Abby @ Work

Abby was coughing in the morning on Wednesday so that I kept her home. She was fine the rest of the day so I took her to work with me for a few hours so that i could send out some emails. She had a lot of fun but I didn't get a ton of work done, obviously.

All of these people at work came out of the wood works to bring her delicious candy. I wonder...where is this candy everyday...and can I have it? She called the Nerds "rocks" and had a great time eating them.

Abby has been such a cutie lately. We are so glad and continually grateful for the joys and stresses that she brings into our lives. Some new fun facts about Abby.

• She is finally learning how to ride her bike she got last August for her birthday. She will peddle it a few times and get tired and start pushing with her feet. So I think that we'll just keep working on it. 
• We have a bunch of red and black beetles around our house and she thinks they are lady bugs but we are constantly squishing them around our house. Yesterday, she stepped on one and it got stuck to her shoe. She was going crazy that it was on the bottom of her shoe and she began to get slightly historical and was so upset she couldn't take one step to the grass to wipe it off. So I had to carry her to the grass and like move her leg for her to get it off. 
• Last night we were driving home from the Senior Banquet and Abby in the back seat counted down from ten to one and said "Blast Off" and began to descirbe how rockets go up to the stars. It is so fun to listen to how much she is learning and growing all the time.

Funny Things Abby is Doing

I am starting to see how perfect a mix Abby is of Grant and I.

Case 1: When she is angry (Grant) she is also polite (Me). I went to wake her up the other day and she was yelling "No Thank You" and turning away. I sat on the bed next to her and she was kicking at me and saying "Excuse Me." A perfect blend of Grant and I.

Case 2: Abby is fearless (Grant) but also very clumsy (Me). Abby is jumping off everything. She and Grant have a ritual to jump off our bed each night on the way to her room. Each night she just jumps and assumes she will be caught. She will be helping in the kitchen and jumps off without any warning so you'd better catch her. She just assumes someone always will. But it is her new favorite game. However, she also inherited with her fearlessness, a tendency to hit her elbows on doors and walls. Or one day she was so excited and ran into our room, did a little spin, and tripped and hit the side of the bed (definitely my child).

Case 3: Abby is super smart (Grant) but she is also a parrot (Me). Abby picks things up really quickly. She runs our electronics better than we do. She loves to read (look at pictures and make up stories). She has just started to sing the lyrics to songs other than nursery rhymes that she has heard on the radio. But she has has begun the repeating everything we say back to us. For those of you who know me or knew my Grandma Beth know that I sometimes (a lot of the time) mouth the words that people say as they are talking. I thought I had broken myself of that habit but was reminded recently by Grant that I do it all the time. I will also point out that she learned "Shut Up" from her Grandma Kandi while we were playing Phase 10. =)

Though like children do Abby pronounces some things incorrectly. My favorite one is Star Wars = Star Whores. Frog = (a four letter f-word). Hug and Cuddle have now become "Huggle."

She also read Jack and Jill (nursery rhyme) like this. Jack and Jill, Up the Hill, Fetch the Water. She just says that over and over again over every page in the little book.

She definitely keeps us busy and is so much fun. I don't have any idea what we used to do for entertainment.

February?

I am not sure how it is already the end of February. Though you can be assured that when I am blogging that I should be doing something else (like studying for the test I take in an hour).

This month has been so busy with school, work, and family. I had a 12 page paper due in the third week of class and I want to know who does that?!?! I had all my major deadlines for my catalog at work. So my phone, emails, and mailbox have been very busy. And I have seen family and friends a lot this month and I'm grateful for it.

My Valentine's for this year were so great and I wanted to let everyone what an awesome hubby and daughter I have. Abby enjoyed coloring her Valentine card's, decorating cookies, eating her chocolates from Dad, and wearing her new dress and necklace from Dad to school. She especially loved giving Dad a "Heart" Attack in his room with all the reasons that she loves him. We enjoyed a night out with dinner, shopping, and ice cream. The if that wasn't great enough we watched the action packed movie "The Double." Still wish it was a chick flick =), though.

We look forward to closing out this month since Grant will likely be traveling to visit either Nick Saban (University of Alabama, who we beat at the Sugar Bowl!) or some other guy at Fresno with the Defensive Coordinator for some staff development, which is always great for Grant. This however, leaves me at home for a few days to spend hanging out with Abby and doing homework. This usually involves us staying in our pjs all weekend long.

We are also waiting for someone (MADISON) to finally a cousin on the Duff side for Abby to play with. Though it may be Christmas before they actually meet, it will still be fun to Skype and visit with. We continue to hope for him (no name yet) to have Madi's good looks and Will's good temperament.

 Abby's Valentines Dress and heart-shaped necklace that lasted the whole day till she broke the chain.

 Abby loves wearing shoes, especially my church shoes.

Here is Abby after getting her necklace on Valentine's Day getting ready for her Pajama party at school.

Football Fun

Football totally consumes the last half of the year and not in a good way. However, the time near the bowl game is the most fun. We get to go out, eat, and have fun at the expense of the University of Utah football team. On Friday night with recruits we go to Rodizios (Brazilian Grill) and on Saturday we go to Market Street Grill where I get to eat a ridiculously, expensive lobster tail. This week however is all about having fun with family before we leave for Christmas and then the bowl game.

Monday: Crowne Burger and a movie. We went to Sherlock Holmes and Abby let us watch half of it. I guess we will be waiting until we can get it on Netflix. We are 0-2 with going to the movie theatre with Abby.

