One, two, three...ten!

This week Abigail surprised us by learning to count in Spanish! Erik was swinging with her at the park a few days ago and was counting each of their swings. He got up to "tres" and was taken aback when Abigail shouted, "cuatro!" A few days later, I was counting as I exercised, and Abigail joined in and counted with me (I let her lead out) up to ten! We practiced with her over the next few days, and finally at dinner the other night, after hearing her count to ten perfectly, I turned to Erik, beaming with pride, and said, "We have to get this on video."

Oh, when will I ever learn that children don't perform on demand?



And if at first you don't succeed, try again the next day....and you will still fail.



I'm learning. Slowly.

Our favorite old neighbors are back!

Our family is delighted to welcome my brother and sister-in-law, Caleb and Shannyn Weiler, and their son, Clark, to the ATL! After having had such a blast hanging out with us all the time this past summer in Provo, they realized they couldn't live without us, so they sold all their belongings and moved out here last month. Well ok, maybe Caleb's graduation and job offer in Atlanta also had something to do with it. At any rate, we are so pumped to have them in our neck of the woods! Clark and Abigail picked up right where they left off...

Characters...

Happy (belated) New Year!

What? It's 2009 already?! How can this be?

I just did my Thanksgiving post. I haven't written anything about Christmas! And the holidays are like so totally over. I'm so embarrassed.

Oh, blaaaa! Why am I always a month behind?

If I promise to do better this year, will you forgive me? Pleeease?

Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks? Would you be insanely jealous if I told you that I got to have this girl all to myself the other day? I thought so.

Abigail and I are very glad to be Maya's next-door neighbors.

Happy New Year! Well, happy 2009 anyway. Sorry again for the long absence. After two months of slacking off, I decided I needed to buckle down and finish my online finance class before its "due date," which is fast approaching. I made a smart move by enrolling in it the month before I left for my spring/summer adventure at the Y. BYU independent study gives you a whole year to complete the course, and that sounded like ten times the amount of time I'd need to finish it....Even when I got back in August, March sounded a long way off. So I enrolled in another class in September since I had so much time on my hands. I intended to finish them both before Christmas, but November and December both turned out to be utterly unproductive months for me. So....when I put up my new calendar a few weeks ago, March suddenly sounded a lot closer, so I quickly snapped out of slacker mode and switched gears into conscientious student mode.

So that's that. And since I took my scary exam yesterday (covering taxes and insurance --blech!) ....I am letting myself slip back into slacker mode for one day before returning to the grindstone. Just the final exam left now! Wahoo!

I thought I'd record a few things about Abigail to give you a taste of her developing personality these days. There's so much I don't want to forget.

These are some of the reasons why I love this crazy girl:

...she's so dang cute!
...she has a sense of humor
...because she does things like this (look at the feet)
and this
...and this. And they make me laugh.
...she reads with me (as long as we do it behind the rocking chair??)

...she cleans her plate at almost every meal, even when Mommy makes Cuban Black Bean Disaster! This girl eats black beans like nobody's business. She will eat them straight out of the can. I was really excited about trying this Cuban Black Bean Soup recipe, but after I took my first bite, I realized that I'd made about 5 quarts too much. However, I must say it was a little reassuring to watch Abigail shovel spoonful after spoonful into her mouth and then lift the bowl up to her mouth so she could lick it clean! Hence the black bean soup all over her face. Erik was kind enough to say the soup was quite good....(What he meant was that it was tolerable if you dump half a can of Tony's Creole Seasoning in it. Erik would eat mud if it had that stuff in it.). To make matters worse, the next day "Tofu and Sweet Potato [I'm inserting Black Beans here since there were more of them than sweet potatoes or tofu!] Jambalaya" was on the menu. Another winner. And, unfortunately, another 5 quarts too much. If that wasn't sufficient to fiber-overload my family, I also fit a big pan of chicken enchiladas in that week (complete with--you guessed it! Refried beans.) A little glitch in the menu planning? Uh, yeah. Poor Erik called me one night on his way home from the hospital and ever-so-politely asked what was for dinner. "Well," I said taking a deep breath, "I was thinking...um...leftovers." I bit my lip and waited. Erik's turn to take a deep breath. "Sweetie," he said gently, "I don't think my stomach can handle any more beans tonight."

So we had spaghetti.

Ok, end of tangent. But don't you wish you looked that cute with black beans smeared all over your face?

...because she jams to Juanes and Maná with me!

And I love, I LOVE being loved by her! I'm so glad she's mine forever.