Abby's First Christmas

Wouldn't you know it for Christmas Abby got a cold, but she was only a little crabby. However, she did learn a lot of tricks for the holiday season: crawling at a fast pace, pulling herself up to standing, shaking her head no, and clapping her hands.

A few moments captured on film:

Sharing toys with her big cousin

Discovering a new teething ring

Presents from Mommy and Daddy Christmas morning

Quality time with GG and Godmother

Why do these people keep taking my pictures? It's way past my bed time!

Showing off her new dress

Crawling over to cuddle with Great Grandma Ruth.

Giggling at a silly uncle

Opening presents, she spent 20 minutes playing with one piece of this gift.

Some of my other favorite moments:

- Delicious, delicious dinner both days as usual. Christmas Eve: Tenderloin, shrimp, pomegranate and spinach salad (I made), snowy mash potatos, green beans, ham and homemade baklava. Chrimstas Day - 7 layer Taco dip, then a puff pastry turkey appetizer and an amazing chicken dish and of course mulled wine.
- Kai singing at the top of his lungs "Dynamite" while he and Julie danced around the entire living room.
- Dominating at Just Dance for Kids, maybe I do need a Wi after all
- The first official Tim Grutzmacher family breakfast of biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and sausage.
-Getting our first Christmas presents from Abby.

Christmas Wish

All I want for Christmas is more time.
Time to sit and watch Abby learn and grow without thinking about how many other things need to be done.
Time to get those other things done.
Time to let Tim get his schoolwork done without all the chaos of our house.
Time to sleep.
Time to sleep in.
Time to sleep through a night without hearing a teething baby.
Time to take a nap (yeah I'm a little tired).

So this year for Christmas I gave myself 4 days of work. I can't wait. Tim and I couldn't get the same week off so he has the week before off. Poor Tim will spend half of his time off doing school work and the other half jam packed with holiday fun I have planned. Bet he's looking forward to my vacation more than his because I'll be there to help with Abby and he will be done with school.

8 month update from Abby

A lot's been happening lately. I started crawling but I'm not that fast so the cat can still get away when she wants, but she really likes me so usually she lets me grab her fur and pull her tail. I had to go to the doctor for a bad rash called eczma but Dr K and Mommy fixed me up. I weighed 17# 13 oz. For at least a week all I said was "da, da" but I'm sick of that so now I just shout "ga" loudly while banging stuff around.

Here's how I've been spending my time:

Playing with my new scooter from Aunt Sherri and Uncle Tony. I don't know how to make it move forward but the gear shift is so fun to play with. I can sit on it for 10 minutes and enjoy myself.

I've been practicing standing by myself. Sometimes my feet slide out from under me and I end up doing the splits.

Daddy's been teaching me how to play guitar. Besides chasing the cat, finding the guitar is my favorite thing to do in our living room.


I've been partying at night with my parents because my mouth hurts. Can you see my first tooth? My second one is coming through but I think there are more because it's so hard to sleep.

I've been hanging with some awesome kids. They're way older than me but still let me hang out with them.

It's been a pretty great month for me. I can't wait for Christmas. It sounds pretty exciting from what Mommy says and I'll get to see all my cousins and grandparents. I really love the music, especially winter wonderland. Merry Christmas everyone, hope to see you soon.

Love, Abby

Tradition

I am SO SO excited to see our little stinker in this cute little dress, making memories and starting our family traditions.

Growing up my family would go to both my Grandmas' houses on Christmas Eve. It was so exciting to me because we got together with all our cousins in the area. Each Thanksgiving Dana and I would sit down with Grandma P and pick out this year's Christmas dinner. Grandma has them all filed away for each year of who came and what we ate from the beef to the dinner rolls. People have grown and moved away but I have not yet missed a single Christmas Eve.

Christmas day we would wake up in our house, or be woken up by 10 (Tony, my dad and I are late sleepers) for our Christmas breakfast of pancakes and sausage links made on the electric frying pan. Then we would open our gifts from Santa, each other and our parents. Later in the day our Grandparents might stop by to see the tree and all our goodies. We would spent the afternoon playing our new board games or as we got older playing our new video games and watching our new DVDs.

