Catching Up - September & October

September highlights include a surprise party for Anna's first-ever girl cousin, Maria. Also, it was Auntie Loonie's birthday, and Anna has gotten very good at singing Happy Birthday to everyone. Anna's favorite part of the month was probably Berwyn's Oktoberfest. She called it "The Carnival," and she enjoyed all the rides a ridiculous amount, so much so that she talks about them months and months later. These rides include "Puff the Magic Dragon," (which she rode with Ellie) the "Big Strawberries," and the pony ride. At the end of the month was Maria's baptism, so for Anna being able to visit Marky, Eric, and Maria's house for any reason is good times. They have an astounding number of toys that Anna is more than happy to play with.

For October, we visited Six Flags for Fright Fest. Anna, being 36 inches, can now ride an amazing number of rides! She definitely has the thrill-seeker in her, because she likes roller coasters! Her favorite is probably The Little Dipper. She also rode The Whizzer, but I think that one was a little too scary for her. She loved The Scrambler and all the littler rides like that, and Bubby, Bobby, and I had a blast taking turns riding with her. What fun! Anna has gotten ridiculous use out of her Halloween costume (Jessie), wanting to wear it nearly every single day. I was actually worried that it wouldn't make it until Halloween, but it did. We made a visit out to the pumpkin patch again this year, and Anna got to play inside the big kid play area this time. It's a shame we didn't have more time to devote to that, because she sure did have fun. We had to cut it short though because it was waaaay past her nap time! We visited Starved Rock on a beautiful, mild day, and Anna was able to hike quite a bit! We went up to St. Louis Canyon, where the murders occurred many years ago, and it was very pretty there. Anna had a hard time making the walk back, so I had to carry her a lot of the way. Still, it was a fun time. Then we celebrated Bubby's birthday, and we always have a fun time when we go to her house! Of course, the month ended with Halloween, and Anna very much enjoyed Trick-or-Treating and getting all that candy! Yum-MA!

Catching Up - July and August

This year has flown by, thank goodness. 2011 hasn't been very kind, but Anna has been having a blast. I think that girl could be the happiest kid I know. She's always happy, smiling, full of energy, it is wonderful. Let me try to think of what has been happening thus far. I'll start with our vacation in July that I never got a chance to write about. We stayed at a cabin with Mike and Emily and other Swansons. We went swimming in Mirror Lake, saw how real Wisconsin cheese was made, went for a couple nice bike rides, and I went running for about 6 miles every morning. It was a very laid back vacation, but it seemed to appeal to Anna pretty well.

In August the highlight might have been the Wild West Town. We went there with Bobby, and I think we could have spent about 8 hours there if we could. Anna just loved it. She went on her first roller coaster, there was an adorable playground, pony rides, canoe rides, choo choo train rides, panning for gold, a carousel, a covered wagon, archery, a petting zoo... I mean, you could see why she would have a blast. We also finished (mostly) the upstairs of our house, so we all moved up there. Anna loves her new cloud room, and we're happy having more space. It turned out very nice and matches the rest of the house beautifully.

Kids say the darndest things...

The more Anna talks, the funnier she gets! I swear, some of the things she comes up with sound better than if I tried to make them up! Just last night, I was drinking a Smirnoff Ice. Of course Anna asked, "What's that?" because she asks millions of questions a day. I told her it was booze. She said, "Maybe when I get bigger I can have booze!" That's been her thing too, is saying that maybe she can try something later. She has said the same thing about gum, hard candy, safety scissors, and coffee. She's so funny! I guess she's realizing that there are restrictions, and she's eager to get past them! I can't blame her there, but I wish she wouldn't try to grow up too fast! It's already happening too fast as it is.

She has also been starting to get very interested in watching birdies, playing the piano, art, and "reading" books on her own. This morning she took a little plastic "table" and had her princesses gather around it, perhaps to eat lunch. Usually she has to line them up in a parade, so it was pretty neat to see her branch out and do something different!

Potty Training

It's finally happening! I have been pushing Anna to use the toilet ever since I started summer vacation. I was met with quite a bit of stubborn resistance (where could she have gotten that??) Finally, somehow something clicked with her this week, and all of a sudden she's been keeping her pull-ups dry! It's so amazing! 3 days in a row she's been able to do it, and tonight she even did #2 for the first time! We're going for the underwear tomorrow, and we'll see how she does with that. I'm so proud of her!! If she keeps this up we are going to buy Jessie underwear over the weekend, because I promised her that in a desperate attempt to get her interested! Whatever works, right?

