Cousins are Great!

I just adore that Anna has so many cousins near her in age. It just seems to make the holidays even better watching them all together.
Neil, Anna and I spent Christmas Day at James and Dixie's.
Dixie has a hearth in her living room that somewhere along the way in life Tessa figured makes a great stage. She and Bella are often up there waving around wands and singing. It is quiet entertaining. Well, this Christmas it was great because all four of the kiddies thought it was fun to play along. So here is a little video from Christmas night. Apparently I need to brush up on my music skills, because I did not sing this one right. I think I confused Tessa more than helped her. You can also her Neil's Granny in the background. This little video is definately a keeper though.


We are doing the Christmas thing at my family's tomorrow. I am really looking forward to it. Mostly because of all the food that is going to be there! I love this holiday. I think New Years Day is my most favorite holiday of them all. My family really goes all out!! YUMMMMM!

Let the festivities begin!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Happy Halloween!

Okay . . . Okay . . . I know these are a little late, but we finally got to get all the girls together for a picture this week. These are the costums that I made for the Hope, Emily and Anna for Halloween. I was so excited to get to see them in there costums. Since Anna was sick and all I didn't even get to see the other girls in their costums. So finally on Thanksgiving we did! Yeah. They were so cute!

I Love Christmas!

I adore the Christmas season! I am trying to plan out as much as possible now, so that I don't get crazy overwhelmed in the next 36 days! Yeah, I know . . . Good Luck with that.
Anyway, Brenda likes to do gingerbread houses every year and this year we were talking about using gram crackers instead. While I was surfing around tonight I came across these pictures and thought they are SOOOOO cute. And they are tiny! Isn't it funny how things are cuter when they are smaller!? So I thought I would share and hopefully it will inspire you.

This one is just plain adorable, but I especially love the mail box.

I thought the trees were a real good idea in this one and you could use green frosting to go around it and make it look like garland.

Okay did you notice the lamp posts! I mean how cute can you get?

Here is a picture of the house I made last year. Neil and I were living in the Travel Trailer at the time, so I thought it would be appropriate to make a gingerbread house look like a trailer. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.
So I hope this puts you in a holiday mood!

Baby #2

Neil, Anna and I went to MD Imaging yesterday and got to see the baby for the first time. It is the only sonogram that we have planned so we were really looking forward to it. The lady doing the ultrasound was very nice and sent quite a bit of time with us. Anna was mostly just interested with the phone on the wall that had the blinking red lights! The lady did guess what the sex is, but she didn't sound to sure. So Neil and I are a little nervous to believe her. She also gave us a video of the sonogram. So we have watched that a couple of times to see if we can be more sure!

This is the little baby foot! There is a really fun part in the video were the baby kicks it's foot really hard and then stretches out it's little leg. I was really surprised how long that leg looked. Actually the baby looked really big to me. I was expecting it to look so big already.
This picture is the baby's profile. We got a pretty good picture of the spine too. I think it is so neat to be able to see of the insides of the baby. We also got to see the heart beating and saw all fours chambers of the heart going. That was really cool!
Oh and in case you are curious the lady guessed it is a girl!

Trunk-or-Treat? Nope. Pink-Eye!

