I really need to be better at posting on the blog. Abby is growing up so fast and I need to write down some of the funny things she does and says. She is now 23 1/2 months and always on the run. She is so busy! She is talking up a storm, she can almost talk in sentences. She is quite polite right now, today I gave her a yogurt pop and she said "thank you mommy." She can count to 15 and even 20 if she gets a little help. It amazes me all that she knows. Sometimes we are reading and she will point to something and tell me what it is and I have never taught her, and sometimes Stu has not either. For example she pointed to a treasure chest in a book and said "chest, pirates." Must be from TV. Her famous last words lately are "one more" or "one more song." When we are trying to get her to go to bed she uses that one at least once on her mommy and who knows how many times on her daddy. The other day we were in Lake Powell and Stu went to put her to bed a second time, because she had crawled out of her Port a crib the first time, and she said to him... "One more song and couple stories." She is IN charge!
She loves music and to sing, she can sing- Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Up, Up in the Sky and she sings along to a lot of other songs. Right now her favorite songs are Pop Goes the Weasel (we listen to it over and over in the car), We're Following the Leader, The Hukilau Song, The Tiki Room, Up on the House Top, Families Can Be Together Forever. Stu and I sing these particular songs A LOT! Funny little tid bit, Abby and I got in the car the other day and there was an ad on the radio for the Mormon Tab Choir and Abby said, "mommy Jesus music." It made me laugh.
She has quite the imagination. A couple of weeks ago I walked upstairs into the big play room and she had taken all of the little chairs and put them in a row, then put stuffed animals on the chairs and said when I walked in the door airplane, flying to the moon. Then told me to sit down in the front, I was the pilot. She amazes me what she thinks of sometimes.
She loves to pretend to be animals or a little mermaid. The other day in the bath she told me she was a mermaid and that she was in trouble because there was a shark coming. I have know idea where she got that from. Whenever Stu or I can't get her to do something, for example lay down and let us change her diaper, we just start pretending she is a baby lion, or a baby moo, moo (cow), or any other animal and she will come crawling over and do whatever we want as long as she is an animal. I got her to brush her teeth tonight because I told her the baby lion needed her teeth brushed so she can eat. Tonight she was eating cheese and made a mess and yelled to Stu and me that the baby lion made a mess. We are not quite sure why but the last month or so she seems to be afraid of some Moo, Moo that is coming. Whenever it is dark or we tell her to hurry she says I scared a moo, moo is coming. Or something along those lines and wants us to hold her. We are still trying to figure out that one.
Whenever there is music, Abby is dancing. I have taught her a couple of ballet steps, Plie', Releve', and Arebesque. It is pretty cute when she does them. She has been to a couple of her cousins dance concerts (or dancerts as she calls them) lately and she just sits and watches and doesn't like to be interrupted. I told her she was going to start dance and she would be in a dance concert at Christmas time and her response was... Ho, Ho Abby. Okay, whatever!
She in not as good of an eater as she used to be unless it is junk food. She can have milk products though she will not drink milk unless it is Pink milk (strawberry flavored) so she is still drinking Almond milk. Now she loves Mac and Cheese, yogurt pops are a new favorite and we just started giving her Ice cream cones and boy does she love those, especially the cone. She is slowing down on her baby food consumption, which means she is slowing down on her veggie consumption. I think spaghetti is her favorite food right now, she still likes canned green beans, cheese, beans and rice, cereal and milk, oatmeal... the other day she ate four packs of instant oatmeal for breakfast, chicken, pizza, frozen corn, corn on the cob, sometimes PB and J, apple sauce, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, chips of all kinds. She is definitely becoming more picky. She is pretty good and trying things (just try as she always says) and then she spits them out and says "I yike it." Which means she doesn't like it.
She is becoming a two year old. The tantrums have started. She likes to tell us what to do. She keeps us on our toes, but we love her to pieces. I can't imagine life without her. I look forward to seeing her every morning (and putting her to bed every night!). I love my little snuggle bug.
One more funny story, last night I was checking my email upstairs and she was stacking blocks (one of her favorite things to do) downstairs and I hear her yell, "mommy," I yelled I'm upstairs and she came upstairs with her bucket full of Nilla Wafers. I just thought to myself where did she get those, since we were the only ones home. I just took the bucket from her and distracted her with something to color (another one of her favorite things to do right now) and didn't think anything more of it. Later that evening I was cleaning up and walked into the pantry because the light was on and found that the drawer that the Nilla Wafer bag was in was left open and there were open cracker boxes on the floor. Abby had gone into the pantry, climbed up the step ladder, and gotten the Nilla Wafers out. That was a pretty big task for a little someone. I wish I could have seen how she did it.
Bubbles!
Abby like helping with the fire.
This year for the 4th we celebrated with both of our parents. She had a little BBQ in the back yard, enjoyed Rootbeer floats and roasted marshmallows and made S'mores. They were delicious. Abby loved the gigantic marshmallows. After all of the yummy food we went our front and watch all of the neighbors fireworks along with some of our own. Abby liked the little fountains but was not a fan of the big Aerial ones that were really loud. They were scary! It was fun this year to be able to set off the Aerial fireworks. We all laughed after we set one off because we had never seen some so close and we had to look straight up almost backwards to see them as it rained firework casings all over us. 
