White Christmas

Ok, so it wasn't exactly a white Christmas, but we did get snow in Houston in December! Seriously. For those of you non-Houstonians/non-Texans, this is truly unheard of. I can count on one hand the # of times its snowed in Houston in my whole life, and it never snows and sticks.

Anna was considerably less impressed than we were...she seemed to just think the snow was "cold". (It was, admittedly, right before bedtime that it snowed, so she was a sleepy goose.) I'm not sure she really comprehends the true rarity of this event. Silly toddlers.

Below is a shot of the steamy hot tub in the snow. Clint took advantage of this rare opportunity to go sit in the hot tub and have a beer while it snowed. May be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in Houston...


Ok, a few more Christmas pics...I can't resist...

Anna was excited to leave some cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. She did want to be sure and taste-test the carrots before subjecting Rudolph to them...

A few shots of our Christmas cutie...

Ok, I think that's it for 2008! I would promise to do better in 2009, but let's be honest...about 1/3 of the way through the year we're going to have a newborn and these posts are probably going to get even more sparse. Oh well...I'm adding it to my NY Resolutions list anyway...

We hope your 2008 was as enjoyable as ours, and wish an even happier 2009 to everyone!

November adventures

November brought some simple pleasures, like stomping in rain puddles, as well as some greater adventures like traveling to Dallas to see her cousins Sydney and Natalie (for Nat's 3rd birthday). This was a first long road trip in a while, but Anna was a champ for it! She had her first experience with the DVD headphones (which she refers to as "head-ears"), and is now somewhat obsessed with them. Can't say we're complaining since this means she can listen to a DVD via headsets and we can put the radio in the front seat on "our music". Isn't technology grand?

Playing with Nana

We were thrilled to have Nana come visit us in late October/early November. We had good weather, so were able to spend a lot of time at the park. Anna loved playing with Nana (as always!). Thank you Nana for coming to visit us! (And, a general shoutout thank you to Nana for so often coming to visit us even though we don't make it up to see her as often as we'd like...traveling with a toddler and a sick, pregnant lady is not super-fun!)

Fall highlights

We were lucky enough to get to celebrate the nuptuals of our good friends, Adam and Sabrina, in August. They actually had gotten married a few months earlier in India (so we weren't able to attend), but we got to host a shower for Sabrina in August. While Anna only attended the end of the shower, she did help with the prep. My little chef in training...

Anna started Little Gym in September, which has turned out to be a huge hit! She absolutely loves it. Her last session is in two weeks, and I know that she'll miss it when its over. But, she's decided she wants to do Tumblebus (which is basically a scaled-down Little Gym on wheels) at school with her friends instead, so who am I to argue with that? We also may start swim lessons in a few weeks...need to get those started before I'm trying to balance them with a newborn!

Big News

August brought big news for our family! We took this picture long before we shared the news with Anna...her not being able to spell/read yet sure does come in h-a-n-d-y sometimes...

Turtles

We went to visit some sea turtles at a Galveston Sea Turtle Facility. While mommy spent most of the time worried about Anna losing a finger (they do bite!), Anna absolutely loved it and still talks about it a lot (particularly when reading "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?").

Getting ready to move...

April brought lots of packing for us this year. Anna helped Daddy take some things off the walls in preparation for our big move...

March madness

Getting into the spirit of March Madness...

Ride 'em cowgirl

The rodeo was quite a hit with Anna this year. Between trips with friends and others with family, we ended up going quite a few times this March. She loved riding the ponies, and even took a turn in the clown barrel.

Her mommy's girl, she loved the sausage-on-a-stick. Seriously, is there a better rodeo/festival/carnival food??

I think the animals were her favorite part...we may have a future FFA member on our hands!

Birthday girl

Anna had a "pinwheel party at the park" for her 2nd birthday. She really "got" the idea of a birthday party this year, and loved it! She's already talking about her 3rd birthday party now...no pressure.

After blowing out candles with Daddy, she learned about wind energy from Bucko...

Some highlights from February...

