Who would have thought?

I honestly didn't think that I would enjoy the concert last night as much as I actually did. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I have to tell you that we had a really good time. We got there just as Motorhead was finishing up their set. No big loss. Sounded good, but that wasn't really why we were there so we weren't sad that we missed them.

Next up was Heaven and Hell with Dio. This is basically Black Sabbath w/o Ozzy. OMG - Dio ROCKED! For as old as he is, I was amazed and in awe of him during their entire set. His voice and energy were amazing! I absolutely enjoyed seeing him perform. Just as they started though, the wind started to pick up and I pretty much knew from earlier reports that we were in for a storm. During Heaven and Hell's set the weather was okay. Really windy but that was about it. Of course all of that was about to change once Judas Priest hit the stage. Heaven and Hell finished their set and came back for one encore performance which was really cool. The stage is torn down and built back up with Judas Priest's stuff. I actually really liked watching them tear down the sets. The precision and teamwork involved was really interesting to see.

About 30 min later out comes Judas Priest. The best way to describe my reaction to seeing Judas Priest is... "What the f**k is this?" LOL. Just really kinda weird and in contrast to Heaven and Hell I could NOT understand a word this guy was saying! Just a lot of yelling into the microphone and looking really scary. Everyone around me seemed to enjoy it though, including John. But I must say that it was an interesting experience and I am glad that I went. I will have to say though that I think Rob Halford's attire was a bit of a distraction and kind of overshadowed the music. Just my opinion though - he is out there!

After about 2 or 3 songs from Judas Priest the weather really got crazy. The wind was out of control and then all of a sudden the rain started. No big deal right? After all we are under the pavilion so we are cool. Nope! Didn't anticipate that the rain would be going sideways! We were drenched. Everyone was drenched. Then is just got really freaking cold. Didn't realize until we were starting to leave the parking lot, how bad the storm actually was. We were dodging trees - whole trees - trying to get out of the parking lot! Got the kids and finally got home around midnight. All in all - it was great and I enjoyed it and I know that John really enjoyed it and that makes me happy.

Tropical Storm Gustav - maybe Hurricane Gustav?

Okay folks, I have to admit that I am starting to get a little nervous about the trip. I know, we are still 3 days away from leaving, but the latest reports regarding Gustav do not sound promising. John is doing his best to reassure me though, but still nervous.

Forecasters are warning that Gustav has the potential to grow into a perilous Category 3 Hurricane and approach the Gulf Coast by Monday morning. Hello? Smack dab during the time we will be there and driving our merry little way through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and then finally reaching Pensacola, Florida. All near the Gulf Coast Highways, I might add. John is more confident than me obviously as he is saying the only thing we really need to worry about is if the roads are flooded and closed. I'm thinking flooded/closed roads are the least of our concerns, but I am leaving it to the expert (John) when it comes to safety and traveling. Still...

John and I are going to be very, very busy for the next few days, packing, packing and more packing! I am really trying to limit the stuff I bring, but 2 kids and 2 weeks, how can you possibly? Need to keep reminding myself that we aren't going deep into the Amazon for 2 weeks where there won't be any stores or malls. So, I am safe there at least and helps me to try to pack less.

Tomorrow night is... gulp... Judas Priest and Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath w/o Ozzy). John is really excited. Me? Hmm... Let me get back to you on that one. I know I will be totally out of my element. I told John that I should probably borrow some of his cd's so that I can listen to them before the concert to prepare. John stated that there is no way to prepare myself for the "pure evil" I will be witnessing first hand. LOL. He cracks me up! So, I don't know any songs, but I am staying positive that it will be fun and it will be a great opportunity for John and I to get out together w/o the kids. Thanks again Tracee! You're the best. More to follow on this exciting event...

Priceless...

Little Tykes Cozy Coupe Car from ToysRUs...$59.99
The look of sheer terror on Asa's face with Lexi at the wheel... PRICELESS!!!

I absolutely love this picture! The look on both of their faces is priceless! Can we assume that Asa will NOT be teaching Lexi how to drive? LOL!


Really cute picture of Lexi snuggling up to Asa to give him a kiss. I'm so grateful that they love eachother so much!

More great pictures from the past weekend...

