on tour

having fun with grandpa

i can really tell that anabelle has been getting stronger & stronger these past few days.

listening to chris read to anabelle

it's sort of like anabelle is on tour here in florida. lots of family & friends have been so excited to meet her & love on her. it's great! yesterday was a big day with lunch out by the water, a little shopping, and a visit with a friend of mine from high school. this morning we had breakfast with friends of my parents and are planning to head to destin this evening for their halloween festivities at an outdoor shopping center. anabelle had a bit of a dress rehearsal with her zebra hat yesterday . . oh my, she's quite the cutie! there will definitely be pictures of that later.

the weather has been really pretty and i've been enjoying spending time in my parents' florida room with them watching the water. it's so nice to know i still have another whole week here! we have a few more friends to visit, more love to soak up, and of course a little more shopping to do. we've even already gotten some christmas shopping done . . . oh, and bought taylor swift's new cd, hee hee.

more pics

anabelle taking a nap & looking cute. man, i take pics of everything.

good thing i have a 8GB memory card, ha!

she drank 2 ounces from the bottle today. go anabelle!

mom & anabelle playing. i turned my back & mom had her in a pillowcase. so funny.

me & my tiny buddy. love her!

our trip so far

a few of our florida pics:

breakfast with grandma - learning to be a foodie!

looking out at the bayou with grandpa . . and spying on the people across the way

relaxing with hoot

working on sitting up . . and also trying the bottle
(she's enjoying sitting up much more than the bottle)

reading the local paper

having fun with grandpa

loving on her monkey from great grandma

. . . and there will be plenty more to come!

so far it has been a great trip to florida - not that we expected anything different.

the actual 'getting here' part was a bit challenging with crazy weather in dallas, being diverted to san antonio temporarily, flown back to dallas, placed #14 on the stand-by list for the very last flight of the day to fort walton beach (which we somehow got on), and finally getting home just before midnight (about 6 hours after we were originally supposed to arrive). anabelle was quite the trooper and we met several sweet & kind fellow traveler who offered to help here & there.

so far anabelle has met her gran (chris' mom), her great grandma kennison (my grandma), my mom's hairdresser, my mom's esthetician, oodles of my mom & grandma's friends from the library . . . she's been on quite the tour with lots of 'pass the baby'. again, she's been amazing. tomorrow we have a date with gran & are excited to get to spend the day together!

heading to florida

sweet faces:

(& pretty awesome hair!)

anabelle & i are getting ready for a big trip home to florida. i can't believe we'll be home for 16 days. thanks for the flight, grandma! these weeks are flying by & getting to spend time with family is going to make it go by even faster.

chris is 'scheduled' to be home in 6-ish weeks. as you can tell by that statement there is no official date yet but it's getting close!

the itsy bitsy spider has been a favorite tune this week. so far, singing that while bouncing are quite the combo to help anabelle fall asleep. a couple weeks ago i decided we could use a few new verses and now i've made up 5 different ones (a skill i got from my own mommy). two verses are chris inspired:

the itsy bitsy spider climbed into his jet - down came the canopy and all the buttons set - up in the sky he roared over the town - keeping everybody safe as we watched him from the ground!

the itsy bitsy spider has a real brave dad - he is a marine and we are both so glad - that he's the one who fights for us and does the things he does - we're so proud and thankful that we're the ones he loves!

not bad, right?!

a little baby watching:

great faces & noises:

before & after

anabelle had a rather sad tummy the other day. here she is with my friend amy.

this is the 'before'.

here is the 'after'!

feeling so much better.

here she is before our trip to target with aunt sally yesterday.

. . . and after.

an article was written about chris' squadron and the work they've been doing in afghanistan. if you'd like to read it, click here.

this picture is from the article. if you look close you can see chris' name under the canopy. bummer that it wasn't chris' day to fly that jet!

pretty cool anyway.

100% baby

i have been smitten' with our little anabelle for 14 weeks now.

she is definitely out of the 'newborn' stage & is a bonafide,

real life, true story 'baby'!

she has moved up another diaper size and is growing out of clothes that seemed to fit just right two weeks ago. i am starting to see somewhat of a routine with her. she has been pretty consistent with bedtime and mealtimes for almost a week. we leave for florida on saturday for 16 days, so we'll see what that does to the schedule. no worries, baby will sleep when she's tired and surely won't go hungry.

each week we are getting better and better using the sling and the wrap. charley is thankful that she gets to go out 3 times a day now that things are a bit easier.

here i must have caught her in the middle of telling a story. her noises are the best! i've been wondering if she's going to have a little voice like me once she's really talking.

tummy time continues to improve! i there to cheer her on . . and help her over. i have a feeling she just might have it figured out on her own before her daddy gets home.

ahh, & my handsome christopher getting ready for a flight. i love this picture. he said it took him over 45 minutes to attach it to the email he sent me . . totally worth it on this end!

chatty baby

just an afternoon chat with miss anabelle.

