December highlights

December was a full month for us, made a little more complicated by the fact that JP was traveling for med school interviews for two weeks before we all met up in Ohio to spend the holidays with my side of the family.  Even though it was busy, Abigail and I had a good time and we enjoyed talking to JP, and seeing the snow in the midwest, through his travels (thank goodness for face time!).

Here are some highlights:
Abigail got a play kitchen for her birthday and some nice accessories and it has been a hit! We play with it pretty much every day:

We also took some trips to go shopping and to the park:

 And we went to the zoo to visit the elephants and the new lemurs:

We went to a neighborhood near ours that goes all out for Christmas lights and literally ran all around!

Sabino canyon

Back in November, we took a nice easy hike at Sabino Canyon.

Abigail jumped in the hiking backpack as always

We saw a woodpecker on the way

Then we stopped for a little snack of fruit and cookies.

Yummy, cookies!

Then Abigail did some exploring before heading back home:

More birthday

After her party over thanksgiving weekend, the celebrations continued for Abigail!  Her actual birthday was the following Monday and she got to have a celebration with her friends at school.  JP was off that day so he went in to to school in the morning and got to stay while they shared mini muffins with all the kids and Abigail was serenaded with happy birthday.  JP was busy helping coordinate things so there are no photos, but apparently she was a little cautious with all the attention but seemed happy overall.

 That night, after dinner we had mini muffins and m&ms for a treat.  Abigail was so excited about having us sing to her and seemed to really enjoy herself:

Enjoying the treats:

We then had one more birthday celebration the following weekend with a few of my friends from work. Abigail helped me make brownies in the morning:

Then she put on her party dress and we ate pizza and brownies:

We got some wonderful presents and Abigail enjoyed opening them and playing.  She was pretty excited about the whole thing!

We were thankful to have so many people to celebrate with!

Winter party

Abigail has been busy making winter crafts at school, including this personalized picture frame and photo that the teachers organized. This was her present to us from school this year!

She is also now old enough for the winter celebration and performance that is a yearly tradition at school.  The kids in Abigail's group all got to wear reindeer accessories (one of their songs was about a reindeer) and then perform for the teachers.

This picture pretty much sums up how Abigail felt about the whole thing:

Some of the other kids did actually dance:

And I got one decent picture of the two of us (JP was out of town and had to miss the performance):

After the show, they had crafts in the classrooms.  Abigail and I made a snowman doorhanger:

Her favorite craft, however, was decorating cookies:

Delicious!

Singing star

Abigail has become more of a singer lately and was nice enough to let me video her version of twinkle twinkle little star last night.  It is pretty awesome:

Happy birthday Abigail!

Today Abigail turns two years old!

Here are a few highlights from her party over the weekend:

More to come...

Children's museum November

JP had been working a crazy schedule where they made a big deal of how lucky the med students are to get two "golden weekends" out of four weeks. A "golden weekend" is what the rest of us call a regular weekend, where you do not have to work on either weekend day.  Regardless, we are learning to appreciate the golden weekends and Abigail and I found lots of nice adventures on the other weekends, including checking out the newly remodeled Children's Museum.

There is a new section that includes a toddler-sized set of activities, which is nice. It includes a slide:

A carrot car:

A play house with table:

and kitchen area:

There was also a new art area:

Then we ventured back to old favorites including the balls that fly in the air

The grocery area:

The cash register

And the trains, although I didn't get a picture of those.

We went in the afternoon this time and it was actually calmer than the morning, so we will see what works best in the future. All the kids get a stamp on their hand when they go in, so Abigail has been asking for "more stamps". We will probably go again on discount day next month!

Thinking ahead

Since October, a hot topic of conversation around our house has been birthdays.  There were a whole bunch of birthdays in Abigail's new class at school (including kids who are turning 3!) and since then, we have been talking about "Abba birthday".  So Abigail has had some time to think about what she would like her birthday to be like, and here she shares her thoughts while enjoying a chocolate chip cookie (sorry for the phone video quality):

Halloween at home

After Abigail's adventures at school in the morning, we returned home at the end of the day to eat a quick dinner and get ready for Trick or Treating. Abigail and Dada set up the pumpkin they had carved the previous day:

Abigail got ready with her pumpkin for candy and some extra layers because it had gotten a little colder.

We briefly walked around our complex but most of the units were dark so we just jumped in the car and drove a few minutes over to our old neighborhood, where there was a lot more holiday activity.

Abigail did great at the houses, saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" with some prompting and seeming excited and sort of confused by the whole process.  When we got home, she immediately  began to inspect her haul:

She took out the pieces one by one:

And then finally she got to eat it!