bouncing and teeth!

 Oh bouncy houses are so much fun!

Love the crazy face she makes to show me her 2nd lost tooth.(yes, I gave it the final yank again!)  Just for kicks I looked up when she got these teeth and it was almost exactly 5 years ago, only off by 2 days and the 1st tooth was off by a month from when she got it.  Let's see about the top teeth, if they follow the pattern they should be around Jan/Feb.

Ages 3 and 5

I took some yearly portraits of the girls, to see them all go here.

A two year old

Some two year old pictures of Anna.  See the complete album here.

Changes

What silly girls...notice that Anna is now facing the front like the rest of us.  She feels like such a big girl now. 

 Chewing on their feet.

 Pre-trim

 The back was a bit scraggly, since she has never had a trim at all...at 3 1/2 we thought it was time.

 Thank you Winnie-the-Pooh for helping make this haircut a bit easier!

 A wee bit nicer looking and hardly any length taken off.



P.S.  Happy Birthday Ryan!  We love you.

no looking back

Today was the first day of Maria's junior preschool class.  She will go twice a week for 2 1/2 hours. 

She requested cinnamon rolls for her first day.

Yes, she is excited!

She was SO excited, she just bounded up the stairs to the teacher and didn't even look back.  I am sure some of the confidence is due to the fact that it is held in the church where we attend, where Daddy works down the hall, and it is right next door to our house.  In fact she wanted to check at the open house that she could actually look out the window and see our house...she can. 
It will be nice to have a couple hours with just Anna, in fact she may not know what to do with all the toys that she has free reign over...not that big sister ever tells her she can't play with something!
We have plenty to praise God for; first day excitement.

Happy 1/2 Birthday

Sure enough Anna turned 6 months old today.  

She has figured out how to roll.  Mastered front to back, so essentially tummy time is over as far as she is concerned!  She did back to front once, ironically the first time she rolled, but never again.  

She likes to sit upright while on our laps or the couch.  She can't quite do that on the floor yet, but does a good job in the high chair and the swing(whose batteries died long ago and it just functions as a seat that she can swing herself in by rocking forward and back...it's pretty impressive actually!).  

We have quite a social little girl as she loves to watch people and give them grins when we are out and about or at church.  She does not, I repeat DOES NOT, want said people to hold her, however!  Two different people at our mom's playgroup wanted to hold her.  And even though I was literally right next to her she did not like that.  Big crocodile tears started rolling out of her eyes, she got a huge pouty lip and cried a sad forlorn cry, like she had been abandoned.  So, she has entered the "stranger fear" stage already, we suppose.

It's pretty evident she likes to watch our faces, and even seems to want to grab and pull us close.  We are unsure if she wants to maul our faces or give us a big, slobbery, open-mouth kisses.  Let's just say we're thankful she doesn't have any chompers yet to find out which of these she is intending.  

We started her on some solids, which she LOVES.  I have to remember to get a video of her and her baby bird mouth waiting for the next bite.  She likes all that she's tried; avocado, banana, sweet potato, and peaches.  We have lots more scrumptious things to try...maybe some pumpkin this week, but we don't think she's quite ready for turkey yet! 

 We have plenty to praise God for; a 6 month old.  Geesh, seriously, she can't be already!

tricks

Maria has worked on doing a somersault for a while now...she can get it every once in a while, but the other night it was pretty consistent, so we thought we better document it.  She was pretty proud of herself...don't mind that she is shirtless...it was almost bedtime!

rollin', rollin', rollin'

We think she has finally figured it out...her first time last week was from back to front, but this time it was all front to back...she couldn't be stopped!  Just watch her go!

and she rolls!

Finally Anna decided it was time to get a move on.  She rolled...once, and only once.  But we predict more is on the way.  We are in no hurry as we know all too soon she will be walking around like she owns the place.

Anna just after her first roll, looks pretty proud of herself.

We have plenty to praise God for; a beautiful daughter who is learning new things every day.

God's blessings

Today we had Anna dedicated to the Lord.  We were very blessed to have so many family able to attend in support and celebration.  My parents, grandmother, my siblings and spouses and kids, and Larry's parents all joined us.  His sister was on call and unable to attend, and his brother lives in CA.  We also had Pastor Brian, his wife Carla and their nephew.  In total we had 20 here for the service and lunch.

Pastor Brian, Carla and our family

The history on how we both know Pastor Brian is pretty amazing.  When I was in high school I attended youth group in Fort Wayne, IN where Brian was the youth pastor for several years.  I also attended church camp several summers with him.  The first year that I met Brian and attended camp was also the year I made the decision to follow Christ.  I have many fun memories of times spent with Brian and fellow youth group attendees.  Unbeknownst to me, before I had met Brian, Larry was well acquainted with him and his family also.  They had both attended the same church back in Dayton, IN for many years.  We consider it pretty remarkable(or a total God thing!) that both Larry and I count him as a person of significance in our spiritual journeys.  Due to this fact, we wanted to have him play a role in Anna's journey.

Our lovely family

The whole gang

Chuck, Michele, Jeff, Therese, Trey, Andrew, Me, Anna, Larry, Maria, Margaret, Mary, Ryan, Cheryl, Easton, Lisa, Stewart

We have plenty to praise God for; the blessing of family to support and help us raise our children in the Lord.

5 Months

Yes, Anna turned 5 months yesterday.

