Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Anabelle's favorite word is no. She is even saying no when she really means yes. We're working on the yes, and it seems to get better on and off. She is says "Meee- ow!" everytime she sees a Jasper. She is also saying "woof-woof-woof" when she sees every dog but Hobie. She has been calling Hobie "ho-ho" and now that is morphing into "ho (slight pause) be."

Emma Rose shares her dessert (aka reward for eating a meal) with Anabelle. Anabelle follows her relentlessly or stands right by her chair until Emma Rose carefully puts a bite of dessert in her mouth. Anabelle stays right with Emma Rose and says more. If this is not rewarded with another bite, the more gets insistent and leads to a scream. Emma Rose is such a sweet big sister and a great sharer!

Monday, January 26, 2009

I am convinced there are two kinds of babies when it comes to bath times: poopers and non-poopers. Emma Rose is a bath tub non-pooper. Anabelle is a bathtub pooper. She mostly poops in the tub on John's watch, but she got me last week. I told John I got paid back for all the times I laughed at him when Anabelle pooped in the tub when he was in charge of bath time.


After the poop, it is quite an evolution getting both girls out of the tub, wrapping them in towels, scooping out the poop, disinfecting the tub, washing the disinfectant out of the tub, re-washing the girls, and keeping the contaminated towels away from freshly cleaned girls. The litter box scooper has been invaluable in these situations.


John is pretty vigilant about looking for signs of a possible poop. He's very aware of the pre-toot that warns of the poop. He snatches her out of the tub so fast that she barely has time to protest. Emma Rose is now scared of the bath tub poop. Last week during the bath after the bath time poop, Emma Rose said to me, "If you see brown, you get me out." We've also decided to limit bubbles in the tub as they hide poop if we have an incident. I do not have pictures for this.


Last week, Anabelle had a milestone. She fed herself her entire dinner with a spoon. It was pretty messy, but the mess was worth the gain. When I was setting the table, Anabelle insisted that I give her a fork, which is code for either a fork or a spoon, which ever one is appropriate for the meal. She would not let me have the spoon and would not take a bite from any other spoon except for the one she was holding. She switched back and forth between her left and right hands, so there is no "handedness" so far.












Last Friday, John and I took Emma Rose to look at a pre-school. She loved it! She is asking if she can go now. John and I are still thinking about sending her for the remaining school year. We're not quite sure if it's worth getting her started two thirds of the way into the year. If we get a spot for next year, it will be a big step for all of us.


Emma Rose has also become addicted to the Backyardigans, which means I have the songs constantly running through my head. Last week, Emma Rose was in the bathroom with me and started singing the theme song to Fairy Tale Village. I absent mindedly started singing along. Emma Rose paused and said, "Mommy, you don't sing as pretty as I do." Thanks, Emma Rose.


John received his personalized license plate in the mail. Sea represents the time he spent in the Navy, and Pony is, of course, representative of the Mustang.


In birding news, we have seen several more pine siskins. There was a group of 6 or 7 at the feeders last week. I was totally excited, but I scared them away when I got out the camera. I was only able to get a picture of a loner pine siskin. We also had a pine warbler at the feeder a few days ago. It was an good week!



Sunday, January 11, 2009

Pictures from Aquarium Visit

Here are pictures from the Georgia Aquarium visit last week: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8QYs3Ldo5at1g. It's not easy to get a good picture of some of the creatures through the glass.


The last picture is from above the 'touch and feel' sting ray and shark exhibit. I'm not sure of the real name for it. It was Emma Rose's favorite spot. She keeps asking if we can back tomorrow.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

I can't believe that it's the 10th of Janaury already. It seems like we haven't recovered from the Christmas holidays just yet. It's back to the real world for us, and that begins with John starting to travel again. This time he is headed to Pittsburgh to work with a reputable ketchup company. He checked the weather, and the temperature won't get above 25 for the first week. At least here, I can rest assured that we'll only see 25 degrees one or two times in the next week, and we may even see 65 degrees a couple of times. The weather is doing some crazy stuff. Today we have rain again. We need it.

