Sweet Yet Sour

Anna and the Stock Show

Sunday, January 17th, 2010 | Anna, The Daily Special | 2 Comments

Just in case you didn’t think that Denver was at it’s heart a cow town, the annual Stock Show is in town this week.  Apparently the Stock Show has been going on since the late 1800’s and for the past few decades it has featured rodeos, mutton-busting for the kids and the usual livestock auctions and shows.

Friday, my sister and I packed the kids in the car for a day at the Stock Show.  I told Anna that we were going to see “animals” and she got pretty excited and said “elephants!”.  I’m not sure if she was disappointed, but we did see lots of horses, cows, bunnies, chickens and even some guinea pigs…

The highlights at the Stock Show for the kids are the rides however.  Here are Anna and Brendan waiting in line for the little train ride – we made Brendan hold Anna’s hand – which he did begrudgingly, and then promptly let her go as soon as the ride was open.

Waiting for the train

I got a shot of the kids in the train as it went by, I have video too, but here’s the kids on the little engine:

Riding the train

After the train ride, it was off to the pony ride.  They strap them in pretty good, but don’t worry, I walked alongside Anna just to make sure she didn’t fall off.  She held on pretty well and seemed to like her horse, Dr. Pepper.

Riding Dr. Pepper

As we walked around the grounds we found a huge tractor, far bigger than my camera could capture.  We stuck the kids on it for a nice photo of them looking frightened of the big wheels.

On the big tractor

It was a long day, Anna had a late and short nap and after nap I let her play in the sink – it’s one of her favorite things to do.  And then since it was so close to dinner time I just put the plate of ham and cucumber next to her and let her eat dinner from the sink.  Good times!

Dinner in the sink

Family Update

Monday, January 11th, 2010 | Anna, Updates | 3 Comments

Yay! Our first family update of 2010!

As always, let’s start with the cutie.  Currently, the cutie is sick and cranky.  Wednesday night Anna woke up crying 6 times, probably due to the fever of 102 that she had.  Thursday I took her to the doctor where they said her throat looked red and icky – a strep test came back negative but we are waiting for more detailed lab results.  They sent me home with an antibiotic prescription and instructions to keep her medicated with ibuprofen and Tylenol.  Due to her sore throat Anna is enjoying a diet of yogurt and other soft foods while we wait out whatever this is that she has acquired.

As it turns out, Anna is obsessed with Christmas lights – absolutely loves them! Requests for “Christmas lights” come from the back seat of my car every time we go anywhere – day or night.  So, last weekend we took her to Zoolights, which is the Denver Zoo all lit up with lights in the shapes of animals.  Since it’s night time there weren’t many animals to see, but the elephants and giraffes were inside and were the highlight of the trip.  We got a good picture of one of the few moments Anna would stand still while we were there:

Anna at Zoolights

Pretty soon all of the Christmas lights will be gone and Anna will be very disappointed.  It’s hard to explain to her about something that will happen “tomorrow”, let alone not for another 11 months.

Recently Anna found in my drawer some old mascara and cover up.  I think I was blissfully folding laundry in another room while she decided to do some make-uping of her own…

Anna's first make-up attempt

She knew that the things she had found went around your eyes, so she aimed there, and fortunately didn’t poke herself in the eye with mascara.  We’ll work on proper application tips later.

Anna was also recently introduced to lollipops when her cousin brought some over.  They were kind of huge and I got a great shot of Anna looking like a rocker with a microphone while she tried desperately to keep the whole thing in her mouth:

Lollipop girl

As for me, I’m pregnant, large, running around after a toddler and just generally exhausted.

Under the Big Top

If you only look briefly at this picture you might say – “Oh look, the circus came to town! Oh, no wait…”  Some jerk maternity clothes designer thought it would be HILARIOUS to design pajama pants for pregnant ladies that make you look and feel like you are the Big Top! Not only that, but they are flannel! Oh so sexy!  I have no idea where the top is for these pajama bottoms, having borrowed almost all of my maternity wardrobe from my sister, but I wouldn’t wear the top anyway, because then I would really feel like I needed some popcorn and cotton candy to complete the outfit.  Unfortunately, these are the only comfortable pajama pants I have right now.

