Christmas in Albany...

We had a great week in Albany! A few of the highlights:

Ready for the Giants - Carolina game - who knew what we were in for!

Here is a position that Anna takes often - kneeling in front of her toy box. She looks like such a big girl!

The annual ginger bread house constructed by Anna, Nana, Dad, & Mom. We even baked the ginger bread (or bought a kit, he, he)

Christmas Eve

Christmas morning

Anna loves her new basketball hoop...and she loves the basketball. She's just not quite aware that the ball and hoop are a pair yet...soon!

Hello, Gracie!

Now let me show you a few things, Aunt Anne

Anna's favorite new trick - "clap, clap, clap." She claps and everyone in the room claps after her. She likes it best when she can get all her grandparents to clap at the same time. Mom's trying hard to make it just as exciting by herself!

Then what happened?

Merry Christmas!

First sledding adventure

On Monday Anna had her first adventure playing in the snow. She took a couple loops around Grandma & Grandpa's front yard in a sled and topped off her ride going down a mini hill to the driveway. She seems to be shocked and amazed by this white world that we brought her to, but the sledding itself received mixed reviews. Maybe next year it will hold greater appeal.

visiting the homeland!

Yesterday we drove to Albany from Vienna. On the way we stopped in Binghamton, NY to visit Great Grandma Jane (who just had surgery & thankfully is doing very well!) and Great Aunt Diane. Here is a picture of Anna at Aunt Diane's house, which is actually the house where Anna's Great Grandpa Elvin and Great Great Uncle Grant grew up. Grandma Jane estimated that the house was purchased around 1920 by Anna's Great Great Great Grandpa and Grandma Courtright.


Anna had a great time crawling from room to room at Aunt Diane's house. I guess this was the first time since she has become a proficient crawler that she's been given free reign to explore a new house and she certainly took advantage of it!

I think, if I understand correctly, this house was one of the houses built by EJ Shoes for their employees. Grandma Jane actually grew up around the corner in a similar house, as her father also worked for EJ Shoes.

Binghamton, NY certainly is the homeland for my side of the family. My family moved away from Binghamton when I was 5, but both my brothers and I were born there and both my parents as well as Great Grandma Jane and Great Grandpa Elvin grew up there. And there are many relatives from both my parents' families living there today.

Next stops on the homeland tour: Landisburgh, PA (Nana's mother's family), Suffern, NY (Nana's father's family), and North Belmore, NY (Papa David's family).

Crawling is so yesterday!

Okay, so now that crawling is perfected, it's no fun to crawl anymore. Instead it's time to do anything and everything to try to see and explore higher than the crawling eye level. For a few days now Anna has actually been kneeling to see, to play, and to reach. She's also started to try to pull up to a standing position. I guess she has done this once in a while for a few weeks, but today it really seemed like what she wanted to do all the time! It's like she's constantly scanning the room to see what object might allow her to pull herself up higher. Another new trick is bear crawling. I saw Anna doing this for the first time last night. She can only do it for a few steps, but I'm sure we will be seeing more of it soon. Actually one other thing I noticed that Anna has learned is when you fall over, you should bend your head away from the floor instead of letting it flop - a very important lesson!

My world gets bigger everyday

It's fun to watch Anna discover more of her world each day. Obviously, she has discovered a lot in the past 8 months. In April she could only see a few inches in front of her and by June she still didn't know about her hands. However, in the past few weeks it has been fun to watch her discover new things on a daily basis by crawling. Even though she was a pretty proficient crawler a week ago, there were still parts of the house she didn't bother to check out. When we first put her new rug down in the dining room she really didn't have a lot of interest in leaving the rug area. She's changed her motive for crawling in the past week. Last week she crawled because she saw something she wanted. This week she crawls to see if she might find something she wants - just taking a little stroll to see what she can see. I can't remember what day it was, but one day in the past week she just crawled into the kitchen. Slowly she's realized that the cabinets and refrigerator do open (although she can't figure out how to open them herself) and that there is a shelf at her height with her tupperware on it. She's also just started to go in the other direction in the dining room. She's run into a few hurdles there - the dining room chairs are just low enough that everytime she crawls up to them, she bumps her head. And I know this is hard to believe if you haven't seen it, but she hasn't figured out how to duck her head so this basically stops her from going any further. The good news is that she no longer cries when she bumps her head. She has actually become a lot more resilent in the past week. She has taken so many tumbles and bumps - tumbles and bumps that previously resulted in a few wimpers - but now I guess she has realized that if she stops to wimper about each bump, there will be a lot less time for discovery!

