Sweet Yet Sour

Anna and Her New Bear

Friday, October 30th, 2009 | Anna | No Comments

Another Anna video post!

This past weekend we donated some coats to the “Coats for Colorado” drive and got a cute little bear wearing a sweater in return.  Last year’s Coats for Colorado bear was only briefly loved by Anna until Cash mauled it so much it became his – this year Anna is bigger and can say, “No Cash!” quite firmly.

So after dinner, while Mike was out walking with Cash, I gave Anna her new bear and started up the video camera to see what would happen…

Anna dances to the Sesame Street Theme

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | Anna | 3 Comments

I have some videos of Anna from recent months that I have not been able to upload until today.  The video files were in a format that just wouldn’t convert easily to the blog.  Mike fixed that today and so I’m going to post a few videos for everyone to see (at least those of you who haven’t seen them on Facebook) of Anna and her antics.

Today I’m posting a video that I took about 2 months ago of Anna dancing to the Sesame Street theme song.  Anna loves Sesame Street (especially Elmo) and for a while she would always dance to the theme song.  When she first started watching it she would laugh at the part of the theme song where Oscar says, “What now?” and would ask us to rewind it and play it over and over again.  Sadly, Anna has stopped dancing to the theme recently so it’s good that I got this on video.  She added in an extra attempt at a headstand for this one – bonus!  Sorry about the bad focus on this on the right side – I took it while my camera was still broken…

Pumpkin Hunting

Monday, October 26th, 2009 | Anna | 2 Comments

Two weeks ago (before this latest round of colds began), my sister and I decided to take the kids to a pumpkin farm out east in the farm country.  The farm’s website said they were family run and promised pumpkins, hay ride and an indoor hay bale maze.  Sounded like a blast to us!

It was a little bit more than an hour to get there, longer if you count the stop at Wal-Mart in the middle of nowhere to change a diaper, get out some snacks for the kids and make a potty stop, but well worth it.  After winding around back country roads we came upon the beautiful yellow farm house with wrap-around porch (I want one of those) with a barn and pumpkin patch.

There were all sizes of pumpkins for the kids to choose from, pygmy goats and dogs to pet and lots of other animals to look at for the kids.  There were pigs, chickens, ducks and geese so Anna and Brendan got the full farm experience.  After picking out our pumpkins, including my finding the one white pumpkin from the crop for Brendan, we hopped onto the hay ride.  There were not many people there so we all fit onto the hay wagon.

We got a tour of the farm equipment (oooh! tractors!) and then went down the hill to the cow pasture.  The farmer told us all about each of the cows, including their names (the one bull is called “Lucky” because he’s the only bull) and the dwarf cow, Goliath.  There was also a beautiful retired race horse.  All of them came up to the hay wagon and began to eat our seats, so they were fed a little before we left so that they wouldn’t follow us out of the pasture.

All-in-all it was a great pumpkin hunt, and for $22 total we got 10 pumpkins, a hayride for all 4 of us and 1 hot dog for Brendan – cheap by our standards.  I still had a broken camera at the time, but I did manage to take a few pictures with my cell phone.  It was a nice 60ish day so it was perfect for being out on the farm!

Anna in the pumpkin patch

Brendan hugs his pumpkin

Anna finds a pumpkin she can carry

Look! I found some hay!

That hay will look really good on your head!

Anna tries to get out of the pumpkin patch

Lost the coat, but still carrying the pumpkin...

An Apology and an Explanation

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 | Seriously? | 2 Comments

I’ll be the first one to admit it – I’ve been a slacker.  I haven’t posted in ages, haven’t been returning emails, phone calls – heck, I generally don’t answer the doorbell unless I know who it is in advance.

I have multiple excuses, so let’s hope one of these works: I’ve moved out of the nauseous phase (at least I hope) of my pregnancy, but I’m totally exhausted instead these days.  I’ve never been a great sleeper anyway, I have a tendency to wake up at 2 in the morning and be awake for a while, but I don’t sleep at all well when I’m pregnant. I’m a stomach sleeper and since I can’t do that, I toss and turn a lot.  Anna and Mike have both been sick lately, so neither of them are sleeping well, which means I don’t sleep well either.

The realization that my time alone with Anna is coming to an end is pressing down on me like a ton of bricks.  I’ve been trying to spend more time with her, instead of emailing or checking blogs while Anna plays by herself.  It’s probably a bad idea, since then Anna will really miss my attention when the new baby comes, but she’s really fun right now and I can’t resist.  It’s fascinating to watch her grow and develop; she’s learning how to say little sentences and understands us so well when we speak to her.  Today Anna sat in her crib (I put her in there at her request) and read books to herself.  She was reading Sandra Boynton’s “Moo, Baa, La La La”, and when she got to the last page which reads, “It’s quiet now, what do you say?” Anna said, very quietly, “Quiet. Say?”

I have no pictures to post of Anna, or of anything, since my camera, which was broken, is now living at a Nikon repair facility.  I did get some cute pictures of Anna on Friday with my camera phone while we were out pumpkin hunting at a farm, but I have yet to be in a place with enough service to send them to myself for posting.  Soon though, I promise!