You can't tell me you wouldn't want this little one to be your Valentine?

Anna thoroughly enjoyed watching our new house being built (or at the very least she humored me and my obsession with going to the house at least daily to check on things). Here's a pic of her at the house during the framing stage. Seriously, though, I do think that watching the whole thing get built and being there every day helped out tremendously when it came time to move in...it was, thankfully, an extremely easy transition for her (and us!) from the old house to the new one...

Looking back on a great 2008...

While 2008 has had its challenges for our country--with the economy, war, election, etc.--it has been a great and exciting year for our family! And, a busy one, as evidenced by our lack of blog posting this year. In an attempt to still document some of Anna's fun moments and absolve myself of a little slacker-mom guilt from not posting more, I've decided to create some "catch up" postings of some pictures I intended to post earlier in the year and never quite got to.

A look back on some of the highlights of 2008...
...in January, we finalized all of our selections and plans for the house...
...in February, we broke ground on the new house...
...in March, we put our old house on the market, and sold it...
...in April, we closed on our old house...
...in May, we closed on the new house, and moved...
...in June, we started construction on our pool...
...in July, we got pregnant...
...in August, we began the challenge of what turned out to be a l-o-n-g road of morning sickness...
...in September, we survived Ike!...
...in October, we (finally!) finished the pool, and had our yard landscaped...
...in November, we found out our new bundle of joy was a little girl...
...in December, we survived Clint's trip to Russia, and enjoyed all of the holiday festivities...

...it has been quite a year!

Here's a pic of some of the hard work from 2008--Clint watering the gunite in our pool so it wouldn't cure too fast--more pics of all of the fun from 2008 to come soon!

Christmas in Tomball

Anna had a great time celebrating Christmas in Tomball with Grammie, Bucko, Aunt Kelly, Uncle Roger, and her cousins Sydney and Natalie. While she was a little "under the weather" for most of the trip, she was a trooper and made the most of it.

Both she and her tired parents greatly appreciated the baths from Grammie, and she had a great time playing with her cousins. I think the shot below was the only time they were all three calm enough to capture in the same frame of a picture...

Christmas with the (future) in-laws

Unbeknownst to her, we have already betrothed Anna to her little friend, Owen Maples. His parents, Whitney and Matt, are some of our closest friends, and quite frankly, he's just too cute and sweet for her not to marry! We think its really nice that they're already getting to spend Christmas gathering with their in-laws. We just hope that their future Christmases together will be slightly less centered around fishing trips and ambulances as this one was...

Party in the park

Santa being the generous guy that he is, he was gracious enough to come visit Anna and all of her friends at our MOMS Club party in the park the week before Christmas. He made quite an entrance on his firetruck, and then delivered presents to each of the kiddos...he was definitely a hit! Anna was a little reserved around him at first, but then quickly warmed up and gave Santa a big hug. She knows who delivers her toys...

Santa is sharing some hilarious toddler secret with Anna and her friend, Trent...

He sees you when you're sleeping...

At Anna's Christmas Party at school, they did a little "program" that might have been the cutest thing I've ever seen...Anna and all of her friends had little "choreography" to go with all of the Christmas songs that they sung...

They also had a gift exchange, and the gift that Anna received--a fishing game--was the hit of the party! Mom spent some serious time as the lifeguard while gaggles of toddlers fished their hearts out.

The party wouldn't have been complete if Anna didn't get her picture taken with the inflatable Pooh. She was a big fan, to say the least! Thank you, Ms. Monica and Mrs. Evelyn, for putting together such a fun party for everyone!

Hope everyone's Christmas was as merry as ours!

We had a VERY merry Christmas at the Baggerman house this year! Anna's one wish from Santa was a particular monkey from FAO Schwartz, and being the good guy that Santa is, he delivered! It was hands-down her favorite gift from Santa, but she has also been having a blast taking pics with her new camera, feeding her new baby in her new highchair, and playing with all of the other toys that Santa and family and friends bestowed upon her!

