Dogs Bolt in Fear from Frankenstein

This title was actually used for a lesson with my third graders. They got such a kick out of it I thought I would share it with you in cyber land. For a writing activity, after returning from spring break I asked the students to come up with a headline to describe their spring break. Students wrote their headline on a sentence strip to share with the class. After sharing their headline, students had time to go around and get the rest of the story from headlines that interested them. This is a great way to give the students time to share about their break so they are not trying to talk during other lessons!

So the rest of my story with the headline is...Abby is now a walker! That's right, she waited till I was home with her over spring break to take her official first steps. To help with balance, she holds her hands up high as she wobbles back and forth, doing a great impersonation of Frankenstein! As the headline states the dogs are very unsure about this new method of mobility. Allie has been used as a support aide several times and is quite unsure about being used like that. Callie doesn't even give Abby the chance, any time Abby draws near she is quick to move to a new location. I guess Abby is doing her part to help keep our 14 year old German Shepherd active (that's right she just turned 14 and at her check up the other day the Vet said he didn't seem any reason as to why he wouldn't be seeing her next year!)

Below are a few short clips of our girl in action. The first is of Abby helping out with a daily household chore. The second is of Abby standing up without the use of anything!

Happy 1st Birthday Abby!

A year ago on March 17th our lives drastically changed for the better. It is VERY hard to believe Abby is a year old already, I have a feeling I'll be saying/thinking that at every birthday. To celebrate, Abby's Granny Sue came to visit for the birthday week. We had a party Saturday, March 13th where friends came over to help celebrate, and then had a small family birthday Wednesday on her actual birthday. Following is a picture recap of the festivities. But first I wanted to record what Abby is up to now.

At one year of age Abby weighs 21 pounds, and is 29 inches long (estimated off her 11 month measurement of 28). She has 6 teeth, 2 bottom and 4 top front teeth. As far as words go she has uh-oh down and dog (dah), we continue to work on mom and dad. :-) She is a crawling pro. She has been walking with help from furniture for months. She will walk everywhere holding people's hands, but absolutely refuses to walk by herself. I guess she will walk when she is good and ready. She blows kisses (learned from her 5 minute meeting with an Elmo toy at Walmart... go figure), and loves to hug her lamb and monkey. When she is tired and goofy she plops down on the floor on her back and kicks her legs as she giggles uncontrollably. I am just blown away with how much Abby is picking up every day and know the year ahead will be filled with many new adventures.

Below are some pictures from Abby's 1st Birthday Parties!

Here is the invitation that we put together for the big party. (With some personal information blurred out to keep the internet stalkers away!)

Abby playing with her friends at the beginning of her party.

I don't know what exactly that is, but I think I want it!!

So, what exactly am I supposed to do now??

Oh, I think I'm getting the concept down now!!

I wish my cake could be this big!

Keep away, this is all mine!!

Should I lick the plate?? (For the record, she didn't.)

This is what a pleasantly full 1-year-old looks like.

How about a hug Mom??

Ansley helping to show Abby how this whole birthday thing is supposed to work.

Abby looking cute after the party ended.

I really like this new toy that Nana and Pap-Pap sent me. I really love it when the gears spin!

Wow, that tower of blocks is almost as tall as me!!

They really do grow up too fast. Abby loves the glasses and purse from her friend Lily!

She has a large head

At around six months Abby's head growth did a jump on the growth chart. Ever since then she has been at the 95th percentile, or higher, while her weight and height have been down at 30% (we think she is taking after her dad in height). Since there was the big jump with head growth her doctor has had us come in every month to monitor things. At around 9 months with her head still being large the possibility of doing CT scan to make sure nothing was going on in her head was brought up. Seeing as Abby was still reaching all her milestones at or before what's normal we saw no need, plus Grant has a big head.

Well last week at the 11 month check up Abby's head took another big growth jump sending it off the charts. Our doctor having talked to a specialist felt with this lastest jump that it was probably best to check things out. So 7:30 Wednesday morning we were scheduled to bring Abby to the hospital for a head CT.

This already being a stressful week, with parent-teacher conferences Monday and Tuesday till 7:00 each night, my nerves were shot. Thankfully it was not a big deal to get the CT scan done. We brought her into the room where they tightly swaddled Abby and covered her with lead. They only allow one person to stay in the room with a child....why do they do this? I really don't see why they can't be more understanding because it is so hard to have one parent step into the hallway. Grant let me stay in the room and attempt to hold Abby's head still by holding her chin, yeah right! I did my best to calm our scared baby, luckily Abby handled the whole situation wonderfully. She did not cry until the bed slid into the machine (see below). Her cry was more of a 'okay I'm ready to move cry' rather than a cry of panic, thankfully. Actually at times she got distracted from crying by watching the spinning components of the machine.

The scan only took about 5 minutes. After they confirmed several good shots ( I was shocked they got it on the first try, I struggled in taking care of my job) we were free to go. We were told they would get the scans to our doctors in 24 to 48 hours. Do they not know how much of a worrier I am, and how wild my mind can run in 24 to 48 hours?

I tried to focus on enjoying the day with my little girl because I knew it would be a long day of waiting with no word. The one thing that helped is I felt a peace deep down that everything was okay because she's fine developmentally. But there is always the "What if..."

The call from the doctor thankfully came 9:00 Thursday morning, everything looked completely normal and she does indeed just have a large head. After letting out a huge sigh of relief, and a prayer of thanks to God, I looked forward to getting through the day so I could wrap Abby up in a hug of relief.