Visit from Unckie Eye

The last couple weeks of June Unckie Eye came to visit us from Germany. We did all sorts of fun stuff with him! First we stayed close to home and did things like shopping and Home Run Inn. Then we had some adventures like going to the Illinois Railway Museum, which was a lot of fun. They had all sorts of trains from different eras, even some you could ride! I enjoyed the streetcar immensely. There were all these different buildings with different types of train engines in them - steam ones, street cars, etc. Lots of information about each one too, which was fun. Some of them were open for us to go inside as well. The other neat thing about the place is that they have all these volunteers who work to restore the place and the trains, so they're adding and renovating all the time. It was a busy and fun day! The next day we went to the Indiana Dunes, where we started off the day with a bike ride. Unfortunately, the trail was very poorly maintained. There were huge pits of water along a lot of the path, and areas of it were quite overgrown. Plus the whole thing was under power lines and along the railroad tracks, which wasn't exactly scenic. I did think it was fun to see so many cattails, because it reminds me of growing up in Alabama. We also saw a deer in the path on our way back, so that was neat. We ended up riding 12 miles, and it is always fun to bike anyway! After that we went to the beach, where we had a picnic lunch and enjoyed hiking up the dunes. It didn't take long, but it was fun all the same. The water was too cold to actually go in, but the day was still fun overall!

Stephen, Bubby, and Bobby also had some adventures without us, like going to Six Flags and Starved Rock. We visited Chick Fil A too, which was very exciting for me. The last day of Unckie's visit was the 4th of July, where we had a nice cookout and just enjoyed each other's company one last time. It was very sad to say goodbye, but we did have some great times with him these past couple weeks!

"On Our Way Home"

My little girl is so clever. She actually makes up her own songs now. First, back when we went to Starved Rock, she had her "River River over water, woods" tune. But now she does it all the time! Sometimes she seems to just babble nonsense syllables melodically, but she also makes up entire songs! She will often sing "On our way home" when we're out and about, and today she even modified it to be "On our way zoo." I really don't know if it's normal for a 2-year-old to do such things, but it sure does amaze me. She even sings on pitch, which is more than her daddy can do as an adult!

Anna's drawing has also improved immensely. Rather than scribbling aimlessly, now she draws with more purpose. In the picture to the side, she drew legs on the Mickey head that I made. And when she draws, she will make a circle for each eye and a circle for the nose, etc. Things are really starting to resemble true pictures, and she has much better control over her fine motor skills!

Miss Betty Crocker!

I've had another one of those "dream come true" experiences with Anna. This was our first week home together for the summer (yippee!!!), and the weather has been less than cooperative. First it was in the upper 90s and too hot to play long outside. Then the weather turned very stormy, and we had some of the most violent storms I have seen in quite some time. The power was off for 11 hours yesterday, and that's quite unusual for around here! We've made good use of our time though, having gone to indoor bebow, children's museum, and the zoo. This afternoon, after Anna woke up from her nap, we made brownies together. I've seriously had fantasies about baking with her, and up until this point she just hasn't been old enough to really do anything. We made cookies a couple months back, and she did help with the sprinkles, which was a good start. This time though, she seemed to know what was going on the entire time. She helped to stir the batter (and lick the spoon), and she was very excited about the whole process. My heart just melted. I am so happy to see that she enjoys baking with me, because that is going to make this summer even more fun than the last!!

Dells

This past weekend, Anna and I both had our first trip to the Dells! We stayed at Mt. Olympus, which has an indoor water park, outdoor water park, and a big amusement park! It was quite a lot of excitement to squeeze into one weekend (which was supposed to be the start of my summer vacation; as it were, I still had to go back to school on Monday because of the snow days). On Friday, we ate Jimmy Johns on our ride up, then we went to the amusement park for a bit. There were only a few rides open, but it was still fun to start the weekend. On Saturday we had a casual breakfast of snacks in our room, then we spent the whole day at the water park. Anna had a great time in Poseidon's Rage (kinda like a wave pool, but way more intense) and the little slide area. She kept going from the duck slide to the pelican to the whale slides, then repeat. She also tried out the "big kid" slides, which were mini real slides. It was amazing to see her riding on them; she's clearly not a baby anymore. We ended our day at Moosejaw Pizza, where Anna and I split a pan pizza - delicious. The next morning we all slept in (hooray!), then went to breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty - yum yum!! Then we went on a few more rides before heading home. It was great to spend some time with Carrie, Jamie, and Eddie, and to start the summer with lots and lots of excitement!

Memorial Day

Even though it has been a dismally chilly and wet May, somehow we ended up getting sunny and hot weather for Memorial Day. Anna was very excited to see so many family members all in the same place. The silly kid was running from one place to another, jumping up onto the patio chair to get potato chips, running over to blow bubbles, etc. However, Anna had the sense to tell me when she was tired so that she could go take a nap... although she did ask if Marky and Eric could nap with her! When she woke up, she ate half a hot dog, a brownie, then went across the street to get some bebow time with the boys. She sure does love playing in the sand! Plus she loves when I do underdogs on the swing for her. Today for whatever reason, she kept wanting to go down the slide while holding her "White water." She was getting a kick out of that. I think she must have been tired by early evening, because she kept wanting to sit down and watch Mickey. So I told her that she couldn't until everyone left. Of course that meant that she wanted to kick everyone out! But she read books nicely with Auntie Carrie, played outside for a bit longer, and then it was time for people to leave.