In both the dining room and the living room she knows where her toy basket is and while she previously tried to play with the toys while reaching over the basket, she's figured out how to take them out of the basket to get a better look at them. Today she also discovered that if she props herself up on the banister next to the stairs, she might have a better shot at diving for the higher up ornaments on the tree.

And last, but certainly not least, today she crawled into the downstairs bathroom for the first time. Now that I have to watch her every minute, I usually put her in the living room so I can see her from the bathroom - ya know, when I have to use the bathroom, but today she decided to crawl right in and tip over the waste basket then launch for the plunger while I was trying to save the waste basket...a little bit of a disaster given that I was, well, trying to use the bathroom...

All I really want for Christmas...

is a piece of red ribbon!

Matt, Anna, & I did our Christmas in Vienna tonight and Anna's favorite gift so far is a piece of red ribbon...so easy to please :)

helping mom...

bake cookies:

If you won't let me eat the batter, I'll just eat this spoon.

sort the laundry:

Where is the matching sock?

All I want for Christmas...

are my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth...wait, no, I've got those...

Forgetting something?

Let me preface this story by saying that Matt is a fantastic father and very helpful husband, but this story has to be recorded:

On Saturday morning Matt & I woke up to hear Anna playing around in her crib. Matt went to get her while I stayed in bed a little longer (see, very helpful!). I could hear him greeting her, playing with her, and changing her diaper. Then the two of them came into our bedroom for Anna to play around on our bed for a little while - a fun Sat. morning tradition we have. She was crawling around and snuggling with us when I got a little feel of her butt...and it felt really...bare? "Matt, you put a new diaper on her, right?" "Uhhh, we'll be right back" I just started cracking up.

Take this, Dallas!

Superfan is ready for the game (but doesn't know she's going to bed shortly after kickoff):

Crawling updated & new play space!

I would now say Anna is a proficient crawler:

A few other stretching moves and cute noises:

This video also shows Anna's new play area. We created a new play space for Anna in our dining room for two reasons. First the long term reason: now Anna has a nice space to play where I can watch her from the kitchen. And the short term reason: her main play space is not in the same room as the Christmas tree! Matt & I are pretty excited about the new space. We turned our table the other way, moved the table to the side, got rid of a few cabinents full of breakable and tempting items, and poof we found some new space! It also is a good place for Anna to play while we are eating dinner.

A new tubby!

As tub time in Anna's little plastic tub that fits in our sink became more difficult, Matt & I realized it was time for Anna to hit the big-girl tub. Although we were both a little worried about just sitting her in our hard & slippery tub. We initially searched for a "bath seat," but couldn't find too many out there. We ended up finding this plastic inflatable tub that goes in our tub. We love it because it is easy for Anna to sit in, has a rough surface to sit on that is not slippery, and has the padded sides. Anna loves it too! In fact everytime she sees the tub she gets excited!

Anna's first Christmas Tree...

This past weekend we got our tree and for the most part decorated it:

I like this one - let's go!

hanging her first ornament (with a little help)

We still have a few more ornaments to put on the tree. Despite the fact that the tree was up on Friday, we've found that decorating with tree with Anna up is a little hard & somehow we ended up crashing on the coach during Anna's naps instead of finishing. Hopefully tonight!

Hanging with Cousin Liam...

While Anna has always been interested in Liam, Liam noticed Anna for the first time on this past trip to Albany. A few photos & movies of their interactions:

holding hands :)

Is this another cousin?

