Abby's Dup-day

Abby had such a great day on her birthday. She can't really say the word birthday, so she says "dup-day." She kept saying all day long "My dup-day come home today!" She received a few cards in the mail this week, and they contained special little "bonuses." (thanks grandma Debbie and Great Grandma Rowlett). She was so excited. And both times when she was instructed to go show mom what she got, she dropped the additive and ran over with the card, screaming in delight.
Thursday morning, Jodi went out and got her 24 balloons and came home with them - and Abby went nuts. This is a girl that totally loves it when she gets one balloon. Come in with 24, and she'll hit the roof.

She spent the better part of the morning pulling the balloons around, separating them out by color then bunching them up again, and relishing the joy that comes from having 24 balloons. Maybe she gets it from me - I remember getting a stuffed animal in a basket tied to balloons when I was young, and it was the coolest thing ever for me. Or maybe it's just that balloons are so cool.
Foregoing the traditional cake, we opted for cupcakes. This way, we figured Abby could help decorate them. We had bought sprinkles and little stars that could go on them, and she had fun spreading the icing and putting the stars on.



Abby's finished product. She is so proud!

So after singing, blowing out the candles (in three puffs; one for each candle), and eating cupcakes (Abby only ate the top off of it where the stars were, then didn't want any more), we moved on to the goods. This was the part she had been waiting for - she knew there would be presents coming, and every day since she has been asking if it's her dup-day again and if she can have more presents. I'll just post a few pics of her opening them - and please ignore the wrapping paper. She doesn't know the difference, and we wanted to use it up and not have to worry about moving wrapping paper. Yeah, yeah, we're cheapskates. But honestly, it's just ripped off and discarded, so it's not that important.


Cheeseball

She looks thrilled. I promise, though, she really does like it.


This was her big present - a baby doll that came with a stroller and a bunch of accessories from Nona and Doo-dah.

It's obvious that she did like this one.
So the baby doll went over real big, and it has those little cups that you can pretend to feed the baby and the liquid disappears, then you put it right-side up and the liquid comes back (I'm explaining it bad, but I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about - these things used to be amazing to me, I couldn't figure them out). Abby was also somewhat confused about how it works. Where did it go?

All in all, though, the day was quite successful. I think that Abby had a really great day, and in the future will remember that a dup-day means a good day. Oh, and in nursery today at church one of the leaders was saying that Abby was 2. I was informed that she emphatically and repeatedly corrected him and said she was 3. They all had a good laugh about it.
In other news, Jodi was authorized to take the Nursing boards this week and signed up. She originally wanted to take them in Richmond, but there were no available dates for a month. After making some calls, she discovered that a testing site in Vienna (VA, not Austria) had an opening today (June 1). There was also an opening next week, but she chose not to take it because it's our last day in our ward and there is a work party that we were going to go to. So she gave herself 3 days to cram. And she did - and let me tell you, some of the questions are completely ridiculous. ever wonder about the colors in hospitals? I know that they try to choose colors that are somewhat soothing (and who decides that? Maybe some people are calmed by a jet black room, ever think of that?), but I never realized that the nurses were in charge of that. Okay, I don't really think that they are, but the wording of one review question pretty much said that. I understand that the topic of wall colors is one of the crises faced in our nation's health care, but I don't think they ever lectured on it.
So she took the boards today and I'm sure she did well. She will still have to be on pins and needles until the results come back, but at least it's done. Now she can focus on more important things like what colors we should make the walls in our new place.