Our little insomniac

Many nights, Kate spends hours reading in her bed before falling asleep. This is often how I find her when I finally tuck her in for the night.

Everyone wants to play Candy Land

Our little Annie just doesn't get the rules.

Tea party

When Kate has a party, she invites the whole gang.
My favorite part of the picture is how she put the dog's face in the cup, because, as she said, "Dogs lick up their tea."

Too many tissues

Last night when I returned to Kate's room from getting the girls' toothbrushes, I found Anna with the Kleenex box. She was taking tissues out one after another, putting each up to her nose and making a "nose blowing" noise with her mouth before grabbing another.

I laughed, bent down by her, and asked her to blow my nose. She put the tissue up to my face and made the noise for me, too.

It's true

Today Kate complained to Dave that the feet of her pajama were wet. Dave asked how they got wet. She said, “I think stepped in some water by Mason’s bowl. He makes a mess when he drinks his water. He’s a wet beast!”

Blowing kisses

Despite being so sick, Anna's started doing a lot of cute things the last few weeks. One of my favorite is blowing a kiss.

Rebellion

Now that she's one, there's no stopping her. She's decided she wants to make a statement... and since she only knows a few words...

A taste of spring

It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was just a couple weeks ago.

Here's the fun we had celebrating Anna's birthday in the beautiful spring-tease weather. Anna loved being outside, she and had so much fun learning to go down the slide. She, being the little risk taker, took to it right away.

Our new table and chairs

A couple weeks ago our new table and chairs for the kitchen arrived in the mail. Kate and Anna helped me put it together. Unbelievably Kate did about half of the work. She put the two types of nuts correctly on all the bolts and got most of them screwed in. I actually just had to tighten them all.

While I've been so impressed with Kate, Anna insists I give her due credit for her excellent supervision of the process.

We're back!

We've been out of commission for a while...

First Anna got RSV three and a half weeks ago, which led to weeks of bronchiolitis. That was hard because she, and therefore I, wasn't getting any sleep. Just as Anna was starting to recover, I brought influenza into the picture, which led to a really sick mom caring for two kids who ended up even sicker. We've had a rough time the last week, including a lot of coughing leading to vomiting, rushed trips to Dave's office, nebulizer breathing treatments, scary oxygen saturation levels, antibiotics for all four of their ears, and even a frightening trip to the E.R.

But, we're back!

Happy Birthday!

One year ago today, at this exact time, 8:57am, our crazy little Annapie came into our lives.

What did we do without her?

And eat it, too!

After Anna realized the mess I put on her plate was also edible, she thoroughly enjoyed her cake.

Anna's Knuffle Bunny birthday cake

Knuffle Bunny Cake construction was a day long process. Thankfully, I had a lot of helpers throughout the day.

Kate and Anna helped me wash the dishes... or at least rinse them:

Kate helped me clean up the scraps:
And the Knuffies were happy to model and supervise:

First steps

Anna took her first steps Friday morning. I’d put her down standing by the table in the playroom. She took two steps, then stopped. I ran around in front of her. She looked like she wasn’t really sure what she did. Then she took three or four more and sat down. I called Dave. He tried to come home, but was really busy until about two o'clock, when Anna was already down for her nap. It didn’t matter. We didn’t get a repeat performance of any kind until today when she took two more steps.

Problem solved...

A couple weeks ago, I had a great idea. I finally put to rest one of my biggest annoyances. I was getting so sick of trying to get something done in one room, like cleaning the kitchen or feeding or changing Anna, and having Kate yelling to me from the other room. I'd often have a hard time hearing her, so I’d have to have her repeat it, and then I’d have to help her with what she needed while I was in the middle of what I’d be doing.

I realized that if she would come in by me, it would solve everything. I’d hear her the first time, and I’d have her right there to help her with what she needed.

So, my idea had been to tell her I couldn’t hear her if I couldn’t see her. At first, she’d forget and yell. I’d just respond, “I can’t hear you, because I can’t see you.” She’d come in with whatever she needed help with. Or, sometimes she’d realize she could solve her own problem, rather than have to come in by me. Either way, I didn’t have to stop what I was doing to go in there.

It was working great, until last Wednesday. I yelled from the kitchen for Kate to come in for breakfast. “Kate, it’s time to eat. Come in here.” She said, “I can’t hear you.” I yelled louder, “It’s time to eat. Come in here.” She replied, “I can’t hear you, because I can’t see you!”

Uh oh

Anna has added "Uh uh"to her vocabulary. It's the perfect word for her, actually, because she can use it any time she does something sassy or gets herself into a predicament.

Dave had been trying to get her to say it for a couple weeks. He’d play with Anna and her Knuffle Bunny. When Anna would throw the bunny, he’d say, “Uh oh!” then grab it off the floor and have it come and snuggle her.

Now she says it a lot. She’ll throw Knuffle Bunny down and say, “Uh uh.” She’ll throw food down and do the same. Today she wanted to show me that she’d dropped some of her food. She pointed to the ground. When I finally looked, she said, “Uh uh.”

This morning Kate and I were cuddling on the rocking chair and Anna was crawling all around the room showing off. She’d climbed up on Kate’s bed and was taking books out of Kate’s basket and pretending to read them. It seemed like she’d look over every few minutes to make sure Kate and I were watching her. All of the sudden Anna slipped and one of her legs went off the bed while her other leg stayed on. Anna exclaimed, “Uh uh!”

Rejection

The girls spent last weekend with Grandma and Grandpa. Thursday I was already feeling sad that they were going to leave, so I called Kate over and said, “I have to tell you something. I love you. I love you when you’re naughty. I love you when you’re crabby. I love you even if you throw things. I love you if you talk whiney. I love you no matter what! I'll always love you!" Then I gave her a hug.

After the hug, Kate looked at me and said, “I love… Mommy, I have to tell you something.”

I prepared for the most touching of moments.

Then Kate continued, “I love... my doll house.”


Along those lines… when Kate came back on Sunday, I was holding her on her rocking chair, cuddling with her. I said, “Kate, I missed you so much.”

She replied, sweetly, “Mommy, I didn’t miss you.”