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Click here to return to the main page. 2 years, 7 months School has begun, and we are starting to settle into a new routine around here. We did really enjoy our last couple weeks of summer, though! We took one day to visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville. They currently have a Star Wars exhibit on display, which Daddy wanted to see. So we all went as a family with Gramma and Grampa. Anna was less than thrilled with the exhibit. But she did like seeing the giant Saturn V rocket. Now she excitedly points it out every time we drive by on the interstate! We wanted to do something fun the next day, so Anna had another first. We took her to her very first movie in a real movie theater. We went to see a late-afternoon matinee showing of Toy Story 3. We were very unsure of how Anna would do because she usually doesn't sit still for very long. Well, Anna surprised us, and she did great! She sat in her own seat and ate lots of popcorn. When her popcorn was gone (and we were probably about an hour into the movie), Anna got up and walked along our row a couple times. Then she sat back down with Mommy and watched the rest of the movie. We couldn't have asked for her to be more quiet and well-behaved. When we were leaving the movie, Anna exclaimed, "I LOVE that movie!" I think she had fun! On the next weekend, we went to Daddy's company picnic at Southern Adventures. Anna was too young to ride the go-karts, so she waited patiently for Kate to ride those and a couple of the other bigger rides. Then she and Kate rode the pony carriage ride together, which Anna loved. She didn't want to go on any of the other baby rides, though. It was very hot that evening, so we were all ready to get some dinner and have ice cream for dessert. Immediately following dinner, the girls changed into their swimsuits and played in the kiddie pool. Anna just wanted to splash around in the pool; she was not interested in going down the baby slide at all. She would get out of the pool and walk up the stairs to the top of the slide, but she would take one look at it and then turn around and come back down again. She did, however, have lots of fun splashing and playing and cooling off on this very hot evening! The next weekend was our last weekend before school started, so we wanted to make it extra-fun. It was Daddy's Friday off, so we took that morning and went to the Harmony Safari Park. We went last year and the girls loved it, so we thought it would be a treat to visit again. Anna threw a couple cups of food to the deer, emus, and goats. Then she figured it was more interesting to transfer food from one cup to another to another. She did eventually move back near the window to see some animals. After driving through the safari, we were able to get out of the car and see reptiles and baby tortoises. Anna was very scared of the tortoises at first, but after she realized that they weren't going to "get" her, she loved to pet them. The next day was Lexi's fourth birthday party, and she had an Angelina Ballerina party. The girls came dressed in their leotards and ballet shoes, and they were each given a homemade tutu to wear. Anna loved to wear her tutu and dance (run) around the room with the other girls. She did not, however, like the pinata and wanted to be held the whole time. We had a special treat that afternoon as Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim decided to come down and visit for the day. Anna got to skip her nap that day to spend lots of time with them. She had fun and loved all of the playtime and attention! On Sunday afternoon, we took the girls to see another movie. Since Anna did so well with Toy Story, we thought we'd press our luck and go see Shrek. Well, once again, Anna ate lots of popcorn and was great during the movie! On Monday, Anna had her open house for Asbury Weekday (formerly CDC). We arrived and were able to meet her teachers for the year, Ms. Lisette and Ms. Mindy. Kate hadn't started school yet, so she was able to go with us to orientation. She sat down on the floor with Anna to get her to play with some of the toys in her classroom. Anna was very shy initially and wouldn't even look at her teachers. But after the other children and parents left and we were alone in the room with the teachers, she came out of her shell and started to be silly. She eventually talked to her teachers and seemed to be a little more comfortable in the classroom. Anna's first day of preschool was Wednesday, August 11. We all woke up early so Anna could enjoy a good breakfast and take pictures before going to school. Mommy made Anna a special heart-shaped pancake for breakfast. Anna ate some of her breakfast, got dressed, and posed for a few pictures. It was like pulling teeth trying to get this stubborn little girl to cooperate and smile for pictures. We eventually made it out the door and to school. Up until this point, Anna seemed excited about going to school. As soon as we pulled in the parking lot, though, she immediately had a death grip on Daddy and would not let go. We took a couple pictures at school, but she has a grumpy face in all of those pictures. When it finally came time to leave Anna in her classroom, she screamed and cried. We knew we were leaving Anna in good hands, but it was still hard to hear her cry. We found out, though, that she quickly stopped crying and was having a good morning. When I picked her up from school, she was so excited to tell me about her day. She played in the sandbox on the playground, played with a ball in playroom, and began a craft. Drop-offs have gotten easier, and there have not been any more tears. Anna seems to really be enjoying school and loves to tell me about her day when I pick her up! Since Kate and Anna both had good first weeks of school, we took them for another treat the next Saturday. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for some pizza and playtime. Anna wasn't too interested in the games they had, but she loved using her tokens to ride the little cars. Her favorite was the car with Chuck E. Cheese in the passenger seat; she went on this ride multiple times. Each time, the ride took her picture so we have lots of printouts with Anna and Chuck E. Cheese. She was so proud to carry these pictures around! On Wednesday, she even asked to take her pictures to school to show her teachers. While she loved the ride with the plastic character, she was not nearly as excited to see the giant stuffed mouse in person. He came out and Anna became instantly terrified. Fortunately, it was toward the end of our day. After we counted our tickets, the girls got to pick out their prizes. Anna picked out a couple of chocolate tootsie roll pops and a dress-up ring. We all had fun, but we were all exhausted when we left! On Sunday, we had another surprise visit from Mama and Uncle Tim since Papa was traveling for work. Anna had to take a nap after lunch this time, but we had a special treat and went to Maggie Moo's for a pre-dinner snack. Anna got her own cup of strawberry ice cream and really enjoyed it. Since school has started, we've been trying to get into a new routine. Bedtimes are earlier, and naptime is being adjusted since Mommy picks Kate up from school every day. Anna has been extra tired, but we're trying to help her adjust. Since Kate had started school, Anna seems to be loving the one-on-one time with Mommy. As soon as we get home from taking Kate to school, Anna turns on her silly switch and cannot stop being goofy. We have laughed so hard together! It's been a great month! 2 years, 6 months Wow, Anna is two and a half years old already! Anna has had so much fun this month! After Vacation Bible School, Anna had a very special weekend. She spent the weekend all by herself at Mama and Papa's house. We took her up to Murfreesboro on Friday after dinner, and Mommy didn't pick her up until Monday morning. Anna seemed to really enjoy the individual attention that she got all weekend, and she had no problems with missing Mommy, Daddy, or Kate. On Saturday morning, Papa made his yummy pancakes just for Anna. Anna loves Papa's pancakes, and she says they are "HUGE." Well, Papa lived up to Anna's expectations and made Anna a HUGE pancake...which Anna thought would be funny to put on her head! After breakfast, Mama, Papa, Uncle Tim, and Anna went to the Discovery Center. Anna's favorite thing to do there was to go shopping at the pretend grocery store. She also played different musical instruments and sang into the microphone with Papa. After naptime, Anna went to church with Mama and Papa followed by dinner at Mellow Mushroom. Anna walked into Mellow Mushroom and said, "I love the mushroom man!" because she remembers him from the Mellow Mushroom we go to here. On Sunday, Anna was able to have more fun playing. She even got to pet the neighbor's dog, Gracie. That night, Mama and Papa thought they'd take Anna to get a special treat of ice cream. However, when Anna found out that they were going to Dairy Queen, she responded, "I don't like Dairy Queen. I want to go to Bruster's." Of course, she still managed to eat her entire bowl of ice cream! Mommy picked Anna up on Monday morning. When Mommy got to Mama's house, Anna pretended to act very shy and wouldn't talk to Mommy at all. Fortunately, she came out of her shell quickly and told me about her weekend; at least I didn't have to worry about her missing me too much! Uncle Tim came home with us on Monday, and we had a quiet week. On Sunday, July 4, we had a fun time at our friends' house for a cookout. They set up the kiddie pool and other water activities since it was so hot outside that day. After letting the kids have a blast getting soaked, it was time for dinner and dessert. After dinner, we let the kids go outside for some fireworks. Anna had fun throwing the pop-its on the ground, although she didn't throw them quite hard enough to get them to pop. When it was time for sparklers, Anna was initially apprehensive and wanted lots of help. However, after doing one or two, she was ready to hold them all by herself. Of course, we stayed very close by and Anna was great about standing still with the sparkler in her hand. Finally it was time to go see real fireworks at Bridge Street. Kate told Anna that some of the fireworks were going to be loud, so Anna was very nervous and covered her ears. She sat in our laps with a look of distress on her face at first. Then Kate said something about how the fireworks sounded like popcorn. After that, Anna was fine to watch the fireworks and listen to the "pop, pop, pop" like popcorn. The next day, we went over to another friends' house for another cookout. The kids got to play outside in a small pool and color with sidewalk chalk before going inside to enjoy a yummy lunch. We enjoyed a perfect weekend with friends and family celebrating our nation's independence. The following weekend, we took a fun mini-vacation to Atlanta. On our way to Atlanta, we stopped in Chattanooga to eat lunch at Kanpai of Tokyo (Japanese steakhouse). Anna LOVED the fried rice, but she refused to eat anything else. This is typical of our picky Anna...she likes chicken fingers/nuggets, but won't even look at chicken breast. After lunch, we finished our drive to Atlanta and spent a little while that afternoon in our hotel pool. We tried to get in bed early because we had a busy day on Saturday. We woke up Saturday morning and went to breakfast in the hotel lobby. After breakfast, we went over to the Georgia Aquarium for several hours of fun. Kate had been telling Anna about the aquarium, so she was expecting to see otters and penguins and fishies. We saw each of the above and lots more. We saw the beluga whales, and Anna wanted them to swim closer to her. So she stood at the glass and yelled "ABUGA WHALE" over and over. Once or twice they did swim right in front of our face, which was pretty cool. We also got to crawl through a tunnel underneath the penguin exhibit. It had several little places to pop our heads out to get a different view of the penguins. Immediately after seeing the penguins, it was feeding time for the otters, and Anna had a front-row seat! One of the other highlights for Anna was to see the scuba divers in the tanks. She loved seeing the divers and can show the motion that they used to clean the tank walls. Just before we left, we stopped in the gift shop. Anna picked out a soft seashell purse with a stuffed otter inside! Just like her big sister three years ago, she really loved the otters! After lunch and naptime, we got back in the car and drove to Stone Mountain for their nighttime laser show. We stopped at KFC and brought our picnic dinner to the mountain. It was very crowded, but we got a great seat in the grass. After dinner, we all had ice cream and waited for the laser show to start. The adults really enjoyed the laser show; Anna, however, enjoyed playing in the sandy dirt. She was filthy from head to toe when we left there! On Sunday, we packed up our stuff and then headed to the Imagine It! Children's Museum before going home. One of Anna's favorite thing to do was to go shopping with the shopping cart and then put the delivery boxes on the big truck. She also enjoyed wearing tap shoes and dancing on the pretend stage with Kate. After spending several hours at the museum, it was time to go eat a late lunch and head home. We really enjoyed our weekend in Atlanta! The next weekend we traveled again to Murfreesboro. Aunt Kellie was in town to visit Mama and Papa, so we drove up there to see everyone. On Saturday morning, we got up early and Papa made his special huge pancakes. After breakfast, we went to The Blueberry Patch to pick our own blueberries. Anna was too cute this year! She got her own bucket and followed everyone to the bushes. We tried to tell Anna to only pick the blue ones, but she picked blue, pink, green, and everything in between. However, she knew to only EAT the blue ones. She picked lots of berries, and she must have eaten most of the ripe blueberries. Two for the bucket, one for the mouth. :) After blueberry picking, we went to the pet store for awhile and then to Toot's (one of our favorites) for lunch. Anna ate TWO hot dogs at lunch...I think she was hungry! That evening, we went to some friends' house to go swimming in their pool. Anna wore her swimmies the whole time and had a great time swimming. She even put on some pink goggles, which made her look quite hilarious with the goggles and swimmies on! On Sunday morning, we went to get donuts, and Anna made quite a mess with her powdered donut with chocolate frosting. She ate some of the donut, but then she decided it would be better to SQUEEZE the frosting from the donut. She enjoyed herself, and it was nothing that a little soap and water couldn't clean up. :) We had a great weekend in Murfreesboro visiting our family. Summer is winding down, and school begins in just a couple short weeks. Anna will begin preschool at Asbury Weekday (formerly CDC), so next month promises to be exciting! 