Eight months

Weight: 18 pounds 1 ounce 

Milestones: Crawling completely. Pulling up to things and walking around them. Finally has 2 teeth! Plays peek-a-boo. Shakes her head yes. Says mama and dada and knows what they mean. When she gets really upset she says mommy. 

Favorites: Bath time is still her absolute favorite. Being outside. Music. Being tickled. Drinking out of her cup. Swimming in the pool. Her bedtime stories. Dinosaurs. Swinging at the park...she belly laughs. 

Not so favorites: Sleep...she fights it like crazy. Thats about it.

I know I have said this a million times lately, but I am late. She is nine months now. Our summer has been super busy and crazy and blogging has taken the back seat. I have so much to blog about our summer so hopefully I will find some time to do that. It was fun to look back on what she was up to during month 8. She is beautiful and amazing and her personality is blooming right before our eyes. She is going to be such a kind-hearted, free spirited little girl. She takes the time to observe everything around her and I can already tell she loves life. I cannot wait to spend many days enjoying my sweet little girl and watching her love everything around her. I love her more than ever and my love will continue to grow for her everyday. She makes my soul happy. 

Seven months

Weight: 17 pounds 12 ounces 

Milestones: Started scooting across the floor like an inch worm. Says bye bye. Gives full on kisses and when you ask for a kiss she makes the pucker noise...adorable! Started eating puffs, baby mum mums, and little yogurt bites...she loves all three. Still no teeth, but she is working on some. Says Papa. 

Favorites: The baby piano grammy and grampy got her. Baby yogurt bites in mixed berry. Getting into mommy's wallet and taking out every card. Books...she giggles the whole time we read to her. Bath time is still one of her favorite times. Giving mommy kisses in the morning. Big open spaces where she can move around a lot. 

Not so favorites: She still doesn't like shoes. Doesn't like staying in the same place for very long. And all of the sudden hates being in her car seat (the 20 hour drive to visit grandparents in 2 weeks should be interesting) 

Don't be confused when I post an 8 month post in a few days. This one was way behind...imagine that. I have a goal to get better at blogging more often. Here's to hoping I stick to it. Abigail is amazing. She just gets more and more fun the more things she learns. She has the sweetest personality and I know she is going to have a huge heart. She loves to cuddle and give kisses and it makes my heart sing. I love this little girl with my whole soul. Sometimes I still can't believe she is mine. What did I do to deserve such a precious little thing? Whatever it was I am thanking my lucky stars. I look forward to many many more months of being with her and watching her grow! Until next time!

Father's Day

I know this is super late. Yikes I have got to get better at blogging more often. But anyway. My husband is amazing. Beyond amazing actually. When I pictured what my future husband and father to my children would be like I never knew I would get so lucky. He puts our needs before his on a daily basis and would do anything to make us happy. He is my best friend. If Abigail could talk I am sure she would say the same thing. She seriously has a happy dance for when he gets home from work. He walks in, she starts clapping, throwing her arms around and giggling, and wont take her eyes off of him until he picks her up. But the cutest part? He is just as excited. He scoops her up and plays with her for at least 30 minutes before he goes to take a shower. Those 2...they make my world go round. He is perfect. He is the guy that likes to cuddle even more than I do, who would choose to stay home with his girls than do anything else, who cried the whole time Abigail was being born, who doesn't let a day go by without making us feel so loved. I could go on forever, but I wont because I am sure you guys get the point. So what do you do for a guy who is nearly perfect for Father's Day? I am not sure, but here is what I did.

A picture frame of the reasons Abigail loves her daddy

Open when... letters

 Some clothes and shoes

His favorite candy

This was probably his favorite. Tickets to a sold out for months world cup qualifier Honduras vs USA

At the soccer game

Abbey sleeping in my seat

The soccer game was a blast. Nick got a USA jersey and we won. I know he loved it and I am so glad. He deserves it. We love you daddy. You are THEE best!

