Abby's Tired

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Originally uploaded by samspade21

Time sure does fly. It has been more than four weeks now since we took that trip to the hospital and brought a new family member home with us. We have been very lucky with her as a new born. She has been sleeping regularly and eating well - both from breast and bottle (pumped milk). She is starting to mimic your facial expressions, we are playing the "stick your tongue out" game and the "smile at each-other" game. She does a great job, but I must confess, the current score does show I am winning at both games. Maybe one day she will have me beat. :-) In the past few days, the Abbster is starting to be more alert and baby like. The house guests keep flowing in and out. My parents have been here the past weeks, and Diana's sister and one of her cousins (Luke) will be getting here this Thursday. They are in for a treat in terms of Seattle weather. As you can see to the right (RSS Weather Feed) the temperature has been warmer and spring is just around the corner. All of our flowering plants are verging on the edge of blooming. Di and I were able to get some early yard work done while my mother micro-sat. The yard has been de-poop-ified. Let's see how long that will last.

Latest from the McFarlane gang

We've been pretty busy around here.  My mom ("Mimi", Cheryl) came to meet Abby for the first time on Feb 6th.  She stayed for about 5 days, and we had a wonderful time.  She was such a great help around the house - cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, holding Abby.  She's a pro diaper-changer, baby-bather, fussy-crying-soother.  Thanks again, Mom, for coming and for being such a great mom and grandmother.  It was a really special time.

Grandma and Grandpa McFarlane came to meet Abby on Feb 14th.  They also have been such a help around here.  They gave Abby a bath today.  Abby loves baths.  She just lays back and relaxes in the soothing warm water.  Ahhhhh.  Monica and Bart have been doing so much around the house as well.  Bart went grocery shopping so we could make all the meals that Monica planned.  Needless to say, we've been eating well!  

Yesterday, Abby went on her first shopping spree at the Baby Gap.  We had a gift certificate from one of Bart's very generous clients.  Mommy and Grandma also spent a little bit more for some "must haves" like Ugly Bunny (similar to one I had when I was a little girl) and matching onsie/sweater sets.  We had an absolute blast.  Even though Abby was sleeping the whole time, she had fun soaking in all the retail sale rack goodness! :)

Here's a little video so you can see the Abbster in action.  She was a little fussy during the video, but sure enough, she calmed down right after we were done shooting.  Such great timing, huh?

Life, and everything else muddy

I write you from the floor of Abby's big girl room (AKA the McFarlane Family Nursery).  Diana, Abby, Libby, Bilbo, Diana's Mom Cheryl and I (yes, it was a large crew) just got all cleaned up from a trip to the Green Lake (shown to the right).  The dogs had a chance to run around and play in the water and get all muddy.  They loved it (and I thought it was hilarious when they got Diana all muddy too :-).  Afterwards we took them to get all cleaned up at the Dog Spa.  Who says dogs can't get pampered too?  For me, it was hilarious wearing Abby in the Moby.  I have done it at home a lot, but this was one of the first times in public.  I had it on totally wrong and was getting corrected by Diana and her mom.  We were just standing in the middle of the street, I had 2 dogs in one hand and baby in the other with me getting re-dressed by two women.  Yea, glad that was embarrassing...  We were just cracking up the whole time.  I don't think that Abby got the joke though.  :-)  Its possible that she has adopted her mother's (lack of) sense of humor.  Got to love my funny girls!

You may have also noticed the new links on the site : the BD Life Lists.  This is our chance to build and share our goals with others.  Maybe we share some of the same ambitions?

Saving for Abby's College

We just started saving for Abbigale's College education. We signed up for the GET WA account and recently updated our UPromise account (have had that for afew years). The GET WA account is a defined benefit plan with a guaranteed tuition payment for Abby, we just make small payments each month. The UPromise account on the other hand requires no money from us, they only need our Safeway, QFC, Albertsons, etc... discount card numbers. Product manufactures make donations for Abby's college fund each time we purchase their products from the grocery stores. You would be surprised at how much money you can get for just purchasing the smallest of things. If you are interested in helping Abby go to college and don't want to spend any money, we would LOVE your help! Shoot me an email and let me know if you wouldn't mind helping out with UPromise.  All you need to do is give them your grocery savings numbers. You don't get any spam or junk mail from them (at least we haven't).

Finally working on the pictures

Things are starting to get into a routine with us now. We are taking some pictures and working on the video from Abby's birth. We hope that in the next few days we will have a PG video that we can put up for all to view. I just need to figure out how to do that blur sensor thing on iMovie first. We took a bunch of photos for the birth announcements and in the process Abby started getting very upset. Something made her turn all "hulkey" on us. Luckily Diana snapped a picture just as it happened.  We are considering calling our Pediatrician to find out if this is a normal condition or not.  Fortunately we were able to snap afew photos before she "hulked out" on us.  Feel free to take a look.  Just click on the BD Photos link to your right.