2 years, 5 months Anna has had a great month! Her big news this month is that she is working on potty training! Earlier in the month, Mommy decided to take the girls to the pool one morning. Out of the blue, Kate said, "Come on, Anna, let's go potty before we put our swimsuits on." Well, Anna followed right behind, and immediately went pee-pee on the little princess potty that we've had out. I decided right then and there that the next day, Thursday, May 27, would be a day to stay at home to work on potty training. We stayed home all day, and Anna wore big girl panties all day (except during nap). We had several accidents, but she caught on pretty quickly. By the end of the weekend, she really wasn't having accidents anymore. She was going potty in restaurants, stores, the mall, etc. with no fear. She was even keeping her diaper dry at bedtime more often than not. This lasted for about two weeks. Then, somebody (this person will remain unnamed to protect their identity) took Anna to an automatic potty, which flushed while Anna was sitting on it. This resulted in total regression and Anna being scared to use any potty. After several days, we convinced her to start using the little princess potty again, and she's been doing great with that ever since. She goes potty all by herself and sometimes doesn't even tell us that she's gone. Unfortunately, she is still afraid of the big potties and refuses to use those. This week, however, we have successfully gotten her to go on the little potty at church, so progress is being made. But we're really proud of Anna and how great she is doing with potty training! Hopefully next month we can report that she's fully potty trained! In other news, we have enjoyed lots of pool time during this hot month. Anna loves to go and play in the kiddie pool this year! She was initially apprehensive about wearing her swimmies, but now she loves to wear the swimmies and swim in the big pool too! It's fun that we can all go swimming together and try to beat the summer heat! We went up to Murfreesboro one weekend during the month to see lots of family. Aunt Stacie and GiGi were both in town visiting Mama and Papa at the same time, so we took a weekend to visit too. We were even able to go to Uncle Dave's 40th surprise birthday party while we were there. That same weekend, our friends' son, Blake, celebrated his first birthday. They had an outdoor water party complete with a slip n slide, kiddie pool, and a sand box. Anna wasn't too sure about the slip n slide, but she did love playing in the kiddie pool and the sand box. And of course she had to come inside and help Blake open his presents after dinner! Anna loves Blake...she always asks to hold him, she tries to comfort him if he's upset, and she likes to feed him his cheerios and puffs too. We had some special visitors the next week as Mama, GiGi, and Uncle Tim came to our house to visit for a couple days. During their stay, we went to Build-A-Bear Workshop. Kate actually suggested that we go because "Anna's never been to Build-A-Bear before." Well, Anna had fun with her first experience at Build-A-Bear. She picked out a cute white bunny with multi-colored flowers on it. She watched big sister to see exactly how to choose a heart and give it life. And then she got to step on the pedal (with Mommy's help) to stuff the bunny with fluff. Finally, she named her bunny most appropriately, "Bunny." Anna was very proud of the stuffed bunny that she made. During this last week in June, we have enjoyed attending Asbury UMC's VBS. The theme this year is High Seas Expedition, and Anna is in the 2-year-old nursery class. They have had story time and music every day. Anna told me that she gets to play an instrument in music. They must have learned the VBS theme song this year because whenever Anna gets in the car now, she starts to sing the song and do some huge hand motions. They have also gone outside to play, eaten lunch together, and done crafts. Anna's favorite craft must have involved gluing because she told me all about how she got to use glue. Overall, Anna seemed to have a great week at VBS! 2 years, 4 months It's been a quiet month around here for Anna. Anna's big news is that she has two more teeth - she cut both of her two-year molars on the top this month. We're still waiting for those two bottom eye teeth to come in as well as her bottom two-year molars. I guess there's hope that Anna will have a full mouth of teeth one day! :) The end of April and beginning of May were very uneventful. Anna had several opportunities to play with Jack, Carter, Lexi, and Blake (a.k.a. Baby Bacon). Mommy began to feel sick at the beginning of May. After several days of feeling bad, I was finally able to get to the doctor...only to find out that I had strep throat! Fortunately, Anna stayed healthy throughout all that, especially because we had fun plans the next weekend. During Mother's Day weekend, Mommy, Daddy, and Kate went camping with some friends. Anna was lucky enough to have Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim come to our house to stay with her. Anna also had another visitor that weekend, our friends' son, Blake, who was also too young to go camping. Anna did great while we were gone. There were a couple of times when Anna got slightly jealous that Mama was holding Blake, but she was easily distracted. Anna had so much fun with Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim. The weather was beautiful that weekend, so they were able to play outside quite a bit on Saturday. Mama also took Anna to Publix for some one-on-one time. Since it was Mother's Day, Publix had an event for the children to decorate special cakes for their Moms. Mama and Anna decorated a cake together for Mommy. Anna was able to pick out a cake topper, and she picked out a cute little bear that said, "World's Best Mom." She loved this little cake topper, by the way, and was so proud of it! Then she squirted some frosting on the cake and put the cake topper on. She was also able to color a card for Mommy. Anna had a fun time with Mama, and it was also a nice surprise when Mommy got home from our camping trip! During the next week, Mommy went to a brunch at another Mom's house with other preschool Moms while the kids were in school. Since Anna's not in school yet, Anna was able to come with Mommy. Anna was such a big girl at brunch. She had a plate of strawberries, pineapple, and grapes, and she sat at the dining room table like such a big girl. She even asked for seconds on the fruit and ate all of that too. Of course, after she finished eating, she was crawling under the table pretending to be a dog. A two-year-old can only be proper for so long! :) The next weekend, Kate had her dance recital. We weren't sure how Anna would do sitting through the hour and a half recital, but she was amazing! She sat in Mama's lap the entire time and watched all of the girls dance. We didn't even have to get out Mommy's special bag of bribery tricks. :) She's such a good girl! Since Kate's recital, Anna has been fascinated with Kate's dance costume. She loves to put it on and wear it around the house while she dances. Since Anna loves to dance so much, Mommy signed Anna up for the two-year-old dance class in the fall. It will be during the day while Kate is in school, so it should be something fun for Mommy and Anna to do alone. We took advantage of the beautiful weather the next week and took a trip to the Huntsville Botanical Garden. Our first stop was the butterfly house. Anna wanted so badly to hold a butterfly, but she just couldn't catch one. Maybe it was because she kept swatting at them to get them to come to her! :) We also toured the children's gardens, played in some of the treehouses, played in the ball pit, and ate a picnic lunch. Anna had so much fun running after the older girls and trying to keep up with them! That evening, we went to Concerts at Bridge Street. We picked up chicken tenders on our way there and ate a picnic lunch as we waited for the concert to begin. We heard Microwave Dave & The Nukes that night, and Anna had so much fun dancing to the blues music. She was running around all over the place, jumping up and down, and swinging her arms in the air. There has been lots of running, jumping, and dancing all month long; what a sweet, happy little girl Anna is! 2 years, 3 months Anna began this month with lots of Easter festivities. On Friday, March 26, we went to Daddy's work for the annual Easter egg hunt and movie night. Anna hunted for eggs in the 0-3 year age group. The eggs were hidden in the conference room, and there were lots of eggs hidden underneath all of the chairs in the room. This made a great opportunity for each child to get several eggs. Anna went directly to a chair and stood there looking at it for a minute. Mommy told Anna there was candy in the eggs, and she seemed to think about that. Finally, Mommy told Anna to go pick up an orange egg and put it in her basket, and Anna obeyed. Then she got another egg and then another. She couldn't wait to open her eggs to see what kind of candy was in there. She was very excited to find candy in her eggs! Great job, Anna, on her first egg hunt of the season! After finding eggs, we ate pizza in the conference room. Mommy didn't have a knife to cut her pizza into bites, so this was Anna's first chance to eat pizza like a big person, and she did a great job! After pizza, we went into the auditorium to watch the movie, Planet 51, and eat popcorn. Anna sat in her seat and watched most of the movie. During the last 15 minutes or so, she became restless and started to try to climb the stage; she ended up sitting with Daddy on the steps to watch the rest of the movie. The next morning gave Anna another opportunity to practice her egg-hunting skills. This time it was the Easter egg hunt at our church. Anna hunted for eggs with the other two-year-olds at 10:10 on the big playground. She knew what to do this time and found several eggs on her own. Again, she was excited to quickly open the eggs to see what candy she had inside before she was even done hunting! After hunting for eggs, we went to the youth building to watch the puppet show. As usual, Anna loved the black-light puppets, and clapped very excitedly after each song. The next day was Sunday, and it happened to be Kate's birthday. Anna loved helping Kate open her birthday gifts and enjoyed a birthday cupcake after dinner. The following weekend, we celebrated Kate's birthday with friends and family. Anna was excited to have kids over to play, and she played right along with the bigger kids. She had been looking forward to having the "jumpy thing" at our house all week. She didn't stay on the inflatable for a long period of time, but she did get on and off lots of times. She was torn between the inflatable and swinging on her playset. It was a beautiful weekend to play outside, though, so that was fine with us! The next day was Easter Sunday, and Anna looked beautiful in her Easter dress. We were able to take some pretty pictures outside before church, and then Anna went to big-girl church with us at 8:45. Anna even went on the stage with her big sister and sat and listened to the children's moment like a big girl! After church, we came home and let the girls find their Easter baskets. Anna got a new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD, fruit snacks, a coloring book, and several other small things in her basket. Then we went outside to look for Easter eggs in the backyard. Anna had lots of practice last weekend, because she knew just what to do now. She probably would have found more eggs if she hadn't stopped to open every egg as soon as she found it! But she didn't care; she had fun running around the yard with Kate. We enjoyed our yummy Easter meal with Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim. Of course, picky Anna did not want to eat any ham (she didn't even want it on her plate), so she ended up eating a handful of green beans and a roll for lunch. After Anna's nap, we colored Easter eggs. Anna only cracked one egg that she banged on the chair. :) She had fun coloring the eggs with a white crayon and then helping Daddy drop them in the dye. What pretty eggs we had! On Tuesday, April 6, Anna had her two-year checkup with the pediatrician. Anna has never liked going to the doctor, and this was no exception. She screamed from the moment we walked back to the room with the scale. She refused to stand on the scale (even after watching Kate do it first), and she didn't want to sit on the infant scale either. She pitched such a screaming fit trying to weigh her that the nurse commented that she was the hardest patient she's ever had! That's my stubborn Anna, for you! :) Once we traumatized Anna enough and managed to get an approximate weight, we went back to the exam room. When Dr. Cartwright came in, she began to talk to him and answer any questions he asked. She was more afraid of the nurse than she was the doctor! Anna is growing well, although she continues to be petite for her age. We've been enjoying the spring weather and lots of outside playtime. On Thursday, Mommy took the girls to the Botanical Gardens since it was such a beautiful day outside. We picked up chicken fingers and enjoyed our picnic lunch in the gardens. We even had three geese visit our table as we were eating lunch. Anna nearly ended up in my lap, but fortunately they didn't get close enough to scare her too much. We enjoyed playing around on the different treehouses. They even had one with some swings that were very low to the ground. Anna loved sitting in these big-girl swings and having Mommy push her. Mommy tried to take pictures of Anna in front of all the beautiful flowers, but she was more interested in smelling the flowers than actually taking pictures. The next day, Anna went with us to watch Kate's last preschool program. She loved to sit in the pew and watch the kids, and she clapped after each song just like everyone else did. She was very well behaved for the almost hour-long program! Anna had some fun playtime that day and the next with Gramma, Grampa, Papa, and Uncle Tim. The next week, Anna had more fun playtime with Lexi and Baby Blake (or Baby Bacon as Anna calls him). Anna went to play with Lexi while Mommy went on a field trip with Kate. She had lots of fun dressing up, singing, and dancing with Lexi! The next day, April 22, Anna had her first dentist appointment at Alabama Pediatric Dental Associates. She did a great job at the dentist! She was excited to go and play on the indoor playground; after a few minutes, a lady came to take her picture for her first dental visit. We got a cute picture and then Anna went right back to playing. When we were called back, Kate actually had her teeth cleaned first while Anna's hygenist finished with another patient. It was finally Anna's turn, so Anna and Mommy went to sit on the dentist chair. Anna looked at the silly zebra toothbrush and felt it tickle her finger, but she wasn't about to open her mouth. After a few minutes of unsuccessful convincing, we told Anna that she could pick out a treat when she was done. Anna said she wanted to pick out bubbles for her treat, and then she opened her mouth to let the hygenist brush her teeth. She brushed one or two teeth, and then Anna closed her mouth. But she opened it back up, and eventually got all of her teeth brushed. Then the dentist came in and looked in Anna's mouth and was very pleased with her teeth! Anna did a great job with her first time at the dentist, and she even got to pick out her special bubbles at the end of her appointment! Anna seems to be growing up so fast!! 2 years, 2 months At the end of February, we attended a decorate-your-own-ice cream pizza session at Bridge Street. It was sponsored by Maggie Moo's, so of course Maggie the Cow was in attendance. We got there a little bit early as the lady was handing out the ice cream pizza and the toppings (red frosting, white chocolate curls, oreo crumbs, marshmallows, and cherry chocolate bites). Anna was not very patient and had to dig right in. But rather than decorate her pizza, she chose to eat all of the red frosting right off the spoon! After the frosting was gone, she did end up dumping her other toppings on top of her plate and eating them too. She made a terrible mess but had loads of fun! The whole time she was doing this, she kept talking about Maggie the Cow. When Maggie finally came out and was ready to take pictures, Anna wanted to go over there. That is, until she got too close. It was like the characters at Disney World where she loved to wave at them and talk to them from a distance but didn't want to get any closer than about ten feet. It ended up being a fun morning spent together with the girls! Our church held its annual Dessert Night Out on Friday, March 5. This is a fundraiser to help our 115-member youth choir offset the cost of their summer mission trip/choir tour. It is always a lot of fun with yummy desserts and good entertainment, and this year was no exception! Before the show, we all got our desserts. Anna enjoyed a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. And boy, she ENJOYED it! She had dark chocolate frosting covering her entire face...too bad we didn't have the camera with us! When we went through the line, we asked her if she wanted any strawberries and she said no; she was fixated on the cupcake. Well, after we sat down, she just reached over and stole a giant strawberry from Kate's plate when Kate wasn't looking. After we ate our desserts, we focused our attention on the entertainment. Anna loved sitting there watching the people sing. She clapped wildly after each act, danced with some of the songs, and loved watching the puppet show too! It was a late night but we all had a lot of fun! On Saturday, March 13, Mommy and Daddy were invited to a wedding. Anna experienced a first that day...a real babysitter (someone besides a family member). Anna did great playing with