It's Beginning to Look...

Christmas time is here!  Our little baby will be arriving sometime this month, which is just amazing!  Today we helped pick out Bubby and Bobby's tree (and then decorated it, of course), then we picked out our own tree!  It's always fun walking over to the Y, picking out just the right one, and then walking it home!  We seemed to find a really good one this year too; a Douglas that's got to be about 8 feet tall, and it's nice and dense and very fragrant!  Anna was quite happy with it and very excited.  Unfortunately, time just always ends up running out.  Daddy got the lights on, but of course it takes a while, so we didn't get the chance to put the ornaments on yet.  Anna was disappointed, but she did at least get to help me wrap some of the presents to put under the tree.  She's very good at helping with the tape!  I gave her a few scraps of wrapping paper to practice cutting, although she would have rather helped cut the real thing!  I said no to that though, since I'm a mean mommy! 

Anna has found a new favorite Christmas song this year.  For the last 2 years it has been Jingle Bells, but now it's Deck the Halls.  Not only does she love listening to it, but she sings it repeatedly - and she knows all three verses! 

She has been busy practicing her songs for her very first Christmas program at school, which very unfortunately happens to be scheduled for the 20th.  I really hope I will be able to see it!  She will be singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; Away in a Manger, and possibly We Wish You a Merry Christmas (although she might just be singing that one herself for fun; it's tough to tell). 

This year's Christmas season is very special, of course, and we're already having a wonderful time!

Smart Banana

The time has just flown by, and we've all been so busy the past few months with a million different things.  Anna is just loving school, and she is excelling at it too.  I had a conference with Miss Kochan not too long ago, and she raved about what a wonderful girl Anna is (not that I didn't already know, but it's great to hear it from someone objective!).  She is just so smart, especially when it comes to numbers; with just a little help, she can even count all the way to 100!  She did a math problem this morning too.  I was about to take a shower, and I told her to pick out some books to read with Daddy.  She picked out 3 Christmas books and said she'd pick out 2 regular books.  I asked her how many that made total.  Anna thought about it for a couple seconds and said, "Five!"  It was pretty amazing, I must say.  She's done that before too, but I've never seen her work out the problem in her head like that.  Her 1:1 counting skills are incredible as well.  I hope the novelty of school doesn't wear off anytime soon, because I must say that I do love how much she enjoys it!

Time for School

Unbelievably, today is the first day of school for Anna.  She's going M-W-F from 8-11 am.  This is the first time that she's ever spent away from family!  It was quite an emotional morning for me, that's for sure.  I've been quite nervous about how she would handle it and if she would be okay being around so many other kids.  When I dropped her off this morning at St. Leonard, I was practically pushed away from her, the teachers didn't introduce themselves, and I felt like it didn't start off at all the way it should have!  Luckily Anna was so fascinated seeing new toys and other fun things all around her that she didn't seem to mind.  I went to school to work and try and keep my mind off of her (which didn't work!), and then I nervously went to go pick her up.  She walked out in the little class line with her backpack on, and she saw me right away and gave me a delighted, "Hi!"  My heart skipped at how happy she sounded, and then she ran over to me and gave me a nice hug and told me a little about what she did.  Being 3, she was a bit sketchy on details, and it was difficult for me to tell how certain things she was talking about actually happened, but here are the basics:  she said that she got to color, play with blocks (she said she built a tall tower and something else - I can't remember what, but it was something she's never built with blocks before), play with play-dough ("It was blue!"), sing songs, and have a snack ("It was crackers, and I had them on a green plate!").  I asked her if they sung any songs she knew, and she said they sang Old MacDonald and some other ones she didn't know.  She said that she wanted to play with the doll house, but the teacher told her that she had to go sit down.  I asked her if she followed the directions, and she said yes.  She said that she was nice to everyone, and that made me happy!  I'm glad things seemed to go so well for her, and I hope she can continue to have these fun kind of days! 

Crab Apple River

Anna's imagination is finally starting to take off!  When Santa got her a kitchen for Christmas, and then she didn't seem to have much interest in it, I got a little concerned.  When is she going to start pretending.  I've noticed more and more this summer that she gets caught up in making stories up involving her friends/toys and finally that kitchen is getting some good use!  Her favorite thing to make is soup (it started out being normal, but now she's adding things like oranges, onions, ketchup, and mustard).  Sometimes she adds popcorn!  In any case, I'm very glad it seems to be happening now.

Her most recent dive into imagination concerns the sand bebow across the street.  One day a while back she had lots of fun helping some other kids make a big river using the sand and water.  Then she got very interested in burying crab apples so that the animals could dig them up.  So now she's combined the two interests, and she's made something that she calls "crab apple river."  She gathers as many crab apples as she can, puts them in the river, then fills it up with water.  She also occasionally says that the crab apples are taking a bath, which is pretty cute too.  I can't wait to hear what she comes up with next; now that school is starting she'll probably get all sorts of new ideas!

