This is what happened when I left Elijah to feed Abby Jo her cereal.

Abby Jo may be my fourth baby, but she is just as much of a joy as my first was. To be quite honest, I’ve enjoyed her the most of all my babies. I think it’s cause she’s the baby. Like…the baby. I don’t worry about much with her. I’ve done it all before…a few times. She eats, she sleeps, she poops, she plays, she laughs. That’s just about it. I don’t freak out about the many variations of each of those activities.

Abby is delightful. She wakes me up every morning smiling and laughing at me. I am not a morning person, and, on the mornings that I have a hard time keepiung my eyes open, she tugs at my sleeve, talking to me, till I open my eyes enough to see her grinning her 100 watt smile at me. Everyone loves her. You can’t help it. On top of having the world’s best personality, she likes everyone, AND she’s beautiful.

While Abby has been pretty small all along, I haven’t freaked out about it like we did over Owen being small. I did realize, though, that she was pretty underweight, even though she was completely healthy and happy, so I started giving her baby food a little earlier than the other kids, when she was three and a half months old.

At her four month checkup, Abby Jo had gained about a pound. She was still pretty underweight, weighing in at eleven pounds two ounces. She’s tiny, but she’s awesome.

She can roll over both ways, and is reaching for people and things. She scoots around the floor now, and it won’t be long till she’s getting into trouble. She loves to watch her brothers and sister play. She loves to watch whatever is going on around her, and is a very happy baby. She is talking to anyone who will listen lately. Have I mentioned that she’s totally awesome?

I’ll leave you with a few photos I took yesterday. Besides being unbelievably adorable, you can really see the difference in her since we added the baby food calories to her diet. Her face has really filled out a lot.

Here’s a link to my Facebook album.

Since Chris has been gone to Fort Jackson since early July, the kids and I made the trip to South Carolina to see him this weekend. The drive wasn’t too bad. The kids were mostly good, and Abby never really cried…only fussed till her big sister put her paci in. I was making good time until Elijah needed an unplanned bathroom stop, and then all the kids had to go. Then, not longer after that stop, Kyra said, “Owen has something yucky on his shirt and pants.” I turned to look, and saw that Owen had thrown up on himself. I was on the phone with Chris at the time, and said, “Great! Owen threw up.” When he heard me say this, Owen immediately started crying. It was quite a ways to the next exit, and Owen fell asleep while I was driving. This prompted a phone discussion with Amy on whether or not it made me a bad mom if I kept on driving while Owen was covered in puke, since he went to sleep and it didn’t smell that bad. I drove a while, but then I started smelling it so I stopped and cleaned him up. (This retelling reminded me that his pukey clothes are still in the van tied up in a little, scented, blue, plastic bag. I think I’ll be tossing that!)

Besides that and a homicidal truck driver who tried to run me off the road, it was an uneventful trip. We made it to Fort Jackson, and got to see Daddy. He was out in the parking lot of the hotel waiting on us. The kids were ecstatic to see him, and I think he felt the same about seeing us. We really miss him when he’s not home!

We went to Outback right away, and then came back to the hotel. Chris had to stay up late working on homework for CHBOLC. He didn’t get in bed till after midnight, and then had to get up at four for PT.

On Friday, we hung around the hotel until he got off, and then went to Applebees and to Walmart to buy swim stuff for the kids since I didn’t bring theirs. Chris went to sleep pretty early since he only got four hours sleep. On Saturday, we went to the zoo here in Columbia which was pretty fun. I’ll have to add pictures of that later, since they’re all on Chris’ computer. We ate at Maurice’s BBQ, which was kind of interesting but good, and then came back to the hotel. Chris took the three big kids swimming, and Abby Jo and I took a long nap. That was about it for Saturday. Today, we went to IHOP for breakfast, and then went to the Sesquintennial State Park and then to see G-Force at the movies. After the movie, we went to Rita’s Frozen Custard, and enjoyed some Italian ices and frozen custard. It was absolutely delicious! Today is the only day I took photos on my iPhone, so I can add the pics from today. Enjoy!

Waiting for IHOP is not much fun…but worth it!

This is at the park, where it was crazy hot…like around 98, I think. This isn’t the best photo, but I added it because I love Abby Jo’s expression. She looks like, “You call this fun?!?”

Elijah at the park.

Hot, little Abby Jo after having her diaper changed on a picnic table. She was still smiling, even though she was sooo over the whole thing.

Kyra sitting pretty in the shade.

Chris at the park, with Elijah in the background.

At Rita’s, they promised me happiness. I love the sign in the upper right that tells you where to order happiness. They came through. We were happy!

Kyra got some sort of strawberry flavor of Italian ice.

Owen and I had passion fruit.

After everyone ate their individual treats, Daddy went and ordered us all a large chocolate vanilla twist custard to share. We were very excited!

Ready? Set? Go!!!

I know, I know. I’m a sucky blogger. It’s true.

My life has been so full lately. I was blogging pretty regularly before Abby Jo was born, but the combination of the new baby and Facebook took a lot of my blogging energies. And, to be honest, I have been dealing with some pretty tough depression for a while that I didn’t care to blog about. I’m feeling better for now, though, and I want to get up to date on here.

Here’s the quick version of what’s been up with me, and I’ll blog more about them in separate posts later. Abby Jo is doing great. She’s four and a half months old, and is absolutely beautiful. You can click here to see some recent pics I uploaded to Facebook. Chris left in July for Fort Jackson, SC, where he is finishing up CHBOLC. He’s getting ever closer to being a chaplain. The kids and I are in SC right now, visiting him for the weekend. A week before he left, Amy and her kids came to stay with us for a while. Joel was gone on Army orders and they were in transition with their living situation, so they just moved in with me for a month. About a week after Amy came, my friend, Taylor, moved in with us as well. She’s expecting my little nephew in November, and is staying with us for a while.

I think that covers most of my summer in headlines. I’ll blog the details later in their own posts. I have lots of photos to upload, but I’ll have to do that on Chris’ computer. My (brand new!!!) laptop doesn’t have a card reader. If anyone is still here, leave me a quick comment. It’s motivating to blog more often when I know I still have someone reading.

Until next time!