Purpletree Black and White

This is the last batch from Erin.

 I framed this one in my office.

 This toile dress was Abby's cousin's. I loved the old time look of it.

 Abby loves to be outside.  These pictures were taken at the Grapevine Botanical Gardens and she just ran and played and had her picture taken.

 She also ran over the the playground and got lots of pictures going down the slide!

 

 I love this red corduroy dress with her monogram.  It is huge, so I hope to see her in it lots.

 

Y'all.  My kids are supposed to be taking a morning rest right now because they both woke up at the crack of dawn and they are in their beds in separate rooms yelling 'hello!' to each other.

Pictures by Kristi

These are the birthday/valentine's pictures Kristi took of Abby. 

I was amazed by how many she got because Abby was not having it that day! I really expected one or two at best.  As always, I was shocked by what Kristi can do.

This is Kristi's kids' playhouse.  Abby was much more interested in this than Kristi's props, so we ended up getting fun pictures here.

Abby is full of energy, but she sits with rapt attention when she is being read to.  She loves books and she loves to sit on your lap and take it all in.

Aaron reads to her a lot and then he'll show her a picture and say "where's the football, Abs" or something like that.  Abby will point to the correct picture and Aaron will say "Good girl! That's the football, Abs"

Abby is getting opinionated about what she wears and I think that's funny.  Her opinions change day to day.  With Aaron, he liked to choose, but it was always "do you want pants or shorts?" "shorts" "do you want a polo shirt or a T-shirt?" "Polo shirt".  With Abby, one day she absolutely wants nothing to do with pants and the next she'd rather have jeans than a dress. 

She does consistently choose pink when given color choices and she ONLY likes to wear the M&M PJs that Uncle Doug gave her for Christmas.  I am serious about that. 

She has a routine she likes to go through when you put her in the bed and if you try to skip a part she will let you know.

Aaron's 47 Month Interview

What is your name? Aaron

One month from today he will be four years old!

How old are you? Three

What is your favorite color? Blue

Who is your best friend? Daddy

What is your favorite animal? A zebra

What do you want to be when you grow-up? A crocodile

Who is your favorite person? You

What is your favorite book? The Thomas books

What makes you happy? You

What makes you sad? Daddy

What is your favorite food to eat? Big Boy Cereal

What is your favorite song to sing? Jesus loves Me

What do you like to play? Trains

More from Purpletree

I first saw this picture on Erin's blog and it was the center piece of a picture post of Abby.  It took my breath away.  I love this picture.

Here it is with some distance.

And in color

This is the close up with a little less color.  I blew this up to 16x20 and am having it put on canvas for her room.  We have a 16x20 Canvas that was taken by Kristi about a year ago in her room now and we are going to put this beside it.  That one is also a close up, and since it is color, we decided to do this one in color.

I'll take a picture of the finished product when it's up.

Sweet, sweet Abby

I love this girl!

 She is such a terrific mix of girly girl and rough and tumble girl.

 She loves bows, shoes, purses and anything Hot Pink.

 She likes dresses and tights.

 She is my dare devil.  She's my climber.  She's my jump off the dock with no fear girl.

 She loves trains and trucks and tractors and cars. Side note:  She will choose the Thomas the Train plate over the Disney Princess place every single day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

 She loves dirt and digging and shovels and mud.

And please note Aaron's science project in the background here.

True, but...

I think this should really say "no" means ask Papa!  With those blue eyes and sweet smile, we are all in trouble!

Almost Two

One week from today, our baby will be two!

 I have wonderful friends who are wonderful photographers and I am so blessed.  Both Erin and Kristi captured Abigail as she was about to turn two and I have 40 or so fabulous pictures.  So expect 'Abby' posts for a while.

 All of these pictures were taken by Erin Vande Zande at Purpletree Studios.  Erin has the most amazing spirit of anyone I have ever met.  I want to be like her. 

I also have all of these pictures in black and white, which adds another amazing dimension.

 

I have an 8x10 of this picture framed in Abby's room.  Aaron saw it and said, "I wish I could be there with her, smelling the flowers, and bringing some home." I love my babies!

More kid stuff

Kristi took pictures of the kids at her house a couple of weeks ago.  She had gotten a bunch of new props and had all her Valentine's Day stuff ready.  She got some cute pictures!

Just as a note, Aaron's absolute favorite thing in the world to wear is a longall (as seen above, kind of like overalls).  They are really hard to find over 3T.  He has a few that my friend Julie has made a little longer by moving the buttons down, but they are still a bit short.  The one above is from Kelly's Kids, which is the only place I've found that makes a true 4T that fits him well.  And if you know Kelly's Kids, you know they are not cheap.  I went round and round on whether to get it, but he really wanted it and Jory said to get it.  I would say he wears that thing out.  If I let him, he would wear that every day of his existence.  And, he calls it 'his dress', which is probably a topic for another day.

