A conversation with Annabel

This is most days for us..... makes me smile! :)

Today's your birthday!

Oh man, what a weekend! I still find it hard to believe that Annabel turned two years old today, but I suppose my serious exhaustion should be enough to convince me. Yesterday was Annabel's birthday party, and today we just celebrated at home with our little family of 3. The party was great.... My parents, brother and sister came, as well as Nate's mom, sister, brother-in-law and nieces. We were also joined by 3 of my friends and their kids and husbands. Annabel had a blast playing hard all afternoon and into the evening with her friends. She got lots of great presents, with her favorite being a Minnie Mouse doll that Brooklyn gave her. She has not put down since she got it.... Minnie has pottied, been fed blueberries, had coffee, and taken a few naps. As if pottying doesn't take long enough, now we have a mouse that has to come too??? :)

Today we played it pretty low key. I think Annabel was still worn out from yesterday (even after sleeping 13 hours), so she was pretty cranky this morning and we decided to hold off on any outings until after nap. Then she slept for 3 hours, so when she did finally wake up we didn't have a whole lot of day left. But we went out for some shopping anyway, and had a birthday dinner at On the Border. Annabel was excited because she got a salad, which is her new favorite thing. She didn't like it as much as an Arni's Junior, which is no surprise to me, but she still enjoyed the ranch dressing.... it cracks me up that she was chanting "salad, salad" at dinner! After that we came home, had cupcakes, opened presents and watched some Dora. All in all, I think Annabel had a pretty good day!

Here are some pictures from our weekend:

CHEESE! This was cupcake round #2, tonight. She actually only licked off the frosting. Oh well!

Brooklyn and Annabel trying out her birthday present from Nate & I - a little table and chair set.

My parent's got Annabel a Cinderella crown and fun dress up shoes. The shoes actually de-railed the whole present opening, because once she had them on all she wanted to do was walk around. Mommy had to finish opening her gifts. This girl LOVES her shoes. :)

Annabel enjoys her cupcake at the birthday party

Annabel's buddies - Mady, Brooklyn and Drew

The birthday princess

Yet another new pair of shoes.... These boots are made for walking!

I tried all weekend to get a cute picture with me and Annabel, and this was all I could get. It's so hard to get a cute picture, because she's so stubborn!

And tomorrow starts the third year..... pretty impossible to believe, but I am excited for all that it will bring!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

This was our minor effort to celebrate our partial Irish heritage on St. Patrick's Day - Last year I put green milk in Annabel's bottle, and I decided to try and make a tradition out of it. She could really care less this year, but I bet next year she will think it's kind of cool.....
We were able to enjoy the spring like weather today. Annabel particularly loves talking to the dogs in our back yard - behind the safety of our chain link fence, of course! She's so funny because she absolutely loves dogs, but only from a distance. She won't go near them on her own, and would be terrified if the dogs could actually get to her. Our neighbors have 5, and all are pretty big so they are particularly frightening. But with the fence, she can get close and have a conversation with them. Today one of them kept barking at her and she just stood there and said "What? What, puppy?" The dog never answered her. :)

Play time with Mommy

These pictures are from the playground at the Church behind our house. It's crazy to me to see how much better she can play on this stuff this year - she's so big! She has mastered the climbing wall, and loves to go down the tallest slide by herself. I am sure we'll be at the playground a lot this summer, because she loves it.

"Come on, Mom!"

Pottys and Tantrums galore!

As my good friend Lisa so nicely pointed out, it's been a little while since I've posted. It's the craziest thing - did you know that a toddler will keep you buys? OYE! Life is moving at a fast pace right now... we've got some big projects going on with the house (putting in an egress window in the basement to convert a bedroom), and then there is Miss Annabel. She is growing up at warp speed, and we are just trying to keep up!

This week, like it or not, we have started potty training. I wouldn't say that I wanted to start yet, but as my mother kindly pointed out, she was ready. So we've wrapped up the second full day, and so far so good! Don't get me wrong, we have had some tantrums and at times wrestling (that girl is STRONG!), but in general she is doing great. Her teacher at day care has been very impressed, and as long as you can ignore the occasional fit I really couldn't be happier. But man, it is tiring. Mostly because I think I get the worst of the tantrums for whatever reason. But we will make it!

In other news, she continues to be more and more talkative every day. Last night she even told me to go away - that was a new one! On Sunday she counted to 10 all by herself, and she can occasionally do the whole ABCs as well. I will try to get it on video, but for now if she thinks we're paying attention too close I think she messes up on purpose. She also knows some of her colors (but again gets them wrong when you ask because she thinks it's funny). Our favorite thing that she does right now is grab our hand and say "come on, Mom", or "come on, Dad"... sounds kind of common place but I think it's the way she says it that is so endearing. One of those sounds I hope I can always keep with me.

Annabel is really into pretend play these days.... she plays with babies constantly, and likes to take them everywhere we go and change their diapers and give them passies. It's super cute to watch for sure. She is also the biggest mimic you've ever seen. This morning I snapped the picture above, after Annabel found an old purse and insisted on carrying it to school. She also insisted that we find her toy keys, which she carried in her purse. And she had to wear a necklace like Mommy's. I can tell that it makes her really happy to be a "big girl" like me. Sigh.... my baby is growing up so fast! Who knew that she would be 2 so fast, and have accomplished so much by that time? It's amazing to me every day.

