Home sweet cottage

Anna is thoroughly enjoying one of the gifts that Santa left her...a new play cottage! She thinks playing peek-a-boo through the windows and doors is just hilarious, and likes having her own little "retreat" to visit.

Anna also thinks her new "roofmate" is just wonderful. Lily spends LOTS of time relaxing on what she is convinced is her new cottage.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! We rang in the New Year a bit early yesterday at the Children's Museum with a "countdown to noon". Anna loved the little parade and marching band, and we enjoyed getting to go to bed early last night without the guilt of not having celebrated the New Year. Are we lame, or what? But then again, we do have a 7am wakeup call every morning, regardless of the "fun" we had the night before!

Big girl swing

Anna has a new-found streak of independence, often expressed via the well-used term "Anna's turn!" As much as I think we're both sad to see our "baby" grow up, it is fun to watch her exert her independence and become more brave in her adventures.

While she still loves swinging on the baby swings at the park, she also regularly insists on swinging on the big-girl swings. Here we are spending a little family time at the park...

Little drummer girl

Anna was so excited about her new Alphabet Drum that she couldn't even wait to get it unwrapped before she started drumming on it. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for it!!

She's decided now that she likes the tune of it so much that she'd like to hear it anytime she's playing in the playroom...which often results in her running off and playing with a different toy but telling me to keep drumming ("again! again!"). Remind me again who's in charge here??

Aarrgh!!

This whole toy assembly this isn't nearly as easy as it looks. You think you're done, then you go try it out, and it doesn't work! Luckily, being an engineer, it only took me a few hours to troubleshoot the structural problem with the rocking moose:

Aarrgh...so close!!

Luckily, I found the cause of the problem and we were right back on track!Success! I'm smarter than a rocking moose!

Then, after all that, when Anna first saw the moose, she proceeded to set her milk onto it and go play with another toy. All that work for a new end table for her!

She did finally decide to explore the multitude of functions provided by the moose. You mean I'm allowed to rock on my end table? This is awesome...

"Nanny" time

We were lucky enough to have Nana come visit us for Christmas this year! She escaped the snowy north and came to Texas for some milder weather that included some park time with Anna.

Anna affectionately refers to Nana as "Nanny", and kept asking for Nanny for days after she left. Nanny definitely ensured that Anna had a very MERRY Christmas this year...

Here, Nanny and Anna check out the "pointy trees" in our new subdivision...

Welcome Molly!

We're thrilled to welcome Molly Ann Broome to the world! She arrived on Wednesday evening as an extra special Christmas present for our dear friends Mandy and Joey. We got to visit the Broomes at home tonight, and big sister Emily and big brother Matthew were absolutely thrilled with their new little sister...

Anna was slightly less thrilled with the visual of Mommy and Daddy holding another baby. But, she did quickly warm up to her new little friend, and by the end of evening was smiling and pointing every time she saw "Mo-yee!"

The Toddler Christmas Party Circuit

Who knew toddlers could party so much? Anna has been making the Christmas party circuit this year full force. Cookies? Juice? Santa, AND presents?? Seriously, does it get any better?

Anna was enthralled with the light-up train in downtown League City at our MOMS Club Holiday Party. Do we have a future engineer on our hands?

Good thing our Houston flagpoles don't often have ice on them...

Mmmm...Cookies...

Here's a pic of Anna when she woke up from a nap just in time to help Mommy make some peanut butter squares. Luckily, it wasn't too late to assume her role as the official peanut butter square taste tester. The good news is that Mommy's squares checked out. And as you can see, Anna enjoyed her job!

Under the Weather

Anna was a bit under the weather a week or so ago. She had a bit of a fever, and as you can see, it tired her out. The best cure seemed to be hours on end of Seasame St. (Ernie and Bert in particular).

In fact, Anna is right here as I type this. I'll pass over the keyboard, she wants to include a message:

asdfghkl;

Hmmm...not sure what that means, but it was typed with great care so it must be important. Maybe cousin Finn can translate!

Photo shoot, take 2

Play at the park...another attempt to get pics for the Christmas cards. She was pretty opposed to looking at the camera for these pics, but we still had a great time at the park!