I am a little behind on my posting as I am sure you noticed. I have been busy trying to whip out three costumes. My nieces Hope and Emily, and Anna were all going to match for Trunk-or-Treat. Well, that ended up NOT working out because my kid got sick! So . . . the cute little costume is hanging on the door and not being worn. So Sad! She did get to wear the outfit on Monday when we went to Sacramento for our "Cousins Halloween". But I didn't get very many pictures of it. And I still haven't imported them all. We did do quite a few things though this month that were fun. So here are some pictures of our October going ons . . .
When we were at Nash Ranch this year I got a cute picture of Anna and her uncle Kevin. And it made me remember a picture from last year. So I thought I would post both so you could see the difference in my tiny little baby.
When we went in 2007 Anna was only 23 days old and she weighed a little under 7 pounds. She was such a tiny little thing! She weighed in yesterday at 19 pounds 3 ounces! She has defiantly gotten bigger, but she still seems so tiny to me. I love that!!!!
It was so blazing' hot at the Pumpkin Patch! I think we could have baked a baby if we weren't careful! We didn't stay very long. Anna did have a lot of fun playing in the dirt. She loves the dirt. Here's a side story. . . our back yard is now fully landscaped. Which means we have rock and grass. No cute flowers or anything like that yet. But it looks so pretty back there with all the green grass. Neil and some friends put the sod down the same day we went to the Patch. While they were working I would let Anna play in the parts they hadn't gotten to yet. She loves to get dirty. Well, when it came to the end and Neil was putting the last piece done Anna kept putting her hand under it and pulling out tiny little fistfuls of dirt. She was VERY sad her dirt was getting covered up! She was very determined about the whole thing! It was so cute!
So anyway here are so more pictures from the Pumpkin Patch. You can see that Anna's hands are all brown in the one were she is by herself.



Anna also had her first sleepover after the Pumpkin Patch. She got to spend the night at Grampa and Gramma Klocke's house. I dropped her off at 6:00pm and my mom called me at 8:30 to tell me that my kid was very boring! When they were in the middle of eating dinner she looked over and Anna had totally fallen asleep. My mom said, "I didn't even get to play with her!" But when I called the next morning I could hear Anna laughing in the background. So I guess they got in some play time. My mom held the phone up to Anna so I could talk to her and as soon as Anna heard my voice she yelled out, "DaDa!" No appreciation!

Back to the title of my blog . . . Anna woke up yesterday with this nasty goopy eye and I thought I don't want to deal with it all weekend and then have to call the Dr. on Monday, so I called first thing in the morning and we got in at 12:00. Yep! Your kid has pink eye he says to me. She contagious! That's just great! I should have waited until Monday so then I wouldn't have felt bad about taking her out. So since her cough had also gotten pretty bad Thursday night. Neil and I decided to keep her home. No cute pictures with cute little matching girls (that I had slaved over!!!) I think that the wet weather has really settled in on her and I didn't want to make it worse by taking her out in in for 3 hours.
It was actually a lot of fun staying home. Praise the LORD I had a bowl full of candy on my counter!!!! I have never lived in a subdivision before and there are a ton of kids in this one. So for about an hour and a half, every 5 -10 minutes my doorbell rang. And when kids know there is candy on the other side of that door they don't just ring the bell once, nope sometimes twice won't even due. No way! they need to know that you know they are waiting! It was really fun, because we have a little side window next to the door and kids always have to look in it. So I would pop around the corner and "Boo" at them! It was fun to see their faces when they'd been caught looking in!
If I had thought about it I would have dressed Anna up anyway. Because she loved to see who was at the door when the bell rang, and then at least someone would have seen her cute little self on Halloween. Neil actually was the one to think of it but by then it was almost over and there are a lot of layers to her outfit. When we ran out of candy Neil turned off the lights and we walked up the street for a few minutes so Anna could see all the other kids. It was fun to watch them run around. And we got to talk to a few neighbors. When Anna was all tucked in and everything was quiet Neil and I finished the evening watching Monster House. It was kind of a silly movie but a good way to end the night because it takes place on Halloween. Which neither of us knew when we started the movie.

Wow this is a long post! But I hope it was worth the read! Well . . . onto Thanksgiving!!

