Friends, Family, Smiles and Words

The past few days have been relatively eventful. But I suppose having two kids will always result in eventful days and weeks...except not everything that happened this week were centered on the kids. Anyway, this past weekend, we had a friend from out of town visiting us. So, we splurged a little...like going to the Original Pancake House and Tommy's, ordering pizza a couple of nights, etc. The girls (Danielle, Lisa, our friend and another girlfriend) went to a dayspa to get massages, facials, pedicures, etc while daddy took care of the two kids. So, it made for a good weekend though we were sad to have her leave.

Lisa leaves tomorrow (Thursday) to go back to the ship. So, the past couple days have been a whirlwind of activity getting her ready to go. She's had to pack up all her stuff again, both things to stay with us and things to take with her. That alone took up the most time. It'll be sad to not have her here as she was also a big help with the kids. But it'll be good for her to be back on the ship doing what she loves to do.

Abigail has been fun to observe recently. She's starting to smile. She has the most adorable smile and sometimes it gets really big. She had already begun to smile when she was asleep, but these are when she's awake. It also seems that she's more aware and alert as though she's really studying the things she's looking at. She's still not cooperating with us in getting her on a routine. But we'll keep working on that. Although, the other night, she did sleep 7 hours. That's good. No...that's VERY good. Oh...and let me tell you how much gas she has! She makes her daddy proud :-). I remember with Joshua being able to pump his legs and pushing out the gas (which was loads of fun, especially getting 5 in a row). But with Abigail, I can't do that. She releases it on her time table, not mine. Nonetheless, it's impressive.

Joshua is doing so well. He is getting much more confident in his walking abilities and can go up and down our stairs with ease...as long as he doesn't get distracted. He's also getting much more interactive and expressive. He'll point at things and let loose with a string of gibberish that is oh so cute. We can ask him where things are and most of the time, he'll point at it correctly...including people. And it even sounds like he says "Right there" when he points. The first time I saw him point at me after someone said "Where's your daddy", that was one of the best days of my life. To see him acknowledge me as his dad was incredible. At times, it also sounds like he says the words "Dang it!" And he's really warming up to his sister more and more. Here's a picture of him. Yes, we posed him. But he didn't put up a fight either. Danielle says when he first was given Abigail to hold, he seemed nervous about doing so. But he did a great job.