Happy Holidays... Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Wow - what a busy month I've had! I took a trip to Southern Illinois for Thanksgiving, cut down my own Christmas tree (we're calling this year my do-over first Christmas since I was too sick to really do much last year), made it through my very first Virginia blizzard (22 inches!), and went to Connecticut for Christmas! My best trick of the month is that I learned how to clap my hands - which I do all the time now. So settle in Friends, this is going to be a long blog...

Whoo hoo!!! Lots of news about Abby!!!!

Right after my birthday party we got on a plane and went to Southern Illinois (outside St. Louis) where my dad's family lives. Everyone was there! It was my first time meeting lots of them - and boy did we have fun! (Well, of course they had fun... they got to meet me!) My great-aunt Linda does almost all the cooking and brings it with her... which was GREAT news for me - because she and my Great-Uncle Mike brought the turkey already carved... which means it was impossible for Mom and Dad to take another Abby-next-to-the-turkey-that-out-weighs her photo.

This is my (second?) cousin Ella. I can't be bothered to figure out all this family tree stuff. Ella is a couple days older than me and this was our first time meeting. It's tough to travel - I was without a lot of my favorite toys for a while. Here I am showing Ella that great toys are just an arms-length away. Sometimes a girl has to improvise.

She had her doubts about how fun it could be to play with a sock. So I showed her.

See Ella!!! In the absence of real toys - socks are AWESOME!

In the absence of toys - there's nothing like a good game of baby dominoes. Especially when your mom is caught playing with her camera rather than saving her child's life.

A little help here please! You know I can't sit up by myself yet! MOM!!!!!!!!!!!! After the baby domino incident - the family had a little birthday party for the great grand kids since 3 of us have Nov/Dec birthdays. That really helped the toy supply.

After a few days with Dad's family - we headed to Ella's house for a night. I discovered the fun/dangers of running water.

Crazy Ella! She got a little thirsty....

I'm really not sure that's a good idea Ella....

We got these matching Princess towels for our birthdays. Obviously our family knows us quite well. We had such a fun visit...

Back in Virginia we had our first snow storm on December 5. It was about 6 inches. The next day we went out to cut down our Christmas tree at a Christmas tree farm. It was SOOO cold that, yes, I am wearing a snow-suit with a jacket underneath. It made me a bit snow-man -like, and it was quite hard to move. Not flattering at all. I suggested this nice Abby-size tree... but I was out-voted.

Here's my family with our chosen tree.

Dad had to cut it down - he was really struggling, so I got down on the ground to help him out.

Thank goodness we got our tree and did our Christmas preparations when we did because the last weekend before Christmas Virginia got a HUGE blizzard. It started to snow on Friday night and it snowed all the way until Sunday! My parents took me out while it was still snowing and I HATED it. Princesses DO NOT like to have cold, wet snowflakes hitting them in the face. Although we do look cute in our snowsuits.

Crazy dogs have no problem being hit in the face with cold, wet snowflakes. Callie couldn't get enough of that stuff.

On Sunday morning it had finally stopped snowing, the sun was out, and we decided to go for a walk and check out how beautiful things were in the snow. And of course, to let Callie play. Snow is her most favorite thing. Walking on a sunny day - now that I could get excited about.

Whoa. Now that's a lot of snow.

Dad tried to get me to make a snow angel in this snow bank. I really wasn't too into the idea. Rolling around in snow seems like such a silly idea. (But look Auntie Em - with my snow suit on inside them - my Uggs fit!) It was just like Virginia to be completely unable to handle all this snow - so schools closed for the 3 days they were going to be open - and Mom got an extra long vacation to spend with me!

On Wednesday we went to Connecticut to spend Christmas with my mom's family - Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Charley and Uncle Alex. My mom's family has always made and decorated a family recipe of Christmas cookie. Last year I just watched - but this year I'm big, I'm healthy, and I'm ready to get dirty!

Mmmmmm, frosting and sprinkles. Such a great tradition. I felt that a little "Quality-Control" was in order. This one was just fine.

On Christmas Eve I went to church and saw my friend Lila. Would you believe that once AGAIN we had almost the same outfit on?! Look at our beautiful Christmas dresses!! I've said it before and I'll say it again - that girl has STYLE. And great taste. And nice hair. Which I decided to pull.

In the spirit of Christmas, Lila forgave me for pulling her hair and gave me a sweet Christmas kiss.

Since you can really only wear these dresses once or twice - I came home from church and did a little photo shoot with all the presents.

Ohhh! The BIG one is for ME!!!!! They must ALL be for ME!

What do you mean they aren't all for me?! Most of them are for me?!



On Christmas morning I was up bright and early! Then I waited... and waited... and waited... and waited!!!!!! Those uncles of mine just WOULD NOT wake up. It's hard to be patient when you're looking at a tree with all those presents underneath!!!

FINALLY Grandma took me to go wake those uncles up. She was pretty sure they couldn't get too mad if I was there. True. No one can be mad when they wake up to Abby! Just like my birthday, Christmas brought lots of delicious wrapping paper!

OH MY GOSH, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! This is such a good one!!!

Holy smokes, I got a CAR! Some kids don't get one of these until they're 16! This living room furniture is getting in the way of seeing what this baby can do! Go FASTER Dad, Go FASTER! I may have to put him on an exercise plan if he can't push me at the speeds this sweet ride is capable of.

Just after Christmas it was unseasonably warm out and I took my wheels out on the driveway and for a spin around the block.

Let's go, Let's GO! Man I LOVE this car!!! Let's drive this one all the way back to Virginia!

This month I've seen a lot of doctors too - here's a quick recap of my appointments:

My cardiologist saw me and did an echo of my heart - when she looked at the results she said the repair looks so good and my heart is working so well that we can switch to ONCE A YEAR visits. Her poor social life just took a major down-turn. But, great news about my heart!! What a change from last year!

I have seen quite a bit of my pediatrician. One night I woke myself up barely able to breathe. My parents were SCARED. It sounded pretty awful - I just couldn't get a full breath and nothing was helping. After talking to the doctor in the middle of the night - I was diagnosed with croup. I went on steroids for a few days and that got cleared up. Apparently the cold virus can turn to croup quite easily in kids with Down Syndrome because we have smaller airways to begin with - so when they get swollen by a cold - we can't breath. Two weeks later I had my one-year-check up. I weighed in at 18 lbs, 10 oz. Some kids switch to cow's milk at 1 year - but since I'm still a peanut- I'm sticking with formula for a bit longer. Then, two weeks after that, I got croup again! This time everyone knew what to do and there were no middle of the night phone calls... but I did have to go see the doctor again for another steroid prescription.

Despite two doses of steroids - I'm still not crawling. (I guess I need to get the kind of steroid those baseball boys use!) I really WANT to be crawling - I see things and I'm just DYING to get to them... but I'm not there yet. My physical therapist is working really hard with me to build upper arm strength so I can get moving. It was said that my Buddha belly isn't helping with my crawling process since my weight is all concentrated in the middle of my body. SHEESH! Everyone's a critic!

I also started with an educator - or a cognitive play therapist. She's teaching me sign language, working on language development, and teaching me games like putting things in a container and taking things out. She wants mom and dad to play this game with me where they hold up two things and I reach out and pick one - then the other one disappears. It's supposed to teach me about making a choice. I'm not a fan of this game. Princesses WANT IT ALL. But we play it - I'm not going to be one of those spoiled princesses.

I hope you all had a holiday season as great as mine!! Oh - and of course - since I was visiting my Grandpa for Christmas - he took more pictures of me and put them on his website: http://www.craighowe.com/ in his gallery. Happy New Year!