A day at the Lake

Neil and I are not big crowd people, so a day at the lake is not something we ever do! But Neil had a day off in the middle of the week a few weeks ago and I thought it sounded fun. It was way late in the swimming season, so I figured it wouldn't be that crowded. We drove out to Whiskeytown and down to Brandy Creek. We packed a whole bunch of snacks and our inner tube. Which mostly sat on the shore. There were maybe two other people out at the lake so it was perfect in that respect. The water was freezing though! Anna let me put her toes in and then she was done! So we mostly just sat on our blanket on the shore and played. It was nice to just be together as a little family for a while. Neil had been in Idaho for 11 days and Anna and I missed him very much! It was something I think both she and I needed! To just be with him for a little while.
We got some great pictures of Anna. It is so funny to me how much she actually likes being with Neil and I. I mean you hope your kid loves you, but when they prefer you, it is just kind of sweet and comforting. Most of the time. I am just so excited with how much she loves Neil. It is just the cutest thing when he comes home from work and she gets so animated about seeing him. She crawls around laughing trying to hide from him, but keeps looking back to make sure he is following her. I thought I would be sad when the baby "baby" stage was over, but I am loving where she is so much! I wouldn't want to go back at all. I am starting to really look forward to another baby (which is kind of unavoidable at this stage in the game!) I actually keep forgetting that I am pregnant. With Anna it always seemed to be on my mind, and I think I was showing a lot sooner with her. I know you are supposed to show sooner the more children you have, but I really think it was the other way around for me. Of course my mom pointed out that I was quite a bit heavier when I got pregnant with Anna. :) Which is very true. But I am 19 weeks today and still wearing my regular pants. They are getting a little snug though.

Oh we do have our first (and only!) sonogram on Nov 5th. We are going to try and find out what the baby is (boy? or girl?) but I will only be 21 weeks, so we might not get to! :( If we don't get to I might beg for another sonogram, but my doctor said she often doesn't do more than one. I am really liking her. The receptionist leaves much to be desired, but she doesn't catch the baby so I am not to worried about it. Every time I have gone in for any appt. the dr. has been so attentive and lets me just talk and ask whatever, she doesn't rush me out or make me feel like a bother. So . . . so far so good.

***

Okay so I was just checking in on some Photography blogs and I was reading Jessica Hughes blog (click here) and she had to have surgery on her leg because her laptop caught on fire while it was sitting on her lap. (Mine is sitting on my lap while I am typing this, which has me a little freaked out) She has pictures on her blog. Isn't that the craziest thing!

Big Girl Hair Cut.

Anna went to her first appointment with Auntie Heather today. She was starting to look a little shabby! She was a very good girl and sat mostly still. Here are a few pictures of Anna before and during her hair cut.

She started to get a little fussy and wiggely so I dug a cookie out of her bag. She was very excited about that and sat still the whole rest of the time. It was a pretty quick appointment though since all she got was a trim. Maybe next time we will go for a color. :)

Here are her after pictures. Auntie Heather put a little moose in her hair and got it all curly. It was very cute. It was actually a lot of fun to get her hair cut. I didn't get as sappy as I thought I would. Seeing as my baby is getting so big .

It does seem like it is all of the sudden that she is getting so big. She has seemed so tiny to me for months and then two days ago Neil says that he thinks she weighs a lot more then she used to. At her 9 month appt. she weighed 17lbs 7 oz, at her 1 year appt. she weighed 17lbs 11 oz. So in three months she gained like 4 oz and grew only 1/4 of an inch. Well, I weighed her yesterday and she weighed 19 lbs. 4 oz. She gained like 2 pounds in 2 weeks. That is just crazy. I haven't measured her yet, but her pants are starting to look really short. And I think I missed the whole size 2 shoe thing. I went to put some on her yesterday and there was no way they were going on. And they were really cute shoes too!

Anna's Birthday

Well, as I am sure you all know Anna is a whole number now. Yep! She's ONE! I can not believe she has been living with us for a whole year. It is so bazaar, and it has been so fabulous!
Here is her CUTE one year picture. Neil took it for me while I got her to smile. It worked out pretty good. He got quite a few real cute pictures.

She didn't dig into her cake very much. I think she was a little weirded out that everyone was watching her.
She did have a lot of fun opening up her presents though. She loved to look at her books. And she got this one jogging suit from Tina and Shane that is so soft and Anna loves to feel it. It is so funny. Dave took a video of Anna opening her presents for me, it was so fun to watch the other day. I love taking videos of her because She will never be this small again. And I don't want to forget a single day! Although I don't film her every day. It is just nice to be able to look back and see how sweet she was. Because I am sure the day will come when I am going to wonder who has taken over my child's body! But I still have about 12 years before that happens. . .