And, what better way to celebrate Christmas in Texas than with a dip in the pool? We had an unseasonably warm Christmas this year (77 degrees!), so decided to take a dip in the spa. I think this girl is ready for summertime...

Happy Halloween from our little ladybug!

Our little ladybug wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Halloween!! In the picture above, Anna is exercising her wings at a Halloween party at the park last weekend. Below, she's getting ready for some trick-or-treating at school with some of her friends (pictured: Sara, Morgan, and Ava).

She's had a blast with Halloween this year...in addition to the two festivities pictured here, we also went trick-or-treating at a local assisted living facility, and are headed to a block party + subdivision trick-or-treating tonight. She is really getting the concept of trick-or-treating this year, and thinks its great! Every day she asks me "are we going trick-or-treating today?". With the various activities we've had, most days this week the answer has been "yes". Next week may be a bit harder to explain that we shouldn't go beg for food from our neighbors...

Another Bun in the Oven

Announcing Anna's new sister! She's due on April 20th of next year, and everyone is healthy and happy (besides, of course, the large amounts of naseau that Mommy is experiencing)!

All Dressed Up

Here are some pics of Anna dressed up to go to a party. Sorry for the randomness of these pics...our camera isn't fast enough to catch our little moving target!

Pumpkin Patch

It's October, so that means it's pumpkin patch time. We checked out a fall festival this weekend and had a good time picking out pumpkins, face painting, and jumping on the moon walks (the latter two by Anna only...Mommy and Daddy refrained).

Ouch!!

In case you haven't heard, we had a trip to Texas Children's emergency room recently. Anna was playing on the couch in the living room, and did a header off the back and landed on her forehead and nose (about a 3 foot drop). Luckily, she was completely fine minus a huge lump on her forehead (this picture does not do it justice), a black eye, and a scratched nose and upper lip. I think the biggest toll it took was removing 5 years from Mommy and Daddy's lifespans. Ugh!

The stress of Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike was a little more stressful for some of us than others. We evacuated to my parents' house in Tomball, and on Friday before the storm Bucko took Anna on a four wheeler ride to check out the neighborhood and be sure everything was ready. The excitement of being at Grammie and Bucko's had resulted in no nap for Anna that day...until the four wheeler ride. Now this is trust...

All in all, our whole family fared ok with Ike. My parents definitely got hit harder than we did. They're about 60 miles north of us, which we thought would make them "safer", but they also have tall thin pine trees all throughout their area that basically turned into toothpicks in the storm. They lost 6 trees total--1 through the house and 1 through the garage/covered patio. The good news though is the no one was hurt! Our friends Adam and Sabrina were sleeping in the bedroom that the tree went through, but they thankfully walked away unscathed! Our house in League City is also fine. We lost about half of our fence and a small section of shingles on the roof, and of course the pool is a mess, but no big deal! We were all amazingly blessed, especially compared to many of our neighbors to the south. Please continue to pray for all of the victims of Ike! It will certainly be a long recovery for the Galveston/Houston/TX Gulf Coast area...

May I have this dance?

We were at my cousin Lynn's wedding last weekend in College Station, and did Anna ever have fun dancing the night away! It was her first wedding, and we weren't totally sure if she would think it was fun or overwhelming. She made it pretty clear from the moment she walked in and saw this dance floor and band that this was her comfort zone! Dancing with Bucko made the night even more perfect!

Happy 4th of July!

Clint's family made the trek from up north to visit us this 4th of July....we had an absolutely wonderful time with them! There will be MANY pictures to come from this trip in future blog-postings (Uncle Shawn is quite the photographer...). In the meantime, we wanted to post this pic of the whole clan. Thanks Nana, Auntie Lees, Uncle Shawn, and Finn for coming to visit us!

Beach babe

Seriously, does it get any cuter than this?

Anna and I spent the day last Friday with some friends at "Palm Beach", a man-made (read: clean) beach that's part of the Moody Gardens resort. She had so much fun playing in the water and making her first sandcastle. Definitely a place we'll be frequenting all summer...