Happy 4th of July!

Annie made this hat at school.  She cries whenever I try to take it off her today. I think she knows it is cute! 

1st Annual Summer Trip to Maryland

Annie and I got back last week from a relaxing long vacation at Nana and Grandpa's house.  Well, it was relaxing for us...I'm not so sure it was as relaxing for them!  Annie loved the house, especially the fact that there are stairs to climb, and huge areas to explore.  Nana cooked all her favorite things, and was willing to play games and sing songs for hours, and would read Annie's favorite book (Peekaboo Kisses) over and over and over again without complaint. Grandpa gave Annie lots of rides around the house and helped her sneak up on Mommy, which is hilarious every time.  By the end of the trip Annie would just throw her arms up in the air whenever she saw Grandpa, hoping he would scoop her up and carry her away for another ride.  We were both sad to leave, but look forward to seeing both of them again in just a month when they come out for the big 1 year birthday.

3 generations of Kelly girls

Who is that other baby?  Cousin Henry!  More about him in my next post...

My big girl

All of a sudden, Annie seems like a kid, not a baby!  How did that happen?  Here are a few recent pictures for you:

This is what she does in the evening when she's tired.  She reaches into the crib and grabs her pacifier, and bangs on the crib until I put her to bed.  If I wait too long, she gives up and just lies down on the floor on her tummy and shuts her eyes.  Poor tired munchkin!  Guess she's not an evening person.  For those of you who think I'm keeping her up too late...this happens around 6:15pm!  

When set loose in the kitchen, it's a hard decision whether to make a break for Bert's food or his fancy water dish.

Every once in a while I capture Annie smiling without her classic open mouthed grin.  Weird, right?  But still cute.

that's more like it!

Annie is really into sorting the recycling.  Every day she empties out both the paper and the plastic bins in the kitchen, and spreads them out all over the floor.   Such a good little environmentalist.

Bert gets a lot of hugs these days, and sometimes some sloppy kisses.

What a lucky cat.

Looking for trouble

Mommy is tired

Today was a tiring day.  Not in a bad way...Annie and I did lots of fun stuff: coffee shop with family, hike in the foothills with friends, lunch out at a burrito place, went for a swim in the pool.  But it was pretty busy, and between all the activities Annie did a lot of wiggling and loud talking and getting into trouble.   When bedtime rolled around, I was feeling pretty worn out, and was happy to get Annie into her jammies and have some snuggle time before bed.  But during snuggle time, Annie had a tremendous liquid poo which got all over her jammies and her back and my pants.

I don't know if I've mentioned this here, but Annie HATES diaper changes. When I lay her down, she arches her back and screams like I'm trying to kill her, and attempts to dive off the changing table.   So an epic battle was fought this evening getting her cleaned and the changing table cleaned, and trying to get her into new jammies.  I was nearly finished when I just couldn't take it anymore.  I sat Annie up, and sat down on the futon next to her changing table and just put my arms around her and head down next to her and said "Baby, Mommy's tired".  Annie (who had stopped screaming as soon as I sat her up), used her hand to lift up my face, removed her pacifier from her  mouth, and put it in mine. And then smiled at me angelically like the sweet baby she usually is.

There's no way to know for sure if she really understood and was trying to comfort me, but it was pretty cute.  Maybe she understands more English than she usually lets on.

I don't have any pictures to go with this post, but it seems wrong to post with no pictures, so here are a few shots of Annie helping Uncle Dan put child locks on the cabinets.

Electrical Outlet Covers

Turns out it IS important to put covers on the electrical outlets...



(just kidding!!)  Before you all go calling child protective services...the hairstyle above is just what happens after a day of sporting the look below. Annie often has unusual hairstyles when I pick her up from school.  I don't question it, I think maybe it gets boring watching babies all day!

Nana and Grampa Visit

Whoops - I forgot to include the Nana pictures in the last post.  Here you go...

Update from 8 months

I'm so far behind on blogging that it is overwhelming.  Even though Annie is finally sleeping better at night, I'm still pretty tired out after working all day and chasing her around all evening, so I often opt for tv and early bedtime instead of posting.  

So, let's catch you up, and then I'll dump some pictures in down below.  For those of you less interested in baby milestones and more into photos (Debbie), you can just scroll down to the pictures.

The most important update is that Annie is crawling.  She is VERY pleased with herself that she learned how to crawl, mostly because now she can chase Bert.  Chasing Bert is awesome!  When she catches him, she gives him kisses and huge hugs, and usually pulls out a few handfuls of fur.  So far Bert has been a tremendously good sport about the whole thing.

Crawling is also great at daycare.  I don't witness it, but her teachers tell me that her and another girl there have the same favorite toy, and they spend much of the day chasing each other around the baby area trying to steal it.  Annie has also learned to pull up to standing if she holds onto a gate or her crib.  I suspect she learned this so she can get into the tall bucket of toys at school.  

Annie's other milestone is that maybe she said her first word.  I'm not sure if she knows what it means, but she's started yelling "Mama! Mama!" whenever she is sad, or if she really wants something.  In general she's very talkative and babbles all the time, but this is the first time she's stuck with the same word for something for more than a few days.  

Also, she's a bit of a loud talker.  I know babies can be loud, but she is really extra loud, and we get a lot of funny looks when we're in public.  I'm assuming this is a baby thing, and she won't always be a loud talker, but who knows?

On the eating front, Annie will eat pretty much anything I offer.  She much prefers to eat stuff that she can pick up and feed herself, but she's not that good at it, so I still spoon about half of her meals in.  Yogurt is by far her favorite, and she cries whenever we finish the little container of it.

On the weekends we spend lots of time doing playdates with my other mommy friends, and hanging out at coffee shop with Uncle Dan, Max and Sierra, and our friends Thomas and Annie.  We go to the park many days after work so Annie can do some swinging.  This weekend I went for a bike ride with Annie in her little front seat.  I'm going to assume she liked it, because I didn't hear any complaints. I can't see her face when we ride, so I don't know for sure.

Nana and Grampa came to visit in March and had a great time hanging out with all the grandkids.  Annie was unfortunately at the peak of her separation anxiety the weekend they were here, so I didn't get to run off and take naps or go for jogs as I had hoped, and they didn't get to snuggle her quite as much as they had hoped, but we all had a nice visit.  

Okay, picture time:

looks like it's gonna be curly hair for Annie.  Sorry baby!

she does this when she is ready for a nap.  

okay, so she's a really good eater, but the pictures are MUCH funnier on the days when she' doesn't like dinner...

These aren't the best quality shots because I only had my phone camera, but I thought you'd want to see how good Annie looks in her bike helmet.  The only helmets in her size came with bunny rabbits on them, but I told her she still looks tough.