April & May 2024

Abby has been busy playing Soccer and t-ball

This is princess t-ball!
She is number 61!
We have spent a lot of time at the library
We went to Disney on ice and she loved it!
Ivy is still her best friend and we see her 3-4 times a week. They are almost like sisters!
Her preschool had a Mother’s Day tea!
They sang us songs that they have learned during the school year. It was so sweet!
She carries our cat around like a rag doll and Pippa just lets her do whatever she wants.
She came with me to my students’ graduation reception. She was a big help setting everything up and well behaved during all the boring talking (although she did pretend to fall asleep during the keynote speech—it was pretty funny). We wore matching dresses and she was for sure the star of the show!
Her last day of preschool was on May 9th! She misses her teachers so much but she will do preschool one more year and have the same teachers.
Over Memorial Day weekend we went to Dollywood with Jennifer’s parents. Abby is very good at carnival games and won that huge tiger (the grand prize) on her first try! She won the next two prizes on the next two games we played.
She rode some rides . . .
And hand a huge ice cream cone! It was a good day!
We got a pool membership to this awesome pool! We are going to have a great summer!

Spring Is Here!

I want to start by saying there was a tornado that touched down less than a mile from our house last night but our family and home are ok. Praise the Lord! This morning Abby said she can’t wait for another tornado because it was so much fun eating snacks in the basement. 😆
Here Abby is on St. Patrick’s Day!
Abby has started playing Soccer again! Shawn continues to be her team’s coach.
She is much more involved in the game this time and is really getting the hang of playing (she is number 61)!
Abby loved coloring Easter eggs this year!
We had our annual Easter Egg Hunt which is always so much fun!
The Easter Bunny went a little overboard as she usually does 🤷🏻‍♀️
We went to church on Easter Morning and Abby and Jennifer had matching dresses!
After church we went to Shawn’s Parent’s’ house for Easter Lunch and of course they had more presents for Abby.
Abby really is our little princess who now sleeps with an eye mask and sometimes a silk bonnet on her head.
Just a picture of her looking extra fancy one morning before church.
We recently went to watch the local soccer team and she got her face painted which is one of her favorite things!
She sings to herself all the time!
Abby continues to be an absolute joy! While she is still more reserved and takes time to decide if she can trust people (that is what we say instead of shy because I don’t want “shy” to be part of her internal monologue), she is gaining confidence and finding her voice.

I try hard to remember little things about her so that I can relay them to you. So here are a couple: 1. Her favorite number it 100 because that is the highest one. 2. Her favorite tooth is her left canine because it is “very pointy.” 3. She doesn’t talk as much about her imaginary friend Kiki very much anymore but has a new one named Taco. 3. She does not mushy stuff. She doesn’t want to be told how much I love her. She doesn’t want to read books about how wonderful she is. She much prefers silly books. 4. She is confident that God is going to put a baby in Jennifer’s tummy. She tells everyone about it. She has named the baby Charlotte. I am sure her preschool teachers think that I am pregnant. She already thanks God in her prayers for sending baby Charlotte. We will just wait and see what God has planned!

Valentine’s Day

She had a Valentine’s Day party at preschool.
They played with balloons at preschool
She has gotten into Veggie Tales.
Best Friends Forever!
Abby is playing t-ball
She is doing a great job!
She has started getting an allowance ($2/week). Her first purchase was a “real make up kit”
Sweet sleeping picture
She is sweet and silly
Her favorite game is guess who. She can’t read the names but she can spell them out when she has a guess.
She is very smart. While I wasn’t looking she wrote “toy” on the grocery list. (I let her get one because I thought it was so clever!)
She is also very fancy and wears fluffy dresses everywhere!

Christmas

Abby had a wonderful Christmas and we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, too!

Abby made this gingerbread house.
And helped wrap presents.
We had a Christmas party with all of Abby’s friends. We decorated cookies, made ornaments, and exchanged gifts.
We went to visit Jennifer’s side of the family and Abby had fun with all her cousins!
Abby and her cousins decorated gingerbread men!
And of course there were presents!
Abby got a big Ariel to go with her big Elsa. She plays with them all the time!
This is Abby enjoying hot chocolate before the Christmas Eve service.
Abby and her best friend Ivy at the Christmas Eve service. They are so sweet together! They have recently decided that when they get to heaven they will live in the same house and sleep in bunk beds! They are truly Best friends forever!
Santa came on Christmas Morning!
Her favorite gift was this princess dollhouse
Thank you to everyone who sent Abby Christmas gifts! She opened them before I got a chance to take a video of her opening everything.
Every year I take a picture of Abby with her stocking in her Christmas dress.
Happy New year!
We have had some snowy days recently!
Snow Angles are her favorite!
Just a cute picture!
Another picture from this duo!
Abby has started playing board games!