Asa ready to go for another ride around the family room and kitchen in the empty diaper box. Hey, where's Gamma?


Sharing pictures with Gammama (Great Grandma Paisley).

Share and Share alike...

It's a rare event when I let Asa have a water bottle. Typically within a few minutes in Asa's possession, water is everywhere! Instead of a mess, Asa decided to be a sweet brother and share the water bottle with Lexi.

Asa's turn first...


Okay, Lexi now you can have some, but only I can hold it and I want it back!


Lexi obviously not cool with Asa wanting the bottle back. Here she is reaching for it and then the power struggle began and soon I had to break it up.

Weekend Fun with Gamma & Gampa

What a fun weekend we had! Gamma and Gampa came over and stayed with us all the way through Sunday. And you know Asa and Lexi LOVED that! They love them so much!

Lexi is getting really good at standing up by herself now. She will stand up from a squatting position. Not quite walking by herself yet. She will walk with you holding on to one of your hands and usually has a big smile on her face as she goes. She wants to walk but not quite sure of her footing yet to let go and do it herself. She will take a few steps and then she sits back down. She gets where she wants to go much faster crawling any way. She is a marathon crawler. John and I joke that we should enter her in one of those 'diaper derbies' and she would probably win.

The pictures below are from Gamma's camera. I haven't downloaded the ones from our camera yet, but will do that tonight.


Lexi's new favorite toy is Asa's car. She loves to get in and out of it and most of the time (as in the picture above) she is facing backwards. However, sometimes she does turn herself around and will play with the steering wheel and honk the horn. She loves it and giggles every time!


Gamma took Asa and Lexi for a ride in the diaper box around the family room and kitchen. Gamma went pretty fast and they all had a great time with a lot of laughs, smiles and squeals. Gamma was a little out of breath in the end though, but she loved doing it just to hear them laugh!


Here is a pic of Gammama and Asa. They are looking at pictures I printed of Asa and Lexi in their little red wagon.

And of course, here is our smiling happy boy. Loves his Gamma and always has a cute little dimpled smile ready and waiting for her! This is one of the best pictures taken of him. What a handsome little guy!

I will download the pic's from our camera tonight and put them on the blog tomorrow. Lots to do this week with packing and getting ready for the Florida trip!

Little Red Wagon

Due to demand, here are some more pic's of Asa and Lexi in the wagon! Enjoy! Have a great weekend everyone!

My Friend...

This has got to be the sweetest thing I have ever heard. Last week at daycare, Asa's teacher was talking to the kids about 'friends'. She asked all the kids to draw a picture of their 'friend' and she came around to ask them who thier friend was. When she got to Asa she asked "Who is your friend?" Asa replied, "Lexi". How adorable is that? Today when I dropped them off at daycare, I picked up Asa's artwork and there was the picture he drew of Lexi and written on it was 'My friend Lexi'. I almost cried! I can't get over how much they really do love eachother.


Saturday, we all went to the DiCamillo's for Thomas' birthday party. It was a pirate theme and so much fun! Asa and Lexi loved being in the pool and had a really great time. Asa loved playing with a little girl named 'Ava' that was there. Actually it was funny because a majority of the kids that were there had first names starting with A's. Parents were calling the wrong name pretty much all day, it got really confusing! Asa got to pull the string on the pinata and thought that was pretty cool, especially when the kid after him pulled the string that released all the candy. Lexi was pure joy the entire day. Crawled every where in Tracee's house (in record breaking speed, I might add) and was just having a ball being around all the excitement of kids running around. Thanks Tracee for such a great time!

We love Bath Time!!

Aren't they cute?

Bath time is such a great time to unwind with the kids. It's got to be one of my most favorite parts of the day. They are winding down from their busy day and just ate dinner. This is when they are usually the calmest, I put emphasis on usually. Notice the picture to the left. Lexi loves to watch everything that her brother does. She is completely fascinated by him and follows him just about everywhere - even in the tub - just to see what he is doing and to be close to him. They really do love eachother. And for the most part he puts up with it because he loves her too and likes it when she is around.