I attempted to resolve this situation by heading to my local “Super” Target only to discover that the maternity section consists of 4.5 racks stocked with either fancy short dresses or camisoles.  Apparently Target thinks that pregnant women are either going to parties or laying around waiting for our breakfast in bed to be delivered… Screw you Target!

Anyway, the kid is kicking a lot and has earned himself the nickname “Pele”.  He seems to be healthy and growing well – although I have an ultrasound check in a few weeks to make sure his kidneys are okay due to a size difference in the two of them in the last ultrasound.

As for Mike, he returned yesterday from the “Big Beers Belgians and Barley Wines Festival” that he attended in Vail with his friend Nate.  Sadly, neither of them took any prizes home from the homebrewing competition, in which they both had beers entered, but it does seem like they had a good time anyway.

Mike is looking forward to having another “brew day” – the initial brewing of a beer takes an entire day – soon.  I got him a gift certificate to his favorite brewing supply store for Christmas and I’m sure he’ll come up with some new and fun recipe to delight all those around him who drink beer.

Mike is also getting over a nasty chest cold, that has been hanging around for several weeks now.  This hasn’t stopped him from going to hockey though and his weekly racquetball league starts up this Thursday.  Perhaps all that chasing after a ball will kick the chest cold out this week…  Wish him luck.

And that’s all the news that I can type while Anna is still waking up.  I’m off to bring her some milk and some antibiotics and start our day.  Take care everyone!

Last Week in Anna’s World

Monday, December 7th, 2009 | Anna | 4 Comments

Anna and I had a busy week last week, but I took lots of pictures, so I can write about it here.

First, Anna had her first haircut last Saturday.  I took her to a special kids’ salon where they have special riding toys for the kids to sit on during the haircut.  Anna picked out a purple dinosaur and then gripped it tightly looking shocked for the whole thing.

First haircut

Luckily the woman was quick and only snipped enough to make Anna’s hair even all around.  She was able to get a ponytail and a bow in Anna’s hair before we left as well.  We took pictures of the new haircut afterwards and another picture of the bow, which we haven’t been able to get in Anna’s hair since.

Cutie with new hair

The new ponytail and bow:

Bow in hair

On Monday, our friend Laura came down with her daughter Piper, for a play date.  Piper is only 5 months old, so there’s not a lot of playing together that Anna can do with Piper, but still it’s always nice to get together with another mom.  We played with the girls, ate grilled cheese and coconut cake for lunch and generally had a good time.  Anna got out some of her new cookie cutter set, which we just use as toys, and decided maybe Piper would like to see them.  She would take one out, tell Piper what color it was and then put it on top of Piper.  Poor Piper was covered by the time Anna was done with her:

Piper covered with cookie cutters

On Thursday, our friends Angie and Steve dropped their son Timothy off at our house for a play date while they went to rehearsals for the symphony, where they play violin and tuba, respectively.  Timothy is one month younger than Anna and we see he and his family quite regularly for play dates.  Kids at this age don’t really play together, but you can occasionally get them to play in the same area and do the same thing at the same time.  I caught them playing with the crayons at Anna’s drawing table:

Drawing with Timothy

I wish I could have gotten a good picture of Timothy, but I wasn’t quick enough and neither of the kids stayed in one place for more than a minute anyway… All-in-all, it was a busy week, but we had lots of fun and it was great to see friends.

10 Reasons…

Friday, November 27th, 2009 | Anna | 4 Comments

Here are 10 reasons why you should not leave your toddler alone with your Macbook, even for a moment…

1. Tab

2. Shift

3. Enter/return

4. Apple command

5. Function

6. Caps lock

7. W

8. Alt

9. H

10. Shift (the other one)

10 reasons

Said toddler, although incredibly adorable:

So deceivingly cute...

will pull the keys off your laptop with the dexterity and accuracy of a Certified Apple Technician…

If Anna had a college fund, I would now be removing from it the $150 it is going to cost to get the keyboard and the attached logic board replaced.  The “genius” (if he is why can’t he just put the keys back on), at the Apple store said too many keys had been destroyed to just replace them.  Toddler, no! Queen of Destruction, yes!

Hanging on the Quilt Rack

Friday, November 20th, 2009 | Anna | 2 Comments

Anna has discovered that our quilt rack, which is normally covered with blankets and afghans, is a great place to climb up and practice her parallel bars skills.  Amusingly, while she does this, she normally yells out “climbing!”, which is a nice little warning to me to stop whatever I’m doing and race over to make sure that she doesn’t tip the rack over.

