Annelee's birthday fell on a "school day", so our morning was really not much different from any other day. After we got back from daycare though, she got to open her presents and then we had what we thought may be one of her favorite meals for dinner. She ate a good amount of it, so we weren't far off. Can't wait until she can actually tell us next year what she wants for dinner. We had cup cakes for dessert. Annelee also took cupcakes into daycare with her that day, so she certainly had plenty of them that day.
Last year, Vivian got to unwrap all of Annelee's presents (and loved it, of course). This year, Annelee needed a little bit of help, but enjoyed doing much of it herself. Her presents were all a big hit ... with Annelee and Vivian. Vivian has been struggling a bit with the fact that for the first few days, Annelee has the right to play with them any time she wants (what a hard concept for a 4-year old with new toys in the house!), but she's done ok with it most of the time, and has gotten to take advantage of Annelee's earlier bed time and nap time :)
On Saturday, we had a little party for Annelee. It turned out "litteler" than we anticipated due to a couple of last-minute cancellation, but was fun nonetheless.
My favorite part of Annelee's birthday was probably how she beamed and danced when we sung "Happy Birthday" to her. No shyness or coyness there!
Unwrapping presents
Vivian was always close and eager to help
The ladybug from Marion, Sebastian & Tobias has already traveled
substantially with us ... to the grocery store, and just generally in
the car (the stars are great to see on the ceiling even during the
day). Maybe one day it will actually make it's way in the bedroom, too!
"Baby Claire" from Omi
Turns out, the water table is also good without water. I should've left it that way, because Annelee was soaked even before dinner was on the table. That also explains her bedraggled look with the cupcakes later :)
Just fill the pen with water and draw ... when the water dries, the colors go away.
She blew out the candles all by herself!
The puzzle game from Grandma. Vivian's already done all of them, Annelee is still working her way through them.
And last, but not least, a quick video of the water table pre-water. Click here if you cannot see the video below.
I'm pretty sure I just wrote the "Annelee is One"
post last week ... what happened?!
It's been a busy year for Annelee. She finally started walking a few
days shy of 18 months and is now running. Language is definitely
blossoming, too. She's parroting much more and slowly adding words to
her vocabulary. She moved to a big-girl mattress a few weeks ago and is
most certainly developing her personality. A delightful mixture of very caring, extremely boundary-pushing and just plain cute and delightful. After months of being a total and extreme Mommy's girl, she's now becoming a bit of a Daddy's girl. An equally nice and frustrating (for me when I try and put her to bed) change.
I had just recently gotten into the habit of getting up at 7am on my non-Highmark days and getting stuff done around the house before the girls woke up around 8 or so when we moved Annelee to a big girl mattress (no bed yet, just the mattress). As a direct result, Annelee started getting up earlier. I suspect that previously, she would wake up, realize she was still in her cage, um, I mean crib, and go back to sleep. Now, she gets up and finds Mommy. Vivian often remains asleep.
So this is how I found myself with Annelee all perky and wide awake the other morning. She didn't want to get dressed, so we just wandered downstairs, where Annelee insisted on putting on Vivian's flip-flops and her supergirl baseball cap and then we headed outside. Apparently, my lack of coffee was showing, because Annelee turned to me when I stopped and said "Mommy, go go go!". Luckily, I caught this on video since it was quite cute.
We walked for bit and then returned to our front-yard where I sat down and Annelee puttered around for a few minutes and then went into the house and - as she is wont to do with any open door - closed the front-door. No big deal since the door is virtually always unlocked.
Needless to say, this time, it was still locked from the night.
Whoops.
No big deal, we have a spare key in the front yard. Except ... I had
used it some other time and not yet put it back outside.
Whoops.
Still no big deal. I decided to just ring the doorbell and wake Vivian up so she could open the door for me. Except ...
Our doorbell, which sporadically stops working for a few weeks and then suddenly starts again ... yes, you guessed it ... it decided today was the day to stop working.
Whoops.
My last resort (short of tracking down one of the approximately 38 people in Pittsburgh who have a spare key, all of which would be at work at that time) was to try and make my way into the house through a different opening.