Something that I think is pretty funny about what she does now is enjoying to "help" us around the house. She absolutely loves doing dishes (which essentially means that she gets herself wet at the sink and dirties dishes that were once clean). She also likes to sweep, and she even did help move her chairs and table back to where they belong. Such a good little helper! I can't wait to spend the summer with her, starting next week!

Spring Break 2011 - Woo Hoo!

This year's spring break has been a blast. The weather has been awful and cold, but we definitely made the best of it. Monday we spent the morning at Monkey Bizness ("indoor bebow"). Tuesday we went to story time at the library and the Children's Museum with Sara and her kids (we spent 3 hours there! And she was just there for 3 hours a few days ago with Tim!). Wednesday Anna got sick with a bad sore throat, so we stayed in and relaxed. Thursday was actually sunny and a bit warmer, so we went to the outdoor bebow and had a wagon ride. Then after my doctor's appointment we enjoyed a nice meal at Sweet Tomatoes, which brought back memories of when we used to do that when I was pregnant. It was a little different having silly little Anna there in person, eating the food all on her own! Today we managed to get a little play time at Proksa before the rain started, then we went to Adrianna's 2nd birthday party at Gymboree. Anna had a really good time until the end, and then she seemed to feel sicker and wanted me to hold her. I felt bad for her, because I can tell she still doesn't feel good. Tomorrow is supposed to be the nicest day of the week (at least I really hope so), so we are going to Starved Rock to do some hiking. I hope Anna enjoys doing that kind of stuff, because we have never really done that with her before. I just remember liking it when I was a kid, so it'd be nice if she were the same way! I have really enjoyed my time with her this week; she has made it such a joy to be home!

"I Did It!"

Anna has been making huge strides toward her independence lately. Some of the things she is working on are: taking off/putting on her shoes, coat, and pants, getting in/out of her car seat, and climbing anywhere she possibly can. Whenever she accomplishes a goal, she says very excitedly, "I did it!" It's so cute. Right around Christmas she got the hang of climbing out of her crib, but luckily she only does that on very rare occasions. We told her that all she has to do is call for us and we will come get her, so that has actually worked out well. One thing that hasn't progressed (and maybe has even regressed) is her independent play. It seems like she used to be able to play on her own quite well, but now she always wants me to play with her! It's not a bad thing most of the time, except when I'm trying to drink my coffee! She will bring me a book and demand that I "read it," or she will bring me Jessie and make me hold her and talk like her forever! It's actually a little amusing.

Anna's vocabulary is HUGE now. She is saying full sentences now, can follow complex directions, and has even begun to explore imaginative play. She sometimes will have her dolls talk to each other, which I absolutely love to see develop. To me that pretty much defines being a child.

2nd Birthday Party!

I know I've been very delinquent with updating this, but rather than overwhelming myself with trying to catch up, I'll just post recent stuff! Today Anna celebrated her 2nd birthday (even though it's not until next weekend) at Chuck E. Cheese's! She has never been before, so we were expecting her to like it pretty well. Naturally she got a kick out of the mechanical cars, but she didn't seem to care for the fake pony ride (she must be spoiled since she's ridden on real ponies before). Even just walking around and looking at all the games seemed to amuse her. When we got there it was pretty empty, and that was pleasant for quite a while. Then we all sat down and had pizza, and they put on a birthday show for our little squirt. Chuck E. Cheese himself came out to sing to her, and she absolutely loved him. She got a fun little blow-up hat and a medal to wear around her neck, and she got to go into this thing called the "ticket blaster." It's this booth that swirls all these tickets around you, and you have to try to catch as many as you can. It was pretty crazy! After that it was present time. She got a lot of really great things: a "White" vacuum cleaner from Mike and Emily, a pretty dress and Woody doll from Auntie Carrie and Uncle Jamie, a White light from Dano, a Princess book collection from Unckie Eye (even though he is back in Germany today), and college donations from Alicia and Grandma and Grandpa Pachla. Her big present was from Bubby and Bobby, and it was her very own trampoline!! I set it up for her tonight, and it's tons o' fun! Anna earned about 300 tickets, so she was able to pick out her first prize. Surprise surprise, she picked out a princess figurine! She fell asleep almost instantly on the way home and slept for about 2 1/2 hours. It was a busy day! We ended it with playing with all her new toys (which she has played with very equally) and watching Toy Story 2.

Just in case I forget to update this on her actual birthday, I should go over some of the things she does now. It's pretty tough, because she has grown by leaps and bounds lately. She can say simple sentences, like "Woody go?" or "Door locked." She loves to sing songs like "I'm Wishing," "Jingle Bells," and "One, Two, Button Shoe." She knows all her letters, upper and lower case, she can count from one to ten, and she even knows several colors! I am still amazed at how she literally learns new things every day. She still loves Yo Gabba Gabba (or "Good Day," as it is still sometimes lovingly referred), and she also loves Sesame Street and Toy Story. She is truly a real kid now and no longer a baby. It makes me very sad, but she's more fun than ever!