Our little Martha

Yesterday Anna helped me bake some cookies for Daddy...who knew she was such a little chef? She's tending to enjoy playing with "our stuff" as much if not more than her toys these days...apprarently a wooden spoon and brownie pan are much more exciting than maracas that vibrate and light up and sing in both English and Spanish! I actually think its pretty neat and endearing...call me old-fashioned, but I'd much rather her be playing with this "real" stuff than all of the electronics toys.

First pigtails

Here's Anna in the tub with her first (and likely only for a while!) pigtails. Given Anna's hair growth patterns to date, she's probably going to be 17 before her hair is long enough to put in real pigtails, so we have to take advantage of these wet-hair opportunities...

(Sorry for the repeated "crazy hair in the tub" pics, but I thought this was too cute note to post.)

Momma's Girl

Anna is going through a bit of a "mommy phase" right now, which I can't say I'm all too upset about! Its kind of nice when the mere act of entering a room elicits a smile, squeal, and arm waving... :-) I think Clint is a little hurt by her recent preferential treatment, but I keep telling him to just wait til she's age 12 through 17 when my popularity will take a certain decline and his will likely stay nice and steady. Ah, adolescence. Oh well...I'm soaking up the snuggles as long as I can get them!

Homecoming Queen 2024

While Anna's primary mode of transportation is still crawling, she is certainly enjoying walking behind the new push toy that Santa brought her. She mostly cruises from one side of the playroom/dining room to the other, waving and smiling as she goes. I think she's practicing for her future homecoming float debut...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

Anna decided to kick the New Year off right with some traditional black-eyed peas for good luck...



She also thought she would take this opportunity at the conclusion of her first "calendar year" to reflect back on some of the highlights of 2006. Here are Anna's picks for her 1st Annual Anna Awards...some of her favorites from 2006...

Food
Best Breakfast: oatmeal with wild blueberries
Best Snack Food: apples and strawberries (freeze-dried)
Best Healthy Food: ended in a tie--avocado -or- yogurt

Music
Best Song...
...for eating: Wheels on the Bus -or- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (seasonal)
...for going to sleep: Mama's Little Baby Loves Shortening Bread
...for school: If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands!
...for two hours of Chicago traffic: Mary Had a Little Lamb
...for general-purpose calming and entertainment: Row, Row, Row Your Boat
...overall: Itsy, Bitsy Spider

Other Entertainment
Best Toy: Roll n' Roar Dinosaur
Best Activity: walks to the park with swing time interludes
Best Friend: Leo the Lion
Best Game: Tasty Baby (which involves Mommy and/or Daddy pretending to eat her appendages...truly hilarious when you're 10 months old...)

Stay tuned next year for her 2007 updates...

A very Merry Christmas

Anna had quite a first Christmas--here are some of our favorite pics...

Anna with her first real baby doll (a Madame Alexander, as is our family tradition, from my parents--"Grammie and Grandpa")

Anna with her cousin, Sydney, in rocking chairs that Kelly and I used to use

Checking out what Santa delivered

At the park on Christmas Day...although August in Texas is tough, we make up for it by having beautiful Christmas Days where we can get outside and enjoy the weather!

Opening presents--bows were a bigger hit this year than the wrapping paper (and often than the toy itself!)

Playing with her cousin, Finn--we were blessed this year to have Clint's mom (aka "Nana"), sister (aka "Auntie Lees"), brother-in-law (aka "Uncle Shawn"), and cousin come visit for Christmas. Finn and Anna are 6 months apart, and had a wonderful time getting to know each other better and playing, playing, playing!

Spending some quality time with Nana--it was so great to have her here with us for Christmas this year!

We're back...

Sorry for the long layoff between postings...we've been semi-comatose from too much Christmas food for the past 10 days or so. Now that we've recovered/digested, we'll catch up with a few pictures from Christmas.

As evidenced by the pic, she's been gaining a lot of confidence pulling up and standing. Here she is, a few days before Christmas, pulling herself up on a toy crate. But I think she's also trying to make the subtle point to Mommy, Daddy, and Santa that her toy crate is empty!

Ho, ho, ho...

Anna had her Christmas Party at school today, and had such fun seeing Santa and having some "baby hors d'oerves" with her friends! There was too much excitement in the room to get her to focus on the camera for the Santa shot above, but I guess at least she wasn't screaming in the shot! (We hear to expect that for next year...:-) )

Here Anna is enjoying some bananas and mini Nilla wafers with her girlfriends Ava, Caitlin, and Kara, and showing off her classroom and teachers to Daddy!