Half a year and counting

             Weight: 16 pounds 12 ounces

Height: 27.5 inches 

Milestones: Can sit up by herself completely. Says DADA!!! Claps her hands as soon as I start to sing If your happy and you know it. Waves hello and bye bye. Gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. When you ask her what a bear says she growls. SO CUTE. Started giving kisses.

Favorites: Singing if your happy and you know it and patty cake. Walking around while we hold her hands. Swinging(she giggles the ENTIRE time). Growling. Snuggling and putting her face against mine. Daddy coming home from work...she claps! 

Not so Favorites: Baby food...she could care less if she has any. I still try every day because her doctor said its okay if she isn't interested as long as she is still breastfeeding regularly, but keep trying...so we are. Still doesn't like having shoes on. 

Here she is 7 months old already and I am just now doing her 6 month post...ugh! I need to get on top of things! Once again my heart has grown even more in love with this little girl. She is growing so fast and I can't believe that she can do half of the things she can. My husband and I joke that its more and more like having a little adult around. I still ask her if I can keep her forever all the time. I don't ever want to let her go (my mom is laughing as she reads this because I always give her a hard time about letting go). Now I know how you feel mom, I digress. Seriously I just cannot put into words the love a mother feels for her child. Its amazing, beautiful, wonderful and all of those mushy words. I don't want her to grow up, but at the same time I am so very proud of everything she learns. I always pray that I am doing my best at raising her how Heavenly Father would want me to raise her. Its a huge responsibility after all. I just want her to grow up to be so confident in who she is and to always love the Lord more than anything else. I know she will be amazing because she already blows me away every day. I hope she always knows how perfectly beautiful she is and that she was made in God's image just the way he would have her be. If she knows that then I did my job well. I know, I know so gushy! I just can't help it. I love her. Well, thats all for now. Stay tuned for more exciting things we have been up to! 

Hiking/ Memorial Day/ New Car

I have said it before, but I'll say it again. My husband and I are always up for an adventure. We love being outdoors and we definitely love trying new things. I feel very blessed that Abigail loves being outside just as much as we do, if not more. Anyway when you look out of our living room window you  can see a mountain in the distance. My husband had been saying that mountain was taunting him haha so we decided to go climb it. I was less than thrilled when we started because for some reason I just wasn't in the mood that day. However after we started climbing I was super happy we decided to. It was so beautiful and Abigail loved every minute of it. I was glad I got over my bad attitude because the climb was very rewarding. It was like 87 degrees that day with a slight breeze and it was just perfect. The hike altogether was around 3 hours and by the end of it Abigail fell asleep, which was super cute in her carrier on daddy.

As you can tell by her face, Abigail LOVED it. It also wore her out haha. Now onto Memorial Day.

On Memorial day we got together with some friends and decided to grill out some hot dogs and then go fishing. After going to Wal Mart(which by the way was a complete madhouse) and getting the stuff we needed we headed to the park that my husband said had a grill(so he thought). There were no grills to be found at any parks in town so we decided to go to the sand dunes. Luckily we found a grill there and made our lunch. After eating lunch and hanging out for a little bit we went to a sweet fishing spot my husband had found when he was on his mission. It was a secluded area that we had to walk down railroad tracks to find. It was super pretty with a small waterfall and just a fun place to fish. None of us caught anything, but we still had fun! Then our friends took us to a little place that had gelato and custard mixed.. talk about yum! It was so good. Later that night my husband, myself, and Abigail went out to eat at Olive Garden. It was a fun little Memorial Day. And of course I can't do a post about Memorial Day without thanking all the men and women who have, are, and will serve our country. It is because of them that we have our freedom and I am so very thankful for that. They give up their precious family time, their fun and freedom, and sometimes even their lives so that we may enjoy all those things. God Bless every single one of them! 

Oh and I almost forgot some exciting news. My husband and I bought our first brand new car together. We traded in his 04 Hyundai Sonata and bought a 2014 Subaru Forester XT. We love it :)

Life Lately!