Anabelle is saying more and more words thanks to the peer pressure from Cousin Marlee. Marlee is a machine and will repeat anything you ask her to say. I am very proud I taught her to say ta-tas and tooshie! She would squat and bounce a little when she said tooshie. How cute! Anabelle's favorite two words are "eat" and "milk." She really emphasizes the 'k' in milk. She also likes to say book and does the same with the 'k' in that word, too.

This morning, a little milk dribbled out of her sippy cup, she got a towel from the kitchen, and wiped it up! John and I could not believe what we saw! I hope that trend continues, and she's neat and clean with everything. Maybe that will help eliminate the stains on her clothes. She refuses to wear a bib, and everything she eats somehow ends up on her shirt, pants, and head (occassionally).

Emma Rose has two new baby giraffes that Santa left for her in her stocking. She named them Grape and Giraffe. When Auntie Cathy handed out party horns for Uncle Eric's mini-surprise birthday party, Emma Rose was in love. The new name for Giraffe became Party Horn. She has been consistent with that name ever since. Today, we played puppet show, and Grape and Party Horn were two of the main characters. She can also tell them apart. Since they are identical twins, that's quite impressive.

Emma Rose has also started to insist that she put her own hair bow in her hair. She misses most of the hair the hair bow should hold out of her eyes, but this is one more step toward independence. She's growing up so fast!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

After a really great Christmas morning, we started to get ready for the rest of the day. I volunteered to make Christmas dinner for 10 other unsuspecting family members! That means I was feeding 14 people Christmas dinner, and (surprise) I had never cooked a turkey before! I had a fresh turkey to make sure I didn't have to worry about thawing a frozen one. Why make matters more complicated than they should be? I started cooking dinner on Christmas Eve and finished up most of the other side dishes on Christmas day.

Mid morning on Christmas day, John opened the turkey after I tried to do it but almost puked. Raw meat tends to gross me out, especially if it looks pretty similar to the way it looked when alive. He took out what he thought was all of the goodies from the inside. He put the turkey in the roasting pan, and I covered it with a marinade, which turned out pretty well. I put the 13.5 pound turkey in the oven early enough, so it would be ready with an hour to spare. In the midst of cooking it, I accidently turned off the oven for about 30 minutes. The turkey was ready about an hour and half after dinner time. It was moist and yummy, especially since everyone was starving!!

On the 27th, we visited my grandmother, Mamaw. We came back home and then went to Maryville. On the 30th, we went to a playground and had a great time. Anabelle especially had a great time on the slide! We stayed in Maryville until the 31st. Auntie Cathy, Uncle Eric and Marlee stopped by our house on their way back to Jacksonville on the 1st. On the 2nd, a Friday, we had a brilliant idea to go to the Georgia Aquarium! (Grammy: we confirmed it is the largest aquarium in the world.) John and Eric waited in line for an hour in the rain to get tickets. Cathy, the girls, and I tried to stay dry. Once we were inside, it was very crowded. It seemed like we were on display as sardines for the exhibits. All in all, it was fun and I'm so glad we went!

During Cathy, Eric, and Marlee's visit, Emma Rose played the Wii and did really well on the power throw in bowling. Marlee cheered her on! We also had a mini surprise birthday party for Eric. Eric and John played a game online and sat at opposite ends of the dining room table. They stayed up until 2 am on Friday night.

The aquarium was so much fun that we bought season tickets and went back again yesterday! We were able to see the exhibits and relax. Emma Rose had a wonderful time, and her favorite sea animal is the sting ray. (Her favorite land animal is still the giraffe.) The sting ray 'touch and feel' exhibit was a huge hit, and we went back there a couple of times. Anabelle tried to jump in because she wanted to touch them, too! She looked at the fish, especially in the Ocean Voyager exhibit, but her favorite part was eating graham crackers from the little cup comparment in her stroller.

Every Christmas since we became parents, I think that the Christmas were in is my favorite one. Again, this Christmas, it was my favorite. Emma Rose loved the mystery of Santa, being with family, and all of the excitement. Anabelle isn't quite sure about everything, but she seemed to enjoy everything that Emma Rose did. She also had a good time with Marlee and all of the other family. Anabelle and Marlee are going to be so much fun when they start playing together rather than side by side.

Link to only 85 of the more than 300 pictures: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8QYs3Ldo5at1C