Catching up...

It has been an outrageously long time since we posted to the blog...we apologize! November was a bit of a crazy month, but we're committed to do a better job of blogging in December.

Here are a few cute shots of Anna that we took in our attempt to get Christmas card photos. She was in a bit of a mischevious mood during this photo shoot, so none of these quite made it for the cards but they did capture the fun she was having...

More Halloween fun...

We figured Anna was still a little too young to get the full joy of the trick-or-treating experience this year, but knew she would like to dress up and see other little ones in their costumes, so I took her to a festival at a local church.

They had a little "bounce house", which I was fully convinced was WAY too old for Anna, and she was fully convinced of the opposite. After a few minutes of her absolutely insisting on getting in and jumping around, I let her in, knowing that 20 seconds later she would be freaked out and screaming to get out. Well, this was another lesson for Mommy that her baby is in fact growing up (whether I like it or not!). She LOVED it!! Just smiled and giggled the entire time. I finally had to pull her out because there was a line forming of other little toddlers and preschoolers that wanted a chance to jump.

She also had a great time with her buddy, Owen, who joined us for the festival. We could never get them still enough to get in the same picture together, so decided to solve that problem with the toddler clown car pictured above. Turns out these play coupes are not designed to accommodate two toddlers in full body costumes....Anna quickly came to this realization and attempted to bail out the window. Let's hope she comes up with a bit more graceful exit on dates in her future...

Happy belated Halloween!

Sorry it took a while for us to get Halloween pictures posted. Even though Daddy had to miss Halloween with his "little flower" this year because of a work trip, Anna had a great time! Here she is with her school buddy, Max. We think Max has a bit of a thing for Anna. Every morning that she's at school he greets her with a warm, "ANNA! ANNA! ANNA!" The boy's got energy. He had already ditched his costume by 8:30 am on Halloween, but still insisted on standing beside Anna while I took her picture.

Anna was absolutely thrilled with her costume (I guess she was the only one in her class to make it through the entire trick-or-treating experience wearing her costume!). When we got home from school, she insisted upon continuing at attempt to wear her costume. She loved that it had a "hat". I didn't want for her to be in it too long because it was so hot, so she instead just wrapped in around her head and attempted to continue to play in her "flower-turban".

The happy homemaker

Anna has to get up pretty early these days to prepare pretend breakfast for the family. She doesn't even have time to take out her plastic rollers before she puts the bacon on to fry...

But, what better way to thank our little homemaker than with a...(insert Price is Right's Rod Roddy voice here) brand new house!!

Yep, we are now officially in the process of building a new home! We made an offer on building a new house on Saturday, and they countered today with a pretty reasonable counter offer, so we accepted! We likely won't break ground for another month or so, but we'll start almost immediately deciding on certain structural changes to the house and picking out options. We're so excited about being able to be a part of the whole process...

(As a side note: we obviously don't make Anna sleep in plastic rollers...she just found them in her playroom and thought they were fun...)

House hunter

We apologize for how delinquent we've been in posting to the blog over the last few months. We've been engrossed in the challenge of shopping for a new house. But, the good news is, Anna utilized her newly acquired climbing skills and helped herself onto our dining room table, flipped through the different floor plans, and selected her new castle. Mission accomplished! How can you be upset at discovering this precious angel sitting on your dining table when she's picking out a new home for you (and so darn cute!)??

(In all seriousness...we did finally put an offer on a house yesterday evening, so wish us luck!)

Happy Birthday Buck-o!

Happy Birthday Buck-o!!

Anna's attempt to say "Grandpa" results in something that sounds exactly like "Buck-o". But, she says it with such joy and exuberance that "BUCK-O!!" doesn't seem like such a bad nickname...

We hope you're having a great one, Grandpa, and sorry that we can't be there with you!

Pics from the Pumpkin Patch

Here's a picture of our pumpkin surrounded by other, less cute pumpkins.

Visit from Nana

We had another visit from Nana last weekend. Anna was happy to show off her toys (including the old-school Winnie the Pooh, shown here) to Nana. Everyone had a great time!

Nothing like Saturday mornings...

We're probably watching either Seasame Street or football.