(yes, she's actually wearing a bow! well, she did for about 30 minutes)

it has been another good week for me & anabelle. this time next week we'll be in florida visiting the fam! there was no yoga class today so we went to the gym instead. now that i've signed myself up for a 10k on thanksgiving i really have to get this body moving.

we went to the movies on thursday. some of the theaters out here host what they call 'new parent movie'. at 10am, they show a new release for new parents to get out and bring baby. i was surprised to see over 30 babies there. our morning was not a graceful one but we did it! 10 minutes in and we both were smelling pretty milky (i'm not great at nursing without the boppy pillow), both were wearing some spit up, & she got a complete wardrobe change (it's amazing where things can escape from a full dirty diaper).

i've put together what chris & i are calling his baby ep's (emergency procedures), really just a little booklet of baby tips like, "the tabs on the diaper go forward - just like your flightsuit."

we have (ok, really just me) been making up new verses to the itsy bitsy spider and i now find myself with the melody stuck in my head on & off throughout the day.

i laughed to myself the other day when i realized that i now sort my laundry into 3 piles instead of 2 . . lights, darks, & pink.

random thought: we should all stop saving those special yummy candles for some fancy dinner or for company. use them now & enjoy them. why not light them for breakfast? then you start the day with a full belly and a fabulously smelling home. it's worth it! plus, stores will always be selling more candles.

just a little fun before bedtime:

just hanging out at home

not sure why i recorded this but i did . . just another one of the random things we like to do during the day.

stand up, sit down, fight-fight-fight! well, sort of.

that stand up-sit down stuff can wear a baby out.

i yam what i yam!

"i'm strong to the finish 'cause mom eats her spinach . . . "

- anabelle

this was her best tummy time yet!

baby in the mirror

a quick visit with anabelle's friend in the mirror

just some recent favs

cheering for the environment

(she slept so long this night that she seemed

almost wired once she woke up!)

i love these little hands. do you think she has my thumbs? ha ha!

just relaxing with a nice full belly

supporting daddy's team

checking out mom taking yet another picture

trying out the leg warmer thing

anabelle is 3 months old!

this has been quite a month. 3 months old! how did we get here already? i'll take it. it has been so amazing & it means chris' homecoming is getting closer!

here is a slideshow of her third month

crafty attempt

late last week i thought i'd be a crafty girl and make anabelle's footprint for chris. i bought a pretty non-toxic teal colored ink and was all set up with baby wipes close by for clean up.

well, ends up that the ink didn't want to come off of anabelle's foot!

oh my!

i had a couple teal dyed fingers too. needless to say, anabelle wore socks the next day. i'm happy to report that her foot is back to normal now, ha ha!

at least the it did work great on the paper.

thinking about daddy

just hanging out and thinking about chris

strong baby

maybe those yoga classes are paying off

looks like we have a thumb sucker

. . . . at least for now

oh la la

man, that's great hair!

news from chris

i recently received a few pictures from chris - a definite highlight to my day. it's not that often the guys manage to get pictures to you . . especially ones of themselves.

last week he flew a miami dolphins pennant few a friend whose kids are big dolphins fans (and so it chris). here he is before the flight.

. . . and during the flight!

(ok, so i think he's quite the rock star)

here he is wearing some of the goodies i've sent. he says the beanie is coming in really handy now that the nights are quite cool over there.

yep, still as handsome as ever - lucky me!

he says things are still going well over there. the advanced party (they come home first) is starting to pack up which is always a good sign. he should still be home sometime in early december. then we're hoping he'll have a few days off to watch what i like to call 'the anabelle show' and get a chance to learn how life has changed here at 9929 erma road. before we know it we'll be heading home to florida to celebrate christmas and his homecoming with both of our families.

"you're amazing"

my mom (who rocks, by the way!) often tells me that . . . "you're amazing". i've always just said thanks and chocked it up to the fact that well, she's my mom. moms say things like that, right? it's not that i didn't think she meant it but i just thought she was my mom, she loves me, she thinks i'm swell.

well, these last nearly 3 months now i find myself telling our little anabelle the exact same thing and i mean it, 100%!

i get it now. i can't believe that all this time there was this new understanding between me & my parents that was just waiting for me to have a baby. it's incredible! somehow i now appreciate them even more.

my brain wanders during the day, thinking about what it was like for them being home with me as a newborn. what sort of things did they chat with me about? did they watch me sleep too? did they get excited at all the new sounds i made, cheer for a nice loud burp, laugh at noisy dirty diapers? sure wish i could spy on a clip of back then. just over 2 weeks and i'll be home with them, sharing anabelle, getting to chat about all of those things, and soaking up tons of love. anabelle & i can't wait!

*bonus - she gets to meet her gran (chris' mom) and her great grandma kennison (my grandma).

book from daddy

some of you have seen the photo book chris made for anabelle before he left. i showed it to her a couple times when she was first born knowing she couldn't really see and that it was morea chance for me to look at pictures of him.

well, over the weekend i pulled it out again.

this is definitely my new favorite video!

hello photobucket

a mommy friend of mine recently introduced me to photobucket and i'm loving it. now i can do all sorts of creative things with the oodles of pictures i take of our anabelle.

here are a couple of the collages i've made.

a little tummy time and then bath time.

there's more to come i'm sure!