Our Toddler

My mother-in-law made the comment tonight that we no longer have a baby, we have a toddler.  She is very right.  I knew it was true, but to have someone else say it made it more of a reality.

Aberly woke up a few days ago a different little girl.  If you are a parent, you understand this.  You can't describe it, you just KNOW they are different.  They have more abilities, they understand more, they are more grown up, they are just more. 

Aberly's vocabulary grows and grows and she is very good at trying to copy a lot of what we say.  She just picked up "cheek" and loves to point them out on our faces all the time as she burns it into her knowledge base.  Some of her fun new ones are milk, nukkers, blankie, dumbo, truck, car, house, owie, push, helmet, meat, outside, inside, treat, cookie, cracker, almost, and brush.

She has figured out how to open all doors (which allowed her to slip out my friend's sliding door today out around their pool while we talked today!), how to ride her trike, how to jump, run, play chase, and play in her sandbox.  She is also becoming a lot more adventurous and strong, which allowed her to pull over a propped door against the wall on herself (it was off it's hinges due to a refrigerator being moved) and got a big scare and egg on her forehead when it fell on her.  Don't worry, she is okay.

As for me and Colin, we are continuing to try to keep up with her along with prepping for our move.  She keeps us on our toes and keeps us laughing.  She is quite a little ham.  We are very lucky parents.

 Pretending to sleep

 Hi Mom!

 Family picture on a hike at Tumalo Falls in Bend.

 Walking by herself like a big girl.

 Lunch break! Happy hiker!

 Getting help from Uncle Connor on the way down.

Coming out to "help" dad after her bath. 

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Summer fun!

After a stressful week of just life, we seriously contemplated cancelling the garage sale we had planned for July 9th.  We didn't have lots of stuff and were feeling unmotivated to get it set up, things priced, etc...  LUCKILY we decided to forge onward and got everything put together on Friday.

Good thing we did.  After the garage sale and some Craiglist sales for items not purchased at the garage sale, we walked away with $300!  What a blessing because we need to buy the other two tires for our Camry that we didn't replace in the fall. 

Life is good otherwise.  Still busy and the summer is flying by. 

We found a great deal on rolling duffel bags at Costco ($40 each) and some suitcases at Bass outlet that we can check on the plane for our move.  We decided to take everything with us on the plane because oddly, checking a 50 lb bag on an international flight ($200) is cheaper than shipping a 50 lb box via FedEx ($500).  This will greatly alleviate our packing time and we will use the remainder of our shipping/settling in allowance from the school to buy what we need once we get to Oman.  There is an IKEA in Dubai that we'll hit on weekend after we get settled, and there are toy stores and the European equivalent to Walmart locally in Muscat that we can get things at as well.

Aberly is having a great summer and loves being outside.  Here are a few pics of us and our girl enjoying summer!