Hello from Duluth

"I am determined to be more photogenic than my parents"

Sorry for the delay in posting again...it's been a busy, albeit quiet, couple of weeks. Abbie's been either growing or getting more teeth ( I KNOW!) and hasn't been sleeping very well (no, it isn't because it's too cold in her room because we won't turn the heat on. We've already learned that lesson).

Abbie and I are currently in Duluth for the weekend visiting the Maki grandparents and having a jolly ol' time. We went to a popular portrait studio this morning to have some pictures taken. Abbie's first professional photos. Here is how it went. Plop her down, shoot. Change background. Plop her down, shoot. We had three different backgrounds to work with. It was great. We only had about 3-4 good pictures, but considering that is about 30% of the total pictures taken...I suppose those are pretty good odds. Even though the pictures didn't turn out that great we still ended up spending a lot of money (at least I think it was a lot). If anyone has any suggestions as to where to go...feel free to let me know!

I guess it would also help if Abbie would stay in one spot for longer than 5 seconds (but you'd think that these are professionals and know how to take a picture in that 5 second window!).

Jinx

Per usual, I talk (or in this case type) about something and I mess it all up. It never fails. Last time I wrote about the cold weather setting in...well that's LONG gone. Last week it was cold one day and we actually had to TURN ON THE HEAT! Yes, we had the heat on September 15th. This was the earliest Ed and I have ever turned on the heat (and to be honest, if we didn't have Abbie, we wouldn't have turned it on). After two nights of Abbie waking up in the wee hours because she was cold, we finally turned the heat on. Thankfully it was for just one day. The next day we had the windows open and the day after that we had the air conditioning on. Is this what Global Warming is all about? (HA!) We broke down again today and turned the air conditioning back on....so much for the start of fall!

We took a small road trip yesterday to Northfield and saw some pretty trees. Other than that nothing else is new here. Pretty boring and quiet, but that's ok.

Ed is going to download some pictures, so we'll update pretty soon....HOPEFULLY!

9 Month Update and the end of Summer

It hasn't been that long since the HOT weather was here. The cold definitely seems to have settled in for the duration (of course I say this and we will probably have a 90 degree day next week!). For labor day, we had a picnic at the Hidden Falls Regional Park in St. Paul. Abbie had a blast! Fortunately for us, she loves her stroller and doesn't put up too much of a fuss when we want to go on a long walk.

"Yeah, I'm just hanging out...let's ride."

Since it was so hot that day, we decided to get out the kiddie pool and filler up! It was a blast. Abbie had a wonderful time splashing and crawling around. This was only the second time she had been in the pool this summer and I must say that the second time around went much better! She will have a great time next summer.

"Why won't this duckie stay still!"

Over the past week or so, Abbie has become a bit of a klutz (or maybe we've slacked off on paying as close attention as we should, it's a toss up!). She has two scrapes on her forehead right now. I feel like such a bad mom every morning when I bring her to daycare. But then I remember that we have MANY more bumps and bruises to come and considering how active Abbie is, this is NOTHING compared to what we will probably see in the not so distant future.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Well, we've had some pretty somber days here at the Baggenstoss house. It is amazing how quiet it is around here (although, our neighbors are probably a bit thankful) now that Chelsea is not barking at every squirrel, rabbit, person, dog, cat, leaf that makes it way past one of the 30 windows in our house. We were excited for a bit of a distraction and Abbie was able to provide that to us. Yesterday we took Abbie to the eye doctor and her pediatrician for 9month well-visit. The eye doctor went great and Abbie is, of course, perfect! Abbie only received 2 shots at the pediatrician this time and was an absolute champ and hardly cried! Here are Abbie's 9 month stats:

18 lbs 4 oz - 25-50th percentile

26 1/2 inches- 10-25th percentile



She is still such a little peanut, but that's ok. She continues to develop and grow like crazy, even if she seems small. We finally got a good picture of all of her Teeth!

"Cheese!"

In Memory of Chelsea

We apologize that some of you are hearing about this for the first time via Abbie's Blog, however we are not quite ready to make phone calls spreading the news. Thank you for your understanding.

For those of you who may not know, our first "child" Chelsea has suffered from a fairly rare kidney disorder, Polycystic Kidney Disease, for all of her life. For the most part she has acted like a typical Wheaten Terrier, spunky, crazy!, loves to jump and give kisses, ears were her favorite (followed by a close second of belly buttons!). However, over the past few weeks she has been acting very strange and not at all like herself. Even so, we were quite surprised when Chelsea woke us up early this morning and was bleeding from her nose. We of course went into panic mode. Ed brought Chelsea to the emergency vet and found out that her blood is not clotting. The treatment for this disorder would take months and would be really hard on her kidneys. There is also no guarantee that the treatment would work with Chelsea given her existing medical condition. We had to make hardest decision of our lives.



We dreamed of the days when Chelsea would snuggle with Abbie and sleep in her room as she grew older. While we know that will not happen, we are glad that Abbie was able to get to know Chelsea, even if she won't remember her! We are just disappointed that we weren't able to get a good video of the two of them.

We will miss you Chelsea...Love, Mom & Papa & Abbie

8 and counting

I realized today that Abbie has yet another tooth (now..if we could just work on that hair!). That makes a total of 8, with equal number on top and bottom. Pretty soon she is going to be ready for some prime rib!

Abbie took her first real tumble, unfortunately I don't have pictures to prove it yet. She was trying to WALK from one chair to the table and well...it didn't go so well. At first I thought we would have to bring her to the ER, but all is well and she was fine after about 15 minutes. let me tell you, trying to apply ice (as they say to do in all the baby/toddler books in the 'first aid' section) is not at all possible on a 9 month old. What were they thinking?

"Don't laugh, I look cool in my shades! "

"Smile! He He! And give me some food!"