I love love love this little sweater! That little mouse in a dress is too cute and I love the little mushrooms around the side. I bought it at Janie and Jack for Anna's 6 month photos and, like most of her clothes, it still fits. I tend to not dress her in my favorite things too often, like I'm saving them for something important. But today when I opened her closet I thought of how quickly she is starting to outgrow things and how soon it will be too warm outside for sweaters. So tonight I had to take a few pictures and she was being super hammy as usual.


Her newest performance piece is to raise both arms over her head and then flap them widly while (what else?) screaming like a porpoise. Every time I tried to take an arms up photo, it would come out as an arms down because she is so fast! But I caught a few, and you can even see the screaming face. Don't ask what she is doing with her thumbs...must be some sort of baby meditation ;)

And then she fell over....but she was still happy! :)

This weekend I finally allowed Nathan to take Anna's swing to the basement. She has never liked sitting in it and we've probably used it 10 times in the last 10 months...if that. But something about taking it to the basement made me sad so I kept putting it off and saying that I wanted her to use it just one last time. Last week I sat her in it and took some pictures and when I looked at them I couldn't believe how HUGE she looks compared to those early pictures. In the last few days she has started to feel sooo heavy when I lift her and this week we are moving up a size in diapers. We also know that our days are numbered on using the infant car seat and her crib mattress is finally going down (I know! We should have done that months ago!). We really are happy that she is growing so well, but we have been so used to having such a little peanut that it's weird to have her outgrowing things so suddenly. Oh well, guess it's time for a new wardrobe! ;)

Today we tried out Anna's new shopping cart cover and uncle Michael came along for the trip. You remember that we had a not so great experience with the Cart Safari, so I was curious to see if the new seat would change things. Michael and I went to Target and I had him hold her while I positioned the cover on the seat. It's a pretty complex thing with lots of velcro and straps and clips. So we finally get it all attached and we put Anna in and *poof* disappearing baby! The Target carts are so much deeper than the Kroger carts and she looked so small (once again:)! Part of the reason I bought the new seat is that it has a harness, rather than just a lap belt. The harness really did help her stay upright but she always gets so sleepy when we shop, and nothing will let her sleep like her car seat does. Poor girl just gets more and more floppy as we go through the store. Overall I am pleased with the new cover and I think it's a keeper.

My apologies to Michael for the picture. The sun was right in both of their eyes but I had to have at least one shot of Anna shopping with her uncle :)

Here is a picture of Anna and her cousin Ellie. It was taken this weekend at David's (her other cousin) 8th birthday party. Nathan and I think this picture is hilarious! Ellie's mischevious little grin and the way she is holding that fork makes it look like she is having baby for dinner! Ha!


Anna is going crazy wanting to crawl. She wants it so badly that she gets up on her hands and knees, rocks back and forth, and then pushes off with her feet sending her face first onto the floor. Then,of course, she screams and tries again....and again...and again. It's sad to see her get so frustrated, but it's pretty cute watching her try to figure it out. She is sooooo close! I see more progress each time she tries. Today she is putting one arm out in front of the other, and pulling her knees in toward her chest....then she falls forward. Here are a few funny pictures that I took last night. Oh, and she normally wears clothes! This was just before her bath.

Before Anna was born I took a knitting class. I had wanted to learn for a while and I thought it would be fun to knit something for my new baby. So, with the help of my (very patient) teacher, I made this little hat for Anna. Seasonally it wasn't very appropriate, but it was fun to put it on her in the house and take pictures ;)


When the class ended, I bought yarn and a pattern to make a sweet little blanket. That was 4 weeks before my due date and I was sure I could finish it in time. Anna was born two weeks later, and I didn't even look at the yarn for about 6 more months. But I did finally start it and over the last 3-4 months I have managed to knit about 7 rows. Woo hoo, go me! Well I was goin' alright.....but in the completely wrong direction! Two days ago I decided that I was going to focus, and make some real progress on Anna's blanket. Something just didn't seem right and even Nathan could look at my blanket, then look at the picture of what my blanket was supposed to be, and see that there was a problem.