Tuesday: Pizza and Bowling and FatsCats. There is a bowling competition in El Paso that we really want to win so we are practicing. Some of the players have never bowled so wish us luck. I really think Abby will love it.

Wednesday: Rodizios! I have been craving their Lime-aide. So delicious.

Thursday: Peter flies in! Abby is very excited.

Friday: IDAHO!!!

Abby Stuff

Life is so crazy right now. I am finally done with this semester (only one more left). We did get all of our Christmas shopping done but every night this week we have a football dinner and activity. This will leave me very little time to pack for Idaho and pack for Texas. In all this hustle and bustle of the holidays, I like to pause and reflect on my family. Abby is growing up so fast and there are a few things that I want to remember about her two's.

• She sings "Twinkle, Twinkle little star" and "Old McDonald's Farm" all the time, only twinkle is "kinkle."
• She is finally learning how to pronounce "Hercules"
• She will grab your face and say "Listen to Me" if you don't respond to everything she says every time she says it.
• She sleeps with four big pillows, a big teddy bear, her "baa" (sheep crocheted by Kandi), her puppy named "puppy," her giraffe that plays a song, several small farm animals that make noises, her bunny blanket, and several books. 
• She has this new facination with trying to lick everything (probably thanks to the lovely kids at her daycare). Grant had such a hard time not laughing when he is trying to tell her to stop because she is giggling and having so much fun. 
• She has her dad wrapped around her little finger
• Yesterday she sat up to the computer, starting typing, and proceeded to tell us she was doing homework so she couldn't come brush her teeth or go to bed.
• Her new favorite thing is to wear sweaters. She has some cute cardigans but she won't take them off. She wears them under her coats and to bed.

 She does so many other cute things but it seems like you forget as you're trying to write them all down. Here are so photos take by Story Time Inc.

This one is my favorite.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

I haven't had a Christmas trees since the first year Grant and I were married. Terrible...I know. So we went out and bought a Christmas tree and put up all our decorations. Abby really enjoys it and in each of the plain Christmas balls she says "I see you, Abby" or "I see you, daddy," depending on whose reflection she can see. She also enjoyed eating all the candy canes that we bought today that were already broken (and so did I).

I am also very glad that this time of year reminds me to be more diligent in teaching about about who Jesus Christ was. Christ is the reason for the season!

We will also get to go to the live nativity again this year. The one where two years ago Abby got to be baby Jesus, which make me reminisce so you will see some from Abby's first Christmas.

A Year in Review

 

 I have decided to create a new blog and I am starting with a review of that last year as my newsletter for this year.

Grant was promoted as the Graduate Assistant (GA) at the University of Utah. He coaches the linebacker and recruits Idaho, California and Washington. He is loving his job and we are headed to the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas (We find out for sure on Sunday). He is finally done with his crazy work schedule now that the official season is over and now we move to recruiting weekends because it means Rodizios and Market Street Grill dinners for me. He is currently working on his Masters in Health Promotion and Education emphasizing in Body Image.

I have been busy with work, school and Abby. I started a new job in January as the Curriculum Coordinator at the University of Utah. It is a fancy name for the person who does the catalog. It has been a great job for me and I am learning a lot of new skills with building an maintaining websites. I find that I can understand computer terminology and it makes me feel slightly nerdy. I have one more semester before I graduate from the Utah State in Family Life Studies. It has been an awesome experience and has been great that it is completely online so that I can continue to work. I can't wait however for it to be done in May!!!

Abby turned two a few months ago and she continues to grow up so quickly. She had surgery earlier in the year to remove her adenoids and put in new tubes. Since then she has been much more healthy and active. At that same time she learned to climb out of bed so we got her a twin size bed that she sleeps on now. She loves to sing (nursery rhymes, primary songs, and sometimes she sings what she says). She loves her dolls (my old ones) and they are named Katie after one of my good friends. She is very smart. I can't believe she knows everything she does. She is always surprising me. Her favorite movies vary. It started out as the "Open Season" movie everyday, then it went to "Babe," "Monster's Inc," "Robin Hood," "Hercules," "Beauty and the Beast," and now she watches "Emperor's New Groove" everyday, which she calls her "New Groove, New Groove" (she has to say it twice). We also lucked out (Grant says it is all about training ;p ) because Abby has inherited some of Grant's (slightly OCD) cleaning habits. She loves picking up her toys and blocks once she dumps them out. The next step with her is potty training in 2012, wish me luck.

Grant is servings as a Deacons Quorum advisor. I teach the 12-13 year old Sunday school. Abby started early in the year to go to Nursery and she loves it. Especially singing time and snack time. And we have a great ward and bishop who take great care of us.

We had lots of fun experiences this year. We spent a lot of time with family. We went to Pittsburgh to play football and were able to visit with Great Grandma and Grandpa Duff, Bob and Katy Fourquean, Cailyn Fourquean, and Peter and Michael Duff. We traveled to St. George for a coaching clinic. We partied as the U of U was added into the new Pac 12 conference. We bought a car. I got a new, beautiful niece, on the Cutler side, Charlotte. We are expecting another niece in January on the Duff side from Will and Madi. We are very excited for them and can't wait for Abby to have another cousin.

We are being continually blessed with great family and friends. We have everything we need. I am so grateful for this holiday season where we get to count our blessings, think about the Savior, and serve others. May all your Christmases be wonderful and full of feelings of love and happiness.

Enjoy some pictures below!