Recently I took some video of Anna’s antics so that later, when she is the first girl to compete in the parallel bars and rings and complete the “Iron Cross” move on both, I can give this to the media…

Skateboarding Lesson

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 | Anna | 1 Comment

As some of you may or may not know, Mike was once a semi-pro skateboarder.  He doesn’t roll out the skateboard very much anymore, but recently while we were all playing in the driveway he got the board out to show Anna some of Daddy’s tricks.

Of course, upon seeing her father doing such a cool thing, Anna immediately stated, “Too!”, which is her saying she wants to do whatever it is that you are doing.  Fortunately, I had my camera with me and was able to video her first lesson.  It turned out to be a short lesson, and a lesson about how NOT to play in the street, but I digress.  Enjoy the skateboarding!

Anna’s Classes

Monday, November 16th, 2009 | Anna | 1 Comment

Recently I signed Anna (and I) up for some classes at our local community center.  We’ve already had two good snow storms this year and without a park to go and play at, Anna and I are both going a little stir crazy.

On Wednesday mornings we have “Abrakadoodle” art class.  It’s 40 minutes long, which I’ve discovered is about as long as Anna can take being in one room.  Every week we learn about a different artist and then make pictures in a similar style.  The class is for kids aged 22 months to 3 years and since I snuck Anna into it, she’s the youngest, but she does fine anyway.  I took pictures last week of Anna working on the Jasper Johns type project:

Anna's art

Then on Thursday mornings we head to Tumbling Class. This is our second time taking this class; we took it during the summer with three (!) sets of girl twins and one poor boy who seemed afraid of all those girls. There are different classes for each age group, so all the kids are around the same age.  This time, even though I scheduled Anna in a completely different day and time slot, we are still with two of the same twin girl sets (they are all really cute with nice moms) and again one lone boy (but a different boy this time).

Tumbling class is essentially the kids running free in a padded room with gymnastics equipment that is lowered down.  There is some brief sitting for songs, but the teacher isn’t a stickler about the kids being seated for it and generally Anna is not the only one wandering around instead of singing along with “Wheels on the Bus”.

Hanging from anything is one of Anna’s favorite activities and there’s plenty of opportunity for that at Tumbling class.  First Anna can hang from the single bar:

Hanging from the bar

When she gets bored of that Anna can hang from the rings:

Anna on the rings

There are also uneven bars, a trampoline, a balance beam and padded tunnels.  We love tumbling class!  I think if we can afford it I may sign her up for it all winter long, Anna definitely loves hanging around in class!

The Snowstorm and the Halloween Sheep

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | Anna | 2 Comments

Last week, a few days before Halloween, we got our first real snowstorm of the season. It snowed for three days and piled up almost 3 feet of snow in our area. Fortunately, Mike was able to work from home and take breaks to go out and use the snow blower every few hours.

While we were stuck inside Anna decided that she wanted to read books while sitting in one of the drawers of her changing table. She sat in there and read “Blue Hat, Green Hat” for quite a long time.

Anna reads in the drawer

Just to show how much snow we got, Mike stood next to the table on our deck on the second day (we got more after this).

Mike and the snow

A few weeks ago I had the forethought to buy Anna a snow bib and it came in handy this last storm.  The snow was almost as tall as she and it was really fun to stick her into it and watch her try to wriggle out…

Anna in the snow drift

The snow stopped in time for Halloween so we dressed Anna up in this year’s sheep costume and headed out. We didn’t really “Trick or Treat” as much as go to the houses of neighbors we knew would want to see Anna in her costume.  She looked really cute in it, but would never say, “Baa!” when we asked her what a sheep says, even though we practiced all day…

The Halloween Sheep

We headed up to my sister’s house and met up with Anna’s cousin Brendan, who had decided to be a ghost this year.  Originally the idea was that Brendan was going to be Casper the Friendly ghost and his costume was made by my sister out of a pillowcase.

Brendan the ghost

All in all it was a good Halloween – Anna got some new crayons and books from our friends Cassandra and Mark and we got a fair amount of candy for ourselves.  This will probably be the last year we can eat all of her candy and not have her protest, but that’s probably best for my thighs!

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…