So yesterday Anna and I went back to my favorite yarn store (Sophie's) and asked for help. The poor girl working was trying to be nice to me, but I could tell that it was so bad she couldn't figure out how I had mangled things, or even how to help me out of it all. She told me I was knitting in stitches that I had never learned....I must be a knitting genius! Eventually we decided it was best to start over entirely. So I sat next to her while she tore out every stitch :( Oh well, maybe this time I can get it right. My problem came with reading the pattern, and she helped me figure it out so that I can do it at home (we hope!). Before I left the house I had a nice little pattern going and a few inches on my needle. Now I have this:

The workers were very kind, and they kept asking if I was going to be okay with it once I got home. I laughed and told them that I'm already signed up for the February class and I'm sure I'll still be working on this when I come back then! Maybe Anna can have this as a high school graduation gift, or maybe when she has her first baby, or maybe.....

We have suspected for a while now that Anna is part dolphin, mostly because of her crazy squeaking and squealing. But you should see her go once she's in her baby bathtub! She loves to splash and kick with her legs. Because I am in denial that she is getting so big (and because I'm not looking forward to kneeling on the bathroom tile) I still put Anna's bathtub up on the kitchen counter and wash her there. It makes for quite an adventure when she is kicking waves of water all the way into the family room and over to the stove! When you wash her hair things really get crazy. If even a drop of water goes over her face she starts kicking and flailing for dear life...laughing the entire time of course. The real fun begins when she is finished and she tries to roll naked down the kitchen counters while you try to dry her off. She is such a little monkey!

Why is it that almost all of these pictures lately have the highchair as the background? Hmmm, someone is munchie! Yesterday Anna had creamed spinach for the first time and she loved it (what's new?).


Today Nathan comes home from Washington DC so I'm sure Anna will be happy to see him. This morning he called my cell phone and I think she could hear him through the phone. Every time he would talk she would whip her head around and just stare at it with this confused look on her face. Is that my daddy in there?

This morning I couldn't resist taking Anna outside for a few pictures in the snow. She had seen snow on our Boston trip when she was 6 months old, but she had never touched snow. I guess technically she still hasn't touched snow because she was so bundled in that snow suit there was no way she could touch anything! I took a towel to put under her and I tried to sit her down in the yard. I think she was a little freaked out because she wouldn't bend her knees to sit, and when she finally did she kept making little sad sounds. I am such a mean mommy! You can see from the look on her face that she was less than thrilled with the whole experience....and that look stayed on her face the entire time that we were outside. Ruby was frolicking wildly around us, but even that didn't bring a smile. Just as I was about to take her inside she fell over and sneezed right as I took the picture. Hee hee! Don't worry, this entire episode was probably less than 5 minutes.

>

Oh and Anna is still working on crawling. My friend Kendra has 3 little girls, and one is only a month older than Anna (hi Ella!). I told her how Anna was rocking on her hands and knees and she said, "Oh yeah, they do that forever before they crawl". I'm starting to see that she is right because Anna rocks, and then rolls over. Or she rocks and then decides that scooting on her belly is better :) I know she'll get it eventually. I guess she's just content to stay on her little blanket!

We are also starting to wonder if teeth are finally making an apperance. For the last two nights Anna has woken up at about 4am screaming. This is very odd and hard on us all because this girl has slept through the night since she was 6 weeks old! The only thing we can think of is teething pain. Of course the other day I was updating her baby book and I read back over the past few months. Pretty much every month from 5 months on I have been saying, "We think she will get teeth very soon!" Ha! I guess it's just like crawling. If the gums are working fine, who needs teeth?!

Today Anna wore a mini-skirt to church! That may sound inappropriate, but all skirts that look mini quickly become knee length on her little legs. She was so cute and I loved how that underlayer of tulle stuck out the bottom :) The childcare room was full today so she sat on my lap through the service and played with her toys...and a collection envelope when things got really desperate. Luckily everyone around us thought it was cute when she made dolphin noises during the closing prayer.