Aaron has started praying on his own without prompting.  It is amazing to me how natural it comes to a child.  When he hurts himself he immediately asks God to heal him.  It is precious and an incredible lesson.

Kristi picked Abby's outfits for these pictures and this blue dress has skyrocketed to my favorites.

Aaron talks ALL THE TIME right now.  Please understand what I mean by all the time.  When we are riding in the car there is not one second of silence and it is an amazing ticker tape of everything he is seeing and thinking and it bounces around and it is the most precious chatter ever.

Aaron still calls his sister Abs.  I wrote about this a long time ago.  It was something he just started doing and he came up with it on his own.  I don't remember anyone else ever calling her Abs.  He is still the only one who calls her that, so it's his name for her.  And he uses it often.  He wants to share everything he sees and has and knows with her. And Abs loves her big brother so much!

These last two pictures are repeats with some different colorings.

 

Abby started swimming without me this semester which was rough at first. 

At some point in her second lesson, though, she saw Aaron across the pool waving at her and all was well with the world.  So when she started her third lesson, Aaron was ready.  He stood in the observation room and knocked on the glass so Abby would hear him and he stood there and waved at her so she wouldn't be sad. 

Kids Catch Up

I think all of the time about something I need to put on the Blog, but I haven't been taking the time to sit down and do it, so this will be a random post.

These two pictures were taken at a Play Group at Chuck E Cheese.  This play group is twelve moms and we are each responsible for the play dates one month.  My month is February and I picked Chuck E Cheese for our first one.  Because we LOVE Chuck E Cheese.  And there is no one there before 11 and there is a great toddler area and a great indoor playground and so on and on and on and I just love it.  And, ummm, my children were the ONLY ones not having their very first Chuck E Cheese experience that day.  Granted, the kids were all younger, but still.  I will say it was a raging success and I now have lots of fellow moms to join us at CEC.

Have you seen Toy Story?  At the very beginning where you can hear the kid doing all of his imaginative play and he's all into it and narrating everything?  Aaron does that and it is the cutest thing ever.  I'll be nearby, but not where he can see me, and I can hear every word as he is playing with his trains and cars and toys.  He has very elaborate stories that go along with everything he does.  Some things he takes from his Thomas the Train Videos on his Leappad, but some of it he's just making up.  It's incredible.  I need to record the audio and post it.  Plus he's getting all kinds of really big words.

Aaron loves to read books to Abby.  He has memorized his books and he wants her to sit and listen.  He reads them perfectly cover to cover and it is adorable.  Aaron wants Abby doing everything he is.  The other day he said, "Come on Abby.  We're going on a Bear Hunt.  It's going to be a great adventure."  Then he took her hand and took her on their hunt.

These pictures were taken at swim.  Aaron is just knocking my socks off with swim this year.  Well, not really just with swim, but with his handling of new situations.  Today he had a substitute teacher he had never met.  He just walked right into class and sat in his spot and did great.  I can not stress to you how ugly a situation a substitute teacher would have caused a year ago.  I also can not tell you how in awe I am of him walking into a class by himself.  What a difference a year makes.  He just seems so much more like a boy.

 We went to lunch the other day and there was a train going by which meant that we, of course, had to stop and watch it.  Aaron is obsessed with trains.  Especially Thomas the Train (though his favorite character is Percy, the green train), but he is into all trains. Real ones, toy ones, books about them.

Another Chuck E Cheese picture.  He is able to play the games by himself now.  Growing up!

He has such a sweet heart. I am reminded of that every single day.

And here's my sweet girl!  She is SO funny right now.  And probably always will be.  She has a very big personality.

I have been dressing her in lots of red for valentines day.  This dress has hearts on the inside of the sleeves.

And this shirt has hearts on it. 

Abby does a couple things that I think are funny.  1.  She sleeps with a blanket over her head.  It's a small, light blanket, but she puts it on her head.  And if it gets off of her head in the night she will sit up, position it correctly and then fall face forward to her sleeping position with the blanket over her head.  She also likes hoods on her head. And hooded towels.

This is her brushing her hair.  Sheri gave her this dress for Christmas pictures and I have been wearing it out because it is about to be too short.

2.  Abby likes to have her nose suctioned.  And now she can actually do it herself so she doesn't want help with that.  And she does the whole thing.  She wipes the suction bulb, squeezes it, puts it in her nose, releases it, removes the bulb, squirts the snot onto a wipe and cleans the bulb before doing the other nostril.  Really???

Chuck E Cheese

Laura posted about our fun time at Chuck E Cheese last month and she got so many more pictures than I did.  There were two very cute ones of my kids on her blog.  You can see them here.