I'm ready for Santa!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Anna, Matt, & I have had a wonderful time visiting family for Thanksgiving! Here are a few great pictures from the week:

exersaucering before we left Vienna

couch time with Grandpa and Uncle Pete

story time with Great Grandma Jane

Nana lets me play with the remote control!

Liam says, "You won't be twice as old as me forever, Cousin Anna!"

It's cold in these northern parts!

Grandma is funny!

hanging with Aunt Diane

Uncle Danny doesn't always look so funny :)

Story Time

Since Anna was about 3 months old we've been reading stories to her before bed. Until recently, we've laid her on her back on our bed and held the books over her head. This has worked really well until a few days ago when Anna realized she might rather roll over, rock back and forth, "crawl" around, look for Filmore the frog, etc. So here is our new and improved reading position:

The book that Matt is reading to her, Dog, is certainly one of her favorites. Apparently last night it was the only one she wanted to hear...over and over and over again.

The definition of crawling continued...

On Monday night Matt & I noticed how much progress Anna had made toward crawling. We both thought that actual crawling would be coming very soon. We even placed a little bet. If Anna crawls before she goes to bed on Friday, I win and anytime after that Matt wins. So of course this bet involved Matt & I creating a strict definition of what it means to crawl: on your hands and knees, moving one hand than the other hand in a row along with the corresponding legs (and yes, Aunt Mary, this means you never crawled). The other rule was that we both had to see it. Now, on both Tuesday and Wednesday I saw Anna do this, but of course that doesn't count for our bet. So we'll see if she can pull out her true crawling moves for Dad by Friday.

Although she has not perfected true crawling, Anna is mobile! Her preferred method of locomotion is using the 1980's breakdancing move, the Worm:

In case you are curious, the object of Anna's desire is the packaging for some new toys I got her. She does actually like the toys too (some balls that make little noises), but she did like the packaging more. Today, now that moving is a little easier for Anna than yesterday and Tuesday, she will move to get a number of objects, but yesterday there was a short list of desirables worth the effort. One of them was the tag hanging off the end of her car seat (you can see it in the movie above). A second was the tray to her Bebepod chair. Yesterday she was worming across the room to get these two items (and only these two items). It's funny to see what strikes her fancy :)

Anna's critique on new foods this week:

Avocado - thumbs down
Banana - thumbs down
Zucchini - thumbs up!

First hair cut

On Sunday Anna had her first hair cut. There were a few hairs --- actually her newborn hair --- that had just grown long enough to get in her eyes. We didn't cut much so it's hard to tell, but here are some before and after shots:

Last weekend at our picnic

Yesterday during a tense moment in the game

As I said before, it's hard to notice, unless you are Anna and you no longer have wisps of hair stuck in your eyelashes.

Twins again!

A little harder to tell apart this time...

Twins!

I know it is hard to tell because we are dressed alike, but Anna is on the left and I am on the right.

Get that camera out of my face...

Anna & I worked on taking a picture for our Christmas card this morning. I've got it narrowed down to these three:

A visit from Uncle Dan :)

Anna had a great time visiting with Uncle Dan, who was here Mon-Wed this week. Dad also had Tuesday off for Veteran's Day. We all hit the park for some more swinging and some football and finished off the day at Luciano's for pizza. Anna had lots of fun playing with Uncle Dan - especially with his hair!

A new way to sleep

Recently we've been trying to put Anna on more of a set sleeping schedule. As this involves waking her up sometimes to stay on the schedule, we've learned that she sleeps less on her stomach now and more on her side...often with her thumb in her mouth:

A new way to drink:

This is harder than it looks...

Continued birthday celebration!

On Friday night Mom, Dad & Ann continued Mom's birthday celebration with dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant followed by a Carvel ice cream cake:





And on Saturday we met Corinne in the city for lunch at Two Amy's Pizza and a stroll around the National Cathedral:

This is the most fascinating bib I have ever seen. Does your mom actually let you wear this when you eat? or is it just for pictures?