I know with being a parent there are going to be powerful emotions towards your child. It just takes me back in just these 11 short months how much love I have for Abby. How I would do anything possible to ensure that she is safe and healthy. I am so thankful for my healthy baby, and with her big head there is just that much more of her to love!

Oh NO!

We once again have a snow day. This is our sixth snow day so far this year. As great as these days have been it is time for them to stop. Being in school till the middle of June is no fun at all. Especially when you have places to go, people to see!

Abby is learning to do new things everyday. Unfortunately one of those things is learning how to say no. Although she doesn't quite get what it means yet, I fear the fact that she has this much down it won't be long.

Below she is caught in action, see for yourself:

Here we go again

Well the ice has started to fall. Seeing as it is just about a year ago to the day that the ice storm hit last year the area is pretty hyped up on whether or not this will be a repeat of ICE STORM 2009... I sure hope not. With that storm (see Ice storm post from last January) we lost power for about 5 days I believe. Luckily some of our friends kept their power so we were able to hang with them. Something about being without power and having a very active 10 month old just doesn't seem like too much fun.

For this storm there is a chance of 1/4 -1 inch worth of ice then on top of that 3-5 inches of snow is due in tomorrow. Adding that nice cushion of snow on top of ice makes diving too much of an adventure if you ask me. Obviously everyone is assuming there will be no school, I even gave my students "snow work" as they called it so they would do a small amount of learning with the break.

If ice and snow do come as planned I am looking forward to some quality Abby time. All we need is for Grant to get to stay home as well, cross your fingers.

Below I am going to try and keep a timeline of this storm. Let's see what the storm has in-store for us.

Thursday, 4:00 pm- 30 degrees, the sleet started to fall.

Thursday, 6:30 pm- 30 degrees, sleet continues to fall. Grant just got home said roads are wet, not slick yet, but there was a thin layer of ice coating his car. Meteorologist just informed the viewing public that the ground, being below freezing temperatures, causes the rain to freeze upon contact, this is why it is called freezing rain....Really, so glad he cleared that up for me. :-)

Thursday, 8:00 pm- 28 degrees, sleet continues to slap the window. Thin coating of ice on tree and patio furniture.

Thursday, 8:45 pm- Just posted... No School Tomorrow! Not a real surprise, but it is nice to know that I don't have to get up early in the morning to find out that there isn't school!

Friday, 6:30 am- Grant got the call that they closed his Fayetteville office today. Lazy day here we come. Lightly sleeting. There is about a quarter inch ice on the ground.

Friday, 11:00 am- The sleet is now turning to snow.

Friday, 5:20 pm- 22 degrees. The snow continues to fall. We have three inches and they are now predicting 5-8 inches of snow once everything is said and done by early Saturday morning. The power is running strong with no flickers! Through the world of Facebook, I've heard there have been a few reports of power outages in Springdale due to a car crashing into a power pole, but all power is back on.

Saturday, 8:30 am- The snow has stopped falling and the sun is starting to shine upon the six inches of snow dumped upon Northwest Arkansas. I had to laugh, as I was explaining to my parents about the excitement in the area over the storm they said this type of storm would have been considered a flop for them in Park City, UT. Where according to http://www.utahskiing.org/ gets appx. 500 inches per year!

So now let the melting begin! The only question that remains now is will enough snow melt before Monday so we can return to school?

Abby and the Dogs

I was going to try and post this the other day, but after waiting for it to load for 3 hours I decided it just wasn't going to happen. Today I was more successful. The video lets you see just how active Abby is and what a kick she get out of the dogs. Enjoy.

Let's call those HOGS!!!

We've been staying busy. The snow storm ended up canceling the entire week of school (now to be made up in June). I really enjoyed having the extra time with Abby. The first week back was crazy which I expected it to be, although it was great to see my students.

This past weekend Lisa, whom I've been friends with since elementary school, came up from her Grandparents to visit us for a few days. It was wonderful to see her as I don't get to very often because she works on a cruise ship running the ship's theater productions!

We had a fantastic weekend dinning out at some of our favorite restaurants, going to Abby's first Razorback basketball game, watching the 3D Avatar movie, and of course some good ol' catching up time. It was such a great weekend I hated to see it go by so fast knowing it will be a while before I'll get the chance to see Lisa again. She is such a wonderful, happy person who I love being around.

Lisa brought a bag of goodies for Abby. This ball with a monkey on top was part of the gift. Abby was very interested in it. Thanks for the wonderful gifts Lisa!

Abby is very used to cameras by now. But she was sure to show Lisa what she likes to do with them.

To the mouth it goes!

Oh the Razorback game! Our seats were right behind the students section, aka loud, scary students. As soon as the first shot was made the crowd erupted scaring Abby terribly. We quickly exited and walked around until she calmed down. Grant noticed that one of the upper deck sections was pretty much empty so we relocated there. Abby soon got used to the sounds and actually enjoyed all the action. The ring of lights around the court especially caught her attention.

Being in the upper deck we had a bit more room to spread out, which is very good to have with a 10 month old who doesn't like to sit still.

Lisa and I taking advantage of a time out to take a picture.

The Razorbacks actually pulled out a win, making it an enjoyable game. Much better than the game this past weekend where they lost to Kentucky by 31 points. Not too pretty.

Despite the fear of the loud noises at first, this is how Abby spent the fourth quarter of the game and the walk back to the car.

This is just a picture of Abby I took the other night. Wild hair and all.

Just this week Abby is experimenting standing by her self. She is up to about 15 seconds. She is just getting so big. Looking back at this picture I had to laugh at our matching sweat pants.