Anne is walking!

Anne took her first steps last week while Grandma Heiss was here. I tried for the rest of the week to get her to walk for Erik. She's been doing it a lot more this week, and since Erik has been sick the last several days, he's been able to see her!

Abigail has adopted a new little brother! We've been watching this cutie, Albert, one day a week for the last several weeks because his mom, a friend of mine, is very morning sick. Abigail absolutely loves him! Yesterday at lunch she told him, "Albert, I love you. I love you way more than your daddy loves you."

Little does she know how much daddies love their little ones...

Happy birthday, George!

I hosted "preschool" today (just Abigail and her friend Siesa right now), and we made a cake in honor of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln's birthdays. The girls had a lot of fun pouring and mixing and licking bowls and fingers while we talked about who these wonderful men were.
The girls also colored pictures of Washington and Lincoln, and we talked about our flag. I showed them one that I had colored and pointed out the pattern of red and white stripes and the stars representing each state. The girls did their own thing, though, as you can see. And they told me theirs were "much prettier than [mine]." I let them use a little stencil for the star. They included some other shapes from the stencil too, in case you were wondering...
Abigail's cousin Zella also joined us for some birthday cake! They put candles in, and we sang Happy Birthday.

Hanging around Abigail's neck in this picture is the Valentine's Day "pocket purse" she made at Siesa's house last week. So cute!! They made them out of old jeans and filled them with Hershey kisses to give to loves ones. Abigail LOVES her purse. For Family Home Evening last Monday, we went around to all our neighbors and delivered kisses and Valentine cards. It was a lot of fun.

I forgot to mention an important highlight from last month: Abigail learned to spell her name! She loves practicing it, and we find her signature all over the place...

January Highlights

Happy 2011! We've been busy at the Heiss home as usual. Here are some highlights from January:

Snow!

We got some impressive snow (for us, anyway) here in Atlanta the second week of January. Erik left for work at his usual time Monday morning, only to find that all the Emory clinics were closed. So he got to come home! We felt like little school children again on a snow day. And what's more, the clinics were closed until Thursday! We really lucked out. (That's how I looked at it, at least. Erik is a lot more conscientious and responsible...) The girls had a blast having Daddy home all week.
Being sent home from work early was such an occasion that Erik felt justified in picking up some steaks and a Redbox movie on his way home. Part-ee!
Erik and Abigail walked to the grocery store the next day to return the dvd. They were gone for more than an hour.


We spent most of the week indoors. Thank goodness my girls are happy doing stuff inside. All my friends who have boys were going crazy! Here's Abigail making shapes with Erik from her new "foam" equipment she got for Christmas. It's pretty nice--no sticky residue! Erik made the apple tree, and Abigail's making flamingos...
Anne LOVES the new push toy she got for Christmas. She's not walking yet, but she's getting pretty close!

Sleep Study

At the end of the month, Abigail had a sleep study done at the children's hospital. Erik and I have been concerned with her sleep problems for a long time. She has always had enormous tonsils, and she snores and moves around frequently in her sleep. She even wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night or very early in the morning and has a hard time going back to sleep (part of that is just her stubborn nature; she would rather play than try to go back to sleep). We have struggled with this off and on since Anne was born. So we finally got her tested.
Here she is--all decked out. Erik actually spent the night with her. I had prepped her for weeks in advance, telling her about the "stickers" and "magic wires that would talk to the doctors" and help us find out how well she was sleeping. She was very excited about her special "sleepover" at the hospital. Erik said she was perfectly cooperative during the setup. That was a relief.
All ready for bed! The results showed that she does not have sleep apnea, which is good. But we're still searching for some answers/solutions. She has an appointment with the ENT this week. We're hoping they'll tell us a tonsillectomy will solve all our problems...

Preschool

Abigail's wonderful preschool co-op from the fall kinda fell apart this year, as two from our group are having babies and two others are moving. We are very sad. It was a great group, and Abigail loved it.

For the next few months, we're just doing something low-key twice a week with one of her friends, Siesa, until she moves. Then in the fall we plan to participate in a different co-op.