It Happens So Fast

It seems like Anna's understanding more and more each day. She must understand a great deal of what we say, because she can respond and react quite well. For example, when we say certain words, like "eat," "milk," etc, she says "Yum!" and smacks her lips. Hilarious. She even understands when I tell her how many bites she has left before she can eat her Kix (which she thinks of as dessert). Tonight when I asked her to go pick out a book, she went over to the shelf, got one, and brought it over to me! Very impressive, I must say! She recognizes pictures of people too, including herself, and gets excited when she sees them.

Her vocabulary is slowly but surely expanding. Every time she sees a ball now she says, "Baa!" And she makes kind of a "jish" sound when she points to her goldfish crackers. Without fail, every time she sees The Count, she makes the "ah ah ah" sound, which is totally awesome. She is really trying to communicate with gestures and signing, although "more" pretty much means she wants to eat, and "water" doesn't always just mean water, but sometimes means food in general. She's getting there though, so that's what counts. She has started shaking her head sometimes too, but usually it's when she points to her Kix when she knows she can't have any yet!

Anna has gotten pretty good at her shape sorters and putting her alphabet magnets in the doghouse on the fridge. She loves putting objects into containers and taking them out, putting her farm animals in her barn, and throwing her blocks EVERYWHERE. She is, of course, an avid book reader and fan of music and will dance whenever any type of music is played. Really she is fair to all her toys and plays happily with everything she has, which happens to be a lot!

Yesterday we went to Ikea and got a new bookshelf for Ms. B's room, and we rearranged everything to make it all fit better. I like the results a lot; it's much more Squirt-friendly, and I think she agrees!

Back to Normal

The appetite seems to be back with a vengeance, but the pickiness remains. She's not sleeping all day anymore either, so maybe she was just feeling a little off for a few days. She still has almost no interest in walking, but her babbling sounds more and more like English every day.

Anna is quite the multitasker, and boy does she get around. Today she went from her giraffe to her pony, and also wanted to play with her phone, flashcards, cup of water, and penguin bell. Then she rocked on her pony for a bit and switched to her Princess Mobile. It's exhausting trying to keep up.

Miss Crabby Appleton

Anna hasn't been her usual super-happy self lately. She has become a very picky eater overnight, and she even throws tantrums sometimes! Her sleep schedule is off sometimes too; she has been much more tired, sometimes napping all day and sometimes wanting to go to bed as early as 7:00. Ha ha, of course tonight right as I type that she decides that she wants to stay up until 10:00. Who knows if this is just a passing phase, one of those goofy toddler changes, a drastic personality change, or she's just not feeling well. The whole family has been sick this past week, so it's possible.

Anna is testing us too and finding out what she can get away with. She wants to just have Kix as a meal sometimes, and that's what her tantrum was about tonight. She only ate a few bites of her shepherd's pie, but I didn't give in and let her have Kix instead. I just let her throw her fit and then dinnertime was over. Oh well. Hopefully she'll learn that I don't give in when it comes to those kinds of things. I wish I could have my happy eater back!

Last night Auntie Loonie babysat while Tim and I went to TGI Friday's for a date. Of course we love taking Anna with us, but it's nice to go out alone sometimes too. Plus I like giving Laura and Anna the chance to hang out together, because they have so much fun. Tonight was no exception; everyone had a great time. Of course, Anna was so excited about the evening that she didn't want to go to bed! I swear she was up forever before Tim finally just turned out all the lights and got her to doze off. Kids are crazy!!

Walking!!

Tonight my little girlie did something new for the first time, and something we've been waiting anxiously for - she walked! At first it was just a couple steps to me in Auntie Loonie's kitchen. Then I stepped away from her to see if she would do it again, and she took even more steps to get to me! I think the next time she did it tonight it was after she ate, and I wanted to see if she would do it again. That time, she took the most steps of all; it had to be at least 5, and she didn't even fall! She definitely doesn't seem to prefer walking to crawling yet, especially when I try to film it. Every time I would try to record it on my phone, she would drop down and start crawling... little stinker.

I was so glad that she decided to walk while with Auntie Loonie. It's been a rough couple weeks for her, and especially the past day. We were actually spending some time with her to help cheer her up after the passing of our favorite pet. Anna definitely succeeded in bringing us smiles tonight! I'm so proud of her, and I hope that she realizes that she doesn't have to be so afraid anymore!

Where's Anna?

Anna has learned some new tricks in the past couple days. I think Tim taught her how to show us how old she is, and it's just adorable that she knows how to respond when we ask her a specific question. She used to always respond the same way ("so big!") no matter what we asked her, so it's really neat that now she can tell the difference in what we're saying! She can distinguish between "how big is Anna?" and "how old is Anna?" It makes sense that she can hold up that one finger to show us her age, because she points to EVERYTHING! It's hilarious, because half the time I can't tell if she's actually trying to tell me something, or if she's pointing just because she thinks it's fun. I think she's just eager to discover what everything is, and maybe she wants me to tell her. Who knows what's going on inside that little head of hers?

Her other trick is to play peek-a-boo. She's been doing it with blankets and things for a while now, holding it up and pulling it away. But now she will do it with her hands. She will cover her eyes with her hands and wait for me to say, "Where's Anna?" before moving her hands away and smiling. It's adorable... but then again, pretty much everything she does is adorable to me!

Pachla Waterpark Weekend

All the cousins

This past weekend, all the Pachlas, Macchiones, and Schmucks went to Utica for a weekend at an indoor waterpark. I must admit that I was a little nervous after reading a bunch of negative reviews about the place, so I was pleasantly surprised walking into the cabin when we got there on Friday. It was beautiful, spacious, and comfortable. All the furniture was made of wood, there were fireplaces everywhere, and 3 floors. That means that we weren't all crammed into a tiny space, so that was nice. We were in a room downstairs with Matt and Alicia, and our room had its own fireplace and bathroom. There was a jacuzzi too, but we never used it. Friday night we got there kind of late, so all we did was hang out, have some meat loaf, and drink a little wine (there might have been a few bottles, not to mention endless amounts of food). Anna went to bed pretty late because of having a long nap on the ride over, but that was okay.

Saturday morning we went to the indoor waterpark. Anna was a little small for most of it, and she didn't seem very enthusiastic about the water. That was okay though, because she took turns snuggling with me and Daddy while we floated around the lazy river. There were a couple of tube slides that were pretty fun, so I rode both of them (one of them was a body flume, the other an inner tube). We went down this wide slide with Anna in our laps, so that was fun. There was also a kiddie pool, but we got kicked out of that pretty quickly so that they could add more chlorine. There was also a hot tub, but obviously that was out of the question with Anna. We spent a little time in the wave pool before Anna started getting sleepy. Then we went back to the cabin for some lunch and to get changed.

In the afternoon we went to the "Enchanted Forest" for some arcade games and rides. They had this one called the Grizzly which was a total hoot. It just arched around in a circle, but it gave you that airborne feeling that's totally exhilarating! Carrie took care of Anna for most of the time so that Tim and I could play games and ride some rides. That was great fun. I played lots of Ski Ball, because that game is the best, and they had one of those jumping games that I played at Dave and Busters a couple years ago. I earned lots of tickets, and we were able to get Anna a couple goofy little prizes. After we got back and had a nice spaghetti meal, the kiddos went to bed and we got to have more wine and play Apples to Apples. I did terribly, but it was nice to be able to do "adult" things with people for a change. All in all, a fun weekend for everyone. Anna had a blast playing with her cousins, and she even climbed the stairs for the first time! No spills, and she's really fast too, like she's been doing it forever! Such a smarty pants.