Abigail at 18 Months

Our little Miss Abigail turned 18 months old yesterday!  I took her to the doctor today and here are her stats:

31 inches – 50th percentile
20 lbs. 12 oz. – 10th percentile

According to today, she’s only gained 10 oz. in 3 months, but when I took her in a few weeks ago for a suspected ear infection, she weighed 21 lbs. 2 oz.  Maybe she had a super soggy diaper then?  She’s stayed steady at 50th percentile for height, but dropped from 15th to 10th percentile in weight based on this morning’s weigh in.  I have skinny kids.  I’m jealous of them.

At 18 months old, Abby is one big ball of energy!  She is fun, happy, grumpy, silly, stubborn, shy….all in one day! :)  She absolutely adores her brother and the two of them have lots of fun together.

I finally bought her a new car seat a few weeks ago and she loves it!  Every time we get into the car she pats her car seat and says, “sea, sea!”.  Before I put away the baby seat she thought it was pretty funny to climb in it.

She is a total girl and LOVES dressing up!  My Mom brought her this hula skirt and lei from Hawaii and she loves to wear them around the house.

My Mom also bought her this tutu skirt (I’m sensing a theme here) which she also requests to wear quite frequently.  We call them her “pretties” (and that really includes her other normal skirts and dresses which she loves wearing) and she’ll lift her skirts up and say, “pi-tee”.

Hats, necklaces, bracelets and sashes are also fun to wear.  And lest you think we are encouraging her to be obsessed with her beauty…..we equally encourage book smarts.

It doesn’t have to be girly….she’s perfectly happy to wear superhero capes and walk around with “Toy Story” backpacks and “Cars” rolling suitcases.

She still signs, but has replaced most of them with words.  Her speech isn’t as clear as Adam’s was at this age, but she has definite sounds for words but usually leaves off the ending sounds (cah for car, dah-dah for dog-dog, etc.)

Here she is signing “all done” with a panicked look on her face when Brother was going to fast in the Princess Jeep at Grandma and Grandpa Great’s house.

Here are some random pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Playing in my new IKEA shelves as I was assembling them….right before she pulled it down on herself.  Yup, gonna screw those babies to the wall.

Posing on top of Nana and Papa’s table.

More posing.

Having fun with Play-doh.

She’s an iPad pro.  She frequently finds my iPad, wakes it up, slides the bar on the welcome screen, and then goes from whatever webpage I was looking at, to the main menu, to her favorite game, and then starts playing.

Recent hairstyles.
Her hair is just long enough to pull into a pony tail, although the sides come out almost immediately.  I love how her hair curls naturally at the bottom.  With just a little water and hairspray, she’s good to go.

And last but not least, this video was taken about a month ago.  Her favorite book is “Moo, Baa, La La La” by Sandra Boynton.  She knows it by heart!

Just 6 more months and our Sissy will be 2 years old!  I’m not as reluctant to have her leave her babyhood as I was with Adam.  I think it’s mostly because I’m exited to see her grow into a kid and watch her and Adam’s friendship blossom as they begin really starting to play and imagine together.  My best friend was my little brother and we played endlessly together and I can’t wait to watch my kids do the same thing!

“PrayerWalk”–book review

I received the book, “PrayerWalk” by Janet Holm McHenry to review from WaterBrook Multnomah’s Blogging for Books program.

From the back cover:

Challenge your body.   Feed your spirit.   Change the world.
Ask any Christian woman about her most recent New Year’s resolutions, and you’ll likely find that “exercise regularly” and “pray more” were at the top of her list. We all long to look and feel our best, to live actively and healthfully. More than that, we desire to connect intimately with our God. Yet physical health and spiritual growth often take a backseat to the urgent demands of grocery shopping and bill paying, time with family and friends, and long hours at the office.

It’s Time to Exercise Your Prayer Life.
Three years ago, author Janet Holm McHenry suffered from depression, weight gain, and exhaustion. Then she began a prayerwalk routine that not only transformed her life but also profoundly impacted the lives of those around her.
Learn how you, too, can set out on a journey to increased energy, better health, and greater joy—and experience a rich, full prayer ministry that will have a lasting impact on your loved ones and community—in PrayerWalk.

This book is geared towards the evangelical-type of Christian and being LDS (a Mormon) this style of prayer is a bit foreign to me.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t value it.  In fact, I’m, intrigued by it and am taking bits and pieces of it and applying it to my own prayer-life.

What intrigued me the most from this book is the idea that you can combine 2 “to-do” items in your day into 1.  I want to start walking every morning.  I was my thinnest in college and it wasn’t because I was eating healthy!  It was because I was walking to and from and on campus every day, for probably an hour total each day.  Research shows that simply walking 30 minutes a day can greatly increase your health.  And walking 60 minutes a day can shed weight rather quickly.  So, I’m going to start!  I probably won’t pray the entire time, but this book has inspired me to hit the pavement and to spend some time in prayer and mediation.  What a great way to start the day.

I’ll admit, I skimmed a lot of this book.  And it took me a couple of months to get through it amidst reading other books that were more interesting.  I would give this book 2.5 stars.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.