Thanksgiving

Here is Abby in her Thanksgiving Dress
Jennifer’s Parents came to Thanksgiving Dinner which was hosted at our house.
We also invite family friends over on Thanksgiving every year. Here is the kids table.
The day after thanksgiving we went to visit Santa. When asked what she wanted for Christmas she told Santa, “check my Amazon wish list.” Haha!
Next we went to see the movie Wish. She loved it! (Yes, she is wearing the character Asha’s dress)
The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we went to pick out a Christmas tree. We usually go cut down a tree but we couldn’t make that work this year.
This year, Abby will also have a little tree in her room. She loves it and is more excited about this little fake tree than the big live one in our living room. Abby’s favorite holiday is Christmas! She loves all the lights and “flatables” as calls them (the outdoor inflatable decorations).
We also put together a box for a kid in another country who doesn’t have as much (operation Christmas Child through out church). Abby is thoughtful and caring and likes helping others.
This is Abby’s first school project! She made it mostly on her own (Mom might have helped a little). It is a poster all about herself.
This is just a cute picture of Abby reading to Elsa and our dog, Isla. She can’t read yet but she has several books memorized.

Sweet Summertime

We have had a fun summer and hope you all have too!

We got a new puppy named Isla
(pronounced eye-La). She is a Scottish Terrier.
We had a fun Fourth of July.
Of course she had two patriotic outfits.
We saw fireworks. Abby wasn’t a big fan of them even with her headphones on. We will try again next year.
She loves wearing dresses and really won’t wear anything else.
Even in the sand box—she is wearing a dress.
We have a zoo membership and have been there many times this summer. Our zoo has a splash pad so some days we just go to play in the water.
I tried to get her to feed the giraffe but she wasn’t sure about it. She is very cautious by nature and prefers to sit back and watch instead of jumping in to a new activity.
We have gone to the zoo several times with her best friend, Ivy.
We went berry picking as a family one weekend which was fun. Abby loves blue berries!
We go to the library at least once a week—usually more. A few weeks ago they had princesses at the library and Abby got to meet all of her favorites!
As I said before, she is very cautious and it took her the whole event to warm up to saying hello to Anna and Elsa (from Frozen). I was so proud of her! She was afraid but keep trying because it was important to her.
This was her first attempt at talking to them. We probably went back 6 times and waited in the line to talk to them. Each time she got a little braver.
By the end she built up the courage to hug Elsa! Elsa thanked her for the warm hug and Anna announced to every one that Abby was a very brave princess! Abby was so proud of herself and keeps talking about the experience. I can already tell that it is helping her be more brave in other areas.
Abby is planning on being Elsa for Halloween and having a Frozen themed birthday party. We watch Frozen almost daily in our house.

Spring 2023

We have had a fun couple of months and hope everyone is doing well!

Abby loves going to the movies and we just saw The little Mermaid in 3D! She even wore her mermaid skirt to the movie.
She finished her soccer season strong in May.
This is Abby with her soccer friend, Elisa, with their metals for finishing the season.
Abby’s best friend Ivy was on her T-ball team!
Here she is with her T-ball trophy.
Their trophies were cutouts of them in uniform. We are proudly displaying hers on our living room mantle.
In May we went strawberry picking/eating.
Abby loves to swing on the swing in our yard. She is obsessed with Elsa and the movie Frozen. She is completely done with Paw Patrol and has moved into the princess phase!
She is now in swim lessons and doing great getting used to the water.
This past weekend we went to visit Jennifer’s family. Here is Abby playing candy land with Nana.
She had fun playing with cousins.
She adores her cousin, Aria, who just turned 6 (they are about the same size and Abby actually wears a bigger shoe size. Lol)!
We also went to a water park with Nana while we were in town! Abby’s favorite thing was the lazy river (mine too)!
Abby loves playing dress up!
Here she is in her Frozen Dress! she now says she wants to be Elsa when she grows up!
Abby and Ivy (her best friend) are so sweet together! They hug and kiss hello and goodbye and would spend everyday together if they could!