Build-A-Baby

My friend Tracy had gone to Build-A-Bear recently and was showing me her poodle she had made for her daughter and all of the outfits that she bought to go with it. I didn't realize that you could make poodles at Build-A-Bear, but I guess that have a whole bunch of things to choose from....and alot of outfits to get for your new creation. As she was showing me the outfits, I said that they looked like they could fit on Abby....so, of course we had to try it out. Here are some of the pictures of Abby with Build-A-Bear outfits on.

The Little Things...

It is funny how some days can go by and you don't even remember what you did. Well, fortunately I have my camera handy to try to capture those special little "nothings" as they happen. I may forget them too someday, but I'll try to hang on to a few of the fun memories at least for a little while.

Here is a picture of Cody's shoes on the wrong feet. If Cody were dressing himself it would have been pretty funny, but knowing that Daddy dressed him and still got it wrong is even funnier!

I decided to give Cody a Chocolate PopTart for breakfast. That wasn't very smart on my half. Here is a picture of him as he finished it off. Too bad this picture couldn't catch how sticky he was too. He had chocolate everywhere! I know his teachers must think I am a horrible parent that he looks like a disaster by the time he gets to school. They probably say, "Oh look, there's Cody. You know the sticky one." Or maybe they just call him "Cody Sticky". Oh well...I can only do so much right? At least he hasn't come to school naked (yet).




I said that I would dedicate a whole blog entry to the garage (I will once it is finished). I thought I would give an update while it is still in the process of being cleaned. Here is a picture of the first load of trash out on the street. It happened to rain that morning too. It is amazing that we had that much junk. Someone said we looked like "Sanford & Sons". : )

And here is a picture of the Stuckey Cousins all together. Heath, Willow, Cody & Abby. We had lunch with them and the Grands. Heath informed me that eating Mentos and drinking Coke will make your stomach explode. Willow quickly added that it may not make a person's stomach explode, but it will make a pig's stomach explode. I figured out that they had seen that experiment on an episode of MythBusters and were pretty impressed by it. Who wouldn't be?

8 weeks - the "Stuckey Finger" lives on...

At Clay's Grandmother's house there is a huge portrait on the wall of Clay and his brother when they were young. Clay looks as though he might be four or so in the picture. Anyway, he has his hand positioned in a way that makes his middle finger stick out. Obviously no one caught it until years later someone pointed out that little Clay was "flipping the bird". It has always been a great conversation piece at her house.

Well, Cody had that problem alot when he was a baby and now it seems Abby is carrying on the tradition. There are many pictures of Cody with his middle finger presented, but here is one from Easter 2006 and then a picture of Abby at 8 weeks (above). I know it is awful, but it is still cute!

There are a bunch of other cute pictures from Abby's photoshoot today. So don't worry Grandparents... there are plenty of prints coming your way!

Mid-Week Update

This has been a fun week so far. Sunday, I got to go to Edisto Beach for a Planning Retreat with the Children's Ministry Team. I'm excited about the things we have planned for 2008. I'm looking forward to the new and creative ways of doing church for kids. I really love my job and the people I work with...and I'm not just saying that in case my boss reads the blog. And I really love working for Scott (that was incase he reads my blog).

Monday, Clay started cleaning out the garage.....and it is looking great! I'll send a post on that on that later. It deserves its own special blog.















In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures of the kids. I really need to get a good picture of all four of us together. It would be really cool if we could manage to get a picture where everyone is looking at the camera and smiling. I never realized how hard it is to take pictures of kids. This picture of me with the kids took about 8 takes and it still looks like I am dropping Abby and Cody has on a forced smile. Oh well! I'll settle with this for now. Man, we have cute kids! : )

We took the kids to Grandad & Mamaw's house for dinner on Tuesday. Cody had a great time cleaning out their kitchen cabinets (he doesn't get to do that at home) and playing ball with Grandad. He had two firsts....his first popsicle and his first perlow (sp?). Perlow is a southern dish that is made up of mostly chicken & rice. They served it with butter beans...yummmy! Abby got a chance to play with Mamaw during dinner. It was nice to sit down to eat a meal without having to stop to feed the baby. Thank God for grandparents!

Wednesday, I got a chance to go to my new favorite spot....the Chick-fil-A parking lot. I know it doesn't seem like it would be a place to relax, but I can grab my "number 5, 8-pack with a sweet tea" and park facing a pond and just watch the turtles and ducks while I eat my chicken. Usually the fountain is spraying out, but this time it was off and the turtles were out on the fountain base. I figured they were chatting about how people should "eat more chicken".