So anyway, that's what we've been up to...... sorry for the distance between posts. I'll try to be better! You can expect to hear from me after her birthday at least (just 2 weeks!). Here are some pictures.....

Just messing around last weekend

Did I mention that she also plays kazoo?

Still loves the telephone!

CHEESE!!!

and more CHEESE!

Annabel loves running around in her diaper..... and I love these blue eyes

Big news from a big girl!

Annabel went pee pee on the potty today, for the very first time! And, as if that were not excitement enough, she followed it up by singing her ABC's all the way to the letter T. My little girl is getting so big, I can hardly believe it.

My funny little valentine....

With a valentine like this, how could the day not be happy?

Happy belated Valentine's Day!! We had a good one.... Sunday was a very low key day at home, which was just fine with us. Saturday Nate and I went out for a rare night out, and it was great! We tried this cute little place called Richard's Kitchen, in Franklin, IN. If you've never been to Franklin, I'll just tell you that if you were passing through it you would NEVER think you'd find a place like this. If you live in the Indy area and enjoy delicious food at non-chain restaurants, I definitely recommend it. It's worth the drive.

Anywho, thankfully the weekend passed quietly compared to our last week.... I hadn't blogged about it because honestly I think I was still a bit too freaked out, but last week we had to take Annabel to the dentist for an emergency visit. To skip to the end, she is fine. To rewind, we were getting dressed on Thursday morning and Annabel started to throw a tantrum about who knows what.... she was being a real turd, so I walked out of the room and let her cry on the bed. I didn't worry about her being on the bed because she's very good at getting down now and we leave her up there often while she's watching tv. Anyway, from the next room I heard this terrible crash - it was such an awful loud noise that I didn't even think it could be her - I thought she threw something. And she was screaming before the loud noise (tantrum) and screaming after, so it didn't actually register that something was wrong at first. Well, turns out it was her, and on the way down her teeth took a chunk out of our nightstand. I have thought about it a lot since it happened, and every time it still makes my stomach turn. My poor baby was crumpled in a ball on the floor when I got there! Anyway, I just held her while she cried for a long time.... it was very pitiful and absolutely broke my heart. After some time I thought she was ok - checked her teeth and they didn't feel lose, and although she was bleeding a little bit she seemed alright so we trudged to work and day care. I no sooner got to work and day care called to say her mouth was still bleeding (it had been 2 hours by this point) and they thought we should take her to see someone. Nate was a hero and was able to get away from work to take her to a pediatric dentist.... I had been out of the office for two days for snow, and REALLY needed to be at work, so I was very torn. On one hand I knew with certainty that Nate could handle it and she would be just fine, but on the other hand it was TERRIBLE not being there! I just wanted so badly to hold her hand while she went through that frightening ordeal. :( Nate said she did really well..... was not a fan of the x-rays, but otherwise held it together. What a brave little girl! She was placed on a soft food diet for 2 days, and they said her front teeth were a little loose but that should fix itself. She's fine now, though every now and then we can tell her teeth are still a little sensitive. I'm glad it's all behind us, and I think next time she throws a tantrum I'll put her on the floor before I walk away.

In other, happier news, I have to report that Annabel has grown up so much in the past month or so! Believe it or not she's going to be moving to the 2yr-old room before the end of the month! Most of the time I think that can't possibly be true, but then I go into her current room and it's clear that she is so ready to join the big kids. She is talking constantly and is getting really good at communicating with us. She is putting together sentences, and surprises me with something new every single day. She tells me that Daddy is at work when he's not home, she shrieks with joy when we drive past Target... today she asked me to turn the light on when she wanted to play in the living room. Tonight after work we went to the grocery store, and she had to hold everything that I picked up... she would shout "it's COLD" when the food was frozen, and other times she would say "I hold it" and "don't drop it!" We had so much fun.... I remember when she was an infant holding on tight and wishing she would never get older and now I find myself doing it even more, and wishing even more furiously that time would slow down. We hold hands watching movies, and we have family hugs at her request. God, I'm almost tearing up just writing all of this..... ah, what a great age this is! I hope that even though she won't stay the same size, that she stays this sweet forever and we can always be buddies like we are today.

Well, sorry about the gush-fest. I realized that I hadn't given much information in my posts lately, and you all might be interested in knowing all the fun things Annabel has learned. And now that that's done, here are some more pictures of her in her Valentine's Day photo shoot. Her Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jerry sent her this adorable outfit, and so I just had to take abotu 20 pictures of it!

She's a moving target these days..... you've gotta be fast to get a picture!

Go Colts!

Even though our team was not victorious, that didn't keep us from having a great time at our Super Bowl party! Annabel's friends Brooklyn (aka "Book'in") and Drew were two of our guests, and Annabel was SO HAPPY to see them both! Brooklyn came over early, and for the first 30 minutes they just ran laps around the house and stopped every once in a while to squeal with excitement before running some more. It's so fun to watch. Here are some pictures from Annabel's second Super Bowl:

The cutest little cheerleaders you'll ever see!

Drew and Annabel - I'm already planning their wedding.... don't you think they'd have the cutest little blue eyed babies?

Brooklyn brought over this great game, which kept them busy during the real game. These little butterflies come out of the elephant's trunk and you're supposed to catch them in the net. But Annabel just squealed and jumped up and down. At least she had fun!

That's not how you catch butterflies!

Watching these two just makes me smile..... watch this, and you'll see why!