkins this year.
This was fun for several reasons. No carving means less sticky mess AND the pumpkin will last WAY longer than if it's carved. Also, this was Abram's first real experience with paint. He seemed to really enjoy it and wanted me to keep squirting more paint on the plate.
I chose a color palette that would remain "pleasing" even when all mixed up (light green, dark green, yellow) and let him slap it on.
I would go back and fill in a little as he painted, but I resisted the urge to keep painting after he was done (lasted about 15 minutes or so).
Abram's Pumpkin, 2012
Mommy's Pumpkin, 2012
(I couldn't just let Abram have all the fun!)
Abram has several super cute glow in the dark Halloween shirts, but this is my favorite! It's a t-shirt hoodie with candy in the skeleton. Abram loves candy corn (which I have in the candy dish right now) so I think this is his favorite too:-)
Abram "helping" Daddy with the sweet potato harvest. We have had really great luck with sweet potatoes in our raised bed...they've even been in the shallow end. We also have a good little patch of Kale and Green Leaf Lettuce and have been having some very yummy salads the last few weeks!
We had a few ginormous sweet potatoes but most were just average and a few teenies. They keep well over the winter and it'll be good to cook/mash/freeze some for new baby!
Curtis' Keller William's office had a "float" in the New Albany Harvest Homecoming Parade. It was a pretty day and Abram managed to stay pleasant despite being out and about during his entire nap time! He crashed for two hours when we got home though!
"Buy or sell a house with my daddy!"
He liked to hold the signs and actually waved to people! He was "too cute"!
So, the belly continues to grow....and grow...and grow! I feel good. I really feel like this baby is more active than Abram was, moves around anytime I sit/lay down to relax/sleep. I've been going to the YMCA once a week and doing a Aquatic Fit class. It's me and a bunch of women (and an occasional man) in their 50's+. I really enjoy it! It's really nice to feel so weightless for 50 minutes out of the week. I'm too cheap to buy a maternity suit, so I've been two-piecing it. I think the other women get a kick out of it! I do have some residual stretch marks from the end of the last pregnancy that are shining again, but I don't really mind letting the belly just hang out:-)
26 week pregnant, end of 2nd trimester, went so FAST!!
31 weeks, month into 3rd trimester, only 8-9 weeks to go!
Quite a bit bigger and starting to see the weight gain in my face a bit too. Last appt. I weighed 162, so I'd gained about 34lbs. This is slightly less compared to first pregnancy, but last time I gained a lot of weight the last two months. I do think I look better than last time. Here's a link to my post from 2010 with a pic of me at 32 weeks. We'll see what happens in the next two months...
Near the end of September, Leslie came down for the weekend. We were practicing for singing at Farmland Friends the following weekend, and that took up a lot of our evenings, but we had fun. Leslie went with us to a friends block party that I face painted for and she couldn't resist getting painted too! I do lots of different full faces and cheek art, but the butterflies usually get requested the most!
Pretty sissy!
Leslie brought me back up to Mom and Dad's where I stayed for the week, rehearsing for Sunday and spending time with family. I was also able to visit with several of my friends from high school. Melanie "Mimi" (Lach) Richardson, was up visiting with her family from Austin and we were able to hang out a few times, meet each others sons, etc. I also invited Abby (Cassel) Wagner and Stacy (Haggard) Hollars over as well since they're SAHM's and would be able to come visit in the middle of the day during the week. We all had fun chatting it up while the kids played. So strange to see us all with little kids! haha
Stacy with her little one, Reid, Mimi, Logan and Ian, Me, Abby with her girls, Cora in skirt and Ada in pink in front of Mimi.
Abram playing with Big Baby, Abby's son Max and Stacy's daughter Lilly.
Our baby boy is getting so big! I weighed him on the scale at my doctor's appointment and he weighed about 27 lbs. I haven't checked his height recently, but I know what he can reach! He can now turn his bedroom lamp on/off all by himself, he can put his cup in the holder on his high chair or counter, and he can put his empty yogurt cup in the sink.
He's tall and skinny and seems to be between sizes when it comes to pants. All his 18 month pants are too short, but the 24 month pants are so big around the waist (whoever designed the pants with the adjustable elastic on the inside is genius!). He has lots of 24 month sweat pants and pretty much lives in those for now. He's not crazy about wearing jeans anyways...not sure if they feel rough to him or what, but he definitely protests for a bit.
Abram loves to sit on the potty or toilet. He won't necessarily volunteer to go sit throughout the day, although he does at night when he's brushing his teeth, but once he's sitting there, he does NOT want to get up! I've put little books in our bathroom and the upstairs bathroom and he will look at books or want me to sit and read to him forever! I don't know how his little legs don't go to sleep! He will pee and poo in the potty...we've even had a few days without any poo diapers and that is HEAVEN!
He's also starting saying "cheese" for pictures:-)
I try to steer him away from the laundry room/bathroom because I don't like sitting on the floor in there right next to the litter box! Yuck! But he does like the kitty picture book in there.
I was cooking supper the other day and could hear him playing in the living room. Sound is good, silence usually means Gypsy torture. This time he was playing so well, pulling out toys from his hamper and being so self-sufficient. This is new and still not all that common. He will often be very fussy/needy when I'm getting supper together, so I'm very thankful for moments like this!
