HaPpY hAlLoWeEn!!!

Here's our little Minnie Mouse! We were not sure how Annabel would take to the trick-or-treating because she's a little weary of strange things and people right now, but I guess I underestimated the power of free candy! She and Brooklyn went out together, and the just marched up to each door and said "trick-or-treat!" and usually even "thank you." They were scared a few times by some of the decorations, and at times some of the bigger kids in scary costumes, but all in all they did great! We were only out for about a half hour, but that works for us..... she got plenty of candy, even in that short time. Annabel's third Halloween was a huge success!

Annabel and Brooklyn getting ready to go

I took about a dozen of these shots, and in at least half of them these two clowns were making silly faces. They crack me up. :)

....and they're off!

Annabel and Brooklyn with our neighbors, Nathan and Abby. Nathan was a knight in shining armor (and prince!) and Abby was "Fancy Nancy"

Brooklyn was a very pretty Cinderella

Taylor was a casual observer for the night.... she was a good little trick-or-treater, even if she didn't get any of the candy.

It has been another incredible fall weekend in Indiana, and we have definitely been enjoying it! This weekend Nate went out to Death Valley, CA to ride in a 100 mile ride for juvenile diabetes research (riding 90 miles of it in 105 degree heat - not bad for someone who's only been in training for about 3 months!), so Annabel and I decided to go up to Lafayette for the weekend. It's been a while since we went for a long visit and could make some of the family rounds, so it's been nice seeing everyone.

On Saturday morning we went to the Purdue Homecoming tailgate with Annabel's cousins, Hannah and Abby.... there was a birthday cake at our tailgate, so Annabel thought that was pretty great - it's not every day that a 2 year-old gets to have cake at 10 in the morning! We hung out with them until it was nap time, and had a lot of fun trying to keep up with the big girls. That afternoon we went to a pumpkin patch with Grandma and Grandpa and helped them pick out the perfect pumpkins. There were lots of fun things to do at this pumpkin patch, so we spent a while there playing in hay mounds and things like that. That's where most of the pictures in this post came from. Today (Sunday) has been pretty quiet...... church in the morning and then lunch back and Grandma and Grandpa's house (or Woody's house, as Annabel calls it - Woody is their dog). Right now Annabel is napping, and we're waiting for her Great Grandma to come over and play after she wakes up from her nap. Then we're headed home! It's a lot of fun crammed into one weekend, but we've enjoyed it!

Annabel has always been timid with animals at the petting zoos we've been to, but out of nowhere she found a new braver side of herself. She just marched into the pen where these goats were kept, and went around petting all of them!

Favorite part of the pumpkin patch? The big hay mound for sure!

This was a big bunch of hay headed in my direction!

Riding in the wagon with the "perfect pumpkin"

She also found a "baby" sized pumpkin that she could carry

Checking out the prospects with Grandma

"I do it myself!"

Hanging out at grandma and grandpa's house, pushing them on the swing. She helped them go "real high!"

Happy Labor Day! We have really enjoyed our long weekend... we didn't go anywhere, but that doesn't mean that we weren't busy! As usual the weekend filled up fast, and we are tired as we get ready to go back to work and school. Here is a look at what we did, going backwards:

Today was my dad's birthday, so he and my mom came down to Indy. This was at dinner.... Annabel was coming off a sugar high because she got her very own hot fudge sundae for dessert. The girl definitely has my sweet tooth - I wish we could have gotten a picture of her face when they put that thing in front of her and she realized it was just for her - priceless!

Really, we don't just feed our daughter junk food, I swear.... On Saturday of Labor Day weekend we took Annabel and her friend Drew to the Indianapolis Indians game. They were so good, we treated them to ice cream, and they loved it. Annabel ate every last bite. :)

Drew loved his ice cream as well - what a cutie!

It turns out that two 2-year olds don't really care so much that there is a baseball game on. We kept them interested mostly by horsing around. Nate was their favorite form of entertainment.