Mobile . . .

Baby Anna is crawling all over the place. It is so adorable to watch her little bottom wiggle when she crawls. She roams around the house to her little hearts content. I have put a little point of interest for her in every room, so that way she has something to go to when she get there. Anna has never felt the need to follow me around the house. As soon as she started to crawl she was off doing her own thing. She does come and look for me after awhile and I have to tell you, one of the first places she looks is in the bathroom. I think she is finally used to the sound of me being sick. Poor thing. Poor me! :) I am so thankful that she plays so well by herself. I love to be doing something and then hear her get so excited about some new thing she does. It is adorable to watch her when she gets proud of herself. She is such good company. Well, she does have her days, but then again so do I. I have loved every stage so far with her. She has taken her sweet time to do stuff so I don't really feel like any of it has flown by. I feel like I really have gotten to cherish every day with her. Don't get me wrong though. . . I CAN NOT believe she has been with us for almost a year. Of course I can not believe Neil and I have been married for 7 and a half years. CRAZY!!!

I donated my hair to "locks of love" this week. That was kind of fun. It was kind of funny because Neil called me in the middle of getting my hair cut and he says "Well, don't go to short" and I said "Too late. You have to give them at least 10 inches and my hair is only like 11 inches long" He didn't sound to happy. But it is only that short in the back, the front is just about to my ears. And it is kind of fun for me that Neil can kiss the back of my neck now. I didn't know how much I would enjoy that.

OH!!!!! There is this HUGE exciting thing happening at our house. We are having a ground breaking ceremony for Paul and Emily. Our friends bought the lot next to ours and they owned it yesterday. I told them for my birthday I wanted to dig a hole in their dirt. So we are going to sit on their dirt and imagine what their house is going to look like. It's going to be GREAT!

Um . . . 8 weeks.

Well, it has been much to long since I have updated. But I got to tell you it is mostly because I feel like CRAP!!! And why you may ask that is worth blogging about? Well, the biggest news in our house is that Anna is going to be a sister! She is VERY excited. When Neil and I sat her down and told her the wonderful news she was elated. I mean really she could barely sit still so was so happy! I think she is hoping for a sister. But Neil is pretty sure she is hoping for a brother. It is weird to me that she probably won't remember the time she was an only child. She has been so much fun to watch grow. And she is so amazingly brilliant. She is not really a driven baby. But she is so quick to figure stuff out, it is almost like I can see her little brain working.

Any way, I still haven't been to the doctor yet. Mostly because I can't decide on one and our insurance is a little non existent right now. So we are praying and waiting for that to work out. I am alot sicker this time too. I always felt weird with Anna, but it never added up to much. This time I have made quite a little friendship with our toilet. My first trimester should be over at the end of the month. So I am hoping and praying I will feel better then.

I got Anna's hair into her first pigtail last week. It is amazing how much cuter she keeps getting. I mean really how is that possible?

Facebook

Okay I just spent like two hours on Facebook. It was really fun looking at everyone's pictures and seeing their families and what they have been up to. But I must say i am a bloger. You wouldn't know it for my lack of updates lately. But it is true. It was really nice to chat with some friends i haven't seen in like 6 years though!

So Neil, Anna and I went over to a friend's House last week and had our pictures taken. They have a beautiful back yard. And they even made us dinner! It was awesome! Here are a couple of the pics! Arn't we just the cutest little family!?!
Anna has been growing by leaps and bounds lately. Everyday she adds something new to her "I can do that!" list. We even had to lower her bed because she is now pulling herself up! It is just crazy! I left her in her room the other day and went to get ready and I could hear her working really hard and getting closer. And all of the sudden her cute little head popped around the corner into my bathroom. She is just SOOOO much fun. And get this she even let me sleep in until 10:30 today! Isn't that just AMAZING!

