Playtime at the Gardner House

For the most part, Adam adores his baby sister. He loves to play with her and thinks her smiles and coos are hilarious! Here are a few of our favorite things to play together.

Modified Tummy Time

Miss Abby hates tummy time but will tolerate a few minutes if she's laying on the Boppy pillow.

Having Fun in the Crib
Adam loves to get in the crib with Abby and while she watches her mobile he either plays with her toys, reads to her, or just lays next to her and laughs hysterically. I frequently have to remind him not to bounce or kick his legs too hard. But honestly, she doesn't even seem to mind!

Activity Mat
This poor child never gets to play by herself because her big brother is constantly wanting to be right next to her, frequently right up in her face. Adam loves to lay under Abby's mat and bat the toys around, tickle her, hold her hand, laugh at her, etc.


Fun Smiles!
This is just a cute picture of my smiley girl


I hope that as they grow, they will always love playing together!

Abigail's Blessing Day

Abigail Elizabeth was blessed by her Daddy on Sunday, April 25th. It was a beautiful day and she was surrounded by her family who all love her so much! She was a little fussy right before the blessing so I took her out and bounced and swayed until she fell asleep. She slept through being handed off to Nat but my Dad said that as soon as Nat started speaking, she opened her eyes and gazed up at him during the entire blessing. She adores her Daddy already!

I was able to find a dress that I absolutely love and she looked so pretty in it. I just wish she could wear it more than once! I guess that's how it is with all the special white dresses in a girl's life. :)

Our happy family of four

Beautiful Abby
The Shurtleffs
(Ambra's side)
The Gardner/Cheneys
(Nat's side)
The Thompsons
(Nat's Uncle David and his family)
Grandma & Grandpa Great
(Ambra's Grandparents)

Our adorable first-born.
What a cutie!

Be Still My Heart!

Our talented friends took these pictures of Abby (and Adam) when she was 10 days old. It took me FOREVER to decide which ones to order, what treatments I liked, and how many. So I ended up with a ton of prints but we love them so much! My heart just melts every time I look at them!

Rob & Julie Snow at www.rjsnowphotography.com are awesome and we are excited for them to take some fun family portraits of us this summer!

Here are my favorite of my favorites (which is most of them because I couldn't decide which to leave out!)

Abby at 2 Months

Abby is 2 months old today and I can't believe how fast the past 2 months have gone! She is smiling and cooing and gets so excited when we talk to her. Adam frequently says, "I like her" or "I love her" and likes to tickle her chin and cheeks when she is crying and refuses to listen to me when I tell him she doesn't really like it. It's still a nice gesture I guess!

Abigail has several nicknames, Abby being the most common, but others are Abby-Girl and Bugaboo. Just today Adam has been calling her Ab. He'll go up to her and say, "Hi Ab!"

She had her 2 month check-up today and everything went well even with getting all the shots. Poor thing. She is growing like a weed! Here are her stats:

Weight: 9 lbs. 6 oz. - 25th percentile

Length: 21.5 in. - 25th percentile

She has gained 3.5 lbs. and also 3.5 inches since she was born! In comparison, Adam was 11 lbs. 14 oz. and 23 inches long at 2 months!

You can't really tell from these pictures, but she's got blue eyes just like her Mama and Big Brother and we love that!

Abigail is so precious and we love having her in our family!

Who Knew I Had Twins?!

Adam at 3 weeks

Abigail at 7 weeks

Adam at 4 weeks

Abigail at 7 weeks
My Mom found this picture of Adam over the weekend and we were all amazed at how much they look alike!
Once Abby hit about 8 1/2 pounds, she started looking exactly like Adam did at birth. I find myself being taken aback several times a day when I look at her because it's just like looking at newborn Adam. It'll be intersting to see if she grows into baby Adam too!

Mommy and Adam Date

Adam needed some Mommy time minus his baby sister so while my Mom watched Abigail, we headed off to The Kangaroo Zoo, a bouncy fun center. Adam LOVED it! They have big slides for the big kids but several inflatables for kids 4 and under that have lots of things to climb on and slide off. And of course bounce on!

I was so surprised that Adam climbed up this thing by himself without a second thought. He kept sliding back down the steps rather than going down the slide in the front, but eventually I got him to slide.
Sliding

He held his own pretty well amidst the bigger kids but I heard a lot of "mine" directed to towards the other kids. How on earth do you teach a child that not everything is his?

After more than an hour and a half of fun I had to bribe him out of there with the promise of french fries for lunch. We went to McDonald's so he could get the dragon toy in the Happy Meal and we had fun sitting together in a booth, sharing chicken nuggets, a cheeseburger, fries, and apples dipped in caramel (and a few sips of Mama's Diet Coke).

The past 6 weeks have left me feeling frustrated and impatient with my boy a lot of the time so it was wonderful to just be with him and get to enjoy his funny and sweet personality. Thank you Mom for being so willing to help me out!

Playing with Friends

I took the kids down to visit my good friend Katie and to see her new baby. Adam is 2 months younger than Lexie and Abby is just 5 weeks older than baby Brynlee. The whole drive down (over an hour!) Adam talked about playing with Lexie and how much fun it would be. They had fun playing and Katie and I had fun talking!

Our 4 Kids

Future Best Friends
Brynlee was born a half a pound bigger than Abby but look how much Abby has changed in just 6 weeks! I thought Abby was still tiny so I couldn't believe how small Brynlee was and that my baby girl has grown so much!

Drawing Together

Silly Kids


I wish Katie lived closer because our kids could have so much fun together! We love you Katie, Lexie, and Brynlee!

Milestones

We've hit some milestones in our house this week!

Abby smiles!

Adam goes potty!

I don't think he's actually ready to potty train, but he's been peeing in the toilet after his baths most nights (I think it started because he was naked and aware of himself) so today I finally went and bought a potty and he peed twice in it this afternoon! The only problem is that he wants to sit there FOREVER!

Is it inappropriate to have this picture on the internet? He's carefully concealed at least.