Adventures in Dog Food

It's been an eventful couple of mornings when it comes to feeding Lucy her breakfast. Tuesday I scooped out some food for her, and then realized that she didn't have any water in her bowl. So I picked up her dish to pour in the food and then fill the water side from the sink. But as I was pouring in the food, a mouse came skittering out of the cup and onto my hand! I of course had the only sensible reaction - I threw everything down to the floor and screamed like a little girl. The mouse was pretty scared, too, and just kind of laid there for a minute before he started running and found a crack between the dishwasher and the oven to run into. Poor Lucy didn't know what to do. She hadn't done any tricks for her breakfast yet, but I was just standing there screaming and screaming, so eventually she decided that she could probably just eat the food off the floor.

Yesterday I wasn't taking any chances, so I made Adam get a scoop of dog food for me before he left for work. So we were mouse free and uneventful through the tricks and pouring of the food. Now, usually I wait until I put Abby down for a nap before I feed Lucy, but we were going over to Molly's for the morning so I fed Lucy early to make sure that she had a little bit of time out before she had to spend a few more hours locked up. This was apparently a mistake. Abby loves to play with Lucy's dish, and she thought that eating the food out of it would be a double bonus. Shockingly enough, dog food is not very gentle on a little girl tummy, so it made her throw up. All over herself. Which then looked like good food to maybe try to eat again. She wasn't too happy with me when I tried to dig out what was left in her mouth and wipe up her face and hands. And poor Lucy missed out on half of her breakfast. Again.

Yardwork Weekend

It's been a hardwork weekend here at 1602 W Springfield. We've had beautiful weather - think 80s and sunny - so we decided to put it to good use. The first project for the weekend was to hang up Abby's swing, which turned out to be a bigger project than we had anticipated. Adam wanted to put in new hardware for hanging it because the old stuff was pretty rusty, and it turned out that the chain on her swing didn't fit on the hooks that were there. But since it was so rusty, it was REALLY hard to get out, and then the new hardware wasn't quite the right size so Adam had to chisel out some of the wood to be able to get everything set. But eventually, we had the swing, and Abby's definitely been enjoying having that out in the yard.

The other big project was digging out a space for a garden - woohoo! That was quite the ordeal itself, because first we had to get rid of some "landscaping" (and I use the term loosely) behind the garage. At one time, it had been a rock garden, but by the time we moved in it was completely overgrown and neglected. There were two or three layers of rocks surrounding the area, and then all sorts of rocks, pieces of concrete, broken flowerpots, and one thing that we think may be a speed bump strewn throughout. We also had a nice little maple forest growing in there that had to be dug out.

But after a lot of work, we got it all out, and dug up the whole length of the garage to make a great garden! I'm not sure what all exactly we'll put in there, but we have a couple of weeks before it's time to start planting. Before that we'll need to edge the garden and put up some kind of fence to keep out the bunnies, and the dog.

We gave Abby her first taste of lemon meringue pie this evening. I don't think she likes it quite as much as her daddy does yet!

Causing Trouble

She had been staring at these for days so we knew it would be trouble eventually. I'm surprised she got this far on her first try.

Easter and Abby

We had everyone over to our house to celebrate Easter and Abby's first birthday this last weekend. I think everyone had a good time, I know Abby really enjoyed being the constant center of attention and all of the cookies and cake. There are a bunch of pictures online already.

Having 11 people in the house is definitely a lot of work, so weve just been relaxing/recovering most of the week - especially Abby as she goes back to not getting cookies and attention constantly. I think we've almost eaten our way out of all the leftovers.

Abby did start cruising right after we ate lunch Sunday. She must have made a hundred laps around her table before she finally stopped. Since then she's been walking on everything and she's figured out how to push her table around like a little walker. It works great until she hits a wall and then she just pushes futily until she finally gets bored.

She also really enjoys singing about Old McDonald. It's not easy to hear, but she starts out saying e-i-e-i-o, then neigh-neigh (because we usually start with a horse), then baa-baa because she hears the block say a sheep's next. At the end, she looks down at her stuffed lion Gingham and tries to say his name. Maybe we're the only ones who hear it, but I think it's not too hard.

In other news we had a leak in the basement plumbing Friday night, it seeped from the boiler room, through the wall and into the playroom. It took most of Saturday morning to fix but we were able to handle it ourselves. I don't know much about plumbing, but I'm really not sure why this old piece was stuck on the end of a line anyway. At least we know that the drains work if we ever get any more water.

A Few Birthday Pictures

It's been a busy week but I thought should at least put up some pictures from Abby's birthday. They're in the family picture section and they're in no particular order. We'll try and make a real update sometime this weekend.

Changing All the Time

Abby constantly amazes us with how much she changes. As an unintended consequence of her playdates with Salem, she loves to stand up now. She pulls herself up on her crib, her block, the couch, me, anything she can possibly grab onto.

We think that she saw Salem trotting around, especially being able to follow me wherever I went, and decided that this would be a pretty good way to get around. About the same time, she also started actually crawling instead of scooting around on her tummy. We're not sure where that came from, but it's been pretty fun to watch her crawling around the house. Poor Adam's knees are getting pretty sore following her around, though!

Abby's really gotten into the block she got from Grandma and Grandpa VanDuyne for Christmas lately. She loves to see the weasel pop out, and to look at herself in the mirror.

Our favorite, though, is the Old McDonald side. She's started singing "E-I-E-I-O" along with it. It doesn't come out quite right, more like "I-EEEEE!" but it's pretty cute all the same. She's also been working on her animal sounds. Her favorite is the sheep - everytime she sees a sheep she says "Baa baa!" but she also knows the horse and the cow.

Abigail's other new favorite trick is biting her spoon. She'll do it while she's eating and when she's finished, and just giggle and giggle. She also has a "joke" - she holds out a hand with a Cheerio or piece of bread like she's going to share, but when Adam or I comes in to take it she pulls it back and puts it in her mouth. She thinks that's just hilarious, and will do it again and again until she's out of food.

With Abby's birthday coming up next week, I've been working on getting things ready for her party. We're having all the family over this weekend for her party on Saturday and then her dedication at church on Sunday. I figured that since she's just going to be one, we don't need to plan too much craziness. Honestly, I thought that if we all just sat in a circle in the living room and let her be the center of attention, that would be her idea of a perfect party. But I did want to make a fun cake. I found some pictures online of a cake that I thought I could make, but just to be sure I tried to make a practice cake. Apparently it was a good thing I did.

When I tried to take it out of the pan, it broke into a million pieces and fell all over the floor. I tried to put it back together just to try making the right design, but the more I moved it the more it fell apart. So we'll have to try again. County Market has cake mixes on sale this week - I can just keep on trying until I get it figured out!