the other blog

I have another blog that I started almost two years ago.  I admit, I was not a faithful blogger and tossed it aside once I started my thesis project and found out I was pregnant with Abigail.  BUT... I have started it back up and have lots of fun ideas for it.  Go check it out here and feel free to give me any suggestions you may have!

3 Months

Abby turned 3 months old on July 24th.  Here is a list of the things she started doing from 2 months to 3 months.

• She loves to kick her little legs like crazy, especially in the evening before bed.  We would say she needed to go for her run before going to sleep for the night.  Which brings me to her next trick...
• She sleeps all through the night!  She usually goes to sleep around 10 and wakes up around 7.  
• She continues to be more alert every day.  She is starting to really like holding toys and looking at books.  She even tries to hold books and turn the pages.  She is a very smart girl!
• She loves to stick out her tongue.  
• She is still a great car sleeper and likes to go for walks.  She loves to look up at trees and even smiles at them sometimes.
• She was blessed by her daddy on July 18th.  Both sets of grandparents were able to come as well as her great grandparents that live close by.  Four of her aunts and one uncle came.  And she met her McDonald cousins for the first time.
• She is still a happy baby that we love and adore more than we ever thought possible. 

Here are some cute pictures from her third month.

wearing one of her mom's dresses

a nice little pose

Abby with her great grandparents

with Great Grandpa Moss

poor little girl

"I hold Abby now."- Jack

Cousin Allie

Cousin Audrey

a good look

 Don't we have the sweetest little girl?  We just love her!

Catching up

The past two months have been jam packed with so many events, we are just now starting to catch up on life. Instead of doing a HUGE post, I'll try to separate things out a bit and do a post every couple days or so. That seems easier with organizing pics and so forth. I won't just leave you with this lame post though, here is a fun pic to see how Abby has changed.

4th of July and Thesis Fun!

My study ended mid June, which gave me about 10 days to write up my thesis in order to make the deadline I needed to make. The writing actually wasn't as stressful as I anticipated. Of course, Abby was a great baby and let me get a lot done during her naps. And then once Landon came home, he helped out a lot. I think it actually worked well to have to take breaks while writing to feed Abby or just hold her for a bit. The most frustrating things occurred with the silly little details no one ever told me about; getting everyone and their dog's signatures, applying for graduation, getting a new ecclesiastical endorsement, petitioning for credits because I forgot to sign up for them (oops!), etc. However, everything worked out and I'm officially scheduled to defend my thesis on July 19! I'm so excited and the end really is in sight now! You will soon be able to call me "Master Pratt." In addition, an abstract I submitted got accepted to the National Obesity Conference. So Landon, Abby and I are going to trek down to San Diego in October to present it and hopefully have some fun while we are there. I think it will be a great way to end my "career" as a student.

4th of July was a little funny this year since it was on a Sunday. They did the fireworks on Saturday here, and then Sunday just seemed like a normal Sunday. It was still fun though. We took Abby to watch the fireworks since they fire them off right outside our door. Abby looked at them for a while, didn't cry but didn't really have much expression either, and then she fell asleep during the finale... funny kid. Here are some pictures of us.

Getting ready for the fireworks to start.
See, she was definitely watching them. Who knows what she thought about them.

2 Month Update

Abigail had her 2 month birthday on Thursday! She is growing up way too fast. We are having a blast watching her grow. Here's a list of her new tricks!

• She sleeps in her crib and does great most of the time. Every once in a while she has a "bad" night. It really isn't all that bad, just not as perfect as normal.
  
• She is starting to wear some 0-3 month clothes and a few newborn things are officially too small. She also grew out of those adorable newborn diapers... sad.
• She is an expert at smiling and she is starting to make more sounds.
• Sometimes she prefers to lay on the floor rather than be held. Is that normal?
  
• She loves to kick her chubby little legs.
• She started going to church.
• She is getting a lot stronger and I think she will be holding her head up before we know it.
• She doesn't care for tummy time. She gets sad, so then I give her a pacifier, and then she starts to get sleepy.
• She has started to go for jogs with Mom. She is a pretty good stroller sleeper.
• She loves to have her diaper changed and lights up when we put her on the changing pad.
• She is patient as Mom attempts to get good photos of her.
• She is very cooperative when Mom and Dad go somewhere or have a schedule. She always wants to eat before and hardly makes a peep in public.

Here are some favorite photos from the past month.

• 

Father's Day

Father's Day was full of successes and failures.

Success: Abby wore an adorable purple dress to church.
Failure: She had a major blowout at church and we didn't get her picture in it.

Success: We all got to have a nap.
Failure: The naps ended too soon. Abby woke me up to eat and I woke Landon up by taking the above picture.

Success: I promised Landon I would play Munchkin Quest with him (I'm not usually very enthusiastic, but it was Father's Day).
Failure: We didn't play because Mandy already had plans. Poor Landon.

Success: Abby and I made this gift for Landon to put up in his workspace in his lab. Failure: It must have crunched on something when I brought it in with the groceries... it has a few small blemishes now. It is still usable, just sad that it happened.

Failure: I forgot to buy hamburger buns.
Failure: I tried to make hamburger buns and they ended up being way too small.
Success: We still used the buns and it really wasn't all that bad.

Success: We watched The Next Food Network Star.
Failure: We watched Design Star... not so good.

Success: We made homemade ice cream and it was delicious. No failures here.
*Confession: I had a scoop with my breakfast this morning.*

Overall, it was still a nice, relaxing day.

Check out this Grin!

We figured out a way to get Abby's smile on camera! We discovered that when we blow on her face she will almost always take a deep breath and then do a huge smile. I can't believe it, she doesn't seem old enough to know how to play games like this! My baby is getting so big. We also learned about the continuous setting on our camera that allows us to get several shots quickly. Here are a few that we got.