Phishing is real

I'm back in the land of the living, having taken my last final yesterday afternoon. That's such a liberating feeling. I'm so glad that I will never have another December ruined by the gloom and doom of final exams (and no, I am not going back to school after this). Just counting down the days to graduation (150 left) now that I'm down to my last semester. It's kind of surreal, but amazingly exciting.

Anyway, on to the matter at hand.

Phishing scams are real. We almost learned that the hard way last week. I got an e-mail from our bank saying that my online User ID had reached the maximum number of incorrect log-ins. So, it told me to follow this link to verify my information.
So I clicked on the link, and it took me to the bank's website, where I logged in. Then it brought up a screen that asked for a bunch of my info. But, it asked for everything, like my social security number, account number, etc. So I got suspicious. Then I noticed that in the URL for the website, there were a few extra words that didn't look right. So I stopped and closed the browser.

A few days later, I tried to login to our account, and my User Id was rejected. I called the bank, and after 35 minutes on hold, finally talked to someone. He said my ID had been compromised, so they deactivated it. So, I'm thinking that when I went to the bogus web site and logged in, they got my user ID and password and tried to use it.

Luckily, nothing bad happened. They didn't get any of our money (probably laughed when they logged in and saw the account balance). We just had to change our User ID, etc. But, the crazy thing is, the e-mail looked exactly like messages I receive a few times a week from the bank. The web site looked perfectly genuine, everything looked legit. It's tough to tell.

So, be on the lookout, my friends. It does happen.

Little Techy...

(old picture)

So...first of all, don't judge...but, Abi has been taking her naps in the car lately...well, let me rephrase that...the ONLY place she will sleep during the day is in the car...I spent alot of wasted time fighting this the past month, but now, well, I embrace it. We let her sleep in the car--pull it into the garage, close the garage door, open the car window, leave the house door open (which is right next to the car window) and let her sleep and we listen for her. We also put one of our I-pods on the White Noise app and leave it in her cup holder. When she wakes up, she starts playing with the Ipod rather than crying. It actually works pretty well.

Anyway, this morning she was napping and I was eating breakfast and doing somethings on my laptop. Then I saw that I had a new email--it was a blank email..it was from "me". I was a little confused until I opened it all the way and saw at the bottom "sent from my Ipod"....yep--Abi was awake! I guess she just wanted me to know!

Signing Time!

So we've been doing signs with Abi ever since she was a few months old...at first I didn't think she was ever going to catch on...but the last couple months--man, she is just taking off! Its so exciting and cool to see her use her signs, and now more recently she is beginning to approximate words while doing the sign! She currently does over 35 signs spontaneously on her own and can say/approximate over 20 words. Its pretty amazing to be able to communicate so well with her even though she is still so young--especially since Abi is so opinionated! She usually knows exactly what she wants, and rather than going through the whole pantry or fridge or whatever it is, or her throwing a tantrum, she just does her sign and we know exactly what she wants! Pretty cool.

I'd recommend doing signs with any baby--its easy and SO beneficial! AND, all research has shown that doing sign young leads to better communication later on. It DOES NOT inhibit verbal speech, if anything, it increases it. Sorry for the lecture, I can't help it--I've been teaching sign to my clients in early intervention for the past 2 years! Also, the "Baby Signing Time" videos are pretty good...despite the little songs that are constantly in your head! Abi loves them..one morning she woke up and the first thing she did was come to us and do the signs for "more baby signing time" over and over..it was actually pretty cute.

Anyway, here are the lists: (yes, I keep word lists--why you say?...well, I AM a Speech Pathologist, it's just in my blood I guess!)

SIGN
shoes, dog, more, milk, juice, sleep, bird, flower, please, cereal, bubbles, baby, signing time, all done, potty, diaper, open, tree, fish, eat, hat, bath, hot, water, thankyou, cat, book, phone, wait, cracker, grapes, down, cat, duck

VERBAL (consistent, spontaneous approximations)
mama, dada, juice, yogurt, milk, bubbles, down, uh-oh, yeah, no, wow, hot, all done, book, bath, wawa, wait, thank you, light, blocks, nose, cracker, I-pod (I know...crazy, but this is one of her favorite things...) :)

Photo Shoot!

My wonderful friend volunteered to take a family photo-shoot for us at Tallyrand park. Here are our favorites...THanks Michelle!!!

had to include this one...Abi had had quite enough at this point...

Our Little Lark

Tweet. Tweet.

