The other day I went in to her room after nap and Anna said, “I want to wear a dress and be a princess.”  Thankfully we had a pink dress that fit the bill that day!

So I should not have been surprised when Anna demanded a pink umbrella the other day (along with a pair of pink scissors – she’s in a paper cutting phase too).  Fortunately I found both at the grocery store (while Anna chomped on her free pink cookie).

That first day, since I’m not terribly superstitious, I opened it inside for Anna.  The umbrella went everywhere with her; she ate her snack under it and walked around with it for hours.

The next day it rained and Anna ran downstairs to get her pink umbrella and go outside.  Here she is trying it out on the porch for the first time.

Under the Pink Top

Then she got up the nerve to actually go out in the rain and try it out:

Out in the rain

And then, as if she had actually seen “Singing in the Rain”, she started twirling the umbrella and dancing with it:

Dancing in the Rain

In the end, much to the gladness of my tomboy heart, Anna handed the umbrella to me and just danced in the rain and splashed in the puddles:

Splashing

Pinkalicious!

A few weeks ago Anna’s cousin Brendan came over to play.  He came with a large pitcher and some freshly squeezed lemon juice in it; he had a plan to have a lemonade stand in front of our house.  Since I was a big lemonade stand girl myself, I happily added some water, honey and ice to the operation.  Then I made a sign that said, “Lemonade – 25 cents” for them and told Brendan to color in the letters.  Too bad I forgot that he’s still 4 and watched as he colored over the letters…

Lemonade!

I thought people would probably get the idea anyway, so I taped it to Anna’s art table and we moved the operation out to the end of our driveway.  Anna didn’t really get the whole “Lemonade Stand” idea, so she sat across from Brendan and drank a cup of lemonade – thereby giving Brendan his first quarter of the day…

Drinking the product...

Brendan, meanwhile, had gotten a new “Home on the Range” harmonica that day and played that through the whole stand set-up process.  After two cups of lemonade went to the kids (yay! 50 cents!) we managed to sell the rest.  One cup to a nice woman who stopped her car in the middle of the street and paid $2 for her cup, one cup to my sister, one cup to a kid who tried to drink his cup and ride his bike away at the same time, and a car with a mother and 4 teenage girls that were on their way home from school.  Everyone who bought a cup of lemonade was treated to a harmonica song from Brendan – free with purchase – what a deal!  All in all, a major success!

Two weeks ago we had a lovely playgroup with some friends from our original birthing class for Anna.  Our friend Angie brought her son Timothy and her new baby Kate over, and our other friend Brooke brought her two twins Morgan and Keira over.  After lots of playing with the water table, etc., we sat all the kids down for lunch (fruit and cheese pizza) at Anna’s little table.

Timothy, Anna, Keira and Morgan

They all had a great time and everyone had so much fun at Anna’s water table that now they each own one too – I should get a commission from Toys’R'Us!

For Anna’s birthday my parents sent some money for a new outside playhouse for Anna.  We couldn’t find the right one until just recently, and it came this week, and was set up for Anna on Thursday night.  Anna saw it from her playroom window Friday morning and demanded to go down and “play with that!”  She didn’t even know what it was, but Anna knew it was a new fun thing for her! It has a door, mail slot, working doorbell, two windows, a little sink, table with seats and a little phone.  Anna loves it and played with it all day Friday.

I took some video so that my parents could see what a hit their gift is with the little girl:

Anna even demanded to eat her lunch in the playhouse (she also commanded that I make pizza rolls):

Playhouse Lunch

All-in-all, Empress Anna has been having a great summer so far.  Oh, and thanks Nana and Grandpa for the playhouse – the little girl obviously loves it!

Today was Anna’s first day of pre-pre-school!  This summer I signed her up for a class called “Two Times the Fun” for 2-3 year olds.  Anna attends on Wednesdays for an hour and the class description clearly states, “Parents do not attend”.  Whohoo!

It’s a pre-school prep class where the kids get used to being in a classroom with teachers and do things like art and singing.  I couldn’t resist telling Anna that she was going to school and she was really excited – she insisted on wearing her little backpack that came with her doll.  We packed some snack and a sippy cup of water in the backpack; she wanted to pack crayons and balls in there but I told her that they would have those at school.

As excited as she was Anna was good enough to sit for a picture or two:

First day of "school"

And just so I could get a picture of the girl with the backpack, here’s the side view:

Anna with Backpack

When I took her to the class room the teacher asked if this was Anna’s first class and then said, “Is she going to be okay?”  But Anna was already running into the classroom without even a goodbye to me!   All that going to the drop off day care place has really paid off! Anna distinctly said this morning as we were talking about school, “I’ll not cry.”  Okay by me!