Santa's Village

Apparently about 2 years ago Santa's Village reopened to the public after being closed for a number of years.  They just did an article about it in the newspaper, and it made me think that Anna (being the roller coaster and ride enthusiast that she is) would probably have a blast.  Today was supposed to be another beautiful day, and it's nearing the end of summer for all of us, so I suggested that we go.  What a great idea!  We got there around 11:00 with Auntie Carrie, and it was nonstop fun for the next 5 hours!  Auntie Nanu met us there too.  We started on the carousel, then Anna rode a bunch of other things, like the balloons, Kiddie Whip, cars, dragon coaster, tilt-a-whirl, mini ferris wheel, etc etc etc.  There actually wasn't a single thing in the whole park that she couldn't ride!  And she kept wanting to go on everything again!  I got to ride the old-fashioned cars, and they also had a really cool fire engine ride, where they drive you over to a little "burning" house, and the kids get to use little hoses to put out the fire!  A very neat idea and lots of fun too!  On top of all that, there were also several areas that had some very cool animals to see.  There was a free-flight parakeet building where Anna got to feed them (and touch them).  There was also a petting zoo, complete with pony rides, and then there was a horse-drawn sleigh ride that took us around a reindeer paddock!  When we finally forced Anna to leave the park, she was exhausted but didn't want to go!  I can't blame her at all.  Even though she wasn't born when the place was built, it was like it was made just for her!  I have a feeling we'll be back again...

Fun at the Zoo

We've lucked out with some good weather this past week.  Well, the first couple days it rained a lot, but we needed it, and plus it brought a beautiful cool-down with it!  Today was a truly lovely day, complete with sunshine and nice breezes.  We took our lunch to the zoo (along with about 10,000 other people) and walked around for a bit.  There's a baby bison who's only about 3 months old there right now, so it was fun to be able to see her out and around.  All the other times we've been she's mostly been hiding or isolated from the public, but I even managed to get some decent pictures!  Anna had a nice time, although she wanted to see a ton of things that we had to try and squeeze in before her naptime.  She still takes at least a 2 hour nap every day, probably mostly because she wakes up so early and manages to get us to keep her up later than we should.  Speaking of which, I better get up to bed, because who knows what time that crazy kid is going to wake up tomorrow!

A New Addition

I'll have to change the name of this blog soon!  Anna will finally get to be a big sister sometime around December 20!  We've been trying to add to our family for quite some time and have had some major setbacks.  Finally we got some help from a doctor, and thankfully that worked out well!  We found out last week that it'll be a brother for her, although we've known that pretty much from the beginning!  Anna has been wanting it to be a boy, but I don't know if that's because she prefers boys or if she thinks it means she won't have to share her stuff with him.  It could be both.  Either way, we're all very happy in the Pachla household!  Hopefully it will be good motivation for me to be better about updating this thing.

Delinquent

There's no denying that I've been horrible at blogging the last 2 years.  Anna certainly keeps me busy though, that's for sure!  Rather than trying to catch up for the whole year 2012, I'll just try to highlight the summer that we've been having.  It's been very hot and dry, so that's made for a lot more indoor time than I'd prefer.  We've had our share of bebows this summer (yes, she still calls them that), but we have to make sure to go very early, before it gets insanely hot.  Even then, sometimes Anna complains about the heat and wants to go home before we've been there very long.  Okay, now for June...

We started off our summer with a weekend at the farm in Michigan.  That's a lot more down-time than Anna's used to, but she still managed to have plenty of fun taking walks around the place and playing frisbee, bugging Matt a lot, and playing fetch with the dogs.  I think she really enjoyed the bonfire we had, where she got to roast marshmallows and eat s'mores.

Anna also played her first-ever round of mini-golf on Father's Day!  We went to Haunted Trails, and Anna really loved it!  She's gotten better about taking turns, but she still gives up on herself very easily.  Her coordination is still a little lacking too, but she's working on it.  After we were done golfing, her and Daddy played a couple arcade games and then went on the little roller coaster together.  Then we had a delicious lunch at Uncle Bub's, where I discovered that Anna really has a strong love for pulled pork!

We also made our way to the Children's Museum, which is always a good time.  They had redone a few things since the last time we went, and Anna particularly enjoyed the vet area, where she took care of the animals.  She wasn't as interested in the market area this time around, but part of that might have been because it was really difficult to acquire the shopping carts.  They were being hogged by some older kids, so she couldn't use them for a long time.  By the time she got one, she must have been getting worn out and didn't want to play much at that point.

We also checked out the splash park in Westmont once, which was pretty fun.  Anna didn't want to run off and splash by herself though, and she didn't have any "friends" there to play with, so it wasn't quite the time that it could have been.  If we go back, we'll have to make sure to arrange a play date ahead of time!

The end of June had us moving Auntie Loonie to a new place in Warrenville.  The new place is much nicer than the last one (and quieter), and we enjoyed helping her celebrate!

July brought us to family vacation at Double JJ Resort.  We had a wonderful time!  Anna got to ride ponies, pet and feed the barn animals, ride the barrel train, get her "face" painted (she got it on her arm instead), get balloon animals, make crafts, play in the splash pool/swimming pool, feed the horsies, ride the pedal carts, and play lots of games.  Her favorite game happened to be ladderball.  I swear she could play it for hours.  She also really loved visiting Bubby and Bobby in their room (which was awesomely very near us), where she would play checkers among other fun things, surely.  One night we also took a hayride to the woods, where we roasted marshmallows, made s'mores, and sang songs.  Another day we went for a lovely hike on a deserted snowmobile trail.  On our way home we stopped by a blueberry farm and picked 8.5 lbs of blueberries!  I was surprised at how much Anna enjoyed it, because it was very hot that day, but we all had a great time!  It was a good vacation, and we're hoping to go back next year.

That brings us to August, which has been pretty quiet.  We mostly just play at home these days, although I'm sure we'll do a couple more fun things before going back to school.  Anna starts preschool a week from today!  Hopefully she'll enjoy it, but I'm sad to see her growing up so fast.