More posts? YES!

If you've been wondering to yourself, "My, my, Cindy is making more frequent blog posts lately!  This is great!".  It's because it is true.  It only takes me a few minutes to put a post together and I love it. 

With my new fancy schmancy phone (a far cry from my crapberry-err-blackbery I once used) I'm taking tons of photos and videos.  It helps when I'm loving my subject...  I then easily upload photos and videos from my phone directly to a blog post.  After taking a video or capturing a photo, I upload them to my Google Plus account and voila! They're available to be uploaded to my blog.  It also helps that I now have access to my blog while at work (ssh!) But, really, it doesn't take long AND I do it on my lunch break (wink, wink).   

Egg hunt & egg coloring

 While snow is predicted for tonight and tomorrow, yesterday was absolutely gorgeous and perfect for an egg hunt!  We met up with friends (as well as many other of Kentucky's finest) for an egg hunt. We joined the 2-3 year area otherwise we'd be hunting alone without our friends.  Abby needed some demonstration of what to do, but once Brent showed her to pick up candy (that she won't eat) and put it into her bag.  .  We laughed that we arrived 45 minutes before it began it was all over in five minutes.  And then began the madhouse to try to leave.  At least it was a beautiful day and we were with friends!  

Afterwards the kids took a nap (or attempted to take a nap) and then we regrouped and colored eggs.  My friend heard of a genius idea to put the eggs inside of a whisk and then the kids could handle the eggs easier.  GENIUS!  We'll try it again when we dye eggs in Kansas City next week!  

We then ordered dinner (the boys were out while the kids napped and picked up dinner on their way home) and ate it amongst the chaos of 7 adults and 4 children.  We then decorated cookies, but Abby wasn't too interested in that.  

It was a fabulous day with fabulous friends!  Abby was up way past her bedtime and gave us a treat by sleeping in the next day AND taking a 3 hour nap!  

Baby dolls

Abby's obsession to baby dolls is so cute.  She'll walk around holding her babies under her arm and feeding them.  She'll lay them down and cover them up with a blanket.  Her newest "mommy" skill is she'll hold a baby in her arms and rock and pat the baby's butt.  Where does she learn this stuff?  Daycare says that Abby will play "daycare" and give a baby to the daycare worker, wave and say 'bye bye" and walk away.  A moment later, Abby will come back and pick up the baby from "daycare".  And repeat.  Abby loves her baby dolls!

Abby gets physical!

Abby and I were invited to Kids First by a friend last week and basically it's a huge gym geared for all ages.  Since Abby's friend is already 2, she was in a different area of the gym, but Abby was loving all the equipment to climb in, on, out of...She had a blast!  She loved the trampoline - she's never jumped on one before and she was getting skilled on it pretty quickly.  She also loved the slide.  She would climb up the stairs, maneuver her way to the edge of the slide and whee!  At first, she was a bit hesitant, but after a time or two, she was on her own and on a roll!  I couldn't stop her!

Chores

Abby does chores!

sleeping beauty

We went to the St. Patrick's Day parade on Saturday and got home way past her normal naptime.  So I laid her down and wanted to wake her so she didn't sleep into the evening. 

I'm obsessed with taking videos...1. They're easy to do now that I have a good phone that takes video 2. Abby likes to watch herself on the videos.  and 3. I love having those memories of Abby!  Can you blame a girl?! 

Fishy Face

I happened to catch this moment while Abby was making a fishy face.  I had to act quick as Abby would notice my phone and want to watch videos! 

Binky Elimination

Since Abby is currently sixteen and a half months old, I've been wanting to have the binky eliminated by roughly eighteen months old.  So began Project Binky Elimination.  We used to have a binky stored on every table and anywhere within reaching distance.  That quickly faded when we decided to not let her walk around with it in her mouth.  We then got it out of the car seat.  Soon that left us with the pacifier used during nap time and bedtime.  I was okay with that.  Abby knows that when we pick her up out of her crib, she is to toss the binky in the crib.  She's really good about it.  I have to give Brent and I the credit for that as we made that a rule and didn't waver.  I did notice that sometimes when I'd pick Abby up from daycare, she'd have her binky in her mouth.  The staff explained that she was being fussy or some other lame excuse.  Brent and I would stress to only let her have it at naptime.  A few times we were told that Abby was wanting the binky and so the staff put her in her crib so she could have it.  When Abby was done and had her 'binky fix', she'd stand up and toss the bink out of her mouth.  (Smart girl).  

This week, Brent and I decided to eliminate the binky at naptime.  We were a bit scared as her affinity for it has exploded in the past few weeks.  Saturday was her first nap without it.  I laid her down, covered with a blanket after reading a book to help lull her a bit and quickly escaped the room before Abby would utter "bink, bink".  It wasn't a couple minutes before we heard the cry began.  Brent and I stayed strong.  Luckily for us, the crying only lasted 10-15 minutes and she slept soundly for a full 2 hour nap.  She did cry/whine mid nap, but that subsided quickly and she fell back asleep.  Aah. Day one of No-Binky Nap went well.  Sunday was even better!  She cried for maybe 10 minutes and then took a 2 1/2 hour nap.  No crying mid nap either.  Awesome.  This was going better than I expected.  

Now, daycare I was more concerned with as they're not going to allow her to cry and disrupt the rest of the kids who are trying to nap.  I got a report that she did well on Monday.  I had drop off duty on Tuesday and when I asked about nap time on Monday, I was told that the staff person offered Abby the binky.  Abby only had it a short while before Abby 'turned it in', however.  I was a bit disturbed as Brent and I have made a commitment to not backing down to things like that.  There aren't any situations where I'd say "Okay, just give her the binky, it's okay".  I didn't want Abby to get sent mixed messages.  So when the daycare staff worker offered to hand over the binkies to me to take home, I accepted without hesitation.  I left Tuesday morning with 2 binkies in hand and didn't look back.  Neither did Abby.  

Today is Wednesday and we are home for a snow day (YES!) and Abby is currently napping without a binky.  She did cry, but only momentarily.  

No looking back.  Next task is bedtime binky elimination.  That will be a bigger hurdle, but considering she did so well with the nap time elimination, that gives me hope for the next stage.