More Snow Fun!

More fun in the snow. We took the girls for a sled ride. Anna wanted to go FAST the whole time. Ken got a total workout this weekend between the shoveling, snow blowing, fort building and sled pulling.

Sometimes Anna got stuck in the snow it was so deep.

Snooooooow Much Fun!

So our friend Alan, who lives in Florida, called us yesterday to rub it in that it was 75 degrees where he was... Ha! I say! We laugh in the face of fair weather! This is what winter is all about! You can't do any of this in Florida! It's Christmas time, winter, sunny and there is lots of snow. Winter doesn't get any better than this!

Remember the cardboard box fort I posted this summer... well Ken is hard at work on the winter version for Anna. She is in bed, and he is working on it. He started around 8:00pm and it is now 9:40pm and he is still working. Stay posted, I will get her reaction on video, but here is a preview for you of his building skills. And yes, for those of you who attended the BT lunch & Learn with ADS Pipe... their products also work well as tunnels as well as storm water conveyance products.

Big Smiles

I do think that Anna and Emma-Grace looked a lot a like at the same age, minus the hair from Anna. That is what throws me off. Also, Emma-Grace has these big round apple cheeks that Anna didn't have. So Anna had the hair and Emma-Grace has the apple cheeks.

Anna

Emma-Grace

Miss Apple Cheeks!

Catching Up

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything, so I have some serious catching up to do before Christmas! So here it goes...

Ken is without a doubt, Emma-Grace's favorite parent. She is a total daddy's girl. Which is fine, we are even now... I am Anna's favorite and Ken is Emma-Grace's. I definately can't get her to laugh like Ken can.

There are a few sounds that I would put in the best sound ever catagory. The first is the first time your baby cries. But the problem with that one is it only happens once, you are probably pumped full of drugs, tired, in pain and with lots of people running around... so the next best sound is when your kid laughs, which can happen all the time. In fact, I recently read somewhere that the sound of a baby's laughter can cause a rise in endorphins... even when you don't know the baby. So here you go! If you need a pick me up, check out the video below.

Our parent group had a Christmas party for the kids and Santa came. I preped Anna by telling her that Santa was going to be at the party and he was bringing her a present. It worked and she wasn't afraid. It was so cute watching the kids wait for him. They were all looking at the window...

Of course, Emma-Grace wasn't afraid.

Bath Time! Just part of the routine hair styling in the bath! If you check back a few entries, I think you will see a picture of Anna when she was just a few months old with the same hair style in the bath... it never gets old!

Anna having a snack with Belle, in her new Christmas PJs.

Can you guess what Emma-Grace is doing here? Notice both hands braced on the sides and both feet pushing on the tray of her chair... Her system is still getting used to solids!

Just too CUTE!

Christmas Lights

Just wanted to share Anna's reaction to our Christmas lights!

Helpfull Anna

Anna, helpful as ever, was involved in the first feeding of Emma-Grace!

Sleeping and Eating

The video is of Anna sleeping... just listen. It is definately blackmail material when she is a teenager!

We started cereal with Emma-Grace this weekend. She is a pro at eating! The little monster gobbled it right up. I think this is the first time that she has felt "full"!

On a side note, she had her four month check up. The mega-baby weighs 15lbs 15oz and is 25" long. She is about 2 lbs heavier than Anna was and is 1/8" taller than Anna was. She is doing great and I think she has started to teeth. She is a dooling machine, chewing on her fingers constantly and has bright red cheeks. Sorry for the red eye! Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

These little seats are so funny! They were not around when Anna was little. I love it because Emma-Grace sits next to us whenever we play games of with Anna's doll house. She is just part of the gang!

The girls' cousin turned one last weekend. As usual, Emma-Grace was a total party animal.

Well. the first batch of Christmas cards went out, so I thought I would post the picture that I used on them. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Christmas Time

Anna is thrilled with all the Christmas and all the trappings that go with it. She did a great job helping with the tree and hanging the ornaments. Here is a quick viedo of her trying to lift part of the tree up.

Here are Ken and Anna having fun. Notice the change in attitude from fun to crisis when Anna looses her hat...

Christmas Card Back Up

This was the picture I was going to use for our Christmas card, then it snowed and I got a better shot of the girls outside... stay tuned for the arrival of your Christmas card.