Miss Lisa, although she didn't want to take a nap for her. But she had lots of fun playing, which is what matters! \St. Patrick's Day fell on Wednesday of the following week. We decided to go to the parade in downtown Huntsville like we did last year. We invited Ms. Laura Lynn and Maggie to join us. We all bundled up (it was quite chilly that day!) and went to watch the parade. Anna kept asking to see doggies in the parade, and she was not disappointed. Near the end of the parade, a little dog walked by us that was colored green all over! Anna loved seeing the green doggie! It was cold and cloudy on Wednesday, but Friday brought about beautiful weather! Since it was spring break and Daddy's off-Friday, we took a family trip to the Huntsville Botanical Garden. I think everybody else in Huntsville enjoyed the beautiful weather that day because the place was packed! They currently have a treehouse exhibit in the gardens, so Anna had fun playing in the different treehouses. We also enjoyed a yummy picnic lunch while we were there. Maybe it was the beautiful spring day, but we decided to purchase a membership this year, so we're sure to go back again soon! That afternoon, we drove up to Murfreesboro to visit our families! We enjoyed dinner and a fun evening with Gramma and Grampa. Then we drove over to see Mama and Papa's new house in Murfreesboro. They moved into a beautiful new house very close to Gramma and Grampa, so we will have fun visiting everyone in one trip now! Anna loved running around the empty house before furniture was moved in. At one point in time, we were standing in the foyer talking and we saw Anna crawl into a small storage cabinet next to the fireplace. Mama and Papa didn't even know there was a cabinet there! But Anna got all the way in and closed the door completely. Fortunately we saw her climb in there; otherwise, we could have quickly panicked! Anna then thought it was hilarious to hide in the cabinet; I wonder what she'll think next time we go back and there is stuff in the cabinet. On Saturday, Anna and Kate stayed at Gramma and Grampa's house while Mommy and Daddy spent the day helping Mama and Papa move into their new house. Anna had lots of fun playing outside, riding her bike, looking at the fish, etc. That night we went to Papa's apartment to see the kitty cats. Anna was excited to see Puddin and Gabby and say hi to them. She thought they were hilarious! Well, that is until grumpy Gabby hissed at her! Poor Anna was overtired and Gabby just pushed her over the edge. Now when we ask Anna what Gabby says, she replies "hiss." Very cute, and at least she wasn't scarred for life! While we were up in Murfreesboro, Mama noticed that Anna had two more teeth! I think Mommy and Daddy got tired of checking and not seeing any results, so at least Mama realized that she had gotten two new teeth on the top. Now she's just missing two teeth on the bottom plus her two-year molars. Anna continues to love to play with her baby dolls. She could play all day with her babies if we let her, putting them in little chairs, feeding them (bottles or with a spoon), changing their diapers, etc. When her babies cry, it's because they want Anna. It's so sweet to see her be so kind and nurturing! Another one of Anna's favorite things to do is anything her big sister does. She copies everything that Kate does and follows her around like a faithful puppy dog...oftentimes acting like a puppy dog. We're so thankful that Anna loves her big sister so much and that they play with each other as well as they do! 2 years, 1 month It's been a relatively calm month around here for a change. After we got home from our big trip to Disney World, we tried to get back into a routine. On Tuesday, January 26, we drove up to Murfreesboro to celebrate Grampa's retirement. Anna was a really good girl for the trip, she enjoyed her Italian lunch, and she loved all of the extra attention! After the luncheon, she had a blast following her big sister around and mimicking everything she did! In fact, copying Kate seems to be Anna's favorite activity lately. No matter what Kate does (good or bad), Anna has to do it too! Gramma and Grampa were supposed to come to our house the next weekend to celebrate Anna's birthday, but they got snowed in at home. Believe it or not, Murfreesboro, TN got over four inches of snow, and the roads were completely iced over. So we delayed our plans by a week, and Gramma and Grampa came to celebrate Anna's birthday the first weekend in February instead. They came to our house on Thursday in time for dinner. On Friday morning, Mommy and Daddy went out for a breakfast date while Kate was in school, and Anna had some individual playtime with Gramma and Grampa. Gramma even brought down some special Valentine's cookies that she and Anna made together. Anna had fun helping put the cookies on the pan and then decorating with sprinkles! That afternoon, we celebrated Anna's birthday. Gramma and Grampa gave Anna lots of cool presents, including a new Fisher Price tricycle. After presents, we sang Happy Birthday to Anna and enjoyed some yummy cupcakes that Mommy had made. Anna knew exactly how to blow out her two little candles, and she did it all by herself! She really enjoyed the chocolate frosting on the cupcakes! Gramma and Grampa went home later that afternoon, and we still had the whole weekend to figure out what to do. On Saturday, we decided to go to Early Works children's museum in downtown Huntsville. We spent a couple hours there and had lots of fun playtime together as a family. Anna had a blast playing in the grocery store, the farm, and at the water table. We had a few more episodes of snow during the month of February. One morning, it began snowing hard when we took Kate to school at 9:00. After we dropped Kate off at school, we went to the grocery store, and Anna thought it was hilarious that it was snowing! She loved the fact that we both had snow in our hair, and we even both tried to lick the snow with our tongues. Of course, since we were in the slippery parking lot, she didn't have to get down and stand in the snow. It snowed one other time overnight, and Anna woke up and was excited to see the snow. She wanted to go outside and play, but she refused to get dressed. Mean parents that we were, we wouldn't let her go outside in the snow without clothes on! :) We went from snow on Monday and Tuesday to 70+ degrees the very next weekend. Daddy took Anna to Chick-fil-a for lunch that Saturday, and then they went to the park. They stayed at the park for quite awhile, and Anna could have stayed there all day if Daddy had let her. She had fun swinging (high!), going down the slide, and watching the dogs at the nearby dog park. Anna had to finally come home to take a nap because Papa was coming to visit later that day. Since he lives back in Murfreesboro now, he decided to take a quick trip down to our house overnight. Anna excitedly woke up from her nap and remembered that Papa was here. She had so much fun playing with Papa! After church on Sunday, we went to IHOP for breakfast, and Anna pitched a fit when Papa got out of the car before her to go put our name on the list! After breakfast, we had time to play outside and go ride bikes in the cul-de-sac. Anna had fun driving her Little Tikes car with Papa down the sidewalk to the cul-de-sac. We call Anna "Trouble with a capital T," and she has lived up to this nickname this month. Of course, she's had lots of help from her big sister. One example of Anna's troublesome behavior is the time when she and Kate stood in the bathtub (fully clothed), turned on the cold water, and began pouring it on Anna's head. Anna was drenched from head to toe, her overalls weighed a ton, and she was shivering from the cold water...but she refused to get out! Anna has also become fascinated with the potty. On two separate occasions, she put our bathroom cups in the toilet and poured the toilet water on the floor. One day she did this right after Kate went to the bathroom and before she flushed...YUCK!! Despite all of her trouble, we love Anna and she is so much fun to be with! She loves to make us laugh, and she will make silly faces and just be silly and giggle at herself. Her sweet laugh is definitely contagious and she gets us all in stitches before long. Anna also got two new teeth this month. These were the two teeth on the bottom, on each side of her middle teeth. She is still missing four teeth, plus her two-year molars. At least they are coming in slowly but surely. We've had a fun month, enjoyed some relaxation, and lots of playtime! 2 years Happy 2nd Birthday, Anna! Wow, it is so hard to believe that our baby girl is 2 years old already! How time flies! It's been a very busy month for Anna, starting with the Christmas holiday. On Christmas Eve, we all got dressed up and went to the 6 PM candlelight service at Asbury. Anna went with us to church instead of going to nursery, and she was great! She colored, ate a snack that Mommy had brought, and sat in our laps and was very quiet the whole time. What a big girl! After church we came home and ate some yummy snacks before getting ready for bed. Anna was very excited about Santa Claus coming to our house and bringing presents. She wore her Christmas pajamas to bed and sat with Kate as Daddy read both girls Twas the Night Before Christmas. Anna slept until about 7:45 on Christmas morning (she only woke up because Mommy went in the kitchen and was making lots of noise trying to wake her up). Kate and Anna both came out of Anna's room and saw all of the presents that Santa had left under our tree. Anna was so excited to see all of the presents and was immediately ready to open them! We moved all of the gifts to our spots in the living room, and the fun began. Anna knew just what to do and began tearing into her gifts. The first gift that she opened was a box of goldfish from her stocking, and she immediately wanted to open the box and eat them. She ripped the paper on gift after gift, and the fun never stopped. Anna's big gift from Santa was a ball pit with an extra 200 balls to go in it. She and Kate have had so much fun playing in that. On Christmas morning after all of the gifts were opened and Mommy and Daddy were getting dressed, the girls were playing in the ball pit. At one point in time, I walked into the living room and Anna was just laying in the middle of the balls. She must have played in there for close to an hour before she wanted to do anything else. It was a good thing for Anna to play in so Mommy and Daddy could prepare Christmas dinner. Gramma, Grampa, Aunt Julie, and Uncle Dave came down to our house for our mid-afternoon dinner. Anna went down for an early nap on Christmas day, but she was not interested in eating anything when she woke up for dinner. After dinner, we opened more gifts from Gramma and Grampa. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas day with family! After a couple days of rest at home, Aunt Kellie and Uncle Justin came to our house to visit on December 28. Anna was very shy at first, but it didn't take her long at all to warm up to Kellie. She was also playing with and laughing at Justin by the end of the evening. We had a great visit with Kellie and Justin and were sad to see them go home. Anna cried for Kellie after they pulled out of our driveway. Anna enjoyed the remainder of Christmas break with lots of playtime with Mommy, Daddy, and Kate. On Thursday of the next week, the much-anticipated "Winter Storm 2010" arrived in Huntsville. Our news media hyped up the storm, and you would have thought our dusting of snow was a blizzard. Grocery stores were crazy and completely out of bread. Anna woke up on Thursday and was very excited to see snow falling from the sky. She kept saying that she wanted to play in the snow, despite how much she disliked the snow last time. It snowed throughout the day on Thursday and there was finally enough accumulation to go outside after lunch. We got all bundled up and excitedly went outside...until Anna came to a dead stop at the door. I finally picked her up and carried her outside, and she thought it was quite funny that Kate was throwing snowballs at us. She did not, however, think it was funny when I tried to set her down to stand in the snow. She screamed her head off the whole time she stood in the snow. When I was holding her, though, she kept saying "play snow" but never wanted to be put down. Finally, she happily got down on the snow-free sidewalk. We stayed outside for about 30 minutes and got hit with snowballs, but Anna never wanted to get down and touch the snow herself. Maybe some day. Big news for Anna on Saturday, January 9...she did pee-pee in the big potty! She loves to sit on the potty, and I think she could sit there for hours on end (but not do anything) if we let her. Well, she asked to sit on the potty on Saturday morning, and shortly after she sat down, I heard a distinct sound coming from the bathroom. We were so proud of Anna! Anna has become quite the copycat lately. She has to do EVERYTHING that Kate does, which can either be good or bad. It doesn't matter if it is something Kate says, a song she sings, or a silly face she makes...Anna has to try to do it too. We spent the next week being very busy preparing for our vacation to Walt Disney World. We had lots of errands to run, things to buy, and suitcases to pack. Anna does such a great job at playing independently, which allowed Mommy to really get a lot of stuff done in preparation for our trip. Click here to read all about our magical trip to Disney World. We left Disney on Saturday, January 23, which was Anna's second birthday. Mommy and Daddy woke Anna up in her special Winnie the Pooh room and sang Happy Birthday to her. We had a semi-rushed morning as we were packing and preparing to leave our Disney house. We drove about an hour down to Melbourne, FL where Aunt Kellie and Uncle Justin live, and we went to lunch at yummy City Tropics. The waitress heard us talking about Anna's birthday, so she brought out a special brownie ice cream sundae for Anna to have. The bowl was huge, and Anna ate lots and lots of her dessert. After lunch we went to Aunt Kellie's house and had Christmas with the Caronna family. Since we weren't together for Christmas this year, we decided to exchange Christmas gifts after Disney World when we could all be together. Anna had lots of fun opening Christmas presents and playing with her new toys. After Christmas festivities and dinner, it was time for more birthday celebration. Anna got to open all of her birthday gifts from the family. Of course, Kate had to "help" her because Kate claimed that Anna couldn't do it herself. Anna didn't seem to mind, though, and everybody had a good time. Since Anna had a Pooh room at Disney World, Kate suggested that we have a Winnie the Pooh themed birthday party. Good idea, Kate! After presents, we all sang Happy Birthday to Anna and enjoyed a yummy Winnie the Pooh birthday cake. Anna loved it when everybody sang Happy Birthday to her! She has been practicing singing "Happy Day to You, Happy Day to You...." It was a fun day had by all and a great end to our wonderful vacation! Happy second birthday, Anna...we love you! 23 months Merry Christmas! This month has revolved around lots of holiday festivities. We began by decorating our Christmas tree on November 23. After dinner that evening, we pulled out all of our ornaments and loaded up the tree. Anna was very helpful in hanging the ornaments on the tree, and she placed several ornaments on the low branches of the tree. She also continued our holiday tradition of putting the angel on the Christmas tree. While Anna had fun decorating the tree, she did NOT like the Santa hat that Kate wore. Perhaps she looked a little too much like Santa Claus? The next day we some had special company for Thanksgiving. Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim drove from Wichita to spend the long weekend with us. We had such nice weather when they were here that we were able to go to the park on Wednesday. Anna had a blast running around, swinging SUPER HIGH, and playing on the playground. We enjoyed a yummy turkey dinner on Thursday, although Anna really only cared for the peas and corn. She loved the long weekend of extra attention from Mama and Papa! The next week, Kate had one of her friends over for some playtime. Anna followed the girls up and down the stairs and wanted to do everything her big sister did. Of course, this is very typical for any day in our house lately! On Friday, December 4, we went to the Happy Birthday Jesus party at our church. We ate yummy Chick-fil-a for dinner, we had birthday cake for Jesus, and we saw a puppet show. As usual, Anna loved watching the puppets perform! We sat at a table with another family, and they had three young girls. It just so happened that their girls were dressed in the same matching pajamas that Kate and Anna had on. No, we didn't plan it that way either. :) We sat on the floor to listen to Santa Claus tell the Christmas Story from the Bible. Anna had fun crawling on the floor and under the table with the other family's middle child. Anna loved to say hello to Santa from a distance, but she was not too fond of him up close. She wouldn't sit on his lap, but he was able to bribe her with a stuffed bear and candy cane to get close enough to take a picture. Maybe next year she'll realize that Santa Claus isn't scary. She already knows that Santa will bring her toys if she's a good girl. The next morning we woke up to a special surprise…it had snowed! We just had a dusting on the ground, but it was enough to cover the grass. Anna woke up first, and she went upstairs to wake Kate up. We got the girls all bundled up so they could go play outside in the snow. However, Anna wanted NOTHING to do with the snow once we were outside. Daddy set her down on the deck so Mommy could take a picture, and she just stood there and cried. So Daddy picked her up and carried her into the yard. Every time he tried to set her down, she'd pick her feet up in the air so she wouldn't have to step in the snow. Finally we set her down in a grassy area where there wasn't any snow to see what she would do. Much to our surprise, she stood there and screamed until somebody picked her up! She wanted nothing to do with that snow. So Anna ended up swinging in the 25 degree weather while Kate played in the snow. Kate tried to show Anna a snowball, but that just produced more screams. Anna was, however, quite angry when we went in the house after about 30 minutes; she wanted to stay outside and swing! The next weekend was another fun one as we took a trip up to Nashville. We decided to go to Nashville to eat dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and then go see the Christmas lights at Opryland Hotel. Seeing the lights at Opryland was something Mommy and Daddy remember doing as kids, and it was fun to continue this tradition with our children. Our dinner at Rainforest Cafe was good. Anna loved seeing all of the animals from a distance, but she didn't want to get too close. She wasn't sure about the first "thunderstorm" that they had, but she got used to those and ate a really good dinner. She also loved seeing all of the fish in the aquariums. After dinner, we drove over to the hotel and walked around there. It was beautifully decorated inside. We walked in and someone gave the girls candy canes, which was a special treat for Anna. She ate the whole thing…and she was a sticky mess! Anna loved seeing the Christmas lights and the gigantic ornaments hanging from the ceiling. We stayed with Gramma and Grampa that night, and we spent Saturday morning with them. We came home that afternoon to see the Madison Christmas Parade, but it was postponed because of rain. So after the rain finally stopped on Sunday, we went out to see the parade. We were able to park our van right along the sidewalk, and we sat in the back as we waited for it to start. Mrs. Heather and Mr. Jason came with their boys, and we all had fun together. Anna even let Mrs. Heather hold her for the whole parade, which I know Mrs. Heather enjoyed! On Wednesday of the next week, our church had its Christmas Carols and Christingle service. I asked Anna if she wanted to go sing with Mommy and Daddy, or if she wanted to go to nursery. She chose to come and sing with us, and she was a great girl for the whole service. She would attempt to sing along with the carols catching a word here and there, and she seemed to have a lot of fun! Of course, Anna loves to sing Christmas carols now. Her favorites are Jingle Bells (Bee-Bell) and Feliz Navidad (Bee-Baa). She will sing along in the car as these and other songs are playing on the radio. Also, if she's fussy in the car, Kate will start to sing a Christmas song and Anna will "sing" along with her. It's a great way to turn whining into something happy! On Thursday afternoon, Gramma and Grampa came to our house for a couple days. Mommy and Daddy had our work Christmas party Friday night, so Gramma and Grampa stayed with the girls while we spent a night away. While they were here, they took Kate and Anna to Early Works Children's Museum. Anna had lots of fun playing there for a couple hours, and she was a really good girl while Mommy and Daddy were away. The next evening, we went over to Mr. Jason and Mrs. Heather's house for our annual Christmas dinner. Anna had her first Christmas gifts to open at their house, and she knew just what to do! She had lots of fun opening her presents and seeing the new books and CD's that she got. And she had a blast playing with Kate and the boys while the adults were able to have some uninterupted conversation! We got home late that evening and woke up early the next morning for Anna's first visit to Spring City, TN to see Great Gramma and Great Grampa Gibbs and family. We had another Christmas celebration there, and Anna was a very good girl visiting so much family. The following week was busy as we made our final preparations for Christmas. On Tuesday morning, Mommy, Kate and Anna went to a friend's house for a cookie exchange. There were 5 women and 11 children, which made for a fun morning! All of the kids sat down on a blanket in the dining room and had a picnic lunch. As we were getting ready to leave, I went to go find Anna. I found her sitting quietly by the bathroom pulling ALL of the wipes from a refillable wipe container. There was a big pile of wipes sitting next to the nearly-empty container. Oops! Tuesday evening we all went to see the Galaxy of Lights after dinner. This is the drive-thru light display at the Botanical Gardens. Anna was very excited to be able to get out of her carseat and see all of the Christmas lights! It has been a very fun month, and we are excited to see what Christmas and the New Year will bring for Anna! 22 months Anna has had quite a month! The end of October brought several Halloween festivities. We began by attending Halloween movie night at Daddy's work. Anna loved eating pizza and popcorn with the big kids. She did not, however, like wearing her Halloween costume. This year she was a ladybug, which is the same costume that Kate used at this age. The first problem was the tights...she had never worn tights before and didn't like that she couldn't take them off like she could socks. And she was very resistant to wearing her costume. Finally, Daddy was able to distract her and put it on, which allowed us to get some cute pictures. We went too far, though, when we tried to put the little hat on her head. That's when she realized that she was wearing the costume and proceeded to pull it off. Oh well, she was still cute and we still had fun. The next day we took our annual trip to Tate Farms. We got there just before they opened, and we went straight to the corn crib. Since we were one of the first ones there, we had it to ourselves! Anna did NOT want to get in the corn, but clung to Daddy for dear life. Mommy got in the corn crib and tried to hold Anna, but she wanted nothing to do with Mommy. She eventually thought it was funny when Kate and Daddy made the corn "rain" down, and she was finally convinced to get in the crib. Well, after that she had a blast! After getting comfortable with the crib, she was running around all over the place, laying in the corn, and letting us bury her in the corn. Oh, it was so much fun! At Tate Farms, she also got to pet a puppy dog and several bunnies. She saw a pig and a llama (which she did not like). Finally, it was time for our hay ride to pick out our pumpkin. It was chilly on our hay ride, but we had fun and picked out a beautiful pumpkin. Anna even got to bring home her very own little pumpkin. She held onto this pumpkin and refused to let go of it for quite awhile. We carved our big pumpkin on Halloween morning. Anna did not like the yucky stuff inside the pumpkin, but she loved looking at it when Daddy was finished. She even colored her own pumpkin face on a piece of paper. That night, we went over to our friends' house for dinner and trick-or-treating. Anna was much more receptive to wearing her costume this time, although we didn't even try the hat. She figured out that trick-or-treating meant getting candy right away. We went out with five little girls ages five and under. At the first couple of houses, Anna pushed her way right up to the front to get candy; she wasn't shy at all! She must have seen something scary, though, because after a few houses of doing this, she immediately wanted to be carried and didn't want to get down again. So we carried her from house to house, and she would say "more" between each house. She didn't say "Trick or Treat" to anyone, but she did say "thank you" at every house. One house just had a bowl (nobody handing out candy), and Anna went right up and dug through the bowl until she found Smarties. On Tuesday of the following week, Kate had parents' week at dance. Now when we're at dance waiting for Kate, Anna usually whines in the hall for Kate the whole time that she's there. So it was a treat to get to watch her this week. Well, Anna wanted to do more than just watch; she actually wanted to dance with Kate. We had to chase her across the room several times. When the girls changed from their ballet to their tap shoes, Anna sat down on the floor with them and proceeded to take off her shoes too. She just wants to do everything her big sister does! Too cute! The next afternoon, we drove to Gatlinburg to spend a long weekend with Gramma and Grampa in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Anna was a great traveler for the nearly six-hour trip. She had so much fun in Gatlinburg! When we played miniature golf, Anna got her own putter and golf ball. She didn't want to let go of them at first, but then she figured out that she was supposed to hit the ball with the putter; although she didn't necessarily get it in the hole. On Friday, we took the aerial tram up to Ober Gatlinburg. Anna had fun playing on the kiddie playground with Gramma and Grampa while Mommy, Daddy, and Kate rode the alpine slide. Then Mommy got up the nerve to let Anna take the chair lift and ride the alpine slide too. Anna LOVED the chair lift. In fact, she liked it so much that she got mad and threw a fit when Daddy lifted the bar to get off. But her anger was quickly abated when she got on the alpine slide with Daddy. She had the biggest grin as she went down the slide with Daddy; Mommy and Kate went down right next to them. Also at Ober Gatlinburg, we were able to go to the wildlife encounter, where we saw several black bears. Anna loved looking at the bears and kept calling them to come to her. The next day we walked around downtown Gatlinburg after breakfast. One highlight for Daddy was taking the girls to the candy store that he grew up visiting every summer. Anna decided that she NEEDED a lollipop, and she was not going to be happy until she got one. She loved her special blue raspberry lollipop! We also went to have a picnic lunch near a stream that afternoon, but Anna had just about had it for the day. She had fun playing in the water, but we could definitely tell it was close to naptime. Overall we had a really fun time in Gatlinburg; it was obvious that Anna had fun also because of how silly she acted the whole time. On Wednesday, November 11, Mommy took the girls to the Veteran's Day parade in downtown Huntsville. The parade was quite long - about an hour and a half - but Anna did really well. She was excited to see the fire trucks, hear the marching bands, and see the clowns driving silly cars. We saw lots and lots of soldiers marching in the parade, and Mommy told Anna that they were soldiers. She continued to point out the soldiers as they marched past, and she even pointed out ROTC "soldiers" throughout the whole parade. The highlight for her was getting some candy, and she alternated between waving her candy and the American flag through the parade. The following weekend we went to Carter's fourth birthday party at KidVenture, an indoor play area in Huntsville. Anna loved climing up the giant pirate ship and sliding down the big inflatable. Even though the party was at 2:30 (right in the middle of naptime), Anna had lots of fun and didn't act tired at all. Of course, she fell asleep shortly after getting in the car to go home. The next weekend was another busy one! On Friday night, we went to see the lighting of the Christmas Tree at Bridge Street. It was a very pleasant evening (not too cold), and Anna loved seeing the giant Christmas tree and the "balls" on the tree. We also got to ride the carousel, see Santa Claus (Anna stayed in her stroller and watched from a distance), and eat some yummy frozen yogurt. On Sunday afternoon, we got our Christmas tree out and put the lights on it while Anna was napping. She was excited to get up from her nap and see the pretty tree. That evening, we attended our Advent Workshop at church. This year, Anna was able to help us decorate our candy house. She enjoyed licking the frosting and trying out the different pieces of candy. Also this month, Anna has been trying to learn her colors. She doesn't get them right all the time, but she tries. Especially since she loves to color this month, she usually asks for a particular color of crayon. Anna is also doing really well with her manners, saying "please" and "thank you" when appropriate, although she does sometimes say "thank you" when she asks for something. She's growing up so fast, and we can't wait to see what she does next! 21 months Why? That is the question that Anna has been asking all month. My favorite is when she asks "why" when I tell her not to do something; such as, "Anna, don't touch the oven door"..."Why?" We're trying to use it as a chance to teach her, but it gets so frustrating sometimes! :) As usual, though, we've had such a busy month! Fall has finally arrived, and we are loving the cooler weather. Anna had to wear sneakers for the first time since last spring (she wore sandals all summer), and that was quite an adjustment. The first day she wore her sneakers, she took them off as soon as we put them on, and she continued to do this for several days. It's a little bit better now, but she will still take them off when we're in the car most of the time. Anna had a fun time at Jack's birthday party at JumpZone at the end of September. She was very intimidated by the big inflatables at first, but Mommy and Daddy found a little slide that she could go down. Daddy sat at the top, Mommy was at the bottom, and Anna slid down between us. Once she realized that she was safe, she had so much fun! And she loved eating the birthday cupcake! The next week brought some beautiful weather and cooler temperatures, so Mommy took Anna to a new playground in the area. We had some time to kill before picking Kate up from school, so it was just the two of us. Mommy and Anna had fun on the swings, slides, bouncy animals, etc. The nice weather continued for Saturday of that week, which was the annual Madison Street Festival. It was cold that morning, but we got up early and went to see the parade in downtown Madison. Gramma, Grampa, and Uncle Tim were all able to go with us this year. We saw the parade, walked around to all of the different booths, and ate yummy fair food for lunch. Anna even had her first lollipop after the parade this year, and she really loved her "pop!" That evening we took Uncle Tim out for his birthday dinner, and we celebrated with cake and ice cream at home afterwards. Uncle Tim left our house on Sunday morning, and then on Thursday, we flew out to Wichita to see Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim (again). Anna was excellent on the plane trip all the way to Wichita! I was worried about traveling by myself with her since Daddy stayed home and she has always hated flying in the past, but she was so good this time. She wanted to do everything big sister did, so she colored, ate snacks, etc. We had a such a fun time in Wichita! Anna loved to pet the kitties while we were there. I wasn't sure how she would do with them, but she was very gentle and loved to pet them (as long as they were sitting still). The weather was very cold the weekend we were there, but we decided to try to go to the zoo Friday afternoon after the sun came out. Anna's favorite animals at the zoo were the giraffes, the meerkats, and the penguins. When we tried to leave the giraffes, she held on to the fence so she could stay and look at them longer. She kept calling the meerkats "dogs," and she liked that they were at her level and she could see them right on the other side of the glass. She wasn't too sure about the great big tiger who was right on the other side of the glass, though. She clung on to Mama for dear life when they were near the tiger. But then we got to the penguins, and Anna had the best time. She sat in her stroller and tried to get them as they swam along, and she would just laugh as they passed her. It was lots of fun! I'm glad we went to the zoo on Friday, because on Saturday evening, Anna started running a fever. This fever lasted the rest of the time that we were in Wichita, but we still had fun. We treated her fever with Tylenol and Motrin, and she still played hard. We didn't do too much else besides play around the house because of the cold weather and the sickness. Oh yeah, and we did get Mama and Papa sick too. Fortunately, their sicknesses held off until we left on Tuesday. We flew home on Tuesday and Anna did relatively well (especially since she was very congested). On Thursday morning, I took the girls to the doctor because they were still running a fever. We found out that Anna most likely had swine flu. She basically had a fever, runny nose/congestion, and a cough. Fortunately, her fever broke on Friday and she's been doing well since, so she thankfully had a pretty mild case. The runny nose has lingered, but she seems to be back to herself, otherwise. We also went to a local science museum this month and went back to the park (at Kate's request). It has been a very fun and busy month. We hope and pray that everybody stays well as the weather gets cooler and the holidays get closer! 