One of the things I'm most excited about this Christmas is starting traditions with our daughter. We're keeping up the Christmas Eve tradition of seeing both her Great Grandmas and then our newer tradition of Grutzmacher Christmas on Christmas Day. I'm so excited to have Christmas morning just for us, for a special breakfast. Should I change up it each year or just the same special meal? I haven't quite decided. We're going to do Saint Nick too, never did that in our house. I'm going to buy her an ornament each year with a special note. There's just so much to be excited about and thankful for. Tim and Abby I have a lot of plans for you so be prepared to be tired, excited, happy and to just laugh at my enthusism. Now let's go get that Christmas tree.

Is she crawling yet?

Not exactly. She's scooting and lunging and rolling and plopping.

Reaching and wiggling and giggling and stomping.

She gets where she wants to go and in a hurry.
She even started "walking" behind a rubbermaid container we have for her toys so she can get to the cat faster.

I tried for an hour to upload the video but no dice. So instead enjoy the picture of her in action

chasing the cat.

Daydreaming

Some people dream about being rich or famous. When a long, painful work day has got me down or the boiler breaks I think to myself "if only I were a pilgrim I wouldn't have to worry about this". I can fantasize about this for hours.

Can you imagine? Working at home. Sustaining your family on what you can make and grow. Cozying up to a warm fire on a cold winter's day. Sure there was cholera, scarlet fever and attacks by bandits or native Americans but wouldn't it be great to have no debt and just focus on family? Not have to worry about which bill to pay first. Not have to worry about punching in the right time clock at the right exact moment. No cell phones, no computers. I wonder if they had comfy pajamas.

Since Tim says we can't live in a tent in Yellowstone Park I guess I'll just have to keep dreaming. Maybe next time he has car trouble I'll win him over.

PJs

I LOVE PAJAMAS. I have more pajamas than pants. I have more pajamas than shoes. I have more pajamas than Packers gear if you can believe that. (Why don't I have Packers pajamas, hmm?) If I could wear pajamas all day and night I would, just ask Tim. I change into my pajamas by about 6pm. Flannel, cotton, shorts, pants, long sleeve, short sleeve - I love them all. So when I found these pajamas in the latest bag from Orla I wondered where I could get pajamas like these. They're even softer than they look.

Halloween

I haven't dressed up for Halloween in a long time because I'm always afraid that my costume is going to be dumb and everyone is going to judge me. I mean how will I ever top the year I was a Hooter's waitress with my top stuffed full of toilet paper that I purposefully pulled out the sides and top. Because let's face it, I wasn't going to fill that thing out so let's just go for that laughs. I digress. By the way, I got third place in the Dicken's costume contest that year.

So instead of getting my own costume I made this poor baby sit with all different Halloween outfits and props all through the day and night until Tim told me that was enough.

Abby getting psyched about carving the pumpkin in her cute pumpkin jammies minus the cute cat ears to the left of her that she was sick of wearing purely for my amusement.
Abby looking totally bored since she can't touch anything and getting mad because I told her it was going to be so fun. Crying commenced in about 30 seconds.
Our cute little pumpkin with her first jack-o-lantern.

Unfortunatley she couldn't partake in my favorite events of Halloween - watching Halloween (the original not that junk Rob Zombie made), drinking a microbrew Octoberfest, carving a pumpkin, and eating spicy pumpkin seeds. Maybe next year I'll come out of costume wearing retirement to trick or treat with our sweet girl.

Not just a hat

To some people it's just a beautiful baby in a cute hat. But this picture to me is a perfect moment.

The Peach Hat

The year you were born Great Grandma Ruth turned 80. It was hard for her to think about all the moments of your live she would miss. In my whole life the only major event she missed was my college graduation because it was the same day as cousin Dana's. She didn't want to pick one over the other so she didn't go to either one. She's always careful to make sure that no one appears to be favored over anyone else. She even counts the pictures in her house to make sure there is not one extra picture of any one grandchild.

On a cool October day Great Grandma Ruth came to visit you. She wanted to make sure for the cold Wisconsin winter you had some warm hats. Many of the Pindel women are fantastic knitters but Great Grandma can't knit well anymore so she had a 90 year old cousin knit this beautiful hat.

She was so proud of you that you could sit up so straight all by yourself and play with your toys. You two had a great talk about how big you were getting while you smiled and cooed at her. I haven't seen her smile so big in a long time. She even got down on the floor to play with you which gets harder and harder to do when you get older. Then she held you while you stood up and made a silly noise that made you laugh and laugh. It caught her off guard and she laughed so hard. The look on her face told me that your little laugh was a perfect moment for her that she would not forget.

