Anna's Last 1st Day of Preschool

Anna was so excited to start preschool again today. She had her outfit all picked out the night before and even chose one for Zack. She woke up and got ready right away and we even had time to take a few pictures.Don't you love this pose? She's actually in the middle of telling me she forgot her glowing shoe charm to hook on to her backpack. Yes, the lovely charm that came in her Happy Meal that she hasn't parted with since that healthy meal was consumed.


And here she is showing off that little charm proudly dangling from her backpack.

For how excited she was, the second we walk into the classroom, she's all business. Very serious. Checking out the situation before she makes any committment of what to play with or who to look at. She's been like that since nursery and it is such a part of her personality. Always timidly, but intently observing.

It is crazy for me to think this is her last year before the bigtime school - Kindergarten! How did my baby girl get so big? I'm excited to enjoy this year with her before she's gone all day next year. Love you AnnaBanana!

A Campout

Tonight Anna and I had a campout.

In the living room.

We had s'mores ice cream (so yummy!) in our tent and then told funny spooky stories that we made up by flashlight. There was one about a little pink mouse who snuck into our tent to eat s'mores. Then there was one about a lonely marshmallow who made friends with Choco the chocolate bar and Grammy the graham cracker in the forest.

It was just one of those fun mom moments for me. She was loving it and being so sweet and fun. Which isn't her usual bedtime mood believe it or not. :)

I loved her little requests, "I need some cozy socks!" "I need someone to keep me company. Can Suzy (her favorite doll from a friend that moved) come to our campout" Then when she was all snug in her sleeping bag, "Mom, I need something to keep close to my heart. Like some food." "uhhh..no I don't think so" "OK, like Baby Emma and my udder (other) baby" She gave me the best big hugs and went to sleep. Love that little girl.

To be honest, I didn't think she would last in the tent, but she fell asleep and is snoozing away like a real camper.

Just want to remember this night and my sweet little 4 year old girl. ♥

Pet for A Day

Let me introduce you to Lemon Blueberry Plum. Our pet turtle. For a day. Isn't she the cutest smallest turtle you've ever seen? We found her yesterday right at the edge of our garage. I thought it was a rock at first. She's so tiny, about the size of a quarter. It's normal to see turtles around here, but I have never seen a little baby one! Anna was of course thrilled with our discovery. And quickly this turtle became our little pet. We didn't want her to get hurt in the garage, so we put her in our little bug cage with some leaves and a little bottle cap of water. Anna named her Lemon Blueberry Plum (she's really into Strawberry Shortcake right now). We watched her crawl around that cage all day. By the end of the day she was climbing in and out of her little bottle cap pool.

But much to our dismay, we knew we couldn't keep this little turtle in our bug cage forever. We have not the slightest idea how to take care of a baby turtle and didn't want to kill it. We offered it to some friends that already have pet turtles, but apparently baby turtles are hard work. So we knew what we had to do. After soccer practice and dinner, we took a walk down to the greenway in our neighborhood. And we let little Lemon free into her natural habitat.

There's a creek right there and we hope she made her way down to it okay. Anna sobbed and was so very sad. (so was I!) She promised Lemon that she would go back and visit her every day at the greenway.

And that's probably the only pet we'll ever have!

Lately

Lately we've been doing a lot of this:

Zack pushing Anna around in the cozy coupe thinking he's so big. and Anna loving it. (most of the time) It's all fun and games until Anna decides to start pushing herself and poor Zack gets dragged along the back. It doesn't seem to phase him though.

Listening to Taylor Swift. Still Anna's fav. I asked her if she wanted to go to the concert this summer and she said, "No, I already did that before." I guess once was enough in her book.

and dancing to Taylor Swift. And fairy songs. and Disney princess songs. It's pretty magical at our house these days. If only we could get the animals to come in and help clean and do the laundry. It would be great if they could make me a new dress too.

Enjoying warmer warmer weather. Zack loves holding on to anything that is like a stick. Even if it's a princess wand.

