More words

In addition to the words I listed before, Anna is now saying:

Anna

floor

star

skip

walk

on

off

down

no

a-b (the beginning of the alphabet)

Abby (from Sesame Street)

knee

woof (Dog language)

more Anna-speak:

mo means moon

ba means balloon

apa means grandpa

grr means grandma

ma (attempted cow language)

ra-ra-ra means "Ring Around the Rosie"

Fa means Fozzie Bear

Ahh means Oscar the Grouch

Skip to My Lou

One of Anna's favorite songs to dance to is "Skip to My Lou." She just learned the word, "skip," which she nows sings while she attempts to skip around the room. Listen to the lyrics when she throws her bear in the air:

White Christmas

Anna, Matt, and I have had a fun month getting ready for Christmas here in Vienna. We got our tree and decorated it a few weeks ago, went to a holiday concert at our local high school, made Christmas cookies, and made a gingerbread house. Anna helped to decorate the tree. She had trouble putting the ornaments on herself, although she liked picking out the spot for Mom or Dad to put the ornament. After the tree was decorated Matt had me pose for a picture he likes taking every year: me hugging the tree. Although, this year, Anna joined in too:

The holiday concert we attended involved the high school band playing Christmas Carols while the color guard, dressed as different characters, danced around the auditorium. The characters included Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Elmo. You can imagine how much Anna liked it.

The Christmas cookies we made were cut-out cookies with icing. Anna enjoyed both helping to cut out the cookies and icing them. About half-way into icing them we let her eat a cookie. Obviously up until that point she didn't realize that the item she was icing was edible. Once she ate that one cookie she was done icing because all she wanted to do was each more cookies.

Here are a few pictures making the gingerbread house. We were surprised that she had the patience to place the little candies one by one in the icing. She did a great job and seemed to really enjoy it too.

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas here in Vienna as we are headed up to Albany on Wednesday to celebrate with everyone there. We ended up with a true White Christmas here in Vienna as we got about 20 inches of snow, which from what we have heard is the biggest snow fall here in 30 years. Anna has not been as impressed with the big snow as she was when we just got a few inches. Maybe because I've forced her into this gettup?

New ultrasound - taken today!

Santa delivers in utero, right?

First snow steps

On Saturday we got our first snow of the season. Fortunately, Dad looked ahead at the weather so Anna got her first pair of boots on Friday.

Anna liked watching it come down on Saturday. She was a little leery about walking around outside while the snow was falling. She was not too happy when a big chunk of snow fell off a tree onto her head. On Sunday we got her up to the football field where she could explore the snow a safe distance from any trees. She enjoyed making snowmen:

However, her favorite activity by far was clearing the snow off the bleachers:

learning the technique from Daddy

whoosh!

my gloves look funny

oh well, I've got work to do

one bleacher down, 499 to go!

Can we get paid by the high school for this?

Help, Our Parents are Yankees!

I'm due to arrive May 12th :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great trip to Albany for Thanksgiving. Some pictures from our trip:

Posing with Nana

Tickles with Daddy

These hors d'oeuvres are excellent!

I think I ate the last cracker...

See Mom, that's where the crackers were...can you get more?

I guess I just have to wait for dinner

Lunch for Two

Dancing Queen

Anna's words

Mommy

Dada

Woobie

Elmo

apple

ball

hop

baa (sheep language)

bye

hi

yeah

yes

more

up

neigh (horse language)

S (the letter)

Also some Anna-speak:

cook means "Cookie Monster"

bo means "book"

lowlowlow means "Lowly Worm" from Richard Scary books

Making hand turkeys

House, Muppets, and Library

We recently got back from a trip to Albany. On the trip Anna enjoyed three new imaginary worlds. Here's what I know about them, although Anna probably knows more:

House:

To play this game, you first need to get Grandpa to get the umbrella out. Then you collect any friends who will be joining you in the game. (In this shot, it is only Cookie - a small house.) Then you gather your food (blocks). First you eat the food (make sure to share with everyone), then you clean up the food, then you go to sleep. Then you get up do it again...and again, and again...

Muppets:

These figures are actually part of Uncle Dan's Muppet Chess set. Anna became quite attached to them and a book entitled "Muppet Babies Through the Year." She liked to hold the figures and read the book over and over again. She also just liked to set the figures up and move them around. We ended up showing her the movies The Great Muppet Caper and Muppets Take Manhattan. She really enjoyed them - especially the scenes with tons of muppets singing and dancing.

