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...

Pioneer girl

Anna was quite tickled with the souvenir I brought back from my recent work trip to Virginia. We went to Colonial Williamsburg one evening for some shopping and dinner, and I couldn't resist this little hat. Anna enjoyed wearing the hat while flipping through a photo album of pictures of her at school, and watching a little TV. Maybe she's not quite ready for the true Colonial life...

Picking blackberries

A few weeks ago we decided to venture to the north side of Houston to some farms that have "pick-your-own" blackberries and blueberries. Anna had a blast! She didn't quite get the concept of "putting the berries in the bucket"...the vast majority of ones she picked were instantly consumed. A little dirt never hurt anyone, right? I think she's a country girl at heart...

Even though us moms thought that the experience of berry-picking would be most interesting thing on the farm, the little ones had other ideas. After the novelty of the berries wore off, they had endless fun playing with pieces of rope hanging from some rafters. Hmmm...remind me why we spend such fortunes on expensive toys??

Goldilocks

These pictures are a bit outdated, but I couldn't resist posting them. I finally broke down and got Anna's hair cut in April. She had been sporting the toddler mullet for quite some time while we tried to let her hair grow out, and it finally got long enough to at least trim a bit off the back.

While a bit tentative about the whole process at the beginning, the race car + Elmo video certainly had strong powers of persuasion in making the haircut seem like a good idea. She was having a lot of fun by the end, and actually still talks about getting her hair cut (and pretends to cut her hair with playdoh scissors...eek! note to Mommy to keep the real scissors well-hidden!).

New digs

Ok, we'll admit it. Our rate of updating the blog recently has been nothing short of abysmal. We are bad parents.

But, we do have somewhat of an excuse...our new pad! We've spent the last two months moving out of our old house (much love to Island Breeze...you treated us well!), and getting settled into our new house. While the boxes seem to be never-ending, we're finally getting to the point that it feels like "home". And we love it! Anna especially loves it...she loves having stairs, and loves having her own playroom (instead of the entryway/playroom/living room/dining room hybrid she previously played in).

These pics are from our "first dinner" in the new house. It was the night after we closed....before the movers came to transport our stuff. Granted it was just pizza eaten off the floor, but it was wonderful!

We promise to get better about blog updates...look for lots of new "catch up" photos in the next few weeks...

Happy Mother's Day!

Just wanted to wish Mommy a very happy mother's day! We celebrated by having a picnic and spending the morning at the zoo. We had a great time, and Anna wished Mommy a "happy mommy's day, Mommy!" over and over. She was also very exciting to give Mommy the card we made for her...both yesterday (because she couldn't wait), and first thing this morning (in case she forgot about yesterday)!

And what the heck, since we haven't posted many picture lately, here are a bunch:

With Daddy...

Hanging out at the picnic...

Picture of the three of us...note the bird stealing our bagel the minute we turned our backs! I don't have anything to prove this, but I think the bird was in cahoots with the lady who offered to take our picture.

Ridin' the panda bear...

Friends, naturally

Ok, our blog posting rate has gotten ridiculous recently. We do apologize. Between selling our current house and getting ready to move to our new abode, things have just been crazy around the Baggerman household! But, we are committed to do better...

This is from a Spring Break trip to the Butterfly Center at the Museum of Natural Science. Anna had a little "date" there with Nicholas, who is the son of my best friend from growing up, Emily. Emily and I grew up together and she is virtually like a sister to me, and we're blessed enough to have little ones almost the exact same age! But, with our busy lives and us living in two different cities, we don't get to see each other nearly enough. We were lucky enough to get to spend a day with Emily and Nicholas over Spring Break though. We had so much fun! Nicholas and Anna were fast friends...

Little farmer

Ok, seriously, we really are going to be better about updating the blog...
Last weekend, we ventured to this really neat farmer's market in Alvin that has "pick your own strawberries". Anna thought the whole concept of picking her own berries and then getting to eat them right then and there was just the coolest. As you can see, she didn't hesitate to indulge herself...

Catching Up...

Sorry for the exceedingly long duration between posts. We've been extremely busy getting the house ready to go on the market- pretty much every free moment for the last couple months has been taken up with cleaning, fixing, organizing, filling a large storage unit as full as it will go, etc. The good news is that we agreed to an offer within 5 days of putting our house on the market, so it looks like our work payed off!

Enough excuses, back to what you are here to see. Below you can see Anna running up our cell phone bill (talking to Daddy, so it was worth it). You can see she's a child of the 2000's...skipping the handset altogether and going straight for the Bluetooth wireless headset! Anyway, expect a jumbo-sized picture post to catch up on the last few weeks coming shortly.

Too cool for cake

When you're two, you have to play it cool with the cupcakes...

A very HAPPY birthday!

Here's wishing our sweet Anna Banana the happiest birthday ever!!

We had such a fun day...we went down to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to the Butterfly Exhibit with Anna's playgroup. She thought the butterflies (and rocks, and waterfall, etc.) were just fantastic. And, she certainly didn't let the skirt and tights stand in the way of some serious toddler exploration.

Anna wanted to send a special thank-you to her cousin, Finn, for his birthday message. She loved watching it ("again! again!"). Thanks Finnie! We can't wait to see you again soon!



(Note the black butterfly on the leaf that Anna's looking at. These creatures are pretty domesticated, to say the least!)

Mommy chic

According to Anna, being a mom doesn't mean you should have to give up your sense of style. Here, she dutifully takes a blankie to her "baby", all while sporting her fancy new high heeled shoes (thanks for the Valentine's Day gift, Daddy!)

Welcome to the world, Jocelyn and Julia!

We just couldn't be happier to welcome Anna's two newest little playmates to the world--Jocelyn and Julia! They are just the most beautiful little bundles of joy...we're so excited that they're here! A huge congrats to Tim and Melanie! Check out their blog at http://juliaandjocelyn.blogspot.com.

As some of you loyal blog-visitors may remember from when Anna was almost this tiny, Melanie was often referred to as "Nanny Mel", and accompanied us on many trips to the mall, to get gelato, etc. She was always such a calming spirit to Anna, and a sanity saver for me! Now I just hope I can be half as helpful to them...

Daddy's sweetheart

Just when you thought Daddy couldn't get any more wrapped around Anna's finger...she bakes for him! Anna decided to make Daddy a Valentine's gift of his favorite treat--cranberry white chocolate oatmeal bars (with a bit of help from Mommy).

As any good chef does, she of course had to sample the freshness of her ingredients before allowing them to be used in her dish...

Sharing the love with her friends...

Even though Valentine's Day was one of my days to get to be at home with Anna, we still decided to go up to school for her Valentine's party. She was SO excited to see her friends, and get to hang out with her friends and mommy at the same time! She has really fallen in love with school recently, and it was so fun to get to see her in that environment.

Above, one of her favorite pals, Miki, gives Anna a little love pat on the head..

Umm...a boy giving my baby a valentine?? I don't think so! Little Max is her favorite little guy buddy at school, and he was so excited to see her that he brought her his teddy bear. Good thing Daddy wasn't there to witness this toddler courting...

Anna was so excited to share a little Valentine's love with one of her favorite teachers, Ms. Wanda.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We hope your Valentine's Day was filled with chocolate and puppies (or whatever makes you equally as happy!)...

Checking out the new pad

We just had the slab poured at our soon-to-be new house on Friday. Our little "inspector" gave it her seal of approval.