Abram has had several VERY good weeks of eating. He's been trying things that (although he'd had it pureed) he's been refusing in it's whole form. He will now eat most things that we do, even dishes like lasagna with multiple ingredients in a bite. His favorites still include almost all breakfast foods, pasta, cheese, and breads. Fruits that will go down include bananas, apples (sliced or sauced), dates, raisins and the occasional grape (recent success). Vegetables that go down are green beans (favorite), peas, broccoli, spinach, salad (most of the time), potatoes and hominy. He does not like corn or carrots yet, gags with sweet potatoes (a fav when he was younger), and he's surprised me by eating most of the veggies in an oriental blend the other day and downed my eggplant parmesan (which was so very yummy!). He drinks his milk well, likes juice, but his drink of choice is TEA! He gets VERY excited when he gets to have tea and can/will drink as much as me when we go to Texas Roadhouse or Chick-Fil-A. Loves it!
One of our recent additions has been giving him dry cereal with milk. We started out with Rice Krispies. He's also had Cheerios (with a bit more difficulty) and Lucky Charms (picked out all the marshmallows to eat first, haha) and does very well getting most of it to his mouth!
He likes getting to drink the milk when the cereal pieces are all gone!
So proud of himself!
Abram has a growing obsession with balls, mainly basketballs/goals and baseballs/gloves. We go to the park down the road to walk and Abram likes go to the basketball court and have daddy shoot baskets and chase the ball around the court. I found him a little basketball goal at a local consignment store and set it up on the deck for him. He really loves it!
"Shoot it right there, Daddy!"
"Here you go!"
There is also a little slide at the park and Abram really enjoys being able to climb and slide over and over again. He does not like to swing. The only swing he will swing on is a porch swing. He's a slide man. There is an indoor play area at church called "Bibleland" and the slides there are his favorite. They are nice and slick and he's figured out how to slide down and come off the end running, without falling on his bottom. We also tried out the play area at Chick-Fil-A a week ago and he loved the tunnel slide! They have one of those at the Y too, but I don't get to go in the daycare area there to see if he's playing on that one.
'Whee!"
This child has inherited his daddy's "bionic hair" and needs a haircut almost once a month...at least that's about how long I can go before the hairs creeping over his ears starts to bug me! haha He's getting very good at following instructions when I cut his hair, holding still and leaning forward so I can cut his bangs or get to the back of his head. He frequently gets compliments on his hair, so I guess I'm doing something right!
Playing in the empty toy hamper. Curtis tied a string around the end and was pulling him around the dining room table. He loved it!
He also likes to just run around the dining room table, especially when the neighbor boys are visiting! Then they ALL run around the table together! Abram likes for us to run around the table with him and will tell us when he wants a running partner!
Abram has chosen a favorite movie and he wants to watch it almost every day! Veggietales: The Penniless Princess. It's short and sweet, has catchy songs and cute characters that appear in lots and lots of other movies...so now I just need to acquire a few of those so we have some variety! For my sake! He's sitting for a little longer now and actually watching the movie, which does help when I'm fixing supper. I've been trying not to have the TV on too often anymore for his sake AND mine, but we'll occasionally watch some KET/PBS at lunch time because I don't have to worry about inappropriate commercials. We'll also listen to Pandora on the Veggietales station, which is awesome because it also plays Disney and Kids Praise and Worship music. It's great!
Abram is still definitely excelling more at motor skills over verbal, but that's coming along too. He runs/jumps/climbs/ does somersaults, dances, spins, stacks blocks (up to 6 or so) and throws/shoots/rolls balls. He likes to scribble, has started to work some puzzles (gets frustrated when it won't fall in place), and is getting quicker at switching out the letters on his leapfrog alphabet toy on the fridge. He can blow bubbles in the bath water and will now lay down on his back and relax (which makes rinsing his hair LOTS easier) but he hasn't figured out how to blow through his nose into a tissue (fortunately he's not really opposed to the bulb syringe).
He definitely TRIES to talk to us...in sentences...we just don't have a clue what he's saying most of the time unless we have context clues. We've been working on a few sounds like "f" and "m". He's been using "b" more and has recently been much more accurate, saying "buh-buh" for bubbles and "bye-bye". Words that I usually recognize because they bear a strong enough resemblance or the "timing is right" are, "hi, Gypsy, dada, dog, star, kitty, trash, tea, cracker, 'cuse me, thank you, bath, boo (said that tonight!), cookie, elbow (sounds like beh-boh)...there are probably a few more, but he's still pretty "Dutch". We'll just keep working on adding more consonant/vowel sounds, which is getting easier because he's finally watching me and trying to copy what I'm doing to make the sound. His attempts are very cute! He does a few animal sounds: dog, cat, chicken and horse are the ones that sound the most accurate, but his favorite is elephant ( buzzing his lips and raising one arm) which finally had to be banned from the dinner table!
He's changing so much, so fast, its' really amazing! I'm so thankful that (although it can be exhausting), I get to be home with this little boy that is such a joy to me! I love him SO much!