She is well over 17 lbs. we're sure, since she was just barely under 17 at her 4 mo. check up.  She is in 6 mo. clothes, but growing out of some.  We tried cereal once with her, and she seemed to like it, but I'm not in a big hurry as she still nurses well and sleeps great.  Usually 12 hours at night, with a feeding just before I go to bed.  She gets a kick out of Maria and laughs at things she does.  She loves when we sing our blessing at meals, and enjoys music in general.  She is still taking 3 naps most days, sometimes a 4th cat nap in the early evening.  She goes down for her naps so easily, we feel super blessed with that.  Has been enjoying her exersaucer, sitting in the Bumbo a friend loaned us, and playing on the floor.  She doesn't seem to have much interest in rolling at the moment.  We love watching her grow and change.

observations

Some random observations of the girls lately.

Anna:

~really into chewing/sucking on her fist/hand/fingers, any part she can keep in her mouth, which causes us to think she is hungry when she really isn't.

~Has been making these strange sounds, as I told my sister-in-law, she kind of sounds like a cat in heat calling late at night? random? yes!

~She is a super sleeper. Going to bed most nights between 8 and 8:30 and not getting up till about 7:30. I feed and change her when I go to bed around 11.

~Naps are never long, but we'll take the hour we can get any day.

~She tracks people as they move around the room, especially big sister.

Maria:

~"What is that? (dryer just buzzed) Oh, the laundry, I bet."

~"Strawberry shortcake, strawberry shortcake, dormez vous, dormez vous..." She made these lyrics up to Frere Jacques while waiting for Larry to bring some for dessert.

~"Mommy, Daddy is going to work again." (as he left in the morning one day)

~While she was in the tub a few nights ago and had some gas, I asked "What was that?" She replied "Oh, it's just a toot." Just the way she says toot cracks me up!

~She was talking about her friends at dinner one night, and said that she had to go wake Hoonie up, and I asked her what her other friends names were she said "Teeny, Puti, Tunahani, Boobie, Tani and Amy(who is an actual live friend)." We're pretty sure she came up with Boobie all on her own, can't think of where she would have heard it used referring to the female body part. She is often heard walking around the house calling "Boobie, where are you?" "Come here Boobie." Or saying, "I'm going to Boobie's house."

~Lately she has started understanding when we tease her. I'll ask her something that is pretty obviously not true or is silly like "Do you want to eat some grass?, Can Anna walk/talk/eat some pancake?" and she says "no, you're teasing me."

~We were listening to a nursery rhymes CD and in "Goosey, Goosey, Gander" the last line is "I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs." She told us, "oh, no, we don't throw people down the stairs." I told her, "no, that's mean" She kept repeating, "that's mean."

~She is loving on Anna more and more each day. She will comfort her when she is crying by saying the things she has heard us say. She likes to cover her up with her beloved "blankie" too, and you know if she is sharing that, she must like you.

~ She is a very compassionate little girl. When she hears someone crying she has to investigate and see what she can do to make them feel better, or just wants to know why they are crying and that it's okay. If we are reading a book she picks up on the emotions of the characters and likes to talk about why they are feeling that way.

We have plenty to praise God for; the everyday is exciting with a 2 month old and a 2 year old.

smiles

Those first few smiles are hard to capture, but oh so precious.

a month late

Well, due to some other circumstances(a 6 day old) we weren't able to celebrate our anniversary on the actual date last month. But we did manage to do it exactly a month late.

Well, it all started here...January 2, 2004. On a whim, Mindy, my best friend and I decided to attend a Young Adult Retreat sponsored by the United Methodist Church...Larry just happened to be on the planning committee for it. It was held at the Swan Lake Resort near Plymouth, Indiana.

(the spot where we met)

We got there fairly early and were hanging out in the hallway outside where the sessions for the retreat would take place. One of the first people that we met happened to be this associate pastor from Fort Wayne, name Larry. I didn't think much about our meeting, but apparently he did. Later that evening he plotted how he could end up sitting next to me for dinner, so he could get to know me a bit more. He waited till almost everyone was already seated before going in to eat and figured he had a better chance of sitting next to me that way. We talked some during dinner, and later he asked for my email, under the guise that he could contact me if there were other young adult events in the Ft. Wayne area. He also quickly asked my friend for her email, when she appeared beside me, to make his motives seem less suspicious perhaps.

He left the retreat early so that was all the interaction we were able to have...me, I was pretty oblivious to anything brewing in his mind...Mindy, on the other hand had her suspicions. (Guess she had a good intuition.)

We left the retreat Saturday and I didn't think a think about him until I got an email on Monday asking for any feedback on the retreat(he was part of the planning committee). I didn't reply right away due to Internet access and time constraints...but, he didn't give up so easily.

Wednesday of that same week I received a phone call at school during the day. Well, since I can't take calls during class the caller was asked to call back around 3:15, when school was out and I could be in the office to get this phone call. So there I sat, dutifully waiting by the phone for the call, while grading papers. I was a bit surprised at the caller, as I hadn't given him my number. I thought he was calling to find out about any feedback on the retreat and I apologized that I hadn't replied to his email. He replied that it wasn't exactly the reason that he called, but he wanted to know if I would like to go out this weekend.....pause....uh, sure. Come to find out later he had remembered from dinner conversation that I worked at a Christian school and the name of the school was fairly simple(Central). I have to give him credit as he called one other school, which was wrong in the process of trying to find me. This guy had won points in my book...he wasn't letting that stop him.

Well, we went out that Saturday and as the saying goes...the rest is history!

Our dinner views.

We have plenty to praise God for; His guiding hand in our meeting and marriage...and a persistent man who won my heart!

Happy Anniversary Honey

Our wedding day

One year

Two years

Three years

4 years today and I couldn't be happier!

We(I) have plenty to praise God for; the joy of marriage to a wonderful, loving, caring, intelligent, patient, understanding, and honorable man.