The class is only an hour, so I headed to the grocery store with Henry (who decided aisles 4-16 were a really good time to do some crying).  When I came to pick her up the teacher told me that Anna did very well, but never took the backpack off… Oh well!

And on our fridge is the result of today’s class:

The Artiste at Work...

Note the artistic finger strokes! The bold choice of color! I think we have another Gauguin on our hands! Not that I am at all biased…

So here is the Empress’ update…

Anna is very verbal, very independent and very active.  She turned two on April 5th, and it was just too close to the birth of her baby brother for us to be capable of hosting a birthday party.  We waited a few weeks, called a few people and decided to have a little party at our house on the 17th of April.  But the universe had different plans for us.  A few days before the scheduled party we discovered that our beloved Cash had fleas, and that they were quite frequently jumping on us and in the carpet.  Exactly what I needed with a newborn in the house! So, we canceled the party at our house and began a huge clean up/flea killing campaign to rid us of this nasty pest.  The myth that there are no fleas in Colorado is a truly a myth!

Since we had already told Anna that she had a birthday coming up, we gathered a small group of family, met at a local restaurant and I made strawberry cupcakes with sprinkles for the birthday girl.

Anna's birthday

With the new baby in the house, Anna has learned that crying is a good tool for mommy manipulation.  She’s fond of grabbing my camera and playing with it, and if you try to take it away from her, you get this:

Anna crying

Most of the time she just gets fingerprints on my camera and aims the camera the wrong way.  And almost all of the pictures that she does take are fuzzy pictures of her fingers, but every once in a while she gets one that looks pretty good.

Anna's self portrait

This summer I have a full schedule for our active little girl, including a music/singing class on Mondays (a woman with a guitar sings and we sing and dance along), a pre-pre-school class for an hour on Wednesdays (parents do not attend!) and tumbling class on Saturdays.  In between all that we are going to try to fit in lots of visits with Anna’s friends.  We had a visit from Piper and Laura the other day and I got a shot of the little girls hanging out at Anna’s art table:

Anna and Piper

Anna’s climbing has reached new complications as she is often getting herself in situations I’d rather she not be in.  The other day I heard “Mama, come get me!” from her bedroom and rushed in to find her hanging on to the top of her bookcase, unable to figure out how to climb down.  Fortunately for me, when we moved the bookcase into her room I had had the foresight to have my dad and Mike anchor the bookcase to the wall.  I was Anna when I was little after all, I knew she was going to climb it eventually…

Yesterday, I came into the living room to find Anna opening the back door and saying, “I’m going outside, okay?”  The back door had been locked, but Anna had deftly moved one of her little chairs over to the door and unlocked both the handle lock and the dead bolt and let herself outside.

Last week I was listening to her usual morning singing routine that she does after she wakes up when all of a sudden there was screaming and crying.  Again, I rushed into her room to find that she had climbed up the side of her crib and gotten herself stuck trying to get out.  So, the decision was made to make the leap to a “big girl” bed.  We removed one side of her convertible crib, put up a gate on her bedroom door and spent last weekend dealing with the fall out.  Anna really enjoys her new independence, she frequently gets up out of the crib and plays with her books, stuffed animals, etc.  This is the destruction in her room after Sunday afternoon’s nap:

Anna's bedroom after a nap

Monday afternoon’s nap didn’t actually happen as Anna instead just played in her room.  Monday night we figured she would be tired and go to sleep pretty quickly. Ha! Instead, she played for 2 hours and then was up every time that we were up with Henry.  At midnight while I was feeding Henry, Mike went into Anna’s room to find her at the window with the shade up looking out and singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.  Adorable, but all that wakefulness made for a grumpy girl the next day.

With her new baby brother in the picture Anna is often a little more grumpy anyway.  She does not like all the attention Henry gets and often tells me to put Henry down or stop feeding him so that I can play with her.  It’s a little heartbreaking since I would like to give her more attention, but it’s simply not possible.  She’s a little helpful with him; she likes to put his pacifier in to make him stop crying, but she’s also treating her dolls like I treat Henry.  She often changes the diaper on one of her dolls and the other day decided to pull up her shirt and “feed” her doll – once she even pulled up her shirt when I let her have Henry on her lap! I’m sure this will get better when I have to feed Henry less often, but for the moment, Anna is learning to deal with the fact that I simply can’t give her my full attention.

But Anna is adorable and smart and will always be my favorite little girl.  Every once in a while out of the blue Anna will say, “I love you mama” and there’s nothing you can do but love those moments!

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

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!

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.

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!

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…

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!