Update & Videos

Sandy's First X-ray
Sandy had her first x-ray on Monday, March 28. About 10 days before she fell off the couch. She's complained a couple of times a day ever since that her arm hurt. It never got swollen or discolored and, after the initial fall, she didn't cry. She didn't seem to be favoring her arm when she played, and she didn't cry or complain if Bill and I squeezed or moved her arm. But she did consistently complain about the same arm in the same spot. She also kept saying she needed to go to the doctor for her arm. So, finally I took her in to the doctor. Nothing showed up in the exam, but the doctor did an x-ray of her elbow just to make sure. There wasn't anything on the x-ray either. So, I guess she just wanted to go to the doctor. She hasn't said anything about her arm hurting since.

When we went downstairs for the x-ray, the technician said Abby couldn't come in. So, I said, "Sandy, go with this lady and she's going to take a picture of your arm." The lady looked at me like she couldn't believe I would send my 2-year-old in on her own. (I'm not sure what she expected me to do -- leave my baby unattended in the hall?!) Sandy went without even hesitating and was really good.

Prayers
Sandy loves to say prayers. We're trying to teach her that Bill gets to ask someone to say the prayer (her response is always, "I say a prayer first then you say a prayer."). She does a pretty good job with her prayers, except she addresses them to "Jesus Christ." We've had several conversations about how we pray to Heavenly Father, but we still need to work on that. Two amusing things in prayers this last week:

*Over lunch, Sandy prayed, "Please bless me to go to my grandma's house one day." When we talk to my mom on Skype, she will sometimes ask Sandy if she wants to come visit grandma one day. If they get a direct flight from Salt Lake to Sioux Falls, I'll go for a visit. Until then, though, I think it's going to be awhile - Bill can't get away and I don't want to do a layover with the two girls.

*The other day at dinner, she prayed, "Please bless Abby not to yell and scream the WHOLE night." Abby has been teething and we've had some rough nights.

Videos
Here is a video of Sandy. She sings the ABCs, then says her full name "Sandra Ruth Buhler," then I ask her how old she is and she says, "2, June." And I ask her how old she'll be in June and she says "5".



Here is a video of Abby. She does a half-scoot, half-crawl and she walks around the furniture. The bruise on her head is from the windowsill - she was walking around the couch and tried to hold onto the windowsill, but missed.



Abby says mum and da and knows who she's talking about. In fact, when Bill goes in to her room in the middle of the night, she'll often start screaming, "Mum, mum, mum!" because, of course, she thinks she needs to nurse at night. She loves to blow raspberries. She has two teeth on the bottom and there is one tooth on top that is just poking through.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

February Pictures

Abby has two teeth on the bottom. She's wearing a shirt that says "bit o' trouble."

Sandy is so good to share with her sister. If only we could get her to ask before she gets things to share with her. What a mess, eating licorice in their church dresses. But at least it was after church. Good thing they are so cute!

For Valentine's day, we had a fun breakfast with heart-shaped waffles and hot chocolate:

Abby loved the waffles!

I got everyone a small gift. Sandy got a set of glitter glue pens. Oh, she had fun with them!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Abby is 9 months old!

I took Abby in for her 9-month checkup today. Her stats:
18.69 lbs, which puts her in the 48th percentile
28.25 inches, which puts her in the 75th percentile

She is healthy and growing well. She loves to stand, and will even take a step or two if she is holding on to furniture or hands. She isn't really crawling, but she can pull herself around a little bit. It's not quite an army crawl, and she doesn't make it very far. She doesn't really roll. In just the last couple of weeks, she has learned to roll from her back to her stomach. Sometimes she can roll from her stomach to her back. She doesn't do a complete roll, though. The pediatrician told me not to worry because she can sit and stand, so she's two milestones ahead of rolling.

She's a happy baby. She is serious with people she doesn't know, but as soon as she sees someone she recognizes she gets very excited. She loves kisses - getting them and giving them. She loves her sister, most of the time. She makes lots of happy sounds and is starting to make consonant sounds -- ba ba ba, ma ma ma, etc. She also waves.

