Back to work

Sorry it's been awhile since my last post! Last week I was busy playing Tchaikovsky with the Florida Orchestra. As part of the Shakespeare Festival, the orchestra performed 3 works based on Shakespeare plays: The Tempest, Hamlet, and Romeo & Juliet. Actors performed a 10 minute scene before each piece, which ended up being pretty entertaining. If you're interested, here's the review. You can see me in the very back of the picture if you squint a little: http://www.tampabay.com/features/performingarts/florida-orchestra-teams-up-with-shakespeare/1272274

I had a few calls for gigs earlier this month that I had to turn down and I was feeling frustrated about having to do so. However...when I was in rehearsals for the Tchaikovsky gig I found myself just wanting to be back at home with Abigail! This was definitely a good lesson for me. 

My friend Beth watched Abigail on Tuesday and Thursday while I had back-to-back rehearsals from 10:00-4:30 in St. Pete. Miss Abby was a stinker and would not take a bottle from Beth! Our sweet little girl went that entire time without eating but she still didn't get fussy. She was just waiting for her mommy to get home. *sigh* I wonder where she gets this stubbornness?! 

I also went back to teaching at Polk State a few weeks ago. I dropped the Music Appreciation class and my trumpet students so now I'm only teaching Horn lessons on Mondays. It's nice to make the drive out there just once a week. My friend Jessica agreed to babysit for us on Mondays and the first time I dropped her off Abigail started crying and then I lost it, too. I ended up crying half of the drive to school! It was heartbreaking. Jessica was the first non-family member we've ever left our daughter with. Thankfully, there were no tears from either of us this past Monday.

Looking back, I suppose this month has been a big one for us when it comes to being apart and trusting other people to care for our precious little girl. I definitely find myself wishing we lived closer to our families.

I've been taking some pictures on my phone, so I'll leave you with a small collection. 

This little girl loves her mornings! She always wakes up bright eyed and happy.

She's also getting big enough to play in her Jumperoo. She can play on her own for awhile without needing mommy to entertain her.

One thing our happy little girl is NOT a fan of is tummy time. She'll last a little longer if we prop her up on her Boppy. I tell Robert that I expect her to walk before she crawls. Her legs are super strong while her arms are pretty wussy. :)

Look at how big she's gettting!

3 months old

Our beautiful little girl is 3 months old today! Abigail is now grabbing onto things. A few favorites include the dangling monkey on her play mat as well as mommy's hair. :) She also has really strong legs and loves to stand up on our lap while we support her. Our favorite development, however, has to be her laugh. I would have imagined her to have a delicate, high pitched little girl laugh but no...it's very deep and guttural. It's hilarious to observe and usually leads to laughing fits for the entire family.

As usual, Abby hammed it up for our photo shoot. 

Usually I'm behind the camera, so I'm very grateful to Robert for taking some photos of me with our little girl. These have become some of my favorite photos...ever!

By the way, this "little" girl is already wearing size 6 month clothes. I even put her in 9 month pj's tonight. I held her on the scale (so not entirely accurate) and she weighed almost 17 pounds. Up 3 pounds from last month!

Here's to the next 3 months!

morning photo shoot

I love this little girl so much. These pictures make my heart burst!

Hello, 2013!

Happy New Year! I love the fresh start of a new year. Enthusiasm! Ambition! Goals! Checklists! Robert was a good sport and listened to me rattle off ideas for resolutions for the year. I even typed them all up in monthly a Word document to keep us honest. One of our goals is to read more. Robert is aiming for 2 books/month while my goal is 1 book/month. We also want to read 6 books together over the course of the year. I'm calling it the Robster/Bobster Book Club. First up? 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

We also want to be better about using our cookbooks and food magazines so our goal is to make 1 new recipe each week. The recipe we tried this week was a healthy version of mac & cheese from the magazine Eating Well. It is made with whole wheat pasta and "cream sauce without the cream" -- leading me to agree with the 2 out of 5 stars that the recipe earned online. While it wasn't terrible, I think mac & cheese deserves more respect...and calories. :)

Here's a link to the recipe (after that glowing endorsement!) as well as a picture taken from the website: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/mac_and_cheese.html

One of my own goals is to bake something new at least once a month. We had 4 very ripe bananas so I tried a new banana bread recipe from the cookbook flour my friend Marci gave to me for my birthday. This recipe was a definite success and I highly recommend you give it a try the next time you have old bananas sitting around. It looks like I'm not the only one who gives it 5 stars:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giadas-weekend-getaways/flours-famous-banana-bread-recipe/index.html

In non-resolution news, my friend Margaret from Ohio State visited us the past couple of days. She plays horn and is headed to Key West for a gig. It was wonderful catching up with her and she and Abigail hit it off right away. Abby was particularly entertained by Margaret singing Beatles songs. :) Although you can't tell from this picture, she smiled and laughed at Margaret quite a bit. Thanks so much for visiting!