These pictures are from last night and they had so much fun! Asa and Lexi LOVE to take a bath, especially when I put in "bubbles". Most of the time they are so excited about bath time that they are trying to get in the tub before I can get all of their clothes off! I took some really great pictures, but I got a stern warning from my husband that I CANNOT put any pictures of them showing anything "personal". Really sucks, cuz there is a really cute "butt" picture with the two of them standing side by side. I understand his concern though - too many weirdo's out there and this isn't a private blog. So adoreable. I guess I will just have to save those pictures for future meetings with potential girlfriends and boyfriends! Can we say "blackmail"!! LOL.

Have a great weekend everyone!

"Let's go under there!"

Last night, Asa and mommy got some one-on-one time upstairs while Lexi and daddy stayed downstairs and watched football. Asa and I sat on the bed and watched 'A Goofy Movie' and then 'Big Brother' together. During one of the commercials Asa kept asking me something but I wasn't sure what he was saying. Finally, I realized he was saying "let's go under there" and pointing to the blanket on the bed. He wanted to get under the blanket. This is where all the fun started for us! Asa and I crawled under the blanket and sat up with just our heads holding the blanket up. It was a light blanket, so we were able to see eachother. He had the biggest smile on his face and thought it was so neat! We laughed and played under the blanket for what seemed like 10 minutes. We sang songs and I laughed all the way through them at how hard Asa tries. He's got the general theme of the song down, but the words still aren't all there yet. But the way he moves his hands while singing is so fun to watch! We started with 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' and 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', then I thought for fun I would see how much of his ABC's he knew and as soon as we got to H he had lost interest and started singing 'Hap Birday, Gamma' (his favorite song).

The funniest part of the night (although probably not for John) was when John came in to the room to lay down in bed and Asa yelled, "No daddy!" and crawled on top of me and told John to "go away". Such a momma's boy!

Sweet little Lexi - what do you say about her, other than that? She's just the sweetest, prettiest thing in the world. She's getting better at standing by herself for longer periods although she prefers not to. This week we are on step 2 of weaning her off of formula. Our goal is for her to be on cows milk only by the time she turns 1 (in less than a month). So this week is 1/2 formula and 1/2 milk in her bottle per feeding. We are also trying to get her more comfortable wearing shoes. She looked so cute this morning with her bright pink sundress on with her cute little pink sandals that match. Of course, she had taken them off twice before I even got her into the daycare this morning.

Cuts... Scrapes... Bruises... OH MY!!

As in usual fashion, repeated week after week, Asa comes home from school on Monday with more cuts, scrapes and bruises. This will undoubtedly continue through the rest of the week. Poor thing, gets so beat up. But he doesn't complain much and I guess it's all part of being a "boy". He falls, doesn't pay attention to where he is going, or has minor confrontations with "friends". Yesterday he came home with a new cut on his top lip. Asa pointed to his mouth and tells me, "Broken mouth, friend did it". Any time he gets hurt, it's always "broken". When he fell and got a bloody nose a few months back, he was convinced that his nose was "broken". So now his mouth is "broken".

Lexi FINALLY slept last night, which meant mommy and daddy got to sleep too!! It was wonderful. However, it took her until 9:30 to really go to sleep. John and I were so exhausted from being up with her Monday morning from 1:30 to 4:30 a.m. Between the both of us, I think John and I only got around 3 hours of sleep before work on Monday. It was a looooong day!

This morning getting ready for school, I was singing 'If you're happy and you know it' to Lexi and Asa. When we got to the 'clap your hands' part, Lexi started clapping! Not sure if she knew the song and knew what to do or was mimicking Asa clapping, but it was really cute and made me laugh and smile.

Markers are so much FUN!!!

Who knew that an 11 mo old could create such a masterpiece... in her mouth!! John took one look at her and laughed and said she looked like Gene Simmons of KISS. So here is Lexi doing her best Gene Simmons impression. Seems like all the best pictures I get of both of them are when they are sitting in their highchairs. I guess it's because they are actually both sitting still. Still need to get the manual out for the camera and figure out how to adjust the shutter speed so I can get better 'action' pictures.

Here is the explanation for the picture of Asa... He decided that he wanted to wear his Reebok shirt, but he insisted that he put it on himself. As much as I want to skip this whole "independent" stage, I decided that I would let him. So you see, that he did in fact get the shirt on himself. It was backwards and only one arm managed to get through the sleeve, but he did it. It was really cute and I was very proud of him for doing it himself. He wore the shirt that way for the next 4 hours and would not take it off or let me "fix" it. Isn't his smile just priceless? Love his cheeks!

