Halloween 2011

So what if it's March and Halloween was five months ago? Here's some pics from trick-or-treating and homemade caramel apples.

Some things I love about Anna right now

I keep thinking I need to write down some things about the kids right now because you forget so quickly. Here are some things I love about Anna right now and then some things that I don't love quite as much, but are still Anna right now.

• Anna has discovered her love of princesses and we have started watching the princess movies together on Friday mornings. She loves being told made up princess stories as well as telling them to us. Before every nap and bed time she will ask "Can you read me a princess story". She almost always chooses for the princess to be named Mommy. I won't lie, it's kind of flattering :) She has also recently began to sing princess songs about Princess Mommy which are very cute.
• Anna will randomly yell out "Hey mom, guess what?" When I ask what she says, "I love you."
• Anna always wants Daddy when she gets hurt, I am not sure why as he gives about one quarter the sympathy that I do but she wants him every time. The second she gets hurt it's "I need my daddy, I need dada to hold me."

That was the beginning of a post from October that I never finished.... aw the guilt.

Anna's first date with daddy. She was his date to his company Christmas party.

I thought I'd leave that intro and then just add on from here. She has since dropped the princess stories and now here night routine consists of three songs from each of us which always consists of at least one Old McDonald song where she fills in ridiculous items and you have to quickly think of what they would say, here are some common fill ins : big fat sheep, big fat baby sheep, a wall, the fan, lips, lipstick, baby wrapped up asleep and laying next to me, eyelashes, hair, the list goes on and on. Almost never are there actually animals on this farm.

Poor Anna has had quite an adjustment since the baby has been born and has thrown some killer tantrums lately. I feel like we are on the downside of that and she is adjusting a little better now. She has however thrown out some very non-suddle hints that she needs some attention like the baby by pretending to be a baby lately. She has asked to be rocked in my lap and tonight went so far as to pretend cry throughout our night time routine after she was made to wait while I fed the baby. When I tried to leave she told me I couldn't because she hadn't stopped crying and needed to be patted. When that didn't work she said she was hungry and I knew where we were headed. Sure enough when I told her nothing else to eat she looked at me a minute and then said she wanted to drink some milk from my boo boos. When I told her no those were just for Lila she said, "how about just pretend, you can pretend and it can be pretend milk." Poor attention deprived girl :( Here are some other little anna tidbits...

• Anna adds "Please, I'll be your friend" when she asks for something she really wants.
• Anna carries her "baby lila" around everywhere and will come running when she says she is crying and give me a talking to if I move her or my baby lila wakes her up when she is sleeping.
• When Anna has to go poop she always makes a big ball of toilet paper and covers her nose with it the entire time so she doesn't have to smell what's happening.
• Anna has taken to wearing her all time favorite dress as much as humanly possible which is 24 hours of the day at least a few days a week, the only problem is it's a 2T and isn't going to get on and off much longer.
• We recently got a new cat and Anna plays with him like a sibling. Last week I watched her try to play hide and seek with the cat and place him somewhere to hide when she was counting and he obviously didn't understand the rules. She has also put a walkie talkie by his head and gone into the other room to talk to him annoyed that he wasn't responding. She will lock the cat into the playroom with her and make them cake and cupcakes to eat. The cat is perfect for Anna and will follow her around the whole day not the least bit annoyed.
• Today Anna asked me if I was happy to be here with her. I said of course I was and asked her why she would ask me that. She replied " Because I just want us to be happily ever after."

My six year old may be smarter than me...

Jackson said to me today as we were enjoying some ice cream, "I think kids may be smarter than adults." Hmm, I asked him why he thought that and he said, "Because, we are in school and know lots of things and adults aren't." I explained to him that we all used to be in school and then gave myself a little pat on the back by explaining to him that Mommy had lots of school and college which was even harder school. He did not seem convinced and thought for a second and then said, " Well, then tell me something you know." I wasn't sure what he was going for and frankly felt a little put on the spot. "About what?" I asked. "How about some things that I don't already know about bats?" Umm, I was in trouble. " How about that they bounce sound waves off of objects so that they no where things are as they fly in the dark?" "I already knew that." I thought that was pretty good and had nothing else. He proceeded to rattle off a list of little known facts about bats being the only mammals that fly, the foods they eat, etc... "Well you do know alot about bats but adults know lots of stuff about other things too," I told him. "Like what, tell me something you know?" I don't know why but I could think of nothing relevant that I could possibly know. Jackson decided to fill in the topic, "Why don't you tell me something about elephants?" I stared at him blankly feeling dumber by the minute. "How about how they are the only mammal that cannot jump?" Oh. He then said, "I think maybe it's that adults used to be smart when they were in school too but that you guys forgot all of that stuff you learned because it was long ago." I could only agree with him. Next time I'm going to through some multiplication tables at him to level the field a little.