So like I said we moved 1200 and some odd miles from Missouri to Idaho and we have been busy, busy, busy! We have been up to a lot so I am warning you now this post may be lengthy. We are loving the weather here and all the fun things to do. Don't get me wrong we miss our family like crazy, but its nice to be able to go hike and explore when we are bored. Abbey loves being outdoors too so thats a plus. We LOVE our apartment and I plan on doing a post about that as soon as I get everything decorated the way that I want it (who knows when that will be ;)) SO stay tuned for that. We also love the town we live in. Its a small little town where the people are super friendly and you can walk all the way across town. We love it.

We have been on many walks lately and we just started running. I ran cross country and track and high school and I loved everything about running. It was a huge stress reliever for me and I felt so good after a long hard run. I ran for the first couple months of my pregnancy but then I chickened out and just walked for the rest of it. So now that my little girl isn't so little anymore I thought it is time for me to get back into something I love. I have a goal to run a marathon in the near future so I hope that I can keep myself motivated enough to do that. It helps that my husband runs with me, but umm those jogging strollers are a whole different ball game. Those things are not easy to run with and about kill me. Good thing my husband is extremely sweet and took the brunt of that task. (Thanks sweetie!) Oh, and Abigail loved every minute of it just like we knew she would.

Our first walk:

Yes, they are holding hands. Precious!

Our first run:

The other day we went to a place called Wolverine Canyon. It is so beautiful and it was a blast. It was so fun taking abbey up to the little waterfalls and rivers and watching her take in her surroundings. She got excited and started kicking her feet like a mad woman when she heard the water...must have thought it was bath time, sweet girl. Since you drive 5 mph through the canyon we took her out of her seat and she sat on my lap. She thought she was hott stuff and it was super cute. Our little family loves adventure and being outdoors so this was one of my favorite things we have done by far! Oh and hubs would kill me if I didn't mention his favorite part. At about 7,000 feet above sea level it had started raining which meant very muddy dirt mud roads. In our little car that was a major yikes. We got stuck in some ruts and on our left side was 1000 feet down the side of a mountain. Needless to say Abigail was back in her car seat at this point and I was sitting in the back belted in beside her. It was super slick and we were sliding all over the place trying to get out of the rut. Way scary. Luckily my husband is way calm in every situation and he got us out. Afterwards it was funny and we laughed about it. 

Last night we went to the thrift store, where I scored a pair of brand new converse shoes for $3 heck yes! We ate dinner at a cute little restaurant downtown that was really good. And then we walked downtown while abbey got to ride on daddy's shoulders and was giggling and jabbering the whole time. We also have discovered that she can wave and say "hi" We were at Walmart the other day and an older gentlemen waved at her and said hi and without missing a beat she waved back and said hi. Umm, where did that come from? haha it is SO cute. You will see her waving at me in the picture of her on her daddy's shoulders. After walking around and making room, Nick took us to a little dairy that has ice cream and  a petting zoo. Abigail got to pet a horse and she loved it. She looked at Nick like  dad is this okay? And then started smiling great big. The horse loved her too and kept letting her pet him, but umm he wasn't a fan of me. Every time I tried to pet him he gave me the cold shoulder. Ha! Daddy even snuck Abigail a few bites of his ice cream and she was super impressed. She started diving  into his ice cream and squealing. Girl knows what she wants. 

And here are some random things we do at home when we are bored:

Mommy and Abigail bake yummy things together

Daddy slings Abigail around like a human sling shot while she cracks up laughing

Note: this is what happens when you don't have a dining room table yet folks. It turns into a free for all for daddy and baby. ;) 

We play soccer because daddy wants Abbey to be on the USA women's team. Ha, she's right up there with those ladies ;)

We practice our adorable little faces that melt everyones heart

Best one yet. Ornery much?

And here are some favorite pictures I have of me and little miss lately:

Idaho has been good to us so far and we hope that it only gets better. We have lots of plans in store and we are definitely excited for family to come visit when they get the chance. 

Happy Saturday Everyone!

P.S. I hope everyone has an amazing Mother's Day. I will be doing a post about that, but until then enjoy those little ones(or big ones) of yours and hug them and kiss them and let them know you are so thankful to be their mommy!