Wedding Photos

Brenda and I took pics at a wedding a few weekends back. I have never taken pictures at a wedding were the groomsmen were so fun and interactive. They were so fun to work with. Although most of the wedding pictures are in color, some of my favorites look so good black and white. I have spent about 30 hours working on these. This was my first wedding were I went all digital and did all my own processing. So I just wanted to share some of the fruits of my labor.

The bride's grandma actually picked out her shoes. Arn't they just adorable!





There is an elderly gentleman in their church who has this old car. And he brought it just so I could use it in pictures. They turned out soooo cute. We even took some out the back window!
I think I am definitely getting better each time around! And I am learning to be more relaxed and have fun with it. I am still having a hard time not just putting everyone in a nice pretty row. But when you have 14 people what else I you supposed to do with them?

Nope! Which is a good thing!

Well, just to let you know. . . So far . . . no more calls! Mr. Tellemarketer has not called back! I did leave the house kind of early the next day, but they have left messages on my machine before, and so far nothing. If they call again I am turning them in though!
So hope you all enjoyed your 4th! Neil and I had a great time. I will post pictures!

Something Dull, Something New and Something Unbelievable!

Well let's see, Toy Story came out in 1995 and this is 2008. So that is like what 13 years. Well, I think Pixar had a great run, but they have hit their stride. Neil and I went to see Wall.e a few nights ago, and let me tell you it is a misser. It is not even a renter. I say miss it all together. The only animated people in the film were like 400 pound people who can't even get out of there chairs. And because they have been sitting so long (like 3,500 years) they have lost bone mass. So their bodies can't even support them Which is really funny because there were little fat babies laying around. You've got to wonder how they got made if these fat people never got out of their chairs. In fact in the end it was a HUGE achievement for the captain to be able to stand on his own! It was STUPID! Wall.e was cute but that is the only good thing I can say about this movie. And I thought I wouldn't be a true friend if I didn't try and warn you in some way. So there you go.
On a brighter side I can do something that I have never been able to do before. I can touch my toes! WaHoo for me!

Okay, now here is something that I am just FUMING about! This telemarketer has been calling since we moved in here and I have always just hung up. Well, this morning was the second time their call has woken Anna up because they call at like 8:00 in the morning. So I decided to ask for the operator. So this is how the conversation went.
"How can I help you?" Well, actually I am really frustrated because your calls keep waking my kid up and I would really appreciate it if you did not call anymore!" I was kind of harsh.
"Well, if you have a bill with us, we are just going to keep calling you!" He was harsh.
"I've never signed up for anything with your company before." I was mad!
"You don't have to sign up for anything! We will just call you tomorrow!" He was rude!
"I don't have an account with you!" I was flabbergasted!
"Have a nice day and we will call you tomorrow!" And then he hung up on me.
I can not even tell you how angry I am! And our number is even on the Do Not Call list! If he calls tomorrow someones head will roll!

So how is your morning?

Two Brand New Boys!

James and Erica, and Dave and Nicole had their babies!
They were less than 12 hours apart, but they were born on different days.

Gabriel was born at 7:49 pm on June 16th. 6lbs 13 oz and 19.5 inches long. Gabriel Ryan Burnett

Landon was born at 5:11 am on June 17th. 7 lbs 8 oz and 20 inches long.

Landon Everett Stark

Bubbles

We had a BIG day on Friday! Anna has now added bubble blowing to her "things I can do list". She was so excited and proud of herself. About half way through the day she even figured out how to include her tongue into the scenario. She is Brilliant!  I had so much fun just listening to her. And it is just to cute not to share!  

You will notice at one point in this clip she scoots herself backwards a few inches. She is starting to pull her knees in under her a little and she is kicking her little feet a lot too. So maybe soon we will be crawling. But I must say I am just loving this little kid. She is so much fun to be around! I adore that she still lets me cuddle her and kiss on her. And she is still content to just sit in my lap!

