Last Boat Ride for the Year

Cookies, Brownies, and Cakes Oh My!

We have been baking here! Lots of goodies for the Bake Sale.

What to do on a Rainy Day?

Play with Photo Booth!

Still getting used to the camera

Turn the bib around and we are a comic book superhero!

Dodging the Paparazzi...

Siamese Twins

What a dream... TWO Abigails!

"The Bulge" Effect making the cheeks even chubbier! *smooch*

Not as cute on an adult...

See ya later!

Beach BBQ

 Abigail knows how to write her name in the sand!

Love that girl....

 ... and that guy in the red too.

Abigail with her Grandpa and Grandma Wright

Race For the Cure

Well I won't be running, but Abigail and I will be walking on the Laps For Lindy Team this Saturday in Grandville. Sign up to walk with us or support us. We'll let you know how it goes, Abigail has lots of pink to wear to support breast cancer research that is for sure!

Bottle Bootcamp Recap

When things are bad... try to look at the good and most of the time your good list will be longer.

Bad News:
She still doesn't take a bottle!
Derek and I both caught a flu bug!

Good News:
Abigail didn't starve to death.
Abigail didn't catch the flu bug.
My class got out early both days.
We are all feeling better after a good Day Of Rest.

My 3 hours of class on Friday night turned into 2.5 hours. AND my 10 hours of class time on Saturday turned into 8 hours, PLUS I got a 1+ hour lunch break to come home and "nurse" my family. Literally for Abigail... I sent Derek to bed and relieved him of baby duty by sending Abigail home with my mom (who just so conveniently happened to stop by!). Thanks Mom!

Prayers Please

My cousin Lindy is fighting for her life against cancer. She is having Gamma Knife surgery on her brain tumors this Wednesday at Mayo. Please keep her, the family, and the entire medical staff in your prayers. God does do miracles and we ask for one now! If you know her and would like to join in on a prayer slot for the day click HERE.

Also, follow Lindy's journey at the VerBeek Blog on the right side bar of my blog. ->

Bottle Bootcamp

I am taking a graduate class this fall and it is a weekend class. I have it for 3 hours tonight and then another 10 hours tomorrow. I repeat that for a weekend in October and in November. It didn't seem like a bad deal for a stay-at-home-mom since those 3 weekends could just be daddy time and I wouldn't have to find a sitter. I would just "suffer" through the 13 hours each time and do the homework in between those weekends on my own time.

Until, I learned my baby does not like bottles. Oh no. The REAL thing or she just screams. She's a smarty, you know. She quiets right back down once you pull that foreign object out of her mouth. She doesn't care that it contains the same milk she gets everyday. We try almost everyday to feed her with a bottle to no avail. Even my sitters try!

Hence the picture of the bottles. They are ready, all ten varieties we have, in case she decides she wants to take a bottle from her dad while I'm in class. She may be pretty hungry when I get home after class Saturday! Fortunately we have a back-up plan (because I know I couldn't handle hours of crying by that little sweetie, more power to her daddy for trying). I am taking my class here in Holland, so my class breaks may consist of nursing in the backseat of our car in the parking lot. It just adds to the fun of 13 hours of class!

I know there are even more brands, but what's the use? She's gotta settle on one of these, seriously. We have: Playtex, Medela, Safety1, Evenflow, Breastflow, Nuk, BornFree, Luvs, and two I can't remember (one is from the doctors office and one came with a gift at a baby shower).

Wish us luck! Any pointers will be happily received in the comment section! We are almost ready to just try a sippy cup, spoon, or real cup!

Abigail's Tree

Derek and I decided it would be fun to plant a tree when each of our children are born.

His neighbor planted a tree in their front yard the year one of his sisters was born and it has been neat to see just how much that tree has grown and to say it is as old as she is. We had just planted this tree last fall when we moved in so we decided it would be Abigail's tree.
Actually the tree is a "Lee Tree" and it is started from an acorn from a very famous tree that General Lee stood under to do some very famous thing(give a speech?). I'm not very good at history... I never was (a plus to marrying Derek because he has a good memory).
Anyway, the details to that story do not matter so much because it is Abigail's tree now and she is so cute hunched over in her little Bumbo [that she is not quite old enough to sit in yet]. She could hear me talking to her but she could not get her head back up so she just smiled at the grass!

New Toy

Three Months Old

At Three Months Old Abigail...

...sleeps for 5-6 hours at night and then in 3 hours slots after that. She goes to bed anywhere between 9 and 11 (wish it was 9 all the time but sometimes she becomes more alert than sleepy at that last feeding, ugh!).
...eats Mama's Milk. She is still great at nursing but refuses to take a bottle. We have tried about 8 different kinds of nipples now and she just gets mad. I think she can do it, she just doesn't want that! She takes a sip here and there but never really even a full ounce from a bottle!
...plays with her light and sound activity gym and the toys that hang from her car seat handle.
She reaches for toys now and can hook her hand around it but she doesn't always realize she's holding it yet and will drop it when she relaxes her hand. She tries to "kiss" back. When you go to give her a kiss she will open her mouth and sometimes even lick you. So slobbery and cute... She holds her hands together and sucks her hands and fingers more now. She talks a lot more (coos) and smiles more. She kinda notices/watches tv when it is on which is funny (or if she's on your lab and you're on the computer... as long as the screen is changing often enough to get her attention).
...wears 3-6 months clothes and size 2 diapers. We wear cloth diapers during the daytime when we're at home.
...weighs 14 lbs.
...has a height of 24 inches .

Here are her two month and one month posts.

A Beautiful Surprise

 

I love that Derek captured this sunset. I remember thinking how gorgeous it was as I gave Abigail a bath one evening. When I uploaded the photos to our computer I saw that he had done just that. The sunset was a surprise and then the photo was a second one. This is a view of the "lake" from our house. I sometimes call it a pond because, compared to Lake Michigan, it is so tiny!