"Motherhood is...."

"Motherhood is a bag of contradictions"....I heard this quote on a show on Discovery Channel and it basically sums up the past few weeks! We are so excited for the new baby to arrive and meet him/her, but also a little anxious and nervous. We love Abigail more and more and more everyday, but she's in a very trying stage right now that has us a little frustrated too. A bag of contradictions!!!! I think that is such a great way to sum up motherhood!

As for what we've been up to, we've been up to a whole lot of little things! We finally got our new camera...but now I can't find the storage disk for it. I put it somewhere SAFE because it has all our vacation pics on it and I knew how important it is...and now I can't find where I put it to keep it SAFE. Therefore, we have very limited pics.

Over the weekend, we spent Saturday doing errands (after Abigail and I went downtown to go shopping with Aunt Katie for a gret morning). We did some more minivan shopping (I think we have decided on the Volkswagen minivan) and also tested out some double strollers for the kids. We have gone back and forth on a front/back or side to side stroller...and if we should do a jogging stroller or an umbrella stroller. I think we found the perfect "combination" stroller. It's the Baby Jogger City Mini Double stroller...it's narrow enough to go through a door way, can work as a running stroller (although I don't see me doing that with 2), can add a bar to use an infant seat with it if we decide we want to, and seems like it will grow with the kids! Plus it only weighs 26 lbs vs most other strollers which are 35+ lbs. And how cute is the orange???

On Sunday we went to Brookfield Zoo. We always try to do one or two new things with each visit. This time Abigail fed the goats and got to go pet them. She loved it! This was our favorite zoo visit yet because she gets so excited everytime she sees animals...and she really watched them, especially the bears.

On Monday we went to Monkey Joes with Abigail's friend Luca and her mom, my friend Racquel. I didn't get any good pics of the two together, but here is one of Miss Abigail going down a slide. The place was full of these jumpy houses...it was really big and nice and clean...and Abigail has so much energy and wants to climb on everything so it was perfect for her!

Speaking of climbing...Abigail is a monkey! If you turn your head for 1 second, she's crawled on top of the kitchen table or into a chair. Here is how I found her while I made breakfast...she crawled into her high chair by herself and buckled herself in! (She's not wearing clothes because we had to change her pj's and I decided to wait till after her messy breakfast).

I got her down from there and less than 5 minutes later, she had crawled onto a chair and decided to get her own snack! What a stinker!!!!

Abigail has become very independent! She is beginning to work on potty training. I am in NO hurry to have her potty trained since she's only 20 months and diapers are easy right now. But she always says "Pee Pee Potty" or "Poop Potty" so we go and sit her on the potty. She does this 5-10 times a day and has never actually "used" the potty, but I don't want to discourage her so we keep it up everyday! She likes to read books on her potty...and her new things is to use the stepping stool as a footrest while she reads!

Abigail is talking a lot more. Some of her favorite words are: Mamer (Kramer), No Mamer, Elmo, Maw Maw (Mickey Mouse), brush (teeth), bird, dog, book, up, down, potty, baby (beware if you are around her-she points to everyone's belly and says "baby")....but the list goes on and on with words. She is really talking a lot more which is really fun! I'll have to do a video on one of her talkative days!!!!

Abigail is also getting her 2nd molars and it hasn't been easy. It's made her very irritable and crabby....and not helping mommy's insanity level right now! But we know it is bothering her so we are trying to do everything we can to comfort her (that means medicate her) and not get too frustrated with her.

And last, Abigail is starting to get ready for the new baby. She doesn't completely understand what is going to happen, but she LOVES when we tell her she's a big girl. She has an Elmo that she takes care of (he gets fed, his teeth brushed, and goes everywhere with her). We took her to build-a-bear to make a bear for the baby! And we have been talking about her big girl room (which we won't transition her into until the baby is 3 months old because she's not ready to give up her crib yet). We think she's going to be a great big sister!!!!!

Wow..that was a lot..it really has been a while!!! To end, here is a picture of Miss Abigail at her favorite reading spot. She dropped one of her legs when she saw the camera but you can imagine how she was reading!