Anna's first day of preschool.

Anna had her first day of preschool today and was hamming it up for the camera. Kurt had to make her just hold her lunch box and smile for one picture. Anna was not at all nervous about going today and has been asking ever since Jackson started when she could go back to school. I asked her various questions about her day when I picked her up. After a few she told me "Mom, I'm tired, I really don't want to talk about it anymore, why don't you tell me about what you did at work today." Um, ok.

No it's not twins. Yes I'm 22 weeks pregnant

My best friend Ella convinced me that I would enjoy looking back and having a good laugh about how gigantic my 22 (23 tomorrow) week belly is. Let's take a look at the difference three weeks makes shall we?! Here's a picture at five months ( I actually looked back to make sure it wasn't a four month picture and I was mistaken. I wasn't.) which would only be three weeks ago tomorrow.

Let's fast forward a measly three weeks for a shot at 22 weeks 6 days.

Um yeah, ignore the horrible picture late at night in my jammies and direct your eyes to the eight month pregnant belly stuck on someone who is only five months pregnant. You can feel free to laugh and drop your jaw, I myself could not stop laughing at how ridiculous it was when Kurt was taking the picture. I have officially decided from this point on that I will be lying to strangers about the due date which I have now bumped up to around Halloween. I'm hoping that will put a lid on the comments for now. After that point I will have to go with the lie of having twins which will be the only plausible explanation and will keep people from the most annoying question ever asked a pregnant woman, " Are you having twins?" with the unbelievably inconsiderate follow up, "Are you sure?"

Summer Bucket List 2011

The first day of summer Jackson and I sat down and wrote a summer bucket list of the stuff that we wanted to do over the summer. I'm very glad we did because there were many times I didn't want to do stuff because I felt so sick but the fact that it was on a list compelled me to do so. There were many times that Kurt asked, are you sure that you want to do that and I would reply, "It's on the list, we have to." Kurt has since decided he should really start using my obsession with completing lists in his favor for things he would like to be doing. The need to cross off things on a list led to a really fun summer even with all of the throwing up and feeling exhausted on my end. Here's the list and then I'll do posts of the things which I have pictures for.


The List
lake beach
zoo
beach
game (Jackson's must on the list, x-box not board games)
sleep in
campout inside
roast hot dogs and marshmallows
outside movie night
get new flowers in front yard
go to a carnival/fair
make ice cream sandwiches
go to Monkey Joe's
go to Marbles Museum
pool
campout outside
Christmas in July

It was a pretty good list and we accomplished all but going to the zoo and sleeping in. I told Jackson I wasn't giving him credit for sleeping in unless he slept until 8. His response was, "Mom that's never going to happen, we slept until 7:30 at the beach, you better take that it's the latest we've ever slept." I should count it but 7:30 really isn't sleeping in for the summer. I, on the other hand, definitely met this criteria numerous times thanks to my sweet husband who gets up with the kids pretty much every morning. I guess pregnancy does have some perks.

For the items with no pictures, camping out inside and outside was done by the boys and ended up being soggy outside and more fun watching movies from laying inside of the tent upstairs. We went to the pool a few times with friends and had a great time. Jackson definitely did his fair share of gaming on the x-box especially during sleepovers on Friday nights with dad and Saturday mornings. I think I have at least a few pictures of everything else so, I'll post those in separate posts.

It was a great summer and went by way too fast. It was one of the best summers I remember and we did more family stuff together than we have in years. There is something about having a kid in school that defines summers in a different way and makes them feel a little more magical. It was one of the hottest summers on record though, so I couldn't be more ready for fall.

First day of School

Jackson started First Grade this year which was considerably less traumatic (for me, neither was traumatic for Jackson) for me than last year. It was no big deal this year except for being sad to part with him all day long. Jackson got one of the teachers this year who moved up from kinderdarten last year due to so many first graders. He is still in the Kindergarten cove area and right next door from last year, so not much of a transition. He is doing great so far and catching up on sleep on the weekends with three hour naps :)

Anna-goo

Here's a few pictures of Anna from the last few months....