I remembered that the bathroom window downstairs was closed, but not locked. So, I went around the house, found something to stand on, pushed the window open, cleared the window sill and squeezed my way into the house, hoping the neighbors wouldn't see me.
Then I marched up the stairs back to the front door where Annelee was still happily playing. She didn't even seem surprised that I was outside the front door one minute and coming up the stairs from the basement a few minutes later. And Vivian was of course still asleep and none the wiser.
It was most definitely time for coffee and the hope that the rest of the day would be a little less eventful!
Yo, Momma, let's go for a walk!
If you can't see the video of Annelee telling me to go already, please click here.
When Susan sent us the email that Sam's graduation party was going to be on a Sunday, we decided it was time to break our familiar pattern of trips to Virginia and instead head to Maryland on Saturday, spend time with Casey & Ernie and then head to Sam's graduation on Sunday, spend the night there, and then head home on Monday. It was a lot more driving than usual, but the girls did well (as they always do) and we had a blast in Maryland.
We arrived in the late afternoon and pretty much headed straight to Ernie's cousin's pool. As soon as I had warned Vivian not to go in without an adult because she wouldn't be able to stand ... she ... jumped in. Luckily, Ernie was already in the water and pulled her out. Trouble-maker! (Vivian, not Ernie :). We spent a delightful time swimming, jumping in from the springboard and floating on the floats they had.
We headed back to the house for a delicious dinner, bed time for the girls and then card games for the adults.
The next morning, after a yummy breakfast, we went to Tall Timbers to the beach on the Chesapeake Bay and played on the beach and in the water. Home for a quick lunch (with Annelee sleeping in the car) and then we headed off to Virginia.
Most of the pictures at the pool and some of the beach ones were taken by Casey ... thanks for sharing them, they are fabulous!
Enjoying the pool
Also enjoying it, Vivian loved the floaties and always loves her goggles
Baby burrito
If you can't see the stunt video of Vivian jumping into the pool (and everyone else saying hello), please click here.
At the beach
We may need to work on the sunscreen application
Exploring in the water
So relaxing. And not too crowded, either!
Keeping an eye on everyone from within the shallow water
Casey always takes photos ...
... and Ernie always reads books.
Flinging stuff in the water is such fun!
And last, but not least, one of the highlights for Vivian ... a ride in Casey's "car with no roof"
We spent simply a relaxing Saturday this weekend (edited to add that I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but only just got around to downloading the photos from my phone to add to the post ... whoops), and I figured that would be nice to blog about, too, and not just special occasions, especially since I took a bunch of photos that day.
We started out with breakfast at our favorite local diner, Pamela's. Their pancakes are fantabulous and the kids are excited that they have little boxes of cereal they can pick from.
After breakfast, Will headed out shopping and the girls and I went to the playground at the school near our house. Vivian will start Kindergarden there next year, so we went just down the hill to check out the little Kindergarden playground (which is really suited to kids Annelee's age rather than Kindergardeners). The girls had a lot of fun walking up and down the slide and then balancing on the walls of the winding path next to the playground. I was just thinking that Vivian was doing really well, and that I was doing really well not excessively telling her to be careful when ...
... she tripped and fell off. Of course! My fault for having that thought, I guess. No big damage, though, nothing that a few colorful band-aids couldn't fix :)
Rowan came over for lunch and games with Vivian while Annelee napped, and in the afternoon, we took our first trip to the pool. That Vivian loved it was already well established, and hasn't changed. Annelee also had a blast and even went right back in after falling and going under (and of course being pulled right back out, but still, it scared her initially). We will yet again be spending much time there this summer, I'm sure.
Then, dinner (Will and Vivian made pizza, but that will be a separate post), and some lounging around in the front yard before the girls had to go to bed.
Fun all around!
I'm pretty sure the Kindergarden kids just walk between the walls during Kindergarden time ...
I love how it looks like Annelee is standing on the wall (she is not, just a low wall behind it). Not sure why she's so pixelated ... I guess that's the downside of using a phone as a camera
A video from the Kindergarden playset. Before I started videoing, Annelee was actually walking down the slide, too. But even sliding is fun when you have a big sister to play with! Click here if you can't see the video below.