I got a little sappy too and wanted to put some pics of Anna at Christmas over the years...

2005 - Anna and Aunt Sara

2006... Yup, we are THOSE parents! She is a reindeer while we were in Florida in December 2006!
2007 - Our little Christmas gift

Big Bag of Dirt

Anna's response when asked what Santa will bring her if she is naughty...

Bath Time Beauties

Can you tell which one is Anna and which one is Emma-Grace? Of coures, Anna has the mohawk! Both are cuties, with or without hair!

Creative Aunt Sara...

Aunt Sara got creative (and probably pretty accurate) with the picture below...

PC Answer and Loud Babies

This first video is of Anna giving a very PC answer when asked who she loves more, mommy or daddy... She has us figured out!

Emma-Grace is quite vocal. We don't remember Anna being as loud as Emma-Grace at this age. I think it is becuase when Anna was a baby she didn't have a crazy 3 year old sister who only knew how to be LOUD or asleep running around. Emma-Grace needs to be louder than Anna to be heard and I think she has figured it out at a very early age.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to add that you do hear Anna call me "vanessa" and I call Anna "ariel" from the Little Mermaid movie. Who is Vanessa you might ask... she is the young attractive form that Ursila takes on to make Prince Eric fall in love with instead of Arial... she is the pretty evil girl. But Anna doesn't really get that, she just thinks there are two princesses, Vanessa with brown hair and Ariel with red hair.

Sisters and Cupcakes

Grammy and Grampy made cupcakes with Anna the other day. She loved them and enjoyed cleaning off the utinsils.

Anna having a snack before dance class.

Anna has also been really affectionate with Emma-Grace...

And just some pics of Emma-Grace. Anna doesn't sit still long enough to get a picture of her, unless she is sitting next to Emma-Grace, so don't think I am forgetting her... that is why most of Anna is in video format on the blog.

I just love this picture of Emma-Grace yelling at me!

Fishing and a Jealous Wife

Ken flew down to Florida (and boy were his arms tired!) last weekend for his friend Alan's wedding. They went fishing for the bachelor party and had a great time. I, of course, am completely jealous! He cought an Amber Jack as well as a few who got away. This one was the only one that he brought on board. It was 18-20 lb, he can't remember exactally. My jealousy calmed down a little, because the biggest fish I ever caught was 22 lbs... but don't tell Ken that. We can let him think he is the king...

This is also a test to see if Uncle Alan is checking in on the blog as a dutiful uncle should... so he better call once he sees this!

Bride Princess

We watched Eloise Saves Christmas yesterday and there is a wedding in it. Anna was inspired by the bride and her veil. I swear, Anna comes up with this stuff all on her own. I was sitting with Emma-Grace and the next thing I see is Anna walk out of her play room all ready to go. She is holding a plastic bouquet of flowers from her Fisher Price Doll Hose Bride doll. They are about one inch by one inch.

Anna also is very good at knowing her letters. Lately, when she looks at something, if it looks like a letter, she will say so. Such as, a straight french fry looks like and I and a bent french fry can look like an L or J depending on which direction she holds it. So today, we got Wendys for lunch and out of the blue, she built the letter H out of her french fries... she is so smart... after all, she is my daughter! OK, I guess Ken might have something to do with it too... She also made the letter Y and T, but the camera was pretty much dead by the time she got around to the other letters.

Falling Asleep & Princesses

This is Emma-Grace's routine when she is about to fall asleep. It is pretty noisy, but it is what works for her! Of course, you can hear Anna at the end of the video. She doesn't understand "inside voice". She is either LOUD or sleeping. No in-between.

Sister Love

Anna LOVES Emma-Grace. Just some video of them loving each other up!

Cutie Pies

Just some cute postings of the girls. Ken is at Uncle Alan's wedding (Congratulations!) and us girls are hanging out. They have been great (knock on wood!) so far! Here is some video of the girls. Towards the end, Emma-Grace gets a very serious look on her face when I was talking to her about her Daddy... shortly after I cought sent of a certian aroma... I guess Ken has that affect on her...Anna and me playing with bubbles... it never gets old!

Emma-Grace was taking a nap and she was so cute just laying there... so I took a picture.

Then I channeled Anna's thoughts and did this... then took a picture...