Is that a fish in our tub?

Anna's hair is finally getting long enough to play with...here she enjoyed a little fish-do while playing in the bathtub (her new favorite activity now that we finally figured out how to sit her up in her tub...we're a little slow at this "parenting" thing).

Tis the season for some mischief

As we put up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend, we decided it would be ok to sit Anna on the floor by herself for a few minutes (since, at this time, she was still fairly immobile except for her normal scooting/rolling routine which takes quite a while to actually get anywhere). Well, she decided it would be a fine time to show off her ability to crawl backwards, and she backed herself up underneath our stereo table. She seemed quite proud of her accomplishment.

Bring on the turkey!

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!! Sorry this post is a few days late...I somehow forgot to post this over the holiday weekend.

Anna had a great first Thanksgiving...first, her Grammie and Grandpa came to visit, then she had her first taste of "real" turkey (not that silly jarred stuff), and then the Aggies "beat the hell outta" t.u.!! Whoop!! A happy Thanksgiving was had by all...

Beenie baby

As we were preparing to brave the cold weather of the North on our trip to Michigan, I was trying hats on Anna. As a pregnant lady this time last year, I got hit with the "nesting" bug and decided to knit Anna a hat (seen here). I tried it on her in the hospital the day she was born, and it covered her whole head (face included). So, I assumed we would wait and use this hat this fall/winter. Yeah...maybe not. Although Anna's petite little body keeps her in the 10th percentile weight-wise, she does have a 95th percentile head. Smarty pants.

Four generations of Baggermans

In the final posting of our trip to Michigan, we had to capture this wonderful picture (the photo's not great, but the moment was!) of FOUR generations of Baggermans!! Pictured here are Lisa (aka Auntie Lees), Finn, Grandpa Baggerman, Grandma Baggerman, Clint (aka Daddy), Anna, and Pete (aka Grandpa).

We are family...

Anna had such fun hanging out with the Baggerman family in Michigan! Here she is at the dinner honoring Grandma Baggerman's 90th birthday with (l-r, t-b) Auntie Lees and Uncle Shawn, Uncle Thom and Aunt Laurel, Melanie (Clint's cousin..Anna's second cousin), and with us and Grandma.

Kissin' cousins

Anna truly enjoyed getting to meet her cousin, Finn, on our adventure north last weekend. Given her limited verbal skills at this age, she decided that the most appropriate way to express her love for him was to just grab his head, lunge at him, and plant a big wet one on his forehead.

Luckily for her, Finn's a bit of a lover himself so happily accepted her affection. In his zeal to return this kiss, a few teeth kind of got in the way and he gave her a bit of a nibble. Oh well...I think she understood what he was trying to say.

He did attempt to make amends the next day with a peace offering (no pun intended).

Bonding with her great grandparents

Anna had such a great time meeting her wonderful great grandparents in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Here she is at Grandma's birthday dinner (top) and at Aunt Mary's house (middle and bottom).

These boots were made for walkin...

...or, at least for attempting to crawl.

While her affection for these boots was short-lived (we didn't even make it out of the state of Illinois with them still on), she definitely liked them at first! We didn't quite get the snow we were expecting so the snow boots may have been a little bit of overkill, but they were cute just the same!

Executive breakfast

In our effort to streamline our packing, we (of course) did not pack a travel highchair for Anna. But, she was able to make do just fine eating her meals in the "executive" chair in the hotel room. I think we may have a future CEO on our hands...

First flight

Anna went on her first "cross-country" trip this weekend...to Michigan (by way of Chicago) to meet and visit Clint's family for his grandmother's 90th birthday celebration! It was such a great weekend that I'll be posting pictures/anedotes from the weekend for the next few days. These are just the first of the pics!

This is Anna in the airport security line, and then with me on the airplane. She was a trooper for the whole flight! She slept for about an hour, and then just played and ate the rest of the trip. She got a little agitated at the end, but that was most likely because of her little ears and the pressure changes. Overall, she was a great flyer! (At least for the trip to Chicago...we won't talk about the trip home...we're trying to make that part of our distant memory...).

Too much Halloween fun...

After joyfully greeting about four groups of trick-or-treaters at the door in her monkey costume, Anna quickly came to the conclusion that the Old Navy infant costumes are in fact made for northern babies where its cold on Halloween. That monkey costume was a bit warm for our Texas climate! So, she was none too upset when we decided to strip her down and let her eat dinner au natural.