Watch Abigail Hope Grow

First day of Preschool

With her October birthday Abby didn’t make the cut off to start Kindergarten so we are doing one more year of Preschool. She will go three mornings a week. She loves school and is so excited to start!

She now wants to be a photographer when she grows up. She also asked me to straighten her hair for the first day of school.

Mommy took the morning off and took Abby to breakfast before school.

She wanted to go to Cracker Barrel and she ordered cereal and sausage for breakfast.

She is tired of me taking her picture. 😂

She had a great time. Most of the kids from last year are in her class again.

And she made a new friend named, Goldie (short for Marigold)!

They had a great first week of preschool!

Sweet Summertime

We had a fun summer full of days at the pool, indoor soccer, trips to visit Nana, and a beach vacation.

Abby has been working hard on reading by going through hooked on phonics. She can read more than she lets on and can spell several words from memory. She is sooo smart (and stylish)!

She has entered her Barbie phase and has several Barbie items on her wish list.

She is very interested in brides and weddings and plays wedding all the time.

Miraculous Ladybug is her favorite show and is going to be her birthday party theme!

We have season tickets to the women’s soccer team in Louisville and she has been to several games this summer. She mostly goes for the cotton candy and . . .

She played indoor soccer over the summer and is really improving!

She liked her coach over the summer so much that we have requested her for fall soccer which started two weeks ago. This is her practicing soccer drills with her team! As you can see, she is about a foot taller than kids her own age.

She met Ariel at a Juneteenth celebration.

She is learning to make simple meals for herself. She is also able to order her own meals at restaurants. She is growing up too fast!

We have a zoo pass and have been to the zoo several times this summer.

Her favorite thing about the zoo is the carousel.

She went to vacation Bible school for one week over the summer. She loved it and keeps asking when she can go back! Her friends Ivy and Tenley also went and they were all pooped by the end of the week.

We went to the pool 3-4 days a week all summer long! She started out a little afraid of the water and now she is a little water bug! She has made several new friends at the pool, as well.

We went on vacation to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

She is excellent on a plane and like everything but the big bump at the end (when the plane lands).

The beach is Jennifer’s favorite place in the world but Abby is intimidated by the massive ocean.

We are at some great restaurants (Abby is playing a matching game with Daddy while we wait for food).

She did like building castles in the sand.

Abby’s favorite place was Sugar Planet that has every candy know to man for sale.

Correction, her favorite place was the pool!

April & May 2024

Abby has been busy playing Soccer and t-ball

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!

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.

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. 😆

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!