Sleeping through the night (edit)

Clay wanted me to retract the "sleeping through the night" comment. Abby woke up about 3 times last night. Oh well! Maybe she was just excited to see him back home from his trip.

Poppy the Fire Chief

Poppy made the newspaper! Here is the article from the Herald-Dispatch (Huntington, WV):

Firefighters from the Union Twp. Volunteer Fire Dept., Burlington Fayette Twp. Volunteer Fire Dept., and Proctorville Volunteer Fire Dept. battle a house fire on Co. Rd. 1 in Chesapeake Friday, Sept. 14, 2007.

Firefighters from the Proctorville Volunteer Fire Dept. place caution tape around the scene of a house fire on Co. Rd. 1 in Chesapeake Friday, Sept. 14, 2007.

7 weeks - sleeping through the night (sort of)

Abby is starting to stretch out her sleep through the night. Lately we have been getting 4 hour stretches between night-time feedings, but last night Abby slept for 6 hours! She slept from about 10pm to 4am. Now, I know that isn't actually "sleeping through the night", but when you have been used to only getting 2 hours between feedings, 6 hours seems like an amazing feet!

Speaking of feet, I don't know what motivated me to do this, but I decided to paint Abby's toenails last night. I don't think I have ever seen a baby with red polish on their little toes, but I thought it would look cute. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

I also weighed her this morning and she is just over 11lbs. That's about a pound more than last week. Boy, she is changing so much from week-to-week. Here are some more cute pictures.

Wheee!

For some reason Cody's car seat has been tilting over a little bit when I go around corners. It always ends up back in an upward position so its not like he's flung around in the car. He thinks it is a fun game that I invented and says, "Wheee!" as I make sharp left-hand turns.

Yesterday, it went a little too far over and poor Cody had to ride the last few miles at a 45 degree angle. I just had to take a picture of him trying to hold himself up. I could try to fix it, but instead I just decided to not make any more left-hand turns from now on. : )

Cody Turns 20 Months Old Today

6 weeks - growth spurt

Abby is about 10lbs now and is already outgrowing some of her newborn-size clothes. She is obviously going through some sort of growth spurt this week because she is having odd sleeping & eating patterns.

On Monday, she gave us two 4-hour sleep periods, which was great! I only had to feed her at 2am, which was so exciting that I didn't even bother waking Clay up. So, when he woke up the next morning, I said, "You slept through the night honey!". I think we were hoping that it was going to be a regular sleep pattern for her, but it hasn't happened again yet.

Today, she was awake most of the day and very hungry. I felt like all I did today was feed her. (I managed to squeeze in Dr.Phil and Oprah so I'm ok!) She loves to stretch out her arms and legs and doesn't care too much about being covered up with a blanket (and you can forget about swaddling her). I think I have mastered the art of burping Abby...I feel so proud of myself when I can get a big, loud one out of her. The trick is to just sit her up and slowly tilt her forward at the waist. Once she relaxes, it just comes out...no more banging on her back. Its amazing how a small thing like that can seem like a huge accomplishment.

I went back to work as of this week and have been figuring out the whole "traveling with 2 kids" thing. It takes planning and coordination that is for sure. In the morning, I have to take one down to the car and then come back up and get the other. Cody usually doesn't enjoy that so much, so I have to bribe him with Teddy Grahams to get him to stop crying. I'm sure his teachers just love that I get him jacked up on sugar before dropping him off at school. I guess that's why they hook him up with a full bottle of juice before he comes home each day. : )

Speaking of Cody, he is doing great. He is learning more words and how to count - he amazes me how much he is learning each day. I thought I would throw in a few pictures from tonight's night-night ritual. He usually just watches the "Good Night Show" on PBS Kids and enjoys a bottle of milk (yes I give him a bottle at night, got a problem with that?). Tonight he wanted to read his Toddler Bible and play a game of "PeeBoo" (aka peek-a-boo) with his monkey blanket before going to bed. Man, he is too cute!

Sibling Bonding Experience

We finally let Cody hold Abby by himself (supervised closely by Clay of course) and we just had to share these photos of the precious moment. Cody was so eager to hold her that he was repeating "gentle, gentle, gentle" and was petting her head softly to show that he was trustworthy to hold her. So we propped her up in his arms and stood back to see what happened next. Abby wasn't quite sure what to think about the whole thing and it took her a moment to relax. (I don't blame her!)

Cody started kissing her and hugging her tight. Oh, it was sooooo cute! After a few minutes of us praising him for being a good boy and being so gentle with Baby Abby, Cody decided that the television was much more exciting. So he pushed her off of his lap and onto the couch...you can see it in the photo below where she is not very happy about it.