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.

"Why is it always all about Anna?"

This is a draft that I wrote in November so that I could be ahead of the game and post it on Decemeber 1st. Ahh, so much for good intentions. Here is the post anyway....



This is the unfortunate comment that I heard Jackson mutter yesterday and sadly it's somewhat accurate these days. Anna has discovered the joy of being classically two years old and she loves everything about it. Don't get me wrong I love this girl to pieces but I never experienced anything like this with Jackson. Anna is definately a bit of a drama queen. Here are some examples of what Anna has been up to lately:



Anna is constantly torturing Jackson and her favorite game is to take a toy from him and run for her life, this is followed by screaming and very dramatic tattling about how Jackson tackled her and took her toy. I have seen it too many times to be fooled.



As much as she is always torturing Jackson Anna loves him to pieces and her world falls apart if he won't play with her or do what she wants him to do (fortunate for her he is very easy going and will most likely give in and do what she wants to do). Lately she has taken to calling him Jack which Jackson does not appreciate. This has resulted in her using it nearly all of the time now. "Come on Jack", "Let's go Jack" "Jack where are you?" all followed with Jackson saying "Don't call me Jack, my name is Jackson".



Anna has her sweet moments and has not wanted to play by herself. She uses the sweetest face possible while asking "Mommy you want to come play with me?" If I hesitate she immediately follows with " Come on Mom. I'll hold your hand." and the very irresistible, "Come on honey, come on."



Anna's favorite things to play with are her many Minnie Mouse figures and her cupcake and tea set. We have a minimum of three birthday parties a day around here.



Anna is nearly always naked at home. I chase her around throughout the day making her wear at least underwear. When I asked her today where her clothes were she said "I not telling, I no like clothes." When I asked her why she said, "I no like underwear I like to be naked".



Anna figured out on her own how to use her little potty as a stool and climb up on the big potty to go. The fact that I no longer have to clean out a gross little potty ten times a day is awesome. Anna is big about her privacy and if I try to check on her she will tell me to "Go away" and will climb down to shut the door on me.



Yesterday Anna climbed into the bottom of the round part of one of our bar stools and said, "Look I'm a Anna pie"



Some popular Anna phrases:

"I ALREADY did" (caps are necessary to the phrase)

"You no help me I do it by myself."

"I need my Minnie"

also not really a phrase but hours straight of only meowing and pointing with what look like paws as she crawls around pretending to be cat. This is a bit of a problem at church and Walmart.

She will now comment on her own "There are no kitties at church?" when we walk in.

"Anna crying".... followed by the explanation of why she was crying



This leads into the most maddening thing that Anna has been doing the last week which is not sleeping. Anna had strep a little over a week ago and so naturally every time she cried I went in and cuddled her or got her water, etc... Well after two days of this Anna decided there was no reason to sleep in her crib when she could be cuddling on the couch. I was undecided how much was learned behavior and how much was something internal still bothering her until two days ago when I asked her if she was going to take a good nap for mommy and she thought for a moment and then said, "No, Anna going to cry alot" to which I ignored and she followed up with "Anna no like to sleep in my crib I want to cuddle with Mom". Time for an intervention. Two days of no going in after she was laid down and she slept through the night last night.

Another One Bites the Dust

Please listen to this entire song. Then listen to it again. One more time. This is what my entire trip dropping Jackson off to school and back sounds like.

He heard this song on the radio one day and loved it. Kurt in a moment of unknowing foolishness told him that he owned the CD. This has resulted in a Queen obsession from both of my children. Jackson is specifically obsessed with this song and wants it on repeat. He asks with real concern who is dropping him off and picking him up at school this morning and would act heartbroken if I was not taking him. This did great things for my Mommy ego until the day I did not have the CD in my car and he had no intrest in me or my vehicle. Anna out of sheer desperation to listen to something else while in the car has begun to request "Rock You" and "Bicycle" when she can't take Another One Bites the Dust one more time. There really is nothing funnier than hearing your two year old sing the lyrics and sound effects to Bicycle and Another One Bites the Dust. I'm not sure how long this will last but I guess I should be glad it's not the Wheels on the Bus or the Itsy Bitsy Spider on repeat.

First Day of School

I just took a look at the blog, then hit refresh because surely my last post was not really in August. Yep. Surely it was. I also happened to notice in one of those August post I promised to be better this fall. It's technically still fall so I'm not a liar yet. Here's the beginning of the five or six posts I've been meaning to write which should redeem me and remove me from liar status.



Here are some pictures from the first day of Kindergarten for Jackson...

He did great and only Mommy cried.

I thought I'd at least get a few tears from Anna, who just went straight to the baby and waved goodbye like we were old news.

Post number one. Done. I promise to make the others better, it's a start right?

Goodbye summer...

Looking through all of these pictures has gotten me overwhelmed. I realized I haven't posted our trip home, our family vacation and many more. I think I might be done updating. Here's one last look at summer. If you've noticed a theme,yes, Jackson is always in his pajamas. He loves them. Even when sunbathing.

Anna's B-day

The quick pictorial run down of Anna's birthday. I placed the boring pictures of my party prep first so that you will have to look to get the pics of Anna. Lots of prep for 4 family member guests. Still worth it though. The candy bar...
yummy cupcakes and super yummy strawberry shortcake cake.
I thought the biggest hit would be the swim baby, but it really has been the cupcakes and the 5.00 walmart tea set which if you have not seen it and have a girl from the age of 2-8 you should really check out. It's very cute and porcelin and has polka dots and is seriously five dollars. Regular price. Not on sale. Ok, there's my tea set plug, even Jackson gets in on the tea parties.

The night before Kindergarten

It's not a good sign if Mom is crying the night before Kindergarten starts, but it's who I am, I can't help it. I read today that there are two different back to school moms. The ones who do a dance of freedom in their empty house and the ones who make up fake dentist appointments and pick their kids up early because they miss their kids so much. I'm definitely the latter. I just wanted to write a quick note to you Jackson to tell you how much I love you and that I can't believe our five years at home together have gone by already. I know you will do great in school and will love to learn and make a whole new set of friends. I love how sensitive and cuddly you still are and hope that it never changes. I love that you still want the same nigh-night songs that I have sang to you since you were born and that you beg for twenty more seconds of cuddling nearly every night. I love how silly you are and that you love to tell secrets that are 80% of the time telling me you have to go potty or something else completely non-secret related like the following from last month: "Put your bathing suit on and take a hot shower," "Wrap a towel around a pine tree," and "wrap your hair around your face." I love that you make instant friends everywhere you go. I love being your mom and am happy and sad that I have to now share you with a whole new world. You'll still always be my baby boy.

Yes. I took a picture of my son laying in his bed the last night before he was officially a Kindergatener. I already admitted to being that mom. I'm not apologizing again.

So I took the summer off...

Apparently I don't blog in the summer. I have no idea where the summer went but I know we did a bunch of fun things. Here follows the quick lame version of bunches of pictures and events. More to follow in the next few days. I promise to be better this fall.

Homemade finger paints

At some point this summer we made homemade finger paints and the kids went to town on the back porch. I really have no idea when. I'm going to say Julyish...

We started out on paper which became a full on fingerpaint body massage...

which landed them carried directly into here...