This is a funny video... Anna was taking a nap and I heard her yelling about something. So I went in her room. I am 99.8% sure she is still sleeping in the video, but she has to be talking in her sleep. It is hard to see in the video, but her hand is propped on her hip. If she is pulling this attitude in her sleep, I shutter to think what is in store when she taps into her conscience attitude, aka the teenage years...

Shots, Bicycle Drama, Halloween and Fall Fun in no Particular Order

Since I have been lazy in my blogging, this one has a whole bunch of stuff in it...

Doctor Visit

We start off with our visit to the doctors... Anna and Emma-Grace both got shots. Of course, both screamed their heads off but Anna quickly calmed down when she got a shiny sparkly band-aid... all was well. Thank God for sparkly/glittery/pincess/barbie stuff!

All better!

Pumpkin Carving

Anna carved her first pumpkin this year. She got into it and wasn't too girly! We made two faces on our pumpkin, a scary cat and a scary ghost. Emma-Grace supervised the whole event.

So Anna was four different princesses for all the Halloween events we did. At the zoo boo she was Gizzelle from Everafter, for her dance class party she was Cinderella, for our practice trick or treat run at home, she was Aurora and for the actual event she was Belle.

Pretty-Pretty Princesses

Fall Fun

We have two large silver maples in our backyard... Regardless of how we feel about the abundance of leaves this time of year, Anna loves them! I am not sure where she got it, but she kept saying that she was a pig "oink oink" when she was crawling around in the leaf pile. She also was taking a leaf-bath. Needless to say, she got a REAL bath that night!

Bicycle Drama

We played outside on Friday because it was so beautiful. In the next series of videos Anna is riding her bike. As you can figure out, it is WAY past nap time. In the first video she is upset because she doesn't want big muscles to peddal her bike. She wants little muscles. As the video series continues, she is given the option of taking a nap or riding her bike. She wanted to ride her bike on the sidewalk, so I put Emma-Grace in the stroller and walked with Anna. She got tired and had a hard time accepting the fact that she had to get her bike back to our house. It was just TOO funny. you can hear me laughing.

Halloween Night!

Anna and her friend Caeley went trick or treating together. They got the hang of it really quick after the first house. They pretty much ran the whole time to the houses on our street. We did it in an hour and 15 mins. After all that excersize and candy Anna fell asleep pretty fast. But in the middle of the night she must have been dreaming because around midnight she was crying in her bed. When Ken went in her room, she was standing up in the middle of her bed, facing the wall, and crying that she "wanted to go home!". Poor little girl! Of course she finished off the night in our bed tucked in tight between mommy and daddy.

Here she is doing some pretty serious sleeping. She fell asleep with her glow sticks still in her hand! This is before the middle of the night stand up routine. The fact that she was sleeping ON her unpadded-wooden bed rail might have been a hint that it was going to be a crazy night.

Cousin Fun

Nana, Papa and Cousin McKenna came to visit us this weekend. We definately enjoyed the fall weather... However, Anna had a tough day... (following the night of the stand up routine)...She started off tripping and landing on her eye on the handle of her toy tool box, which resulted in her first black eye. Then her and McKenna were climbing up the ladder to her fort and McKenna kicked Anna in the lip. After we established that all the blood pouring out of her mouth was just a minor cut and no teeth were loose, she ended up with a big fat lip. I was more concerned that if she actually saw the blood that she would want a bandaid on the inside of her lip. (to defray her desire to plaster band-aids all over her body, we told her that she only can have a bandaid if there is blood). The ramifications of her seeing blood and not being able to get a bandaid would have been much worse than the kick to the mouth. Then they were both running up the stairs in our house and Anna tripped and proceeded to barrell roll down the stairs from the top stair... fortunately for her we live in a tri-level and she only had 7 stairs to roll down. At some point she bruised her cheek too, but it must not have hurt because she never cried about it. Oh, and preschool pictures are this Tuesday... I guess that is just how things work!
More Drama

forgot why, but the otehr day I made Anna sad... which isn't a hard thing to do. So whenever she is "sad" I tell her that if she feels so sad maybe she needs to go back to bed. 99.9% of the time, her feeling "sad" usually is a result of her getting in trouble. So here she is, in her bed being sad.