This is how the painting activity began
And this is where she went with it after about 2 minutes unsupervised... this is Anna after about two minutes unsupervised seated at the table at any point. About two weeks ago I watched her smear yogurt all over her dining chair with a spoon, climb up on the chair and squish around in it. She then came to me and said, "mom, I have yogurt all over my bum." When I asked her why she said she spilled some on herself and it was an accident. When I replied that no she didn't, I was watching her, she then said, "Oh, you were watching me? I did it because it was fun, sorry mom". That conversation perfectly represents Anna, logical and can make a mess in any situation. She also told me yesterday when I asked her why she wrote on the table with smooshed blueberries, " because I'm little and I don't know better". She's going to be trouble. She can wiggle her way out of anything with exact wording, "but you told me not to sit on the table, I'm not sitting on it I'm standing on it." I have to be very specific and cover all my bases with her.


First taste of cotton candy, messy and sugary and blue. Anna's heaven. "Blue Please" is the most common saying in our house which Anna says like this "Ba-loo, Pah-leese" in a very southern accent.

Anna started dance and loves it. She started to want to dance after discovering Angelina Ballerina. Her favorite part is tap and of course twirling in the skirt.

All dressed up with no where to go... Anna is into dressing up and princesses. Her favorite game these days is Pretty Pretty Princess.

She is a walking contradiction of a girl who loves to be in a big dress everywhere she goes but is messier than any of the boys after playing outside for about 10 minutes. And we love her for it :)

Anna's first and only haircut thus far, a little trim to even up her baby hair. It just keeps curling up and doesn't seem like it ever grows!

Baker number 3

Well here's the first pregnancy pic.... 12 weeks pregnant.

The kids are super excited and ask to see the pregnancy app on my phone all of the time to see what the baby looks like now. Anna will ask to kiss my belly and says good morning to the baby daily. The coolest part of the whole experience is to see it through the kids' eyes. Jackson would ask every morning, in the beginning, to see my belly and when it was going to get bigger. He also asked at one point if the baby was always going to look like Mega Mind. Both kids are hoping it's a boy and as of now (17 weeks) we aren't finding out what we are having at the ultrasound next week so we'll have to wait a while to see. This pregnancy has been a bit of a rough one and I have been much sicker than I was with Anna. This of course makes mre irrationally think that this must be a boy since I was so sick with Jackson. I'm sure that it really is just different with every preganancy but since we aren't finding out what we are having I'm clinging to any clues I can (can you tell how excited I am about the not finding out part?). In my dear husband's defense I did agree to this before I got pregnant then quickly decided the instant I saw a positive pregnacy test that I had to know as soon as possible, it's not his fault that I'm a hypocrite. I guess I can wait until December if I have to.... "if I have to" being the key phrase!

Christmas break at Nana's house

First time ice skating. True to each of their motor abilities, Anna was able to skate basically on her own and skating with Jackson was like a full body workout which landed you on the ice approimately every thirty seconds. They both loved it though. It was freezing but so fun.

Anna wore the smallest pair of skates they had, they were adorable.

Playing at Crown Center after...

The most fun part of this trip was playing Dance Central for hours with Brittany and then laughing hysterically at my mom playing it and somehow beating Britt. I cannot seem to find the pictures of that yet.

Christmas 2010

A pictorial entry to remember Christmas by since it is July and I have six months to catch up on...

The night before Christmas...

The aftermath...
We had a great low key Christmas this year. It was just us Christmas morning and it was really relaxing and nice. It was really fun to have both of the kids really into it and excited for Santa. We had some friends over for Christmas eve and played corny christmas games that I played growing up. It was great. Jackson said his favorite part was eating gingerbread cookies and Anna said it was opening her presents. My best part of Christmas came a day late...

It definitely counted as a White Christmas in my book and will probably be the closest we will after have. I think ended up with around 10 inches if I remember correctly. It was awesome, it snowed all day long.

Anna banana

Last night while giving Anna a bath she quietly whispered, " Can you help me please" while trying to pull up the drain in the bath. I asked her if she needed help and she looked at me slightly annoyed and said, " I wasn't talking to you I was talking to my hand". She then went back to pleading with her hand to help.

No more catching up

I've decided my problem with keeping up with the blog is that I get overwhelmed when I get behind and then the whole blog becomes aversive to me because I feel like I have to go back and catch up on everything that has happened. From here on out I'm going to post when I have a chance and let myself of the hook if I miss stuff. Some posts are better than none at all right? I'm hoping this will change my aversion to the blog and help me to stay more current. I guess time will tell.