John and I took the kids in the backyard on Sunday while John mowed the grass. Of course, Asa saw John with the big mower and had to get his 'bubble mower' out. It was one of those sweet father-son moments that I will remember for the rest of my life. John and Asa, side by side, each with thier own mowers and Asa had the biggest smile on his face, being able to 'help' daddy mow the lawn. He followed John all over the backyard with his mower.

Friday night, Asa wanted to watch cartoons before dinner. Apparently I didn't answer him or take action fast enough so he got right in front of my face and said, "Hand me remote!" What the ....? Where does he learn this stuff? Of course I just laughed at him and asked him who he thought he was, but eventually we turned it to cartoons. Later we watched the Olympic Opening Cermony and Asa was riveted. He especially liked the part in the beginning with all the lighted drums. That was really cool! Lexi is still working on walking and standing independently, we're getting there! Asa is doing really good with his potty training. Not in the pull-up stage yet, but getting close!

Leaf...Butterfly...Tree

Last night we were treated to the most beautiful lightening show I have ever seen! I even got both Asa and John out of bed so they both could watch it with me. Asa didn't get it at first, but then I pointed it out to him and told him it was lightening. I knew he finally realized what it was when he said, "Lightening in sky!"

This morning as I was putting Asa in the car, he saw a leaf on the ground and said, "Butterfly!". It really did look just like a butterfly! I let him pick it up and then explained to him that it was a "leaf" that came from a "tree". After that he kept saying, "Leaf, Butterfly, Tree". He held it in his sweet hands all the way to daycare and wanted to show everyone there his "butterfly". So precious.

During dinner last night, Asa sang to us. One of his favorite songs right now is 'Happy Birthday'. Not really sure why though. Of course he doesn't know the actual words, just 'Happy Birthday' and he throws in "Gamma" at the end. So last night during dinner all we heard was, "Hap Birday, Gamma!" over and over again. Each time getting slightly louder. I really do need to get that on the camcorder one of these days!

Lexi continues her babbling streak, without saying really anything. 11 mo's and still no words really, except for "uhoh" when she drops something. Can that actually count as a first word? She does say "dada", but again not really sure if that is a word in reference to 'daddy' or just babbling. So for now, "uhoh" is pretty much it. Doesn't really matter though, she will talk when she is ready. Right now we just love to hear her pretty voice. It's like angels singing no matter what comes out.

Apparently some people were upset that I didn't include any pictures of the kids on my first post. Thank you, Cheryl, for allowing me to see the error of my ways! Here they are - our precious children - Asa (aka "Monkey") and Alexandra (Lexi aka "Eagle").

Welcome to our Blog!!

Welcome everyone! Better late than never right? My goal is to keep this blog going with regular updates and pictures so everyone can see what's happening in the Abbott household. I may not update it every day, but I will try. And I promise to add pictures in a more timely manner rather than bombard you all with e-mails containing 8 pictures at a time. This going to be fun and I am really excited to get this going. So please save this under your list of 'favorites' and check back often for pictures, cute stories and updates.

Yesterday, Lexi turned 11 mo's old. Unbelievable, I know. I can't believe that she will be a year old in one month! Time goes by way to fast. We took her and Asa to Red Robin for a mini-celebration. Lexi shared Chicken Strips and Fries with her brother. Asa pretty much ate everything and so did Lexi. Lexi and Asa also got to share mommy's 'Freckled Lemonade' which is basically a Strawberry Lemonade and very, very good. And of course, mommy gave Asa and Lexi the strawberries, which they loved or as Asa says, "Like it! Yum! Yum!" And if you ever get the urge to go there yourselves, make sure you get the 'Bruschetta Chicken Burger'. It was soooo good, and is served with these awesome Parmesean Garlic French Fries. Yum-O!

Almost forgot - even though Lexi is not 'officially' walking yet, she made some great steps yesterday at daycare. She was standing up, holding on to my pants with one hand, and took a few steps with me before she decided to sit down. It was so exciting! So we know she can do it, just waiting for her to realize it.