20 months Early in the month, Gramma and Grampa came down to visit for Labor Day weekend. That Saturday, we went to the Huntsville Botanical Garden, where Anna had a great time. We got there around 10:00, and we didn't leave until almost 4:00 and Anna only took about a thirty minute nap during that time. One of Anna's favorite things to do there was play on the rock that squirts water out the top. She liked to move the little pebbles all around the big rock, and she got the front of her clothes soaked! She had lots of fun playing with Gramma and Grampa during their visit! The following weekend, Uncle Tim came to visit us for a few weeks. Anna loves to play with Uncle Tim. If she wakes up before he does, she stands at the bottom of the stairs and yells, "Tim!" One of her favorite things to do lately is to build block towers and knock them down. Anna also loves to read books. She always picks out which books she wants to read before naptime and bedtime. She will also pick out books randomly throughout the day, bring them to us, and say "read" while she starts to sit down in one of of our laps. Her favorite book to read right now is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" Her favorite toys continue to be her baby dolls. Last month, GiGi sent her a baby doll that came with a bottle so you can feed it. She loves to feed her baby the bottle. This month, Anna finally figured out how to say "Mommy" instead of "MeeMee." I miss her cute little "MeeMee" because it was so unique. But hearing her call "Mommy" in that adorable little raspy voice is precious! Also this month, Anna has had several more teeth come in. She is now up to 10 teeth! She has her four teeth in the very front, her four molars, and the next two top front teeth. Maybe she'll get all of her baby teeth before it's time for them to start falling out! :) We've had a fun month of playing, learning, and growing! We look forward to what next month will bring! 19 months Anna seems to become less baby and more little girl every day. Her vocabulary has completely exploded, and she is constantly telling us things she sees. When she's eating at the kitchen table, she continually points out Mommy, Daddy, Kate, table, chair, light, hairbow, etc. When we're driving in the car, she talks nonstop about trees, water, cars, etc. Actually, our church is building a new building, and every time we drive by the church, Anna says, "whoa." We have since taught her that it's a church, so now she says "whoa, church" when we drive by. Must be she's learned how to talk continually from her big sister! Anna had her 18-month checkup on August 13. She now weighs 21 pounds and is 32 inches tall, which is between the 10th and 50th percentile for each. Fortunately, she didn't have to get any shots at this appointment, although you wouldn't have known that by how she screamed for the WHOLE appointment. Dr. Cartwright was very pleased with her developmental progress, though! We noticed that Anna got another tooth on July 25. This is her seventh tooth, and it's the second top tooth on the left side. We did several fun things this month since summer seems to be coming to an end. We celebrated Daddy's birthday at the end of July. Kate requested that we have an Elmo party for Daddy, so of course Anna loved the Elmo decorations and birthday cake. Elmo is her favorite character on Sesame Street! Mommy, Kate, and Anna went to Bridge Street to play in the kids' water fountains one morning. Anna had a great time following Kate around and running through the water. After her little face got wet, she'd run over to me so I could dry it off, and then she'd go right back to getting wet again. Later that day, we went to another Concert in the Park in downtown Huntsville. Anna loved listening to the music, and she'd clap her hands or dance along with it. We brought some extra bread, so Anna had fun throwing the bread to the fish and ducks in the lake. On Friday, August 7, we took a day trip to Chattanooga to visit the Tennessee Aquarium. We got there around 10:30 that morning, and we didn't leave until about 6:30 that night. It was a long day, but we had so much fun! One of the first things that we saw were the butterflies. Anna was excited to see the butterflies, and I think she was more excited that she got to hold one on her arm! The butterfly stayed on her arm for a couple minutes, and Anna just loved to sit still and watch it. When we went to the big exhibit with the sharks, Anna was a bit intimidated at first...especially when the shark swam right by her face. But she warmed up to the fish and sharks, and soon she was all smiles again. She kept waving hello and goodbye to the fish every time we moved to a new exhibit. Another highlight of the day was when the girls got to play in the water area outside the aquarium. We thought Anna might miss this since she had fallen asleep in her stroller shortly before, but she woke up after a very short nap and was able to play with Kate. She loved to splash and follow Kate around in the shallow water. It was a fun time had by all at the Tennessee Aquarium! We wanted to find something else fun to do the next day, so we decided to try out the Harmony Park Safari in south Huntsville. We have never been before, so we thought we'd check it out. Well, we had a blast! This was a drive-thru area with lots of animals. Anna was a little bit intimidated, especially when the deer, emu, llama, and buffalo came right up to our car door. But she loved to throw food to them through the window and watch them eat (she sat in Mommy's lap the whole time). Every time one of the large animals looked up for more food, though, she was attached to Mommy in an instant. I'd like to say that Anna learned about some new animals that day, but every one that she looked at she pointed to and said "cow." It was fun, and we got to see lots of wild animals! Kate started school this month, and Anna really misses Kate when she's away at school. After we dropped Kate off for her first day of school, we got back in the car and Anna immediately started calling for Kate. She still sometimes walks around the house like a little lost puppy calling for Kate. Anna certainly loves her big sister! The girls both like to go upstairs to Kate's room to play by themselves; sometimes for over an hour. Anna typically walks up the stairs with Kate, looks down and smiles at Mommy or Daddy, and then runs off to Kate's room to play. She's getting to be such a big girl! 18 months Anna began the month with a very long car ride down to Melbourne, FL for Aunt Kellie's wedding. We know Anna is not the best traveler (that's putting it mildly), so we were very worried about how she would do in the car for 12+ hours. Well, much to our surprise, she was excellent. She slept for the first several hours in the car, she happily watched movies with Kate (her favorite being Elmo's World), she played with her baby dolls, she slept some more, and then we were there! Anna went down to the beach shortly after we got there while Mommy unpacked in our room. Anna did not want to put her feet in the sand initially. Whenever Daddy tried to set her down, she'd pull her feet up and want to be held. Once we got her in the sand, though, we couldn't get her away from it! She loved walking in the sand and playing in the water. We had our first real beach day on Thursday. Anna played with the buckets, she dug in the sand, and she loved to splash in the water! Whatever Kate did, Anna wanted to do too. If Kate danced, Anna danced; if Kate sat down to play, Anna sat down to play. At one point in time, they were sitting in the sand playing together and Anna spotted some seagulls walking along the shore. She saw those birds, immediately stood up, and took off running to catch the birds. Of course they flew away, but Anna and Mommy chased them down the beach a little ways. It was so much fun to spend a couple days with Anna at the beach! Anna was great at the wedding (for the most part). She sat still in Daddy's lap during the ceremony. The only problem came when Daddy had to get up to do a reading, and he passed Anna to someone else. But she quickly quieted down and let everyone enjoy all of Aunt Kellie and Uncle Justin's beautiful wedding ceremony! Anna had fun walking around at the reception and trying to stay cool. But a couple hours into the reception, she was obviously pooped out because she fell asleep in her stroller and didn't wake up until it was time to go! After we got home from the wedding, we tried to get back into a normal routine. It was nice to have a few days where we didn't have to rush to do anything. Anna played so well with Kate. Sometimes the two girls will go upstairs into Kate's room, where they'll play together for quite awhile (sometimes as much as an hour). It's nice that they get along so well; at least some of the time. On Friday night, July 3, we went to the Mercy Me concert in downtown Huntsville. It was very hot that night, but we all had a good time. The concert was in a yucky gravel parking lot, and Anna really enjoyed playing with the rocks. She would pick up a handful of gravel and put it on the blanket. She was so filthy by the time we left there! It was 10:00 when we got home, and the girls went straight to the bathtub! The next day we spent together as a family. Anna slept late the next morning and went down for a late nap. This was good because we were up late again to go see fireworks. Anna was playing around before the fireworks began, but as soon as they started she calmed down. She sat in Daddy's lap and didn't move a muscle for almost the whole show. She had one finger in her mouth and watched in amazement. Towards the end, she started to point at the fireworks, and there were a couple times when she even clapped. It was so much fun to see her enjoy the fireworks. The next week was Mission Week at church, so Kate and Mommy attended the preschool Missions ‘n Me program. This meant Anna had to spend five mornings in nursery, which she wasn't happy about. She was able to go on our field trips with us, so she went to a nursing home, fire station, and an indoor inflatable center. The highlight for Anna was the fire station. Like the big kids, she was able to wear her swimsuit and help wash the fire truck. I don't think she ever touched the truck, but she did have fun playing with her sponge and bucket with soapy water. On Friday, we went to Pump It Up, which is a large room with giant inflatables. Mommy and Daddy took Anna to "jump" on a couple inflatables, which was fun. But she really had fun when Mommy took her down the giant slide. She came down with a big smile on her face, so Daddy took her down next. Each time we got to the bottom, Anna asked to go "again." Too cute! That afternoon, we drove up to Murfreesboro to have some playtime with Gramma and Grampa. On Saturday morning, we woke up early and went to pick our own blueberries. Anna was happy in her stroller for awhile, but then she started to fuss. Mommy kept giving her blueberries to eat, which made her very happy. She eventually got out of her stroller and picked her own berries to eat. Sometimes she ended up with a handful of unripe, white berries in her mouth. Oops! At one point, she realized that there were not only berries on the bush, but there were a bunch on the ground, as well. She immediately started scooping them up by the handfuls and stuffing them in her mouth. Needless to say, Anna loves blueberries and had a blast at the blueberry patch. She also had fun playing on the playground that they have there, following Kate around to all the fun things to do. Another fun thing to do was to look at the cows over the fence. Anna kept pointing to the cows and saying "moo." We got cute video of her waving at the cows with one hand and stuffing her mouth with blueberries with the other! The next day Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim arrived for a visit. We had a lot of fun with them! On Sunday, July 13, Mommy noticed that Anna's sixth tooth had come through; this one is the top molar on her right side. On Tuesday, we went to our neighborhood pool for a couple hours. Anna loved playing in the kiddie pool, and she discovered a new game. She liked to stand on the little edge in the pool, have somebody count, "One, Two, Three" and then she would "jump" into the pool. She began calling the game "Two" and she actually bent her knees and looked like she was jumping in. We all thought she was hilarious and loved to see her have so much fun! Anna had so much fun playing with everybody while they were here. Mama and Papa brought Anna a new baby doll, which Anna loved. She walks around with it all the time; she likes to try to give it her pacifier and put her sleep sack on the baby. Anna plays so well independently; she seems to be able to easily entertain herself. Anna's vocabulary has really exploded this month. Click here to see a list of words that Anna can say. This list is not complete, though, because she's to the point where I can't remember all of the words that she knows. Even if Anna doesn't know a particular word, she will usually try to repeat it if we first say it to her. She is growing and changing so much now and so quickly now too! 17 months Summer has officially arrived, and we've had a good start to the summer. Anna has enjoyed going to our neighborhood pool a few times already. They have a kiddie pool, and she likes to get in and out and in and out and in and out of that. She also loves to swim in the big pool with Mommy or Daddy. She does a great job of splashing the water with her hands, and she likes to bend down and get her face wet too. I think she'd swim by herself if she was able to! Anna also continues to love to play outside and swing, etc. Every time Daddy grills dinner on the deck, Anna stands at the back door and says, "wheeeee," which means she wants to swing. Usually Kate will push her in her swing while Daddy grills and Mommy cooks dinner inside. On June 15-19, we attended Asbury's Vacation Bible School. Mommy served as a Crew Leader in Kate's 4-year-old class, and Anna spent about 3 1/2 hours in nursery each morning. She did great in nursery, and hardly cried at all. Anna was in a room with about six other 11-17 month old children. They had their own VBS program, which included a special snack each day, crafts, music time, story time, and playground time. Mommy was able to peak her head in a couple times and watch Anna, and she always seemed to be having so much fun! By Thursday, Anna was ready to get down and go play as soon as we walked in the room to drop her off. Her teachers said her favorite things to play with were the baby dolls (not surprising since she loves her babies at home too!). During craft time, she made a burning bush, a silly frog out of a paper plate, a special picture frame with her fingerprints, and a footprint painting. Anna finally cut another tooth through the gums on Wednesday, June 17. This is the top tooth on her right side. On Saturday, June 20, we noticed her front tooth on the top right. In case that wasn't enough, we noticed her top left molar the very next day. Now Anna has five teeth! We moved Anna from her highchair into a booster seat this month. Mommy was tired of the highchair crowding the kitchen, and Anna seems to be interested in sitting at the big table. Also, Anna continues to learn more words this month. She now knows at least 41 words. Click here to see a list of the words that Anna knows. In addition, she continues to make her animal noises. And she's also doing a great job of repeating things that we say. Especially when her big sister asks her to say something...Anna always wants to imitate Kate! And it's not just words that she imitates. If Kate makes a funny noise or does something silly like a flip, Anna will often try to do it too. It's obvious that Anna loves her big sister so much. Typically, when Anna wakes up in the morning or from afternoon nap, the first thing she wants to do is find Kate. If she can't find her right away, she will walk around the house calling "Kate." I'm so glad our girls get along so well (most of the time) and are such good playmates! 16 months Anna is growing up so quickly, and we've had another fun and busy month. On the last Saturday in April, we attended the annual Panoply Arts Festival in downtown Huntsville. The weather was gorgeous, and we all had a great time. Anna did such a good job riding in her stoller while Kate made several crafts. She loved riding around looking at the balloons, the Chinese dancers, and all of the people and art. We tried to get Anna's face painted, but she wanted nothing to do with that! After lunch, we took our extra bread to the lake and fed the fish with it. Anna loved watching the fish eat the bread...she practically wanted to go swim in the water with the fish! She was very angry that Daddy held on so tightly to her. :) The following weekend, Gramma and Grampa came down to visit. Mommy and Daddy went out on Friday night to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary, so Anna stayed home to play with Gramma and Grampa. She also had a lot of playtime on Saturday as Mommy and Daddy spent quite a bit of time working outside. On Monday, May 4, Anna had her 15-month checkup with the pediatrician. She only had to get one shot this time, and Dr. Cartwright said she was really doing well based on her developmental survey. The big news from this appointment was that Anna finally weighs twenty pounds...exactly. Ironically, Kate weighed exactly twenty pounds at her 15-month checkup also. The signifiance of twenty pounds is that we can finally turn Anna's carseat around to be forward facing! She now rides in her carseat and is always looking around and seeing what is out the window. She especially loves that she can see Mommy and Daddy in the front seat. A couple days later, Mama and Uncle Tim came to visit. While they were here, Mama stayed home with Anna while Mommy and Daddy took Kate on her first camping trip. Anna was an angel for Mama and Uncle Tim. I know she loved having all of the attention for a couple days! Mama and Anna played outside, they took a couple of long walks, and had a really great time together. Anna absolutely loves being outside. She likes to swing on her playset; sometimes she will bring us her shoes if she wants to go outside and play. When we're outside, Anna points out all of the airplanes and birdies that fly by. We spent the following week with Mama and Uncle Tim at our house. Unfortunately, we had rainy weather most of the week, so we had to play inside most of the time. On Sunday, May 17, we all drove up to Murfreesboro for Aunt Kellie's Bridal Shower. Anna didn't get to go to the shower, but she did get to spend the afternoon with Gramma and Grampa. It was a long and busy day, so Anna didn't take a real nap until we got in the car to go home around 6:00 that evening. She was such a good girl, though. Anna seems to be learning so much this month. Click here to see a list of the words that Anna knows. She is also learning her animal noises, and she can tell you what sounds dogs, cats, birds, ducks, lions, sheep, horses, and cows make. Not to mention that she can show you how a penguin walks! She is walking like a pro now, and she's even beginning to run. She loves to run around the house and try to keep up with her big sister! Anna continues to like to feed herself. On some occasions, she won't eat well until we give her a fork to use. She loves to spoon-feed herself her yogurt, etc., which always results in quite a mess! Also at dinnertime, Anna has learned to fold her hands when we say the blessing. She folds her hands and smiles when Kate says, "God is Great." We love our baby girl so much, and we just love watching her grow and change each month! 15 months Anna has had an exciting month! To begin, we celebrated Kate's fourth birthday on Saturday, March 28. Fortunately, Anna slept very late that morning, so Mommy and Daddy could begin the party preparations. When Anna finally woke up, Daddy already had the big inflatable set up in the backyard. Anna looked out her bedroom window and got excited and immediately wanted to go outside. Well, it must have been a bit more intimidating up close than from far away because it took her awhile before she got on it. But she finally had a blast playing and bouncing around in it. And she LOVED eating Kate's birthday cake! It brought back memories of her first birthday just a couple months ago. A few days after Kate's party, Daddy had a business trip in San Diego, and Mommy was lucky enough to go with him. We left on Friday afternoon, and Mama stayed at our house with the girls...thank you, Mama and Uncle Tim! It was very hard to say goodbye to Anna, but she did great with Mama! Fortunately, she's at the age where she didn't notice (too much) that we were gone. She's very interested in the telephone now, so Mommy tried to talk to her a couple times on the phone. Well, as soon as she heard Mommy's voice, she was more interested in doing something else instead. Oh well, at least I know she had fun while we were gone! :) While we were in San Diego, Mama took the girls to Asbury's annual Easter egg hunt. Anna's age group "seached" for eggs on the little playground. Mama showed Anna how to pick the eggs up off the ground and put them in her basket, and then Anna got several eggs on her own. Anna was excited to play with the "balls" this Easter season. One day that week, Mama took Anna and Kate to the mall to see the Easter bunny. Anna was excited to see the bunny from far away, and she even waved to him. But she didn't want to get too close. Mama did a great job, though, and managed to sneak Anna onto the Easter bunny's lap without her noticing. And the cameraman was great too, because he snapped a cute picture of the girls! You can't tell in the picture that Anna was about to burst into tears when she realized who was holding her. Mommy and Daddy got home in time to celebrate Easter with our family. We were blessed this year to celebrate with Mama, Uncle Tim, and Papa who flew in for a few short days! We went to church Easter Sunday morning, and Anna played in the nursery. After church, we came home and found Easter baskets. Anna was excited to get a ball, a talking Elmo telephone, and some new books in her Easter basket. After lunch, we went outside to find some eggs that the Easter bunny had hidden in our yard. Even though Anna liked finding eggs the week before, she wanted nothing to do with it this time. She either didn't like our scratchy grass, or she was too interested in swinging on the playset instead. Oh well; we still enjoyed a nice Easter together! On Tuesday, April 14, Anna's first tooth finally popped through her gums! This tooth was her front tooth on the bottom left. It was followed six days later by the bottom right tooth on April 20. Our baby finally has teeth! Although they didn't bother her too much as they were coming in, we did give her Tylenol at bedtime to help with sleeping. I'm sure the other teeth are not too far behind. Anna is walking like a pro now! She's becoming much faster and steadier on her feet. She continues to add words to her vocabulary. Some of the words she says often are DaDa (her favorite), out, more, cracker, yogurt, banana, ball, and balloon. She is starting to learn how to communicate what she wants without whining; for example, she rubs her hands together when she's all done eating in her highchair. Anna loves to have someone sing songs to her; a new favorite this month is "If You're Happy and You Know It." She knows how to clap her hands, stomp her feet, and shout hooray. Too cute! Anna brings such joy into our lives and we love to watch her learn new things every day! 14 months Anna is walking...everywhere! For awhile, we thought this day would never come, but she's doing such a great job walking now. She began taking steps between Mommy and Daddy about a month ago, but once she figured out what to do, she was off. Now she chooses to walk most of the time. She can bend down to pick something up off the floor and then continue walking. We are all enjoying Anna's newfound freedom and independence! She sometimes gets excited, though, and tries to run fast when Kate is playing with her, but she usually ends up on the floor still. I guess crawling is still best when you need to get somewhere fast. Anna had her first big family vacation at the end of February, when we went on seven-day Caribbean cruise with Mommy's family. Click here to read more details about our cruise. Anna's other big milestone is that she is finally starting to form words. Her favorite word to say is "ball." She knows what a ball is, and she goes crazy when she sees one. She loves to play with all different sizes of balls at home, and she nearly jumped out of the cart when she saw a ball at Wal-Mart a few days ago. Another word that she knows is "nana" for banana. It's no wonder she has the nickname Anna Banana with how much she loves her bananas! Any time we pass the bananas in the grocery, she goes crazy until she gets one. She also knows how to say "DaDa" and recognizes who he is. She can show us her tongue, eyes, and nose and she can even play some finger games like Pat-a-cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider. She still loves her rocking chair, and she loves to rock in it and say, "wheeeeeeee!" Whenever she gets tired, though, she gets her pacifier and picks up her sack to hold against her face and she just kind of melts. What a cutie! Anna seems to be learning so much and developing into such a little person. I love all the things that she does at this age and the constant excitement and anticipation of what she's going to do next! 13 months Anna has had an exciting month. The big news this month is that she is beginning to take steps! She's not quite ready to walk everywhere yet, but she can walk across the room between Mommy and Daddy. She is so proud of herself when she does it, and she just wants to do it again and again. She'll be running around the house very soon! She can also now stand up by herself from a sitting position. Occasionally, she will stand up and take one or two steps to something that she wants. She continues to point at things that interest her and say, "oooh." One thing of particular interest this month is the telephone. When she sees a phone, she points to it, and then brings her hand to her ear and says, "oh," as though she is talking on the phone. She does this whenever she notices a telephone, but she thinks it's especially neat when the phone actually rings. She's beginning to learn other sounds as well. For example, sometimes when she's sitting in her highchair and she's ready to get out, she says, "ou" (other times she just whines). She loves sitting in her highchair to eat table food. Mommy stopped nursing her this month, so she gets all of her nourishment from "real" food now. She has also learned how to use a fork this month, and she expects it every time she eats. She can hold the fork, and she has the right idea, but she sometimes has a hard time spearing things. After we help her, though, she brings that fork right to her mouth and eats. She's doing a great job with it! If we're trying to feed Anna something and she doesn't want it, she has learned to shake her head "no." In addition to food, she does this with anything else we try to give her that she doesn't want. We had a warm weekend at the beginning of February, so we decided to go to the park. Anna did NOT want to swing in the baby swings, so she rode in her stroller a lot while Kate played. After the park, we went to Bruster's for some ice cream, and Anna got her very first baby cone from Bruster's. They give free baby cones to kids under 40 inches tall, so we got Anna a vanilla ice cream cone. Of course she loved it! She ate the whole thing, including every bit of the cone. She really didn't make too much of a mess. She had ice cream dripping down her chin onto her shirt, but that was it. No ice cream in her hair, none on the stroller, etc. The next weekend was Valentine's Day. Since Anna loves balloons so much, Mommy and Daddy got her an "I Love You" balloon for Valentine's Day. She loves to play with it and make silly faces at it. It's a clear balloon, so she can look through it too. The week before Valentine's Day, Mommy had a fever virus, which she decided to share with Anna. Anna's fever lasted about 48 hours, but fortunately didn't seem to affect her too much. We ended this month with everybody having colds. Anna has a yucky cough and runny nose now, and we're all trying to nurse ourselves back to good health! We look forward to seeing what the next month brings for Anna! 12 months Happy 1st Birthday, Anna!!! We've had many celebrations this month, including Anna's first Christmas and her first birthday party. We all enjoyed celebrating Christmas, especially since we had Anna with us this year! Anna's first Christmas was a memorable time for all of us! To begin, we all went to Christmas Eve service at Asbury at 6 pm. Anna came to service with us, and she did a great job and was relatively quiet. She awoke Christmas morning just before 9:00, so she was able to open gifts with all of us. She opened several gifts from Santa by herself. She was so cute because she would rip off a tiny piece of paper and hand it to Aunt Kellie. Then she would rip open another piece, hand it to Aunt Kellie, rip open another piece, .... She loved playing with the toys that she opened, and she wanted to eat the Cheerios as soon as she unwrapped them from her stocking! She took a very good nap that afternoon, which allowed Mommy and everyone else to prepare Christmas dinner. She woke up in time for dinner, and she sat in her highchair and had beef tenderloin (much better than vegetable beef dinner baby food, I'm sure), mashed potatoes, peas, and part of a roll. It was such a fun day, but she sure was worn out at bedtime that evening! The first part of January was relatively uneventful. One day, Mommy took Kate and Anna to the Early Works children's museum in downtown Huntsville. It has been freezing cold here, so this was a fun way to get out of the house but still stay warm. Anna had so much fun at the museum. We primarily played in the toddler play area. Anna wanted to do everything that Big Sister Kate was doing. A favorite for Anna was to watch Kate put on a puppet show behind the curtain. She laughed and laughed when Kate would show the puppets and make them talk. She really enjoyed picking potatoes and other vegetables from the farm area, playing musical instruments, and climbing on the big cushy blocks. She even helped Mommy work a few puzzles! We all had a really good time! Mama and Uncle Tim arrived on January 20 in preparation for Anna's first birthday! Anna turned one year old on January 23 at 12:22 pm. That evening, Mommy, Daddy, Kate, Anna, Mama, Uncle Tim, and Aunt Kellie went to Rosie's (our favorite Mexican restaurant) for dinner. Kate shared her grilled cheese tortilla with Anna, and she loved it...I think both girls ate the same amount! After we came home from Rosie's, we sang Happy Birthday to Anna and had some dessert. We bought her a special cookie cake for her birthday so she could have something on her actual birthday. Anna sat in Mommy's lap while we sang Happy Birthday, and she kept trying to eat the frosting on the cookie while we sang. She tasted a little bit and decided it was really yummy. She cried as we put her in her highchair because she couldn't eat the cookie. But after we gave her her own plate of cookie, she was in heaven! At first she picked at little pieces of the frosting, and then she started to eat bigger bites of the cookie. It was a double-layer cookie, and she ate almost the entire slice that we gave her! We had to take it away when she wasn't looking or else she would have been on a sugar high all night long. After a late evening, we finally got Anna to bed in preparation for her party on Saturday. We woke Anna up early so I could put her down for a morning nap before her party began at noon. When she woke up from her nap, the house was fully decorated, and Anna was so excited! She loved seeing all of the balloons, streamers, and other decorations that we had put up. She would point to everything and say, "oooh." Company arrived throughout the morning, and Anna did great through it all. We ate a delicious lunch of honey glazed ham and lots of side dishes. We had a couple of fun games for everyone to play at her party. One game required that the guests guess how many weeks old Anna was in 24 different pictures or milestones during the first year of her life. The pictures and events were on posterboard and everyone wrote down their guesses for each one. Mama won this game by having the closest guess in 9 out of the 24 categories. The other game that we played was a crossword puzzle, which tested the guests' knowledge about Anna. Mama and Gramma tied in this game, getting 17 out of 21 correct answers. After we finished lunch and games, we let Anna open her presents. She pulled some tissue paper out of bags and ripped some wrapping paper off of boxes. She loved seeing the new toys that she got and wanted to play with them immediately (especially the ones with the see-through boxes!). After presents, it was time for cake. Since Anna loved her cookie cake so much the night before, we were excited to see how she would do with her real cake. We asked Publix to decorate the cake to match her invitations, and they did an excellent job. We sang Happy Birthday to Anna, and then we put her in her highchair with her very own baby cake to eat. Either she was overwhelmed by all of the people watching her or she was overtired (or both), but she was not interested in that cake. The only thing she wanted was for Mommy to hold her. Well, Mommy picked her up to hold her, but she wanted the cake. So Mommy ended up holding Anna while she stuck her face in the cake. After Mommy's arms got tired, I tried to put her back in her highchair, but no such luck (but she still wanted the cake). Finally, I just put Anna in the middle of the kitchen floor and put the cake down right in front of her. Well, she went to town on it! She ate the frosting, the cake, painted the floor with the cake, crawled through the cake, etc. What a mess we had when she was finished! But she seemed to really enjoy her first birthday cake! :) We had such a fun time at the party, and it was great to see so many family and friends. In other news this month, Anna still has no teeth. We thought she'd surely pop that first tooth through before her first birthday, but no such luck. She is getting closer to walking by herself, but she's just not ready to let go quite yet. She continues to love to eat just about anything and everything, and she's been given more table food in the last month. It's especially nice on days when she can eat the same thing for dinner that the rest of us have! Anna points to things now and says "oooh" if she sees something that interests her. She is also starting to recognize certain things. For example, if we say "Where is the light?" she knows to point at the light. She is also learning balloon and is working on eyes and nose. Anna has been such a blessing to our lives in the past year, and we look forward to seeing what joy she'll bring in the next year. 11 months We celebrated Thanksgiving this year for the first time at Gramma and Grampa Owen's house. It was fun to see Gramma, Grampa, Aunt Julie, Uncle Dave, Great-Gramma, Great-Grampa, and Great Uncle Randal. Anna's great-grandparents haven't seen her since she was baptized, so this was a real treat for them! Anna enjoyed a delicious turkey dinner along with the rest of us. We cut up small pieces of turkey and put them on her tray. She wasn't sure at first, but once she realized it was good food, she ate it all up (minus the many pieces that she dropped in her lap). Anna loves eating table food now, and she will typically eat the same things that we have for dinner. After we came home from Gramma and Grampa's house, we spent the rest of the long holiday weekend getting our house decorated for Christmas. Anna napped during most of the decorating. When she woke up, she loved looking at the Christmas tree and lights. We just knew that we would have to put the gate up finally once we put the Christmas tree up, but Anna never really tried pulling things off it like we thought she would. Her favorite things, though, are the singing Hallmark snowmen. She and Kate love to sit on the floor and play with them...Kate turns them on and Anna starts dancing (bouncing up and down) to the music! The following weekend was a busy one. On Friday night, we went to our church's annual Happy Birthday Jesus party, which is geared toward preschool-age children. One highlight for Anna was the puppet show. She sat there with wide eyes watching the entire time the puppets performed (three songs, I believe). Anna's least favorite part of the evening was definitely sitting on Santa's lap. Fortunately, Mommy thought this one ahead and let Kate sit on Santa's lap first. Then I put Anna on Santa's lap, and Anna just screamed. Of course, we had to torture her and make her sit there long enough so everybody could take her picture! Mommy told Mrs. Heather later on that she could try putting Anna on Santa's lap again, but every time she got near Santa, Anna just clung on to someone and looked the other direction. A funny thing is a couple days later, we went to Target, and the cashier (a bigger guy with a red shirt on) started talking to Anna, and she started screaming again. Not typical of Anna since she usally smiles at anyone who says hello to her, but I guess he looked a little too much like Santa Claus! The day after the Happy Birthday Jesus party was the Huntsville Christmas Parade in downtown. It was freezing cold that morning, but we all bundled up and went to the parade. Anna had a great time sitting in Daddy's lap all bundled up and watching the floats, cars, motorcycles, dogs, and kids go by. That evening Mr. Jason, Mrs. Heather, Jack, and Carter came over for our annual Christmas dinner. We had a great time, and Anna even played with Mrs. Heather and Mr. Jason quite a bit! She loved opening her gift...or at least pulling the tissue paper out of the bag and then tearing it to shreds. Christmas morning should be fun! Mama, Papa, and Uncle Tim arrived at our house on December 11. Anna has done a great job with both of them and had very little stranger anxiety this time. The reason that everyone came so early this year is because Aunt Stacie graduated from Middle Tennessee State University on December 13...congratulations, Stacie! We all drove up to Murfreesboro early Saturday morning for the graduation, and Anna even went to the ceremony with us. She took a little nap during the 2-hour ceremony, and the rest of the time she sat quiety munching on snacks that we brought for her. We all enjoyed a weekend with family celebrating Aunt Stacie's accomplishments! That Sunday, Papa had to fly back to Wichita to work for a week, but Mama and Uncle Tim stayed at our house. We didn't do too much...it rained and rained and rained all week long. We've had over 10 inches of rain this month already! But Anna enjoyed lots of indoor playtime with Mama and Uncle Tim! She learned how to clap her hands this month, and she is so proud of herself when she claps! She has also figured out how to push her walker around the house, so that is a nonstop exercise now. She still continues to walk around holding onto both or one of our hands, and she is cruising around furniture now too. She pulls herself up to anything she wants, and she gets very angry when we take things away from her. We've had such a fun month with Anna, and we're really looking forward to what her first Christmas brings in just a couple days! 10 months NEWS FLASH: Anna is crawling! She started crawling on October 24. She usually does a rather silly crawl where she pushes off with her left foot and crawls on her right leg. It doesn't matter, though, because she can get around wherever she wants. There have been several occasions when she's been sitting on the living room floor, and then she crawls into the kitchen to be where the action is. She's becoming rather fast, and I'm sure the baby gates will go up soon! Mama and Uncle Tim arrived at our house on October 25 to visit us for about a week. Aunt Kellie even came down for a few days too. Anna wasn't too fond of Mama if Mommy was in the room initially. But Mommy and Daddy got a date night on Monday, and we heard that Anna was an angel with Mama. Not one tear was shed! Anna enjoyed having company here for the week and having the extra attention. Anna went trick-or-treating with us on Halloween. She dressed up as a beautiful little flower. She must have thought trick-or-treating was boring, though, because she fell asleep in the stroller halfway down the block. Next year she'll enjoy it when she can actually get candy too! A couple days after Halloween we went to Gatlinburg for a four-night stay. Anna did great in the car; she slept most of the way there. We met Gramma, Grampa, Aunt Julie, and Uncle Dave at our cabin in Gatlinburg. The weather was gorgeous our first day there - low 70's and sunny. By the end of the trip, a cold front had come through and it was cool (upper 40's) and cloudy. But the leaves were beautiful while we were there! Anna was a trooper the whole time we were there. She never wanted to miss the action, so she didn't sleep much unless we were at the cabin. But she always seemed to be in a good mood. On Thursday night, we took a trolley tour to see the lights in Gatlinburg. Anna watched the lights for a little while, but then she just got so tired that she fell asleep in Mommy's arms. I enjoy getting some cuddle time like that every now and then! On Friday, we went to Ripley's Aquarium. Anna really enjoyed seeing all of the fish swim around. She kept trying to reach out and touch them through the glass. It was really fun to spend this time together with Daddy's family! Anna had her nine-month checkup with the pediatrician on November 11. She hasn't grown much since her six-month appointment (even though she eats like a horse). Dr. Cartwright gave us permission to let her eat everything, and Anna has really enjoyed her new table food. Some new foods that she has had include whole milk (mixed with her cereal), yogurt, and lots of regular table food. Mommy made chicken noodle soup for dinner one night, and Anna ate two small bowls of it (minus the broth). She loved it! Other favorites are carrots, potatoes, peas, chicken, ham, etc. And of course she LOVES her cheerios and crackers! We're trying to teach her to say "more cracker" (or some form of that) instead of whining when her food is gone. Occasionally, she will say "ma ma ma" if she wants more; usually, she just whines until we say "more cracker" to her and then she breaks out into a huge smile! Of course she gets what she wants with a smile like that! On Friday, November 21, we went to the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Bridge Street (outdoor shopping mall). It was FREEZING cold that evening, but we bundled up and went anyway. Anna loved to look at the Christmas tree with the lights on it. When we were up close to it, she kept trying to reach out and touch the lights and the ornaments. Our Christmas tree isn't up yet at home, but I'm sure she'll be excited when that goes up! Anna loves to walk around holding our hands. In fact, if she wants to walk, she will hold her arms up in the air and fuss until someone comes to help her walk! If we're holding her, she likes to find our hands and move them to her "walking position." It's been a fun month with Anna, especially as she is starting to become mobile. Next month promises to be even more fun as we celebrate Thanksgiving and the approaching Christmas holiday (Anna's first!). 9 months Fall has finally arrived, and we have spent the month doing many things outside. We began October with a visit from Gramma and Grampa. Mommy and Daddy had a dinner to go to for work, so Gramma and Grampa came down to babysit. We weren't sure how Anna would do since she doesn't like "strangers," but she did great...especially since big sister Kate was still home. Anna and Gramma had a lot of playtime the next day as well since Mommy and Daddy did some projects around the house. By the end of the weekend, Gramma wasn't a stranger anymore! That weekend also happened to be the Madison Street Festival. On Saturday, we all got up early and went to watch the parade in downtown Madison. Anna sat in her stroller in awe of all the cars, motorcycles, fire trucks, etc. that drove by right in front of her. The people in the parade passed out candy, and one girl gave Anna a lollipop. Anna must be watching her big sister because she knew exactly what to do with it! Unfortunately for her, we took it away before she could really eat any of it. We had another fun weekend in the middle of October. We took our annual family trip to Tate Farms. Anna did great that day, especially considering the fact that we were there for almost five hours and she only napped for about 30 minutes. Kate was looking forward to taking Anna in the corn crib. Anna's reaction was about the same as Kate's was three years ago...she only cared about eating the corn! Once we stuck the pacifier in her mouth, she was content being buried in the corn and playing with it in her hands. She took lots of cute pictures, but she was much more fascinated with looking at the pumpkins than looking at the camera. Oh well! Anna continues to try to move around the room. She's not really crawling yet, but she can get on her hands and knees and scoot forward just a little bit. Then she'll rock back into a sitting position. Scooting on her bottom continues to be her preferred movement of choice. Anna has had several firsts this month. She waved for the first time on October 14. Mommy was trying to take some pictures of her, and I held my hand up to wa ve and get her attention. Well, I got her attention all right...and she waved right back at me. She loves to smile and wave at Mommy now. Of course, she doesn't want to show off too much because Daddy still hasn't seen her wave yet! But she melts Daddy's heart anyway, especially since she's learned to say DaDa. We have been working with her on it, and finally this month she decided she was ready. Anna continues to enjoy table foods. This month we've given her more vegetables (carrots, potatoes, etc.). She gobbles them up every time. We've also given her crackers and Cheerios. Kate loves being able to share her Cheerios with Anna, and Anna loves everything she puts in her mouth! Finally, we must add that Anna has become quite the drama queen lately. :) If she gets upset, not only will she start to cry, but she'll fall over and bang her head on the floor or highchair or wherever she is. As soon as she gets what she wants, though, she'll just look up at you and grin! Too cute! It's been a very busy month, and we're looking forward to seeing what Anna will do next month! 8 months At the end of August, Daddy had to go on a business trip, which was unexpectedly extended to about a week. We were concerned about how Anna would react to Daddy after being separated for a week. Well, she knows who her Daddy is, and she had no problems adjusting to him again when he got home! Daddy also had another long business trip in September, and once again, Anna went right to her Daddy when he came home. What a big relief! A big development this month is that Anna is taking steps now while holding onto Mommy or Daddy! She loves to walk over to her toys or even just to walk with no particular destination. In fact, if one of us is sitting next to her on the floor, she typically wants to pull up on us instead of sitting and playing. She still only prefers to walk while holding Mommy or Daddy, but she will likely be cruising along furniture before we know it! Anna is not crawling yet, but she will scoot across the floor on her bottom or roll around and stretch to try to get something that she wants. While on the floor, Anna has started to entertain herself this month. If you set her in front of her toy bag, she is perfectly content to sit on the floor and play with her toys, which gives Mommy and Daddy a short break. Also this month we've added meats to her diet, and she really likes eating apples and chicken, sweet potatoes and turkey, vegetable chicken dinner, etc. Anna has enjoyed eating fruit and veggie puffs for a few weeks, but we always had to feed them to her. Well, this month she has started to feed herself...and she LOVES it! She didn't have any problems picking up the puffs originally, but she couldn't figure out what to do with them after she got them in her hand. Well, once she figured out how to put them to her mouth, she couldn't stop stuffing them in! She practically inhales the puffs now! She also loves feeding herself Zwieback toast. It has made mealtimes much nicer now because she can keep herself occupied and happy with food. Anna also had her first taste of real table food this month. We had peas with our dinner a couple nights ago, so I put some on a plate for her. Although they were small and a little hard to pick up, she got quite a few in her mouth. Yum! Anna has also learned how to drink from a cup this month. She loves her apple juice, and she loves to hold her cup and drink after a snack. One other new thing is that Anna has really started to imitate sounds that others (especially Kate) make. One day, Kate coughed after drinking some juice. Anna was sitting right next to her, and she looked up and coughed too! The girls went back and forth, coughing at each other, for several minutes. Anna also likes to make other strange, loud (barking???) noises to get our attention, and she loves it when we make the sound back to her. Kate keeps Anna happy in the car by making these noises with her, and we're usually all laughing at the silly sounds! Speaking of the car, Anna doesn't like it when her big sister isn't riding in the car with her. Every morning when I drop Kate off at school, Anna begins to cry as soon as Kate gets out of her carseat. She loves her big sister very much! Well, next month should be very interesting as Anna starts learning to be able to move around the house on her own. We're going to have to start putting things away again. It should be very exciting! 7 months Anna has had a great month, although separation anxiety has begun! At the beginning of August, we all flew up to Syracuse, NY, where we had a family reunion for Mama's side of the family. We left on a Thursday, and Anna did okay on the plane. Unfortunately, the landings seemed to bother her on both flights, so she screamed for several minutes (it felt like an eternity, though) on our flight from Huntsville. It was so neat to introduce Anna to her great aunt and uncle and several other extended family members. We stayed at GiGi's house, and we visited GiJo quite a bit as well. Everyone enjoyed seeing Anna...from a distance. If Anna was sitting on the floor playing, she always wanted to have Mommy or Daddy in sight. And she certainly was not going to let anybody else hold her! Fortunately, we all know that this is just a phase, but we hope it will be over quickly! The day after we got home from Syracuse, Anna had her six-month checkup with her pediatrician. He was very pleased with her growth and development, and he told us that we could start serving her Stage 2 fruits and vegetables and begin to introduce meats. Anna continues to love everything she eats, and she is showing such an interest in "real food." Since she's been showing the interest, we got her some fruit and vegetable puffs. She loves to eat them, although I still have to break them into smaller pieces and feed them to her. She can reach out and pick them up herself, but she still hasn't mastered bringing them to her mouth. Anna has realized that she has vocal cords, and she loves using them. Her favorite sound is "babababa," which she says quite often (and loves when we say it back to her). She also seems to like making any other loud noise just so she can be heard. :) According to Anna's length at the doctor, she's almost too long for her infant carseat. In preparation for the transition, we've been putting her in her stroller more without the carseat. She loves sitting up and looking at everything. While she's sitting in the stroller, she typically has her right leg propped up on the tray, so she always looks very relaxed. Anna loves to sit on the floor and play with her toys now as well. Since she is sitting up so well, we pulled out several of Kate's old toys, so Anna loves to play with those. She continues to be easily entertained by her big sister. Anna's face lights up whenever she looks at Kate. Anna is still not crawling, but she will roll over and squirm to get something that she wants. If Mommy is sitting close to her, she has learned that she can pull up on Mommy. She loves holding onto my fingers to stand up, but if that doesn't work, she'll pull herself onto my leg. It won't be long before our little girl is mobile! 6 months Happy 6-Month Birthday, Anna! I can't believe our baby girl is getting so big! It's been another month of firsts for Anna. She started on rice cereal last month and couldn't get enough, so we decided that it was time for her to start on fruits and vegetables. While we were at Mama and Papa's house, we gave Anna her first taste of vegetables on June 29...squash. She wasn't sure at first, but she ended up eating the entire bowl. After a few days of squash, we gave her applesauce on July 3. Well, she loved the applesauce, and she ended up eating the whole container in one sitting! Since then, she has tried all of the other Stage 1 fruits and vegetables, and she's been doing great with them. I don't think we found a food that she hasn't liked. On July 3, Anna experienced her first fireworks show. Since the fireworks started late (after 10:00), Anna naturally fell asleep in Mama's arms before they started. It was a cool evening, so Mama wrapped Anna up in a blanket and enjoyed some good cuddle time with her. When the fireworks started, Anna woke up and watched them in Mama's arms. She laid there the whole time with big eyes, looking so comfy and cozy! Anna was a great traveler on the way home; she slept for nearly the whole flight home, and she also slept on the drive home from Nashville to Huntsville. The next weekend, Anna was a good traveler once again. Mommy and Aunt Kellie went to pick blueberries, and Daddy, Kate, and Anna went to Gramma and Grampa's house in Murfreesboro. A huge accomplishment is that Anna went from not sitting up at all to sitting up by herself for several minutes in one short week. Anna now is able to sit up by herself for extended periods of time and she LOVES it. She is able to sit there and play with toys, and she keeps herself entertained much better than she ever did laying down. Anna continues to be an excellent sleeper! She goes to bed without a single fuss all by herself (without being rocked to sleep) and typically sleeps for 11-12 hours at night. She has started napping in her crib for her morning nap, and she continues to nap in her swing in the afternoon. In the past, Anna has always fussed for about 10 minutes after being put in her swing for her nap. We noticed that when she is put to bed at night, she always likes to suck on her sleep sack....so we tried giving her a burp cloth one time. That appears to be the magic solution for Anna as she now naps in her swing without a single peep. Yay! Anna continues to be amazed by her big sister, and she laughs at everything she does. If Anna is fussy, Kate can typically come over and make Anna laugh. It is so neat to see our daughters interact and to see how much Anna adores her big sister even at such an early age! 5 months Anna has had such an exciting month! To begin, she rolled over for the first time from her tummy to her back on May 24. Daddy got to be the one to witness this "first," which was pretty neat since he's usually at work. The next week, Anna went to the doctor for her 4-month checkup and shots. She was right around the 50th percentile for both weight and length. Her pediatrician was very pleased with her development, and he said that we could go ahead and start her on rice cereal if we wanted to. Well, that night, Anna had her first taste of solid foods! She did pretty good with it, and by the end of the feeding, she was sucking it off the spoon. Great job, Anna! Throughout the month, we have increased both the thickness and the quantity of cereal that she's eaten each night, and she continues to eat it all up (and loves every bite)! Just one week later, on June 6, Anna rolled over from her back to her tummy. She did it twice that day, and she continues to roll over frequently now (both directions). In fact, there have been a couple mornings when Anna has rolled over during the night and actually slept on her tummy. Of course, she's usually mad about this when she wakes up. Fortunately, Anna continues to do better riding in her carseat. She still doesn't love it, but she doesn't scream EVERY time we get in the car anymore. We purchased a mirror for her seat that lights up and plays music, and that has really seemed to help. Another big first that Anna had this month was her first airplane ride. Mommy, Kate, and Anna took a trip to visit Mama and Papa during the month, and we weren't sure how Anna would do with flying (Mommy was especially nervous since Daddy wouldn't be there to help). Well, Anna surprised me, and she was actually very good on the airplane. She fell asleep while the plane was taking off, and she slept for about 45 minutes. Then Kate had to go potty, so unfortunately Anna woke up when I got up with Kate. Anna was awake for the remainder of the flight, and she did good playing with the small toys that Mommy brought. She did get a little bit fussy when we began our descent, but she quickly stopped crying. Overall, it was a good trip, and we've had lots of fun playing at Mama and Papa's house. Anna really enjoys going to the swimming pool this summer. The first time she got in the pool, she was very unsure, but the water was also FREEZING cold. We went back the next weekend, though, and the water had warmed up significantly. Anna loved getting in the water, kicking her feet and splashing. She's been in the water several more times since then, and she loves it every time! This is understandable, though, because she also loves bathtime. Whenever she takes a bath, she gets the entire kitchen wet from splashing so much! Another favorite thing for Anna to do is to watch Kate dance and play. She will turn her head to follow her big sister's every move. If Kate does something she finds especially funny, Anna squeals and giggles in delight! Anna has found her feet this month, and she also can sit up for a few seconds on her own. Her favorite position is certainly sitting or standing up with help. Anna continues to sleep through the night on a regular basis, usually sleeping for about 10 hours at a time! 4 months Anna has had another great month, and she has improved so much developmentally! She has always disliked tummy time, so she never played on her tummy long enough to practice holding her head up. Well, we continued to do tummy time (which she continued to dislike), but one day she decided that she would actually hold her head up! We were so proud of her, and she has done a great job since then! Now that she's holding her head up, she seems to dislike tummy time a little less since there is more to see and do. Another thing that she has disliked pretty much since she was born is riding in the car. For some time, we have been going through this period where Anna screams the whole time we drive anywhere. Thankfully, Anna has seemed to be doing a little better riding in the car, which we hope is an indication that she is getting over her dislike of riding. This, of course, is totally opposite from Kate, who always fell asleep as soon as she got in the car, even if we were only driving around the block. Another accomplishment is that Anna also found her thumb this month, although she still much prefers to suck her arm or her whole fist instead. Now that she is doing very well at holding her head up, one of Anna's favorite things to do is play in her exersaucer. This allows her to play on her own for longer periods of time, which gives Mommy and Daddy a chance to get things done around the house. She also loves to grab objects and play with her toys now. Anna loves it when we sing and play games with her, and two of her favorite things are "Pat-A-Cake" and "Open, Shut Them." She is always so alert when we're talking to her; she continues to thrive on social interaction. Because of this, she really enjoys reading books and looking at the bright colors and pictures as well. She hasn't rolled over yet, but she is very close. We had a bit of excitement this month when Mommy had emergency surgery on May 6 to have her appendix removed. Mommy was in the hospital overnight (Daddy stayed too), and Anna did great that night and during my whole recovery. Thanks so much to Mrs. Allison, Gramma, and Grampa for taking care of the girls on short notice! I couldn't lift more than 10-15 pounds for two weeks, but fortunately, Anna still weighs less than 15 pounds! Anna continues to take two good naps during the day and a shorter nap in the evenings. She's been going to bed between 9:30 and 10:00, and she sleeps 8 to 10 hours during the night. She's really starting to learn and grow and we are really looking forward to all the new things she'll learn this next month! 3 months Anna continues to bring so much joy into our lives! Every day she interacts more and more, and she has especially started to like playing with her big sister. Kate makes silly faces at Anna, and Anna smiles, laughs, and coos back to her. They both have a good time! Anna was baptized the day after Kate's 3rd birthday party. This made for a very busy weekend, but we were glad that so much out-of-town family could be a part of both celebrations! Anna wore the same dress for her baptism as Kate did for hers, which also happened to be the same dress that Mommy wore when she was baptized as a baby! It was so special to celebrate with so many family and friends such a significant day in our daughter's spiritual life. Anna enjoyed lots of attention during the weekend and also much more as Mama, GiGi, and Uncle Tim stayed at our house for another week following the celebrations. Anna also got her very first cold during this week, though, thanks in part to having so many people at our house the previous weekend. Fortunately, the cold didn't seem to bother her too much, and she got over it quickly. Anna started sleeping through the night just after she turned two months old; she has done this maybe ten times since then. The other times she sleeps until at least 4:00, wakes up to eat, and goes back to sleep for another few hours. In the morning, Anna is all smiles when she wakes up. If Kate wakes up before Anna does, Kate love to go with Mommy into Anna's room and wake her up. Anna loves to "talk" to us, and she loves it when we pay attention to her. She'll be looking around and when she catches you looking at her, her face will light up with a huge smile! She also enjoys seeing the bright lights on the TV or her Baby Einstein play mat. Although she hasn't started to suck her thumb yet, she's very close. She likes to grab the front of her clothes and hold them while she sucks her hand. Anna takes a long nap in the morning and another long nap in the afternoon. She usually takes at least one more short nap (less than 30 minutes) in the evenings. I typically feed her around 10:00 and put her to bed for the night. It won't be long before she's sleeping through the night every night!