Library: The video shows the whole game. Just imagine that repeated over and over and over again...

Posing with her friends

Anna loves to sit on the steps with her friends and she'll even pose for a picture - well, as long as one of the friends takes the shot instead of Mom. Here she is with Buttons Bear, Cookie Monster, Woobie, and Aqua Bear.

If you double-click the picture and look at the larger version you can see her two new lower eye teeth, which she just got in the past few weeks. She now has 14 teeth!

Preparing for hibernation

Last year around this time we reconfigured our dining room to make a better play space for our new crawler. We haven't really had significant changes to Anna's play space since then until yesterday when we bought a "toy organizer" (red, yellow, green and blue object below) and a toy chest to reorganize Anna's toys in our family room. I decided that the fact that both these changes took place in late fall is not a coincidence. It's the season for preparing to hibernate - for realizing you are about to spend a lot of time indoors and looking around and figuring out how to make it better. Anyway, all three of us are happy with our new organized space:

*note Anna is sleeping right now and this is not how it will look 5 min. after she gets up

Halloween and other fun pics

Here are our Halloween pictures and a bunch of other fun shots:

a family snuggy

visiting Cox Farms with Grandma to get ready for Halloween: farm animals, apple cider, pumpkins, and...

huge slides!!

The ladybug! (Yes, Anna is taking her antenna off. This is actually the only picture I got with the antenna because she really didn't like that part.)

Yes, the back of the costume is more interesting than the front :)

At playgroup Halloween party. Anna actually sat nicely in that chair for about 10 min. while other toddlers where continually replaced in the picture so we could attempt to get a shot of everyone. I think this includes everyone at the party, but I can't say for certain.

ummm, which one should I choose?

romping in the leaves with Daddy :)

Anna was Cookie Monster on Halloween night - a much better costume to be outside in. Here she is posing next to her favorite Teddy Bear...wait, no, that's Liam!

Halloween night was very rainy, but Anna still loved trick-or-treating. In the days leading up to Halloween she had been playing a game where she knocks on doors and people open them for her. So she was quite prepared. Anna caught on after the first house that she would be picking up treats at each house and was a little disappointed when it was time to go home.

Showing off her loot after a successful trip around the neighborhood

Anna doesn't really understand that her Halloween treats are edible, but she enjoys carrying them around and moving them in and out of her jack-o-lantern.

Just enjoying a nice fall day with Mommy

Cookie Monster or a lady bug?

A while ago I decided I was going to try to make Anna a lady bug costume for Halloween. As of a week ago, I still had not started the sewing so when I saw a cookie monster costume available to borrow at a mom's group, I snatched it quick. (Cookie is Anna's second favorite Sesame character after, of course, Elmo.) I think having the backup costume gave me the confidence to actually take a stab at the lady bug, which I have since finished and I must say, it came out quite good. So now Anna actually has two great costumes for Halloween - both of which she likes talking to, playing with, and moving around the living room and neither of which she really likes having ON, but I was able to snatch this shot when I was making sure the Cookie Monster would actually fit:

Old-fashion popcorn

A couple nights ago we made "old-fashion" popcorn. That's right, plain kernels in oil on a saucepan in the stove. I had actually never done it like that before (well, at least that I remember). I do remember making popcorn in a hot air popper, which is a favorite memory from visiting Grandma Jane as a kid. Fortunately, Dad remembered making popcorn like this as a kid so he served as the expert. It was fun and everyone liked it! A perfect treat to eat during a Yankees playoff game!

Go Giants!

Uncle Pete and Anna sporting their matching Giants jerseys before the Giants v. Raiders game:

Happy Birthday, Nana!

A couple weeks ago we headed to Albany to celebrate Nana's 60th birthday! We had a great time celebrating with her and spending time with family. Here are some shots from the party:

Aunt Becky, Liam, Uncle Jeff, Nana, Daddy, Anna & Mommy

Aunt Andrea, Nana, and Melissa

Sofie and Scott

Sam and Anna

Aunt Anne and Grandma Ginny

Daddy, Anna, Uncle Jeff, and Liam

A budding architect?

For the past couple months Anna has taken a great interest in building with blocks. Here she is busy at work on one of her creations: