Abigail is 9 years old!

In just a blink of an eye our first born is 9 years old! Okay, so it hasn't been a blink of an eye...it has been 9 wonderful years with our girl! She is quite the sweetie! "Abbie" is how she is spelling her name these days. She decided that at the end of 3rd grade. She has become interested in Legos in the past 6 months. A Lego Friends set was her request for a Birthday present this year. She just loves playing toys with animals so we found a jungle set with 4 or 5 animals in it and she was thrilled! She really enjoys playing with Littlest Pet Shop toys...so many animals!

She's quite a babysitter in training, offering to help with Hannah more and more and ANY baby at church. She's really good with the 2 year olds and enjoys playing with them. She's a good peace-maker with Caleb & Hannah, when either of them are upset, she's often jumping in to help solve the problem. I really appreciate that about her!

For her birthday this year, we skipped having an official "friend party" and invited a few friends over for some play time and cupcakes instead. It was delightful!! The girls played a game inside, some hide-n-seek outside and had their cupcakes and snacks. After that, we had dinner and then Uncle Jon, Aunt Erin and the boys came over as well as Don & Sandy from next door to celebrate with some birthday cake! The cousins all play so well together, it's so enjoyable watching them play!

Today...her actual birthday was a fun, family day! Abby decided she wanted to go to Safari Sams for lunch and playtime! The kids all had a lot of fun, the boys especially!! Hannah has another UTI--bummer!--and is also fighting a cough, so she spent more time sitting on Mom & Dad's laps then climbing through the giant play structure, but she's such a trooper that she still had fun! We received a phone call from Dr. Wu's office on the drive to say that her UTI is treatable with regular antibiotics. Whew!! I burst into tears of relief and thankfulness and didn't realize I was holding onto so much worry about it being like the others. I've thanked the Lord many times today and also prayed, asking that the antibiotics will get into her system and clear it up!

Our plan tomorrow is to head over the mountain to Grandma's house for a visit. Joel is heading to Mexico (in about an hour) to investigate an organization there for future mission trips for Cornerstone. He'll be home on Monday so for the next four days we thought it would be fun to visit the Grandparents instead of staying home along. ;)

Abby's 6th Birthday!

So this one is a little more recent! This year, Abigail couldn't decide on a theme, so I chose one for her! I didn't want a repeat of last year's cake fiasco! ;) I went with a Hawaiian theme and figured we could do anything we wanted with it.

Again, this year, Abigail got time at Yellow Grandma & Grandpa's house. This time, it was a whole week! The kids and I visited my best friend and her family at the Young Life Ranch for a couple days, then headed over to my parents house for a couple days, leaving Abby for the next week before we would see her again.

She had a great time! The Ranch was having a "recreation week" for kids that included swim lessons, crafts and sports. Abigail loved it! It was her first time to take swim lessons and she really enjoyed them. She would do the rec week in the mornings, go home for lunch and then Grandma & Grandpa would take her back down to the pool in the afternoons. She got lots of swim time and made lots of progress in her abilities in the water. And she came home very tan!!

 

 

 

 6 years old!

 Abby & Daddy

 Abby & Mommy

 Abby & Grandma & Grandpa

 Hudson, Abigail, Caleb, Noah & Elijah

 Uncle Jon & Hannah Grace

 Blowing those candles out!

 Abby & Noah

Hannah sure enjoyed her cupcake! I'll post about her 1st birthday soon!

And a close-up of her teddy bear beach cupcakes!

Abby's 5th Friend Birthday Party

Abigail chose a "Tangled" birthday party for her friend party. Our whole family loves that movie, it's such a cute story! The girls colored Tangled coloring pages, drew and colored "noses" for Flynn Rider, danced and played "Pin the frying pan on Flynn Rider" as well as the "noses" that they drew. 

Here's Abigail with her Rapunzel tower cake. If I actually knew how to design cakes, it would probably be a lot better and more fun. :) It took a lot of time and was pretty stressful trying to get it done before the party. Thankfully we took this picture at the beginning of the party because by the time we got around to cutting the cake, the tower had fallen! Ha! Thankfully, we could all laugh about it! I'm pretty sure I won't be doing any more cakes like this ever again, sorry kiddos! Maybe you'll all give me a "cake decorating class" for Christmas! ;) I'm glad Abigail liked it though! Thanks, Mom, for all your patience and help!

 The yellow streamers are Rapunzel's hair.

 Autumn, pinning her "nose" for Flynn.

 Jen Haley helping Ava pin her "nose" on Flynn.

 Autumn, Abigail and Tennyson dancing.

 Amaya & Ava dancing together.

 Abigail blowing out the candles...after the tower fell, see the frosting on Joel's newly painted house? :)

 

Autumn, Amaya, Ava, Maiya, Abby & Tennyson

Abigail's 5th Birthday

Ok, so this is a year and a couple months late...but oh well!

The week before Abby's 5th Birthday she got to spend some time at the Yellow Grandparent's house! We had all been there visiting that week to get some extra Great-Grandma time with my Dad's mom who had been up visiting from California. Abigail was able to stay several extra days. They all love the one-on-one time with each other! Yellow Grandma treated Abby to getting her hair curled and done up, fingers and toe nails painted! She came home the day before her birthday, feeling like quite a Princess!

 We had Uncle Jon & Aunt Erin, Noah & Hudson over as well as Yellow Grandma & Grandpa for her family birthday party. It turned out to be the "Barbie" birthday as she received many Barbies, from family, friends and even our next door neighbor surprised her with a Barbie as a gift!

I like this one of the kids picking out which cupcake they would eat!

Abigail's 4th Birthday!

It's old news now...but our sweet Abigirl is 4 years old!! We are so, so proud of the young girl she is becoming. I do believe that she is the sweetest girl I have ever known!

For her birthday this year, she asked for a Strawberry Shortcake cake. Oh my. I started looking for ideas online and decided that I could make Strawberry Shortcake's "hat" for her cake and she decided she would be fine with that. I mean really, we had to have a conversation about it and she actually said, "okaaay, that will be fine." : )

I kept asking her, "who would you like to invite to your party Abigail?" and she would reply, "everyone!" There are so many great kids at our church, including a great group of 3-4 year olds her own age! We finally settled on just a few to invite and began planning her party. It was fun and I imagine it will become more enjoyable each year!

For dinner, she wanted hot dogs, plain spaghetti noodles & fruit. I saw an idea in Family Fun magazine, where you take dry spaghetti noodles & stick them through hot dogs, then boil them both together. So the kids did that fun little activity. It was cute to see what crazy creations they came up with!

After the party, Abigail packed her suitcase and headed over to Yellow Grandma & Grandpa's for three days by herself! A week before I told her, "One week from today, you'll be at Yellow Grandma's house. Will you miss Mom & Dad?" "Yes" She replied. "Will it make you sad?" I asked. "No, because I know it's just for a few days and then I'll see you again." To which, I replied, "You're an amazing little girl, Abigail!!" To which, Elijah replied, "And I'm an amazing boy!!!" 

I must confess, that I did cry when she left. I (pretty much) held it together until she was out of the driveway, but then I just let the tears fall as they drove away. : )

I ended up driving over to my parents house a couple days later and she did tell me, "I was sad in bed one night and was crying because I wanted to go home, but then I decided I would stay." Aww, that made my heart both happy & sad at the same time! : ) Such tenderness in her little heart! Just one of the many things I love about her!

So Happy 4th Birthday to our Sweet Abigail!

Happy Birthday!

Abigail is 3 today!