Sweet Desserts, Sour Attitude

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!

5 Years!

Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | The Daily Special | 4 Comments

As of yesterday (Friday the 13th) Mike and I have officially been married for 5 years. Five years and 1.5 kids! (Seriously, I’m halfway through my pregnancy now, so I’m counting the new kid as the .5.)

Celebrations were low key this year as Anna and I are both getting over a cold and we had a lot of preparations to do for the indoor garage sale in our community that took place today.

However, I did roll out my wedding vows and bake my beloved a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting for our anniversary. The proof is in the picture:

Anniversary Cake

Mike took the day off and we headed to the Museum of Nature and Science where Anna had a grand time looking at all the animals (she doesn’t know they’re stuffed) and playing in the toddler Discovery Zone. And then we all went home and took a nap…

All in all it was a nice day where I appreciated all the more what a wonderful husband I have – Mike is as always kind, generous, thoughtful and he makes me laugh every day. Happy 5 years to us!

Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival

Monday, November 9th, 2009 | The Daily Special | 2 Comments

Sunday (yesterday), I attended the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival. The Festival is an annual event that lasts for three days and is always in early November. All of the films featured have either been produced or directed by women and most are documentaries. The Festival has been going on for many years and I have attended in years past, but have not gone since 2006. It was a great treat to be able to go this year. Each day there are different movies, and some people (not me) attend all three days – and honestly that’s way too much sitting on my butt for me, but more power to them!

I always come away from the festival having learned lots, cried some and enjoyed myself immensely; this year was no different. Films are shown all day (with breaks about every two hours and for lunch) and in two separate theaters. Different movies are played in each theater so you have a range of choices of films to see at each time slot.

This year I chose to see the following (this is the order in which I saw them):

Plastic: This was a charming 8 minute short about a girl (Anna) preparing for a date with a man (Henry) she has not seen for a while. She struggles with her outfits, her jewelry, etc. and then discovers that she has (of course!) a zit on her nose. In her frustration Anna presses her hands against her forehead and realizes that she can mold her body any way she likes. So she does what we all would do and does a little body work; some things get pushed in, some shoved up, some lengthened, etc… It was lovely and heart-warming to see what finally showed up at the door when Henry arrived.

Bake Shop Ghost: Another charming short starring Kathryn Joosten (whom I loved as Mrs. Landingham on West Wing) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Joosten plays a bake shop owner in a small town who haunts a succession of people who try to take over the shop after her death. It was a sweet and amusing film that I will remember for a long time.

Daughters of Gardeners: A documentary about the causes, prevalence and affects of female infanticide in India. The film was well done, explained the many reasons of why the aborting or killing of girls is so rampant in India, and explored the high crime rate, sex and human trafficking and bachelorhood problems that India faces because of this problem. I’m definitely glad I saw the film, but was horrified by the opening scenes of dead baby girls floating in a river. I found it frankly unnecessary and upsetting (worse because I am pregnant and the mother of a daughter). The rest of the film was a great learning experience but I don’t think that those pictures were imperative to getting the point across.

Flying Lessons: A short film starring Dana Delaney about the struggles of a single mom with a teenage son who is autistic. The film was informative and heart-breaking. I was hoping for a happier ending, but I realized after thinking about it that the ending was as happy as it could be for the subject matter.

Sin by Silence: This film was by far the most moving experience of the day. In it you meet women in the California prison system who are members of Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA). All of the women that are profiled have been in prison for many years, most sentenced to life in prison, for killing their abusers. The stories of the abuse that they suffered are horrific and heart-rending. All were convicted in the 1980’s when the courts would not allow testimony or evidence of previous abuse and the “Battered Woman’s Syndrome” was not admissible. The center of the film focuses on a woman named Brenda, in jail since 1985, who killed her abusive husband. During one 6 month period of their marriage there were 42 domestic violence calls from their home and Brenda endured multiple visits to the emergency room. One night in prison, after learning that her son, whom she had to give up for adoption when she entered prison, was killed in a car accident, Brenda decided to either commit suicide or start a group for abused women. Fortunately, Brenda started CWAA and has gone on to help many women, both inside and outside of prison, as well as change many laws regarding abuse testimony in court. Spoiler alert! One day in 2002, Brenda received a letter from her son, whose adoptive parents had lied about his death (this was the part where I really cried). The following week Brenda was contacted by some attorneys who had determined that, in large part owing to the laws that Brenda helped to get passed in California, Brenda could be re-tried with the abuse evidence allowed. Long story short, Brenda was released from prison and reunited with her son in 2008. The best part of going to the Film Festival is that some filmmakers attend and answer questions after the film. Olivia Klaus, the filmmaker of Sin by Silence, attended the festival and was met with rousing applause and a standing ovation when she came to the stage to answer our questions. But, to our even greater surprise, Brenda appeared upon stage soon afterwards, to even greater applause and a longer standing ovation. It was such a moving experience that even now it sends chills up my spine!

After a nice lunch break (which was highly needed after such a morning), we returned to the film festival for more films…

A’Mare: This was a short film about two young brothers who go fishing far out to sea and catch a drowning man instead of a fish. It was okay, but really didn’t belong in the festival and I think it was mostly filler…

Speaking In Tongues: This documentary followed several children, all of different ages, who are all enrolled in language immersion schools in San Francisco. The film details the best ages for children to learn language (before age 13) and studies how well they do in school. The kids are all learning different languages, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese, and study subjects in both English and their immersion language. The kids were amazing, bright and all doing at or above their grade levels in all subjects. The film also covered the opposing “English Only” movement and how this affects America’s competitiveness in a global economy. It was a great documentary and made me hope that I have the ability and opportunity to enroll my children in such a program.

Blessed is the Match: My film festival day ended with this documentary about the life and death of Hannah Senesh. Hannah grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Budapest in pre-Nazi Hungary. Upon the death of her father when Hannah was 6, Hannah began to write poetry and continued to do so throughout her life. In her teen years antisemitism grew in Hungary and faced with this Hannah’s brother Giorg left to study in France and Hannah applied to agricultural college in the newly established Jewish lands in Palestine (soon to be Israel). Hannah’s mother was left alone in Hungary to deal with the growing Nazi movement. Upon realizing what was truly happening in Europe with the rise of Hitler, Hannah volunteered to be part of a rescue mission. She was one of only 30 Jews from Israel who parachuted into Yugoslavia in an effort to save Jews from the death camps. Unfortunately, Hannah was caught and I’m sure you can fill in the details of what eventually happened to her at the hands of the Gestapo. Hannah’s bravery at such a young age (she was 22 when she volunteered), her heroism and her beautiful poetry all made for a moving film during which I was glad to have brought stores of tissues.

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…

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!