12 months old!

I am really late posting this, so it's actually more like a 12 1/2 month update.  I don't think I'll keep up with the monthly updates for Anna's second year.  Every three months or so will probably be more practical.  But even though this one is really late, I need to do it because I feel like Anna has really changed a lot in the last several weeks!

One of Anna's biggest changes is her desire to explore.  Up until about a month ago, she had been pretty content to stay wherever we were at.  Not the case anymore!  She is off and about, exploring everything and finding new things to get into every day.  One of her biggest discoveries is climbing the stairs!  She used to pretty much leave them alone, only attempting to climb them to follow Derek or I when we went upstairs and usually only making it a few steps. Now she climbs all the way to the top any chance she can get.  We don't have a gate yet, but we'll probably end of buying one because we're getting pretty tired of chasing her up the stairs.  She hasn't tried to go down them yet---she'll sit at the top of the stairs, acting like she wants to try, but isn't sure how to go about doing it.

Anna said her first official word this month! "Dada!"  The first time she said it and definitely meant Daddy, I was sitting with her in her room before Derek left for work.  He came and poked his head in her doorway and as soon as she spotted him, she said "Dada!"  She says it now almost every time she sees him. (I'm working every day on coaxing a "Mama" out of her, but so far, no luck haha).

Anna also recognizes and responds to lots of words now.  She knows hi, bye, and night-night.  (She waves when she hears all three.)  She knows "yay!" (Smiles and claps).  She dances when you say "dance."  She will point to her "nose" and sometimes her "mouth" and "tummy".  She knows "book" and "baby" and "puppy."  She knows "hungry" and starts doing a little puckered-lip pout if you say it and she wants to be fed.  She knows "come here" and "more" and "all gone."    She also knows "no-no" but doesn't like to respond to that one much. We're working on that.  :)

Anna graduated from her infant carrier to a new convertible carseat. (Thanks Grandma Karry!)  It's pretty big and just barely fits in the back seat of our little Malibu.  But she seems to like it. The car is still one of her favorite places to sleep. 

Snuggled up on a long car ride from Mitchell to Bismarck last weekend.

Anna loves to stand now and pulls herself up any chance she can get.  She is pretty pro at walking along all the furniture.  Just in the last week, Anna has started standing up by herself without holding onto anything.  She can only hold it for a few seconds, but it's exciting!

Now for the not so fun stuff.  Anna's increased mobility and independence have made meal time more of a challenge.  She always wants to hold the spoon herself and gets mad if you try to do it for her.  She does not like to sit in her high chair anymore and is constantly twisting around and trying to wiggle her way out.  She also has decided throwing food on the floor is a super fun game.  And she knows we don't like it.  She looks right at me and slowly moves her fistful of food over the side of her highchair. And as soon as I start to say "no," she lets go.  Little stinker!  We laughed when her doctor gave us a little sheet on "What to expect at 12 months" and it said, "Your child will start to test parental response to actions such as throwing food on the floor."  At least we know it's normal!

Anna has also just started to throw little tantrums when she doesn't get her way.  It's usually over the silliest little thing.  Yesterday, I took away a gum wrapper she found on the floor and she immediately threw herself face-down on the floor and started screaming.  Sheesh!  It was only a wrapper, kid! Luckily, her little fits never last long.  She quickly gets distracted by something else!

Anna is starting to get her first molar, and it seems to be more painful coming in than her other teeth.  She's been having a hard time sleeping at night because of it.  I don't know if that's unusual, to get a molar this early and before her canine teeth come in?  It is definitely poking through though!

While there have been a lot of changes, some things are still the same.  Anna still loves dancing, clapping, and waving.  She still jabbers away all day long.  And she is still super social and makes friends wherever she goes.  It's kind-of ridiculous sometimes.  For example, over Christmas, we went out to eat at a Thai restaurant with Derek's dad.  We were sitting up front and Anna kept smiling and waving at the hostess.  The hostess eventually came over and asked if she could hold her, and then she held and played with Anna for probably 15 minutes!  Another instance was when we flew to South Dakota last weekend.  Anna kept smiling and waving at the lady next to us.  The lady was really nice, and by the end of the flight, she had Anna sitting on her lap.  No stranger danger yet for this little gal!

Here's a little video of Anna.  I was trying to get her to hug and kiss her doll, but she was more interested in the camera. :)

Anna sure does have her own, unique personality.  She is happy, silly, fun-loving, and independent.  I love it!  I can't wait until she can talk and tell us everything that goes on in that little head of hers.  I'm sure she will have very interesting things to tell us!

Anna's 1st Birthday!

Anna had her first birthday last week!  We had a little birthday party for her on Sunday.  Actually, it was quite a big party---I think we had almost 30 people here!  We really love having so many family members close by for occasions like this.  We didn't plan anything too elaborate, just a few simple decorations, BBQ sandwiches, and pink lemonade cupcakes, but I think it turned out pretty well!  Anna had fun anyway, even though she didn't really understand why we were having a party. :)

Anna with her cousins, Rebecca & Charlotte

How cute is she???

Kelsey & Anna

Anna & Maggie

Opening gifts

She had lots of help :)

Anna got a lot of new books!

I was really surprised that she left that birthday hat on all night!

After presents, we sang "Happy Birthday" and Anna got to eat her birthday cupcake.  She was a little hesitant to eat it at first (I think because so many people were watching), but once she tried it, she loved it. Her face was nice and smeared with yellow frosting by the end!  :)

Ready for cake!

Happy birthday, Anna!  We can't believe you are already a year old!

4th Anniversary

I realized as I was writing the Christmas post, that I forgot to post about our fourth anniversary!  It was pretty low-key this year.  We thought about doing a bed and breakfast or something while we were in Denver and having Grandma babysit, but we decided Anna isn't quite ready for a whole night without mommy yet.  So instead, Beth watched Anna so we could have enjoy a baby-free evening at home together. It's funny how something that used to be an almost every day occurrence is now a special, anniversary-worthy event! :)  No, it was actually really fun. We made crepes together...both chicken/mushroom ones for dinner and strawberry/nutella/whipped cream ones for dessert.  Yum!  Derek bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and I gave him a "date jar" full of different date night ideas, most of them being free or under $5.  (We tried one out last weekend...spread a blanket out and read old love letters while listening to Frank Sinatra...very romantic.) :)