These two are so cute together

Annabel at Victory Field - "what baseball game?"

The weather was so beautiful here this weekend, we did just about everything we could to stay outside. Saturday morning we headed to the park, and Annabel had the place pretty much to herself. It's so crazy to see how much better she has gotten at navigating the playground equipment. The last time we went to this park she spent most of her time at the little kids section, but not this time! She's big stuff now.

Even though she can handle the big girl swings, Annabel knows she gets to go higher in this swing. So she was all about them, and wanted to go as high as we would let her.

This was actually from the weekend before... Annabel loves wearing mommy's shoes!

Just another self shot from home.... this was right after I got back from my business trip to Brazil, and we enjoyed a little girl time. I braided Annabel's hair, gave her a pedicure, and watched a little Dora. It was a great morning!

Look at my pink toes!

....and look at my braid! Daddy can't do that. :)

Last, but not least, I've got a couple of videos for you all.... the first is Annabel riding her bike, all by herself. This is a pretty recent development, and I was so proud of her! The second is one that I took when we were just hanging out at home. The video is long, but I couldn't figure out which part to cut out.... it all cracked me up so much! If you haven't seen Annabel in a while, this is 100% her, uncut. :)

Annabel and her two BFF's - Dora and Cheetah. This is her "I want to smile, but I'm not going to" face.

Summer Madness

Wow - it's been over two months since my last post! Sorry about that, we've had a few things going on this summer. June and July were total madness, with work travel, fun travel, weddings, holidays, etc. Thankfully I think things may slow down soon, but of course that just means we'll be able to cram in all of the things we have been wanting to do, so things won't stay slow for long. Oh well, at least we're having fun!
So at the end of May we took a trip to Houston, TX to visit Nate's Dad and his family, which I'll have to post separately because I took a ton of cute pictures from that trip. Other than that, we've been to Ontario, Canada, for my friend Jess Avery's wedding, stopping in Cleveland and Buffalo on the way to visit friends. Annabel stayed with my parents for that trip, which was awesome for us to be able to have some couple time away (and she had a blast). In that span of time we also got Annabel's 2 year pictures taken, which you'll see below. The photo session was my Christmas present, and I absolutely loved it. Annabel didn't love the session, but thankfully you can't see that in the pictures. The photographer is Sara Wilhelm, of Sprinkles of Light Photography.... she was amazing with Annabel, and I just love the pictures. So anyone in the Indy area, I'd highly recommend her!
Annabel continues to develop by leaps and bounds.... she pretty much talks non-stop these days. She says some funny things, and parrots just about everything that comes out of our mouths. This is dangerous, but so far no swear words have come out (that I've heard/understood)! She loves to sing, with her current favorites being "Bringing home a baby bumble bee" and "Baa baa black sheep". She's got a whole lot of attitude, but generally speaking is still pretty well behaved for a toddler - I think. She's just recently started exclaiming "oh my gosh," which is funny.... especially when accompanied by an eye roll (Nate was the recipient of that one). Annabel is SO dramatic - everything she says is SO whatever. "Mommy, I'm SO tired, SO hungry, SO sad, SO happy." Her day care teacher told me that she gets that from her friend Izzy (which was good because I was afraid I was the one talking like that). She said that Annabel and Izzy are the drama queens in the room, and that together they are hilarious. I wish I could see!
Her imagination seems to have hit over drive recently, which is fun to watch. She'll have long and detailed conversations with Grandma on the phone - even when there is really just a dial tone on the other end. Tonight at dinner, she did this except her "phone" was a glass of milk. She's not picky! Her two best friends are Dora and Cheetah, whom she takes everywhere she goes. Today she insisted on putting diapers on both of them before we went to the grocery store..... and when she has to potty, we first have to go through the routine of taking off each of their diapers and letting them go first. Cheetah is a new addition since the last time I posted... during one of our trips to the zoo I thought it would be fun to get her a stuffed giraffe, since she had been talking about giraffes a lot lately. So we went into the gift shop, and I tried to get her to pick out a giraffe. Annabel, however set her sights on a great big stuffed cheetah - a $27 cheetah, to be exact. I tried every trick I knew to convince her that she really wanted the $10 giraffe, or even the smaller $15 cheetah - but it was love at first site and there was no tricking or persuading her. So now we have a $27 cheetah in the house, who is appropriately named Cheetah. I console myself with the fact that at least she loves him dearly, and it wasn't an expensive souvenir that she got bored with the next day. Cheetah goes everywhere that Dora does, but if she has to bring one she still picks Dora - poor Cheetah is still playing second fiddle, unfortunately.