I was reading a book..well...browsing a book...desperately looking for the easy solution/cure-all method for a child that gets up WAY too early...the book was called "The No Cry Sleep Solution"...I was feeling hopeful that SOMETHING might help...hopeful until I came across a section called "The Lark".

Basically it said--sometimes your child is just a morning person, they don't need anymore sleep at night...they wake up and want to play and are fine with that. Sorry if you are reading this and this is you.

Well guess what? I was reading that...and that was me....depressing. Apparently Abi is a Lark. I haven't given up the hope that Abi will someday sleep late (and when I say "late" I mean 6am)...but at the same time, well, lets just say that for over a month now Abi has consistently gotten up between 4am and 4:50 am...and not gone back to sleep, which means, yes, one of us or both of us also does not go back to sleep. Something magical about 4's for Abi I guess..she just can't seem to make it to the good old FIVE...nope, has to be FOUR-something. David has been amazing to get up with her most of the time, or we'll switch midway or whatever...but typically we both end up awake, because honestly its hard to sleep with a Lark tweeting around.

And you know its bad when you start waking up naturally at 4:30am (even if you go to bed at midnight) because it just "feels like you should be up". So yeah, as I'm writing this, its now 6am on Saturday, but we've been up since four...Abi is happily playing and watching baby signing times...I sent David back to bed cause he got the "first shift", and I'm here blogging...our life span shortening before my eyes due to sleep deprivation...maybe I'll start some laundry...its amazing how much you can get done before 7am when you get up early--you know what they say-- "the early bird catches the worm".

Some of you may say--put her to bed later...or, put her to bed earlier..well, we have done experimenting with this, and apparently no matter WHAT time she goes down (between 6:45 to 10pm) she still gets up the same time..So, we now, she is asleep at 7pm. Some of you may say, Maida--at least she must take an awesome nap...not true friends...she will nap ONCE a day for anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours at 9am. And then not again the rest of the day. But, like I said, she's generally very happy and pleasant.

Anyway, I've come to this conclusion: Every morning when Abi wakes up, she's upset until we stop trying to force her back to sleep...when we finally just let her play, then she's well, happy as a Lark.

Tweet. Tweet.

Halloween!

Halloween night we took Abi trick-or-treating with some friends (Ava Todd and Olivia Speer). It was pretty cool to get free candy again from strangers I have to say...even though we all felt a LITTLE sheepish going up to the door with kids that can't even eat some of the candy! Oh well... :) Abi held on VERY tight to her basket the whole time!

The three girls!!

We let Abi pick out one piece of candy to eat Halloween night. She picked the Reese's Peanut Butter cup (smart girl). Anyway, I asked if mom could have a bite and she said "no" and scooted over to a corner and ate it by herself...she really enjoyed it!

The night before halloween we had a rockin' party! And yes, Julia, of course we had a family theme! :) Little Red Riding Hood, The Grandmother (I wanted to give david a glimpse of the future), and the Huntsman (for some reason David didn't want to dress up as a big furry wolf...so he opted for the plaid flannel) note the dead "wolf" on David's belt...

Pin the heart on the skeleton!

The party spread! I was particularly pleased with how the brain dip turned out this year!

The eyeball punch was okay...they kept floating upside down, so that was a little disappointing and the hand-ice cube melted a little faster than I had hoped, but still cool.

Pre-Halloween Fun!

So these pictures are a little out of order, but I don't feel like fighting with blogger to rearrange them, so--uh...sorry.
We went to the Way Fruit Farm Apple festival had a good time--we got some delicious apples, apple cider and a hayride to the pumpkin patch! There was also a little petting zoo...well--a petting zoo of only rabbits, but hey, Abi loved it! ...she kept signing "dog" when she saw them, and wanted to squeeze them, which I'm sure the rabbits loved too...
Above is a picture of Abi with her friend Ava--they had fun riding in the "car shopping cart"--until Abi tried to push Ava out of the car for using her steering wheel...her first signs of road rage...uh-oh...

Abi helped me decorate for Halloween!
We went to a Trick-or-Treating night at Penn State with the Nittany Lion!
Our beautiful pumpkins! Abi's is supposed to be a dog...yes...she's obsessed with dogs lately.

When we were in CA, Abi and I got to carve pumpkins with the family--pretty good variety!

The California pumpkin patch...I had Abi wear long sleeves...but we were all roasting!
...which was quite a change from the PA pumpking patch--a little more chilly...


Abi had fun trying on her halloween costume early...and sorting apples--I just thought this was a cute video--notice her signing "apple"--she knows many signs now, its pretty cute (in my totally unbiased opinion...) :)