A glimpse of summer...

On Saturday it was warm enough for Anna to give her new blow-up pool a test drive...

Don't feed the bears

Recently Anna has taken an interest in caring for dolls and stuffed animals. Last week at play group she spent quite a bit of time pushing a doll in a swing. This week she has really enjoyed rocking a stuffed bear in a rocking chair and pretending to feed him with a bowl and a spoon. In addition to feeding the bear, we may have also caught her feeding an imaginary friend? You can decide for yourself:

Happy Easter!

We went to Albany for Easter and Anna & I stuck around for the rest of the week to visit family. We had a wonderful holiday and have had a wonderful week as well. Some highlights:

Sunday best for Easter

Easter dinner at Nana's house

playing music with cousin Liam

Searching for Easter eggs at Grandma & Grandpa's house:

picture this...

Today Anna was invited to her friend, Andrew's, second birthday party. Anna had a great time at the party playing with the other kids and checking out all of Andrew and his sister's toys (especially his sister's toy kitchen set!) But the highlight of the party for me was certainly seeing Anna at the table with all the other kids. Besides Andrew's four-year-old sister, there were two other four-year-olds, another two-year-old, a 1 1/2 year old, and a 7 month old at the party. It was so cute to see them all sitting around the table together! And Anna actually ate what all the other kids ate - pizza & strawberries with cupcakes for dessert. (Anna had a cupcake with a basketball on top - most of it ended up in her hair, but she certainly enjoyed it!) I really think she liked the experience of sitting at the table with all the big kids. At one point her friend Claire (1 1/2) turned to Anna & ripped her bib off - so of course Anna did the same - so cute :)

Yesterday when we were at an indoor playground, a little boy asked me, "Is she a baby?" I said, "Well kind of baby and kind of a little girl." Today I really feel like she is a little girl :)

Anna's first cherry blossom season

By the time Anna was born on April 27th of last year, the cherry blossoms had all fallen to the ground. Today Anna had her "first" look at the DC cherry blossoms on our adventure into the city. Not only did Anna get to see the cherry blossoms, but she got to take a metro ride, have a picnic in a park, and ride on a merry-go-round. She probably liked the metro ride and the merry-go-round the best...oh and the fact that Dad carried her home from the metro to our house so that she could take a good nap in her crib instead of a cat nap in the stroller - way to go Dad!

While we had a great day today, I put the word "first" in quotes because Matt & I can't seem to figure out the difference between the famous DC cherry blossoms and the three beautiful trees in front of our house. And yes, it was great fun to part of all the action today, but as far as seeing beautiful trees in bloom, our front yard works too:

I got pretty lucky with these shots, catching them as the sun was setting (as I stood outside in my barefeet :)

The proper way to eat yogurt:

Getting fancy on her feet

Anna had two great accomplishments on her feet today: She walked while only holding my hand with one hand and she stood with no hands (and threw a basketball while doing it!)

Here's a second of one-handed walking following some cruising. Probably the feature of this video though is not the walking, but the tongue: