Barnes and Noble, "Dada", and Bananas

Tuesday was a busy and long day for Abby and I.  I was planning on doing this yesterday, but Abby was having a "I only want to eat or sleep in mommy's arms" kind of day! Needless to say, today I am taking the time to post! :)  This week. Let me think, what all has happen this week in the life of the Fuller family?

Last Tuesday, Roland picked up some extra hours! He has been working pretty close to 40 hours a week, something that is really nice (paycheck wise and helping him learn) but also kind of sucks because sometimes I feel like I never see him! The good thing about Roland is that when he is home, he is ours (Abby's and mine) 100%! He might feel like a zombie, but he does his best to be the best daddy and husband he can be, and I think he is doing a GREAT job! :) I love watching Roland play with Abby before he has to leave for work in the morning, and then when he gets home, he will feed Abby her cereal and get her ready for me to give her a bath.  Her face just lights up when she sees him!

On Wednesday, my mom came up to see me! Abby loves spending time with her grandma! We made dishwasher soap from scratch, and so far it is doing a great job at keeping our dishes clean! It was fun just being able to have some grown up time and some girl time!

Thursday I tried to start giving Abby some rice cereal mixed with some formula . . . let me put that feeding this way, it is a really good thing that I was already planning on nursing Abby until she was at least a year old and not giving her any formula, she HATES it! She would get all excited because she would think that it was going to be her yummy rice cereal, and then as soon as she took the bit, she would start to gag it down!  I felt so bad for her, but I kept on trying to give it to her because I thought it might be one of those "she just needs to get used to the flavor" kind of times.

Friday I gave her some more of the formula mixed rice cereal and it was the same kind of reaction, if not worse. So I called in my backup . . . the grandparents! I called up both my mom and Roland's to see what they thought I should do to help this feeding process go a little better (like it was doing the week before). Both suggested that I might want to mix it with water or some diluted juice and see if she likes that any better, or even try mixing it with something like bananas. I figured since Roland was going to be home for the weekend, he could see what he thinks we should do to help our Abby!

Saturday was a fun day for our little family! Daddy had the day off, so that meant that we had him ALL DAY LONG!!!! We "slept in" a little bit, and Abby started playing with her Ds! I might be in compatition with Roland to see who gets the first word! So far she has been saying "dada" a lot, but never to Roland, actully usually to her monkey . . . I wonder if that means anything! :) We had a little road trip up to Wausau to get my wedding ring resized . . . one of the downsides of having a baby is that your fingers can swell up and then NEVER GO BACK TO NORMAL!!!! All I can say is that I really hope my figures don't swell up with each kid I have, that could get pretty annoying! :) Roland treated me to an Olive Garden lunch for a late birthday meal. Then we walked over to Barnes and Noble (my absolutly favorite store) just so I could smell the books! We picked up two board books for Abby because she was trying to eat the normal paper ones we have at home.  When we got home, Roland tried to feed her some formula flavored rice cereal, and after a few attempted bits, he gave up and mixed up a bowl with some of my breast milk! He said that he wanted her to at least get something in her system!

Sunday is one of my favorite days of the week, I know that I will get out of the house, and I have Roland for the day (or at least used to have him every Sunday, now that he is working in a pharmacy, he will have to work every third Sunday). I have been putting flower head bands on Abby when we go to church lately, and everyone tells me that she looks SO cute in them! Aunt Nicole has a friend that made them so we were able to buy some off of her, the ones that we have for Abby her Aunt Nicole picked out just for her! Lucky girl! We (mostly Roland) decided to start Abby on some bananas! He mashed some up and mixed it with the rice cereal, and I think that she liked it more than she did with the breast milk! I am so glad we have such a willing eater!

Monday was just a normal day for Abby and I. Every week someone comes from a Healthy Beginnings program that Abby is in just to help me come up with fun games for Abby that are just right for what stage of development she is at. This week Joanna brought out a little gumball machine from fisher's price. Every time you push the lever, it will make noise and one of the balls will come out. It didn't take Abby very long to figure out how to make the toy work! She really is such a smart little girl . . . I am going to have my hands full with her! When I showed Roland, his jaw just dropped and smiled! We are so proud of our little girl!

Tuesday was my long day with Abby. We went down to a funeral for someone I had know when I was growing up, he was a very good man and had lived a very long life. I will miss seeing him at church when ever I go down to my parents' church, but he is in a much better place now. It was great being able to spend time with my parents and my sisters and see so many of my friends. Abby is such a social bug and didn't want to stop, even to eat! Silly girl! When we got back home, she played with her Daddy for a little bit and then she was out for the count!

Well, that was our week in a nut shell! I hope you enjoy this "relaxed" look of our very active girl, she was really trying to eat the circle this week BIG TIME, so this is one of the only ones that I have that she isn't playing with it! :)

Mommy, wow! I'm a big girl now! :)

All I can say is that it isn't tomorrow . . . yet! :) So, as normal, I am going to write this like I am writing it on the day I was suppose to write it . . . almost a week ago! One of these times I will get it right again! :)

My little girl is a "big" girl . . . she has started rice cereal! Yay! Wednesday was a pretty big day in Abby's life. First of all, Daddy had the day off and that always makes for a fun day (family day)! Roland and I were invited by my parents to join them to a baseball game, so we took Abby to her very first baseball game (and the home team even won)! Then after we got home we decided to start Abby on cereal, something she probably could have done a month a go, but I kept holding off because I don't want my little girl to grow up! Though, the look on her face when we started giving her the rice cereal told me that she is more than ready to start this new adventure! Oh, and did I mention that it was her very first 4th of July?!

Abby's first feeding of rice cereal was done by her daddy with her mommy playing her paparazzi! She took her first bite with a little bit of curiosity, but one taste and she was a goner . . . she just couldn't get enough! We made a nice little mess, but had lots of fun . . . which dinner time is suppose to be: FUN! The next couple days (with mommy feeding her) we started to master the art of NOT MAKING A MESS! Yay for mommy! We mixed it with breast milk this week because we figured that she would have a better chance at eating it, but now I am a little worried that I am not going to be able to keep up with her healthy appetite! Just this Saturday Roland came home from work while I was just getting close to finishing up her 2 tablespoons of cereal, so he took over. Abby was acting like she was still hungry, so he mixed her up another 2-3 tablespoons . . . and she ate almost all of it up, there was probably only a teaspoon left! Next week I am going to try mixing the cereal with some formula to see if she will still eat it that way! Wish me luck!

As for our little mischievous 23 week old picture . . . I don't know if she was hungry or if the paper circle became a new "toy" that needed to be sucked on, but I think it could be qualified now as "well loved"! Want to know how I knew the photo shoot was over . . . she rolled over and started to play with the pile of clean laundry that I had on the other side of the bed. I am beginning to think that Abby really likes the color red. When ever she sees it on a shirt in our laundry, she b-lines for it! I told Roland this and he just laughed and told me that she probably associates that color red with her daddy, after all he is usually in Target "red" when ever she sees him! :)

Num num num! This week's circle is yummy!

Happy (one day early) Fourth of July!

Sorry, I was a little lazy in writing up my blog . . . at least it gets done, right!? (I am just going to write this pretending that I wrote this on Tuesday . . . the day that I was suppose to write it, the day I DID take the picture . . . so, at least I have one thing going for me, I take the picture on the day that I say I am going to take it!)

This week was Roland's first week of working as a pharmacy technician at his new job up at the Wausau Target Pharmacy! At the end of the week, I asked Roland two questions: "what more will you be doing when you actually become a pharmacist?" and "do you still want to be a pharmacist when you grow up?" He answered both with a great big smile, "I will be able to consult both the person receiving the medication and the doctor prescribing the medication, I will be able to . . . (fill this part in with lots of excited jabbering about all the things he is looking forward to doing when he becomes a pharmacist!)" Can you guess what the answer to the other question is . . . can someone say, "YES!!!!" :)

I love that he loves his new job! The only down side to it, is that this week Abby and I really started to struggle with bedtime! I even text my mom and mother-in-law telling them that I had a baby for sale, everything included, no delivery, only downside is that bedtime is a pain! They reminded me that there would be days like today, but it gets better with time! :) And they are right, Abby and I just need to listen more to each other (oh, okay, so I need to listen to her more) and compromise (I need to be willing to go with the flow and not "force her" into things). Sigh, it is really too bad babies don't come with instruction manuals like cars!

On Saturday, (even though we hadn't spent the whole week together) our little family went in opposite directions for the day . . . don't panic, we just did separate things! Roland had been trying to set up a time to go golfing with a couple buddies from work for about a month, and this was the only day that worked out for them! Abby and I went down to my parents' for the day to see my cousin Amy who just got back home from serving a misson for our church in Poland. can't believe that it has been 18 months since I have seen her! I missed my Amy Lee so much! (On a side note, because Amy went out the same month that my brother-in-law, Sam did, that means he will be coming home in less than 6 months! Yay! I can't wait to see him!)

When my cousin saw Abby, she kept on saying to me, "I can't believe we are old enough for you to have a baby!" and "You have a baby!" She just couldn't get over the fact that we really are growing up and old enough to be married with a baby! Since Amy and I are only six months apart, it feels a little crazy to be this old . . . old enough for her to have served a mission and old enough for me to be married with a baby! At my cousin's party, one of our friends came up to us and Amy said to him, "Tyler, can you believe it? She has a baby?!" And Tyler said to her, "If I didn't see it, I wouldn't have!"And then to me, "YOU MADE A PERSON!!!!" hahaha Why, yes, I did! I did make a person, and what a cute little person she is! :)

Since there was no 31st of the month, I just used the end of the month to mark the progress . . . so check out this picture of my FIVE-MONTH-OLD baby girl! She is getting ready to celebrate her very first Fourth of July! :)

P.S. I just remembered something . . . At the other outdoor picnic that my parants, Abby and I went to on Saturday (before Amy's), Abby started sucking on my waterbottle that I had been dringing out of, so I opened it a little bit to see what her reaction would be to when she got something out of it . . . let's just say, she is a BIG fan of getting water out of a bottle, she pretty much drank the rest of my water! Opps! :) Then later at Amy's party, I had to run over some dinner to my sister, Vicki, so I had my sister, Katie, watch Abby for me. When I came back I found my little girl with chocolate frosting smeared over her cheeks! They were trying to pull a fast one over me by telling me that Abby's first REAL food was chocolate cake! hahaha