And Anna still loves the swing.

And bubbles.

So why not do them both at the same time?

And my very favorite, lately we've been doing lots of snuggling. Because who doesn't love snuggling with their kids? I need to get it in while I still can!

And of course we've had meltdowns, and time outs, and some not so great days too. But no need to document those for posterity now. Although they probably would make some good stories. For the most part, lately, we're doing pretty good. And I like it.

Eiffel Tower and other fancy things

Remember Baby Emma? She used to be attached to Anna at the hip. Wherever we went, so did Baby Emma. She was just part of the fam. And then one day...not so much. Poor Baby Emma. It actually made me a little sad to see Anna's first favorite dolly get the boot. Well, she's making a comeback. Although all of that abandonment must have caused an identity crisis, because Anna informed me that her name is no longer Baby Emma. It's "Eiffel Tower." How very Fancy.

And lately she keeps walking around after Zack saying, "You're a Geeee-nee i us Zack! You're a geee nee i us! It cracks me up.

The other night at dinner, Dave made some joke and Anna just looked at him and said, "Oh Daddy, you're hopeless!" We could hardly keep from bursting out laughing at that one. Seriously. Where in the world did that come from? The world is getting a little bigger for this little girl. sigh. Despite my efforts otherwise. But it sure is fun to hear what she comes up with.

Happy Valentine's Day!

xoxo

♥

11 months

11 months old.

I can't believe it!

You took your first steps on your 11 month bday. They were a little wobbly, but you managed to make it 3 or 4 good steps before the wobbly-ness got the best of you. And here are some 11 month old pics in your birthday suit. Because it's the cutest suit you have.

Love you sweet boy!

From Princess to Pirate

Anna was flipping through a magazine today and was mesmerized by an ad for a new pirate cartoon tv show. She normally has been a bit scared of pirates and didn't even want to be near the pirate that read story time during my milk and bookies event. But suddenly, because of this, apparently great advertisement, she loves pirates and wants to be one.

She begged for a telescope. Then a scarf for her head. Then a parrot. Couldn't get a real parrot, so she colored about 10 pages of parrot coloring pages.


Then I told her to say, "ARRrrr Matey!" And she said. "No, I don't like saying that. That sounds scary."

"I changed my mind mom. I don't like princesses anymore. I like pirates instead. Let's have a pirate party. I love pirates!"

"ARRrrr Matey!"

Then she made telescopes and eye patches for her friends and kept them safe in a tupperware under her bed so Zack wouldn't get them. "I think I like Spiderman now too Mom. Let's get a Spiderman costume."

And on a unrelated non-pirate note, a funny Target story from today. As we were walking down an aisle, she pressed one of those dancing dogs that sings. When it started blasting out "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT!?" she took a big step back and then looked at me and shrugged and said, "I don't know" answering the dancing dog's question. Apparently she doesn't know who let the dogs out either! I've been wondering all these years. I didn't realize this was her introduction to that lovely song. A couple minutes later, I overheard her singing to herself "Who let the dogs out...woof! woof! woof! woof!" catchy tune. It made me chuckle.

**One more funny Anna story. I walked in on her sitting on a carton full of eggs (plastic ones luckily!) and I asked her what she was doing. "Just hatchin some eggs."

Daddy's Birthday!

Anna was so excited to celebrate Dave's Birthday! She even made him a birthday hat! We had a cinnamon roll breakfast birthday cake and Anna got the table all set for him. She knew her North Carolina shirt was one of Daddy's favorites, so she wore it just for him.

And it wouldn't be Dave's birthday without his favorite birthday cake. Dee-licious!

Happy Birthday Dave! We love you!

10 months

Oh sweet boy. 10 months old.

I wish I was a better blogger and would have written something down when you actually turned 10 months. It's so sad and a little depressing how quickly things just blur together.

But I did actually remember to take pictures, so give me a little credit there. And know that we adored all that you were doing at 10 months. Crawling all around and doing all sorts of other cool tricks.