In fact she and I sat in the front yard with Daddy yesterday and watched him get really wet. Neil and I worked on the front yard all day yesterday (although I must admit that Neil's day started a little sooner than my day!) We got the whole yard done! (Much thanks goes out to Jed, who in his own curiousity had to stop by and see how it was going) (really Jed, you should learn not to wear such nice clothes when you come over!)

We got all of the border bricks in and the sprinklers done and the seed on and the peat moss on (that's the part Jed helped with).  And we even got our stepping stones down. Of course we broke two so you can't get anywhere! Now we do the waiting game! Anxiously we wait for little green specs in our yard to fight there way through and become OUR FRONT LAWN! We do still have to put in some planter boxes, but it is super nice to have the grass down. We are hoping we got it in before the heat burns it too bad. And just think we still GET to do the back yard! 

While Jed was graciously helping us last night, Jennifer got to give Anna a bath. I had to run out for Neil and pick up some stuff. Since we were playing in dirt all day Anna was DIRTY! So Jennifer offered to give baths while I was gone! Sounds good to me. Anna HATES her bath (I need to film it one of these days so you can all enjoy it like I do) I was hoping that maybe if she took baths with kids who love their bath maybe she would get a clue. Apparently no such luck. Jennifer said she hates it still! Well, thanks anyway Jennifer. 

Well, I think that is all for now. Have a great day!

Hat Night!

Well, since G.G. is getting ready to move to Arkansas, Dixie and Aunt Martha have been going through that house like crazy people! I am pretty sure they feel like crazy people too. G.G. and Gramps have lived in this home since the mid 70's, so there is a lot of history in there. Aunt Martha found G.G.'s hat box the other night and got it out to show Tessa. Tessa just Loved it! She really loves to play dress up. While we were over for dinner last night Tessa got the hat box out again and brought it into the living room where we were all chatting. She proceeded to pass the hats out to everyone and then switch them around on our heads.
G.G. said that some of the hats she wore to Washington D.C. one year. I wish I would have thought to ask when that was. G.G has some seriously adorable hats! Very stylish! She even had ones that were covered in feathers. So Cute!

Afternoon with G.G.

Anna and I got to go see Neil's Grandmother this afternoon and just sit with her for awhile. It is not often that I get to just visit with her (yes, I know this is my fault) She is actually getting ready to move to Arkansas on the 1st of June, so there is not a lot of picture opportunities left. So I thought I would snatch this one up! It was really fun to watch her and Anna playing together! So here are a couple of the pics I took today. Enjoy!

Finally More Pictures!

Seriously how cute is she? This is Anna with Timothy mouse (who is sitting on top of Dumbo's hat). This is one of the statues around the "Partners" Statue (the one of Walt Disney and Mickey) at the end of Main Street. I wonder what was there before they put that statue in? I don't remember.

Brenda found out that if you go to City Hall on Main Street they will give you a button if it is your 1st visit. So we got one for both of the girls.

Mickey Mouse is leading the Marching Band out of the castle. We stood and watched them ply for a while and a bunch of characters came out and danced around.

Anna on the Carousel

Anna trying to pull out the Sword in the Stone. Or maybe she thougth she could chew it out!

In front of City Hall in Mikey's Toontown

Family picture with the Mouse Himself. I love how Anna was so willing to reach out for the characters and try to chew on them. I wonder when or if you will get to the stage where she is afraid of them. I wonder what causes kids to become afraid.

Waiting in line to meet Pooh in Critter Country

Finally getting to meet him! Anna just reached right out for him.
She just thought it looked so fun and adorable.

On Main Street with Grandpa!

Meeting Donald Duck!

Main Street at Night!

This is the last picture I took just before we got to the car. Anna picked out some Disney Princesses for a soviner. I held out a T-Shirt to her and this Cinderella and she reached right out for the doll. I love how happy she looks in this picture! Like she just had the best day! It was a super fun day, but it was VERY hard to fit everything in that we wanted to do. We missed doing a whole bunch of stuff that we thought we would have plenty of time for. May next trip!?!