The Door

All of the sudden we heard screaming and pounding. Laughing, I walked down the hallway to let Abby out of her room. She loves doors and, even more, loves opening and closing doors. I tried the handle but couldn't get a good grip on it. I thought it was because I was laughing too hard so I called Roy over to take over. He tried a couple of times and said that Abby must be holding onto the handle because he couldn't get much of a turn. I started knocking on the opposite side of the door to distract her, but she was upset and not coming over. So then I started to sing her favorite songs to get her to let go and do the actions she knows so well. And we still couldn't get the handle to turn. We had to go for the alternative plan that involved a screwdriver and hammer. Five minutes of screaming later, she was rescued from her room. It turns out that Abby now knows how to lock the door. So if you come to our house you will find that all the locks are on the outside of our doors...let's just hope that Abby doesn't lock us out of the rest of the house! Below, Abby is helping Roy flip the door handles around:

Visitors: Round One

We had a great time visiting with Aunt Cindy who came to visit us from Utah. Cindy had quite the adventure with her luggage and trying to get back out of town, but we had so much fun together! Abby even let Cindy play with her and wanted a hug from her too. That is a big deal for Abby because normally she runs away and finds me when "strangers" want to play. She had a great time playing with Cindy and making her do crazy dances. "Do As I'm Doing" will never be the same again! Thanks for coming, Cindy, we had a blast! We look forward to having Becky, Alex, and Brynne come visit next week!

Here's our little diva pretending to be shy.

Slippin' and a-Slidin'

Abby just learned how to climb up her slide and go down by herself. As you can see, her execution isn't totally fool-proof just yet! By the way, you've got to have the volume on because her giggles and sounds just make you (or at least me) want to smile!

Next, Abby demonstrates her great ability with dancing/following directions with "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and "Do As I'm Doing". She is quite specific about which song we need to do and pats her head or claps her hands when it is time for our musical activities. Oh my, she makes me happy!

Ode to Roy

Tomorrow is Roy's birthday so I thought I would share a few fun things about Roy along with a few reasons why I love him!

• he lets my sister Cami (and pretty much the rest of my family and some of our friends) call him Royd
• on the subject of Cami, we spent a lot of time with with her this summer and there are several funny things she says that Roy now copies: ord-it (order it), wanna drink of water, and STEVEN!!! (for those of you who don't know Cami, picture all the volume a 5 foot tall body can muster, times that by 10, and add a little bit of edgy anger and scream STEVEN!!!...so funny for everyone but Steven)
• when I asked Roy what he wanted for his birthday, he said all he wanted was a picture of Abby to put on his desk at work
• when I first met Roy, I was looking for people to go to he BYU football games with. Although he wasn't planning on buying the All Sports pass, he decided to. That's pretty telling for how we work now--even if he wasn't planning on doing it or going and I really want to, he folds. I appreciate that!
• he is working so hard with school, his internship, helping with Abby, cleaning the house, doing church stuff, and looking for a job...I'm very impressed
• he listens to me and always checks in to make sure I'm okay
• he answers his phone when he's gone from home or is sure to call back right away
• Roy was sad that he missed out on Abby's first Chuck E Cheese trip so we went yesterday. It was SO crowded so Abby was intimidated, but not Roy--he played games with the best of them, including Dance Dance Revolution. He challenged me. It was not a pretty sight for either of us, but he kept us laughing and not feeling too dumb.
• There's something about Roy that people love and they always want to talk with him, especially older women. I think he knows more people at church than I do!
• Yesterday afternoon we babysat two boys (ages 6 and 2). We loaded the three kids into a double stroller and a single stroller and went to the park a few blocks away. Roy was pushing the boys in the double stroller and talking about boy things (farts, poop, etc) and would randomly sing a few lines from Barney or Sesame Street, sometimes changing one of the original words with something silly. He had the 6 year old laughing so hard he couldn't breath for a minute. It was hilarious!
• I now do Wii Fit in the mornings because Roy makes it a fun competition. We fight pretty hard to be in first place.
• He is so good to Abby, even when she is up at 2 am and just wants to be up. She also has way more fun when Dad is doing than bath than when I do it. And she still cries when he leaves for the day. How can you not just absolutely love someone your child adores?

Happy 26th Birthday, Roy! I love you!!!

PS--I have been waiting for Roy's birthday for almost 6 months to use the title of the post so please appreciate it! :)

Chuck E Cheese

At 10 am last Thursday, I took Abby and her cousin Zach to Chuck E Cheese. In my opinion, 10 am is a little early for Chuck E Cheese, but we needed to run some distractions to help the kids not go crazy in the house. I'm still not sure if 1 is too young to take there, but Abby loved it. Maybe it's because Zach was having so much fun, but either way they had a great time and both took naps when they got home. In the rush to get out the door and remember the essential things like diapers, coats, shoes, and sippie cups for two, I forgot the camera. I'm so bummed! But here is Chuck E's portrait of Abby and me. I am impressed with how cute it turned out!

Captain Pajamas

Abby loves to wear shoes. She sure didn't get that from either Roy or I as we like to be barefoot as much as possible. This morning Abby declared that she needed shoes on pronto, pajamas or no pajamas. So we modified a bit and created the formidable new superhero, Captain Pajamas:

And just in case you aren't in Alexandria to see her beautiful hair, here's a picture featuring her curls, which I absolutely love!

Cousins

Abby and Zach had a lot of fun together last week. Well, maybe Abby had more fun... Zach's mom was in the hospital so we had him for a couple of days. We experienced our first Chuck E Cheese experience, came home, took naps, and woke up to this excitement. Abby could barely contain herself because she was so happy to see Zach again. After all, it had been so long! How would you like to wake up to this crazy teenage-girl-like craziness?