And in this corner . . .

Happy New Year! Yes, it has been forever! I don't know how that happened. Christmas went well for us and Abbie was particularly thrilled because we actually got a little bit of snow. She kept going out to play with it, but kept coming back inside soaking wet every few minutes. As soon as she got her clothes changed she was ready to go back out. Round and round it went with the pile of wet clothes growing and growing. She was happy, though.

One of her Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa was a Kindle. She has quickly devoured all the books that were loaded on it and we have had to load more already. We were stunned at how fast she was reading and we were a bit skeptical. Perhaps she was unknowingly skipping pages?? Well, the other day, I sat down to read with her. I didn't ask her to read to me. Rather, we both read the pages silently to ourselves. Like clockwork, she would try to turn the page about a paragraph before I was done. Maybe it was because she had read it before and I had not, but we have also started to wonder if she may just be a bit of a natural speed-reader. Of course, in classic Abbie fashion, we tried to explain to her that she may have a gift and she just sulked and got all annoyed and offended. :) She definitely loves to read, though, and always complains about how she never has enough time to read. She has even gotten in trouble at school because her teacher will find Abbie with her nose in a book when she is supposed to be listening to directions or doing other work.

Anyway, with Christmas behind us, we are all enjoying the new year, and it turns out that the kids in Abbie's class at school were asked to make New Years Resolutions. Here are Abbie's:

All sounds good to me. As for violin, she is doing great. We are really starting to make some progress now - playing on all four strings rather than just the E-string, playing different rhythms, practicing playing in unison with the group. All good stuff.

Of course, there is less of Abbie in the new year - she now has three missing teeth on top and one missing on the bottom. Also, there is another on the bottom that is loose. It won't be long and we'll have to start pureeing meals for our little prize fighter.

Kind of a goofy photo, but I think it definitely shows the massive gap. The two top, front teeth fell out naturally and the adult teeth are just beginning to poke through, but the other top tooth that came out was the result of a fall that caused Abbie to somehow hit her jaw on the floor. It didn't seem to hurt at all, but she stood up and declared that a tooth had just popped out. It must not have been held in there very well . . .

Anyway, play practice starts this Saturday, so soon I will give you an update on Abbie's life as a guppy.