Here is a funny picture that Nathan and I came across while looking through photos from our New England trip. This is just so funny to us because you can't tell where her arms and legs begin...or end!

Here is something else very small. Hee hee.

Anna has many loves in her life right
now. Here is a short list :)

1. Yogurt. This week was her first taste of it and she gets so excited that she strains her neck forward and tries to dive into the spoon.

2. The carpet in our family room. I guess it's the texture but if you lay her on a blanket she will pull and pull to gather up the edges so that she can see her beloved carpet again. Then she spends a long time examining each fiber.
3. Ruby. There is way too much love between these two as far as I'm concerned. How can you get mad at the dog when Anna reaches for her as if to say, "Yes! Please lick my entire face!"? Notice they are making the same face in this photo.

This morning Anna woke up with a full on mohawk. With no help from us, she was sporting a very rock n' roll look for breakfast and playtime. Of course I had to take pictures of her. She started out enjoying it and she thought it was too funny. But as you can see, I soon figured out that she'd had enough.

Today Anna turned 9 months old. We just can't believe that she is growing so quickly (sniff, sniff). But every day is something new for her and it is so much fun watching her and actually seeing the moment that she "gets it". She is so full of personality right now and just a glance in her direction will be rewarded with full on belly laughs. I realize at least 500 times a day how lucky I am to be home with her full time.

Today was also the big 9 month check up at the pediatrician's office. They put her through her little baby ability tests and she passed with flying colors. They were very pleased with all that she is doing and they said she is right on target with her development. Like Nathan and I, they feel that she will be crawling any day now. However for the time being, she will continue to be known to office staff as the "toothless wonder" :) The big moment came when we placed her on the scale. I was pretty nervous about this since last month brought only a 3 ounce weight gain.

The numbers began to pop up and I literally jumped up and down with joy. 15, 16, 17.....17 pounds and 5.2 ounces!!!! Anna (aka little piggy) has gained a whopping 2 POUNDS and 2.2 ounces in only 4 weeks! I was shocked but soooo happy. Nathan and I both thought that she was looking bigger lately and we were right :) She also grew a few inches putting her at 28 1/4 inches tall, in the 70th percentile. She's in the 25% for weight, which is a nice step up from the 10% that she had fallen to last month. I've known for a while that she was munchie, now it is paying off! They said it was such a nice improvement that we could ease up on the monthly weight checks that we have been doing and go down to only one check between now and her 1 year visit (which is whole different sob-fest that I'll pick up later). And yes, I did take my camera to the doctor's office ;)

After all of that fun, Anna and I headed over to get her Poppaw (my dad) so that he could come over and use our computer for a while. Anna had lots of fun visiting with him, singing a few songs for him, and just charming his socks off.

All in all, a great day filled with good news and peace of mind for mommy and daddy :) p.s. you can click on any picture to make it larger

Wow has this been a busy week! First we had Anna's first Christmas which was so fun for us and for her. We loved watching her play with all of the wrapping paper and she loved tasting it all :) She did amazingly well with all of the running around and stayed happy even when she was too tired to move. Of course she received waaaay more than what she really needs, but it's all very cute and we have enjoyed watching her figure out her new toys.

On a sad note, Anna's great-grandpa, my grandpa, died on Christmas morning. He was 79 years old and he was so ready to go home to be with God and with his wife who had died 8 years earlier. We will miss him of course, but we know that he is much happier where he is now and we will see him again someday. He never had a chance to meet Anna but we hear that he liked looking at photos of her :)

So after holidays and family events, we are happy to have a nice slow week to look forward to. Anna is slowly getting back to her schedule and mommy is slowly getting back to her workouts after many weeks of holiday goodies!

Oh, and crawling is eminent! Just in the last few days Anna has figured out how to get up onto her hands and knees and rock furiously back and forth. It's only a matter of time! It's so cute to watch her try and go....guess it's time to babyproof the house. Yikes!