Happy 16 month birthday, Anna.

To commemorate her 16 months of life on earth Anna hit a new milestone today. She got her first snarl in her hair...and had to deal with Mom getting it out. yikes!

Ice cream cones makes me smile...

Last night we got ice cream at Carvel. Anna has decided her favorite part is the cone. She was disappointed last night that her cone came with so much ice cream on top. She helped a little eating the ice cream, but mostly she just wanted the cone. You can see that she was quite excited when she finally got to just have her cone. And yes, there are bites taken out of the bottom of the cone:

Our last hooray

Our last adventure before we headed back to Virginia was dinner at Red Robin with Aunt Becky, Uncle Jeff, and Liam. Anna and Liam had fun with the balloons and happily stuffing themselves. I was excited to catch this picture after dinner:


On our ride back to Virginia we got ice cream at a rest stop. Just to give you an idea of how miserable Anna was on the ride, we decided it was a good idea let her eat her ice cream cone in her car seat so we could have a 10 minute reprieve from her fussing. Here she is asking for "more" right as she finished it:


I know it looks like she's about to fall asleep in this shot, but looks can be deceiving. She took her single 45 min. nap 6 hours into our trip.....ugh.

Real hide-and-seek

Whenever Anna is in a house with a circular path through different rooms, she enjoys running around the circle hiding and peeking with other people - a simpler version of hide-and-seek. A few days ago though, she played what I would call her first real game of hide-and-seek. She was running around the circle of Nana's house hiding and peeking with Nana and I and somehow we got into one person hiding and staying there with Anna while the other person came to look. I think she kind of got the idea of quietly hiding. When she was hiding she kept making these little sqeeks, which I think was her attempt to hold her laughter in. Her favorite part was being found and few times she did jump the gun by popping out and finding the seeker - a tactic popular with her 3 year old friend, Gabe, which means I guess she might be finding the seeker for quite some time now.

Happy B-day, Liam!

Anna, Matt, and I drove to Albany last Friday to celebrate Liam's 1st Birthday. We had a great weekend celebrating with Liam and visiting with lots of relatives :) After the festivities ended, we met up with our good friends, Brendan, Courtney, and Jeb, at Hoffman's Playland, where Anna & Jeb had a great time on all the rides. I'm having trouble changing the order of the pictures below, so for now, they are not chronological:

After Hoffman's we got some ice cream. Anna insisted on holding the cone herself, which I would have never guessed she was capable of doing, but sometimes she knows better than me.

I asked the attendent, "one ticket or two?" She said, "One, but you're not going." Oh - since Anna was already on her way into the car we decided to let her go for it. So this is her first solo amusement park ride.

Hanging out with cousin Liam on his actual b-day (Aug. 14th, the day before the party)

I love the carousel!

Anna & Matt with Brendan & Jeb :)

Anna wanted to do everything that older cousin Sofie did, including sit nicely for a picture :)

Happy Birthday, Liam!

Yes, this is a real photo:

Giant's training camp, Friday, Aug. 14th

We attempted to get a photo of Eli actually holding Anna, but obviously, he was busy signing autographs. Anna had a good time at Giants training camp. The highlights of her trip was not standing in a hot crowd waiting for the players to walk by, but she did enjoy going on the bouncy-bounce obstacle course, running around the kids training area, and visiting the UAblany fountain.

You were right, Dad

We've come a long way from our first attempt at getting Anna to enjoy a pillow fort:

Anna has had a lot of fun playing with her tunnel in the past few weeks. I would say the tunnel gets built at least once a day - sometimes to play hide and seek, sometimes for Anna to sit in and watch Sesame Street, and sometimes just for Mr. Bear to sit in.

Grocery shopping

Our grocery store now features miniature carts. Anna (and Yellow Bear) had a blast loading up her cart with produce:

Storytime at Barnes and Noble...

Details to follow:

Speaking of Mr. Bear...

Besides appearing in 4 out of the 6 photos below, Mr. Bear has a number of new skills and desires. First off, Mr. Bear has learned to dance. (Anna holds him in the air and jiggles him around when her favorite tunes are playing.)

Mr. Bear has also learned the "more" sign language symbol, which he uses if he would like more "munch-ups" or more sliding on the slide. "Munch-ups" (I don't know how they got that name) are when Matt picks Anna up, zooms her around the room, and flops her on a coach cushion on the floor. So of course, Anna does the same to Mr. Bear. Then Anna has Mr. Bear give the "more" symbol before she does it again! Then today, we let Anna bring Mr. Bear to the indoor playground where Anna slid him down the slide before her each time. I made Mr. Bear do the "more" symbol a couple times when he got to the bottom. Then we caught Anna making Mr. Bear do the more symbol a few times on her own while she was carrying him back to the stairs of the slide - so cute!

Finally, Mr. Bear has developed a ravishing appetite. Often, Anna needs to put him in the high chair and give him his breakfast even before she has her own breakfast.