She has two teeth, both on the bottom. She doesn't have any hair, and if she follows her sister's lead, she won't until she is 2.

She likes to sleep with the blanket pulled completely over her face. One specific blanket: a fleece blanket with satin edging that my mom made for Sandy. If she has her blanket over her face, she will go right to sleep. If she doesn't, she can scream for a very long time.

She loves to eat solid food and can eat just about anything. She likes to feed herself and she definitely does NOT like to be fed. She starts crying as soon as she sees a container of baby yogurt because she knows I'm going to try to feed her. So, most of the time, I just give her some of whatever we are eating and let her go at it. It's a little messy. She loves vegetables. One of her favorite things is when I give her a handful of frozen corn or frozen peas. I think the cold feels good on her gums. She also likes chicken flavoring. She loves chicken and rice - I don't give her any of the chicken, but she devours the cream of chicken-soaked rice. She also loves chicken-flavored ramen noodles. She's will also drink water out of a sippy cup, although she is still nursing for most of her liquid intake.

She loves books, dolls, and electrical cords. Yes, we really have to watch her, because if she can grab the cord to a laptop or lamp or anything else, she does. And, of course, it goes right in her mouth. I'm not sure what we're going to do about that when she becomes mobile.

She has just (almost) started sleeping through the night. About 2 weeks ago, we finally decided to cut her off from eating during the night. Bill had to get up and soothe her for the first week or so, but she's finally resigned herself to not eating so now I can go back to getting up with her. She still gets up once or twice a night, but it's a considerable improvement over the eating every 2 hours that she was doing. She and Sandy are in the same room and Sandy gets frustrated when Abby cries in the middle of the night. The other night Abby was crying and Sandy said, "Abby, stop crying! Daddy is trying to sleep JUST LIKE ME!" Then Sandy rolled over and went back to sleep.

Happy 9 months, Abby! It has gone by quickly!

Favorite January Pictures

I hosted a bridal shower today. Here is Abby with a balloon from the shower.

Sandy was a big help. She put out all of the favors.

Here is a picture of the girls from yesterday.

Sandy loves to hold her sister. Abby doesn't love it very much.

Abby wants to crawl so bad. She leans forward and stretches to reach things. I'm amazed at how far she can reach, she will reach so far she almost flips herself over onto her stomach.

Here is a picture of Sandy sharing her sucker:

Oh, that's good:

Wait, I wasn't done.

I'll take some of those:

Sure, you can have some.

Sandy is generally very good at sharing with Abby, especially food. I have to keep a close eye on them because I never know what Sandy will decide to "share" with Abby.

Sandy has discovered youtube - specifically, videos of her and Abby that I have uploaded to youtube. She begs to watch them all of the time. So here are two youtube videos of them. They are just random videos - and kind of long - so don't feel obligated to watch.

Here is a picture of Abby from earlier this week:

Sandy:

The girls love their wagon:

Sandy thinks she is ready to give up her naps, but sometimes that means she just falls asleep in uncomfortable positions.

Catching Up on the End of 2010

I thought things would slow down after the holidays, but that hasn't really happened. I finally downloaded pictures from the end of December.

Abby loves to stand. Here are a couple of pictures of her from December 31.

December 29 was the Buhler Family Christmas Party and the annual nativity.

Sandy was a wise woman.

Abby was the baby Jesus.

Here is baby Jesus playing with her presents.

Bill and his siblings gave his parents a combined Christmas gift: a photo shoot of the whole family. I have a CD for each family, just need to drop them in the mail. I also emailed out a link - you can see/download full resolution photos. If you didn't get the link, send me an email and I'll send it to you.

We used Despain Photography, and I'd recommend him, just in case anyone is looking for a photographer.

Here is a shot of everyone:

And another shot of everyone:

We also got photos of all the individual families:

A picture of grandma and grandpa with all their grandkids:

All the men:

All the women:

Grandma with her granddaughters:

Abby: