Walking Sydney

Come on Syd, lets go for a walk on the beach

Hum-De-Dum, isn't this great Syd?!?

No Sydney, I said lets go back to the chairs, c'mon

It's not frisbee time, it's time to keep on walking, lets go! 

13 Months

Anna turned 13 months last week and it seems like she doing something new and exciting every day. 

For the past 3 mornings she had been sleeping until 8:00 - 8:30 (about 13 hours) and we love it! I feel bad for Monday morning when I'm going to have to wake her at 6:30 to go to school.

We've also been teaching her some sign language so she can stop her screaming when she needs something. When we get up in the morning and we say, "Want to go have some breakfast?" She knows to walk into the kitchen and point to her chair. When we say, "What do you want to eat?" She can do the sign for eat. 

  

This is the sign to get down when she's all done eating. 

Anna also knows the sign for "more" when her food is all gone and she wants some more. 

(We'll get that video soon).  

She can also follow directions such as, 

"Give that to Sydney please", "Go get your baby", and "Go get the ball"

Anna likes drawing on her chalkboard now while sitting in her chair Pop painted for her. We're still working on not eating the chalk!

Spring Break: Adventure 2, 3 & 4

Adventure 2: Tuesday 

We went up to the beach but it was soooo windy so we only played for a few minutes before it began to rain. We took a break and got a delicious cupcake at the nearby bakery and ta-da it cleared up, so we went to the park where the wind was a lot calmer. Of course Anna didn't care too much for the playground so instead she, picked flowers...

chased Sydney under the picnic tables...

and found a pile of rocks to sit in. The rocks were a hit! Think we might need to get a bag of pebbles for home. 

Adventure 3: Wednesday

On Wednesday, Daddy installed a fan in Anna's room because she woke up completely drenched from sweat. Her sheets were soaked too. Welcome to NC spring weather Anna. 

While Daddy installed her fan, Anna was busy carrying her baby doll around and putting her to bed (probably about 28 times). She loves giving baby good night kisses. So cute! 

  

In the afternoon we went over to Gram and Pop's so Anna could power wash their house and clean the inside. She is such a good cleaner! 

Adventure 4: Thursday

Today is going to be a rainy stormy day so Anna and I spent the morning putting safety latches on all the cabinets she can get into. Now it's nap time and we'll see what the afternoon brings. 

I think I could really enjoy not working. Spending each day with our family is the best. 

Miss Independent

Using a fork

Putting my cup in the right spot

Spring Break: Adventure 1

After coming home from Gram and Pop's this morning we unpacked and took a much needed nap. After nap,  Anna was busy going to work as usual, but decided to take a break behind the toilet and read her book. She never ceases to amaze us. She loves this board book so much that I guess it was important to hide behind the toilet and read so no one would take it away. 

We then decided that we need a bike seat for Anna for the summer so that is exactly what we did. First we went to a real bike shop, EXPENSIVE, so what do frugal parents do.....Target! Half the price. And of course we had to get a cute helmet. Note: There is NO selection for infant helmets. Only one choice, take it or leave it. Daddy put it together at the park while we played on the playground. It took a while but was well worth it. Anna had a blast and fell asleep on the ride back to the car. 

When we got home, surprise #3! Our little chick hatched. We named him/her Chick Chick. Very noisy little bugger. We'll see how tonight goes. We think he has one deformed foot, but we'll have to wait and see what happens over the next few days. 

Stay turned for Spring Break, Adventure #2 tomorrow. 

Family

More pictures from an awesome family weekend. 

Anna didn't care too much for the Easter bunny. She gave him the evil eye. 

GRam hid 14 eggs on Easter morning all around the living room. Anna had a blast finding them and putting them in her bucket. She also enjoyed banging them together and squishing her thumbs into the eggs. Fortunately she also enjoyed eating them after they were demolished. 

Easter afternoon we all went to the beach and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Anna loved loved loved the sand and water and her beach toys This is going to be a great summer. 

Lucky Girl

Anna was a lucky girl on Friday. Instead of going to daycare she got to spend the day with Grandma, Pop, Aunt Aimee and Uncle Chris. They had a lot of fun playing and going to the beach.

Even better, this morning we got to go to another Easter egg hunt at the park in Hampstead. There were A LOT of eggs! Anna picked up 1 and we added another 10 to her bucket. She knew that there was supposed to be something inside and insisted that we open one. A tootsie-roll!!! Haaaaad to open it. She LOVED it. Mmmmm. Of course Anna wanted more candy but no such luck.

 After the egg hunt Anna got to play on the playground for a little bit. She really liked the slide. But now we need to work on climbing up the stairs and then going down the slide.

Beast

Hey Anna, whatcha got? 

Oh hey Ma, just 4 hotdog buns

She was NOT happy when we tried to take it away. Very quickly, we broke off one and handed it back to her, in which she devoured the entire bun. Lovely. 

Photo Update

Found the camera in Anna's toybox!

Getting ready to go into the egg hunt at church

"Is it time yet Mama?"

"Ooohh, an egg!" 

OK, enough eggs, I have my one, time to play! 

Planting on the deck

That "Oooooo" face I mentioned in a previous post. 

Buddies playing with a spatula

April Menu: Blueberry Zucchini bread with oranges and pineapple.  Nutella and banana sandwich with kidney beams and carrots, and for snack, oranges, cantaloupe and sugar snap peas. Yum! 

Best buddy pic at school 

Stuff

Still missing my camera so no pics, sorry folks!

I feel like it's always something new each day that she does....so here are the updates from the last post:
Anna likes to blow on her food now, whether it's hot or not, very cute.
Today Gram showed Anna how to dip food, so now she's a dipper.
Anna can drink out of a straw (not sure if I posted that or not before)
LOVES to turn the pages of books, especially flap books
Has gone back to her foot fetish, sitting on the kitchen floor tonight trying to suck her toes
Likes to unstrap her velcro on her shoe as we drive to school
Got a soccer ball today from Harris Teeter and does pretty well at kicking it
Jabbers on and on and on all day long
Words we think she's saying: stop, that, uh-oh (but just the uh- part), ball

Official

Well, it's official, 12 months and 17 days of breastfeeding and we're done. Sunday night was the last night. It was real obvious that she wanted nothing to do with it and was ready to do other big girl things. So we've still given her a bath at 7, then we comb our hair and brush our teeth, cuddle and read books, drink a water cup and say 'night 'night. She's been perfectly fine without feeding before bed and I guess I have been too. I did shed many tears Sunday night but realized it was time to move on. Sad thinking about it now, all that love and healthy food into our little girl. What a wonderful time. She's still eating like the healthy girl that she is. Love you to pieces Anna-girl!

Will be back shortly

So sorry fellow readers for the delay....Mama is re-doing National Boards and it's consuming every waking minute, but that's mainly because I'm a professional procrastinator. Anways, it'll be in the mail on Friday and then we'll get back to the usualy timely posts.

For now, who knows what I've recently wrote, so...

Anna calls Sydney, "ssssss" and every dog is now "ssssss"

She still growls once in a while

Escapes through the back door any chance she gets, has fallen on her face many times trying to get down the step without help. 

Is a tornado and leaves a messy path wherever she goes

Walks way to fast and scares us because she looks like she's going to take a face plant

Points to her ear when you ask her where her nose is

Has the best laugh in the world

Gotta get this on video, but goes "Ohhhhhhhh" as she laughs, gotta see it!

Imitates everything!

Can say, "Sssss" for Sydney, "p-uh" for Pop, "gah gah" for Grandma, "Da da" for Daddy "Mama" for Mommy, and "Nah nah nah nah" for Nanny & Nonny but only after you say it and point to that person. She doesn't do it by herself yet. 

And yet, another messy cheese face from the princess

Stay tuned for more excitement....after Friday that is! 

Gross

4-5 pieces of dog food eaten. Ugh!

Happenings

Thursday

1 year well check

20.4 pounds

27 1/2 inches long

head...size of a 14 month old

Otherwise, healthy and ready to go.

Thursday Night

Greg & I: "Anna, lets go, we're going to get frozen yogurt at the Fuzzy Peach"

Anna: Here I come!

Saturday Morning

Here I am swimming

My new skill I learned....how to climb safely out of the pool, buuuut THEN JUMP BACK IN!

I just met a nice doggy downtown at the Farmers Market