Ok, so that's the update for now. Here are the pictures that have been a long time coming! First, the photo shoot.

She looks so sweet and cute here, you would never guess that she was being such a clingy whiner just minutes before that Sara and Nate sent me away. Isn't that sad? I had to hide behind a tree so that she would cooperate.

Family pic :)

Although we are trying very hard to break this habit, I do love this picture. It is SO Annabel.

Random night when Brooklyn and her family came over for dinner. They played outside before, so we decided to grab a bath after dinner. We put them in the big tub in our bathroom, and they had a blast!

Another random afternoon..... this is Annabel and her buddy Drew. They were enjoying a snack after taking a swim in the pool.

We finally found time to go back and use the family pass to the Children's Museum that we purchased a while back. We went early, which was great because Annabel pretty well had the run of the place. Here she is on one of her two carousel rides:

Mommy, too!

This is a cute little ice cream parlor where the kids can pretend to make and sell ice cream. Annabel loved it, and served us up some tasty treats.

It's probably no surprise that we also spent a lot of time in the science section. Here Daddy tries to teach a lesson on water flow.

Another random moment caught on film.... we played a little dress-up at home. Doesn't she look pretty?

Nate's dad came for a visit last weekend and we headed for one of our favorite spots, the zoo. We got really lucky because a rain shower had come through just before we got there, and left us with a small window of overcast and slightly cooler weather. It was fantastic because all of the animals came out to play! I mean, all of them, without exception... even the ones that you never ever see because they are hiding in a tree, or under a rock or something. Check out how close we got to the female lion - and you can't see it very well, but the male was just behind her hanging out on that big rock. SO cool!

Another carousel ride - it's her favorite, can you tell?

And that brings us to this weekend. We headed to Fort Wayne to see my cousin Jim marry his beautiful bride, Victoria. It was a great wedding, and a rare opportunity to get all of my mom's side of the family together. As you'll see below, Annabel basically had the best night of her life at the reception.... she loved the music and danced til she dropped.

Here's a rare picture of me and my "little" brother

The bride and groom

Annabel owned the dance floor, as well as her uncle. He went where he was told!

With all the dancing, it was HOT in there! Here's a picture of a very sweaty Annabel and her Daddy.

Don't be fooled, this wasn't the end of the night - she rallied!

Annabel dancing with the groom.... and that is my super cute great-uncle & aunt behind them looking on. They've been married for over 60 years I think - so sweet!

Apparently it's a tradition in this area to do the chicken dance with ridiculous hats on your head... Annabel was a big fan, and selected a monkey hat. She loved watching everyone dance around with these things on! I wish I had got a picture of Victoria.... I've never seen a bride with a pink octopus hat on before!

Daddy got a hat, too. :)

This is on our way home today.... we grabbed lunch at a mexican place, and Annabel got to wear another hat. So cute!

One last thing.... some dancing videos! Here are some clips from the wedding. You might notice that Annabel was barefoot. It's not that her shoes were uncomfortable, because they were not. But if all the big girls were going to run around barefoot, then by god, so would she!






Ok, that's it for now. I'll post pictures from Houston next, and try not to get so far behind in the future!!!