While you played this fun game with her I thought of how afraid she is that you won't remember her when she leaves this world. I thought about all the things I want you to always remember about your Great Grandma Ruth:

-She is generous

-She is supportive. Anytime I have had a problem or question in my life I knew I could call Grandma and Grandpa P and they would have answers or resources for me or at the very least sympathy.

-Religion is very important to her and because of her influence in my life you will get to experience Sunday School, church picnics, vacation Bible school and all the things I didn't get to do growing up.

- She is an avid reader of any book, magazine, or newspaper story about nutrition. Wonder if that somehow helped steer my career path.

-She had a hard life that she has only recently started sharing with me, so although she has a very loving heart it is sometimes hard for her to show it to her children. She told me once that she wished she could have done that better with her children. She has made so much progress and you will only see this softer side of her.

-She believes in angels, that's why she gave you that beautiful picture for your Baptism gift. I think she wanted you to have it so that when she does pass you can think of her whenever you see it and know that she will always be watching over you.

6 months

Tomorrow our little miracle will be 6 months old. The first month of her life is a total blur. The second month I remember asking my co-workers if she will ever be able to do anything. Now the little stinker is 6 months old and she can:

Jump, hold a bottle (sometimes), sit up by herself, sleep through the night, eat veggies and cereal, babble on and on, scream, laugh, squeal, pet the cat (gently of course), splash, roll, shake a rattle, sigh, clasp her hands together, smack you hard in the face, pull your hair, travel all around her crib through the night, growl. She's trying so hard to figure out how to crawl but is no where close.

Happy half birthday baby girl. Stop being in such a rush to grow up.

Fun

After a long night with a super fussy baby it's finally quiet in the house and I had to think about how cute she can actually be. Like when she is in her jumper. Or when she is trying to sit by herself for up to 3 seconds until
she forgets to focus on what she's doing and falls over.

I love September

Mommy and Daddy say September is the best month of the year. There's Daddy's birthday, football, Mommy and Daddy's anniversary and they say it is the perfect weather and looks really pretty when the leaves change. I think it is pretty great too so far.

I've watched my first Packer game and didn't really fuss, but Mom sure did because some people on her fantasty team didn't do well. She still won so I don't know why she cried so much.

I rolled half way across the room but got stuck in this blanket, oh well.
I held a bottle by myself for a couple of minutes. I don't know why Mommy was so excited, it's not that hard.

I celebrated Daddy's birthday in a super cute dress from Orla and everyone paid so much attention to me. Sorry Daddy.

I got to start eating some foods. It' so fun. I've had rice cereal (yuck), carrots, peas (so delicious), and sweet potatos. Today I get to try something called green beans. Mommy says they are the best vegetable but Daddy says broccoli is. But what I really want is some of the chips they eat, the bag makes such neat sounds.

October is supposed to be really fun too. We are going to some weddings, getting my 6 month pictures taken, carving pumpkins and watching trick or treaters at Grandma Grutz's house. Can't wait to hang out with my cousins again.

On this day

3 years ago today,

all these people gathered in the beautiful, wildflower covered hills of Butterfly Hollow.

Over 600 pictures were taken.

These are some of my favorites.

On this day so many memories flood over me-

playing "chase",

Grandma P being silly,

Apache Wedding Prayer,

"I looked up to Tim even more",

delicious food,

a soft breeze,

the perfect temperature,

your kind hand in mine,

a feeling of peace and security,

boogle.

Happy Anniversary Tim. You make me feel like I'm exactly where i should be.

I love you more than yesterday.

How a baby is like a cat/dog

Every time we go to Abby's doctor she says "Aren't babies just like puppies?". Abby and Cassie become more alike to me every week.

1) they lick you to say hi
2) they barf all over the house and wait for you to clean it up
3) they think it's funny that you have to clean their pooh
4) they scream if they have to wait for food
5) they love to snuggle
6) they love to roll around on the ground
7) they love to sleep in a big pile of blankets with their head resting on their hand/paw
8) they always have to be chewing on something they shouldn't have
9) they hate to sleep past 6am
10) But most of all they make me laugh nearly every night with their little stare downs.

Should I or Shouldn't I.

One of my dear friends has been on my case since I got pregnant to start a blog. "I won't have anything to say". "But you say funny stuff". "I won't have any time". Then I look a PW with 2 small small children at home and she can do it. So what's my excuse. I am thoroughly obsessed with facebook so I could use that time to share some actual thoughts. KK could actually see pictures of my little girl. Tim wouldn't worry about what weirdos are looking at our baby. Yeah, I think I just might.