Anna's Guide to Making One's First Jack-O-Lantern

Before making your first jack-o-lantern it is important to inspect your pumpkin:

Make sure it looks right:

Make sure it has a good feel:

Sing to it a little:

And most important...make sure it tastes right:

Next you need to explain to your pumpkin carver how you would like it to look, but make sure you have the final say.

You see this section here, this needs a little more work:


Yes, much better:

When you're done, make sure you take time to appreciate your work:

And when your pumpkin carver is not looking, try to dive inside:


Congratulations! You've carved your first pumpkin!

New Foods

In addition to rice cereal, oatmeal, peas, and green beans, which I think I've written about, Anna has also now had squash, sweet potato, barley cereal, and carrots!

Happy 1/2 Birthday Anna!

Anna is 1/2 a year old today!! I can't believe that 1/2 year has already gone by since Anna was born. On the one hand, I feel like she's been with us forever. On the other hand, I feel like she has grown up so fast! Here she is 6 month ago today:


And here she is today with her friends, Addie & Clara, celebrating her first 1/2 year:


Anna had a great time today watching Clara crawl and Addie walk!! She's sporting her new little jumper she just got from her Nana, who she got to spend lots of time with this past weekend in Hartford, CT. Mom & Dad had a wedding there and Nana met us there to take care of Anna. Seeing Nana was wonderful and the wedding was lovely, but it turns out Anna was not so hot on 2 plane trips & 2 nights in a hotel in just 3 days. She does seem to be glad to be home and back to her routine for her birthday :)

Go Giants!

We had a great time hanging out with Uncle Pete the past few days. On Sunday we all headed off to Santini's to watch the Giant's game. It was difficult to capture this picture, where at least I got 2 out of 3 Giant's fans looking at the camera:

more often than not, this was the scene:

Yes, the TV screen is just to the left in the picture above and yes, that is the New York Post, which once again fascinated Anna more than anything in the restaurant.

In case you didn't believe me...

Too cute...

New Today!

Today was a big day for new accomplishments in Anna's life! Despite Mom's previous belief that Anna's was just not flexible enough to get her foot in her mouth - she did it! This afternoon while I was changing her diaper she got the first taste of her toes. She must have liked it because she went back for seconds this evening! Also today Anna turned the pages of one of her books. She has definitely done this by accident in the past, but today I really thought she was turning the pages of her book in the correct direction. It even seemed like she was trying to tell the story because she was singing little coos while she was doing it. It was so cute!! Finally, while we were hanging out on the coach tonight she pushed up on the arm of the coach & stood there by herself!! (Yes, worried readers, I was right there with my hands on both sides in case she fell, but she really did it on her own!!)

New this week:

Anna has been learning to do so many new things that I want to make sure to get them written down! In the past week she has become much better at sitting. When she first started to sit, she really could not sit at all on her own. She needed the boppy pillow to keep her from falling over - like training wheels on a bike. Now, she really sits pretty well on her own, but definitely still needs some pillows nearby in case she does fall over. Yesterday she got on her hands & knees for the first time. This position is new this week as well:


Also while we were on vacation Anna started playing peek-a-boo:

She gets a little help from Nana in the clip above, but sometimes if you cover her face with a small blanket or something, she will pull it off herself.

Also, in the past few weeks Anna has tried squash & green beans - both of which she found to be delicious!

These are actually peas again, but I just had to add this face!

Family Times

Apologies for the posting hiatius. We all just got back from a wonderful trip to Albany to visit lots of family! Anna & I were able to stay for a week and Dad came for a 4 day weekend. We had a fantastic time staying at both Grandma & Grandpa's house and Nana's house and visiting with our families! We came home with so many pictures that Dad had to buy a new hard drive today for our computer so that we could fit all the pictures! Here are some of the highlights:

Hanging with cousin Liam:

Come closer, I've got to tell you something that I don't want the big people to hear...

Hanging with the Great-Grandmas:

Great-Grandma Ginny & Anna

Great-Grandma Jane & Anna

Hanging with some aunts & uncles:

Aunt Becky & Anna

Uncle Pete (trying to get Anna to look at the camera)

Uncle Dan & Anna

Aunt Mary & Anna

Look who else is an aunt:

Aunt Sarah & Liam

4 generations of Courtrights (& McMullens & Glassmans):

Great-Grandma Jane, Grandpa, Mom, & Anna

Our little family:

I love TV - except when my parents let me watch it!

So today we went to, Santini's, a local NY style deli owned by Giant's fans. The Giant's fan part is key since they have an HD TV, they have NFL Sunday Ticket, and the Giant's game was not on national TV today. So, we went there to watch the game --- which by the way was the Giants biggest win since 1971 --- yes! You may be thinking, "Anna loves to watch TV. I'm sure the opportunity to watch TV would keep her occupied." Well, it turns out that Anna only likes to watch TV when we are trying to get her attention away from the television. Today we let her sit right in front of the TV at Santini's to watch the Giant's game. Of course, she was interested in everything else except the TV - the 3 year old eating his pizza behind us, the used napkins on the table, and the most importantly, the New York Post on the table. Who knew that Anna loves newspapers - ripping them & eating them. In general though, she was pretty good. She was also entertained for a quite a while by her teething ring and her cardinal toy and she enjoyed looking at all the people around us. She did shed a few tears after a few loud cheers, but she didn't remember for long why she was upset :) Overall, we had a great time & we were excited to come home and watch the 4:00 game knowing that Anna doesn't care about the TV anymore. But, of course, she spent most of the time the Dallas game was on trying to look at the screen while we tried to distract her with other activities. So it's been proven, Anna loves the TV, except when we let her watch it!

Mom gets creative...

So at one point I did figure out how to use photoshop, but I guess I forgot. Photoshop is one of those programs that is not that hard to use once you know how to use it, but to me, it's not super intuitive to figure out (without reading the directions - something I hate doing). Anyway, I tried to make this picture on Thursday night --- when Matt was teaching his class ---with no success. Thanks to Matt's help, I finally got to make it today. If I learned something, you will be seeing more creative pictures it the future!

Even the south gets cold...

The past few days we've had beautiful days in Virginia - high 60's, sunny, dry, and blue skies. The mornings and evenings have been a little cool, though. I suppose at some point Matt & I are going to get used to seeing Anna in warmer clothes, but for now, everytime I bundle her up, she ends up sitting through a photo shoot :)

After taking a little family trip to drop off Dad's car at the repair shop last night

bundled up for a walk this morning

I'm busy, Ma...

Between sitting up and playing with her toys and playing in her exersaucer, Anna has been busier than usual this week. Dad even got his feelings a little hurt one night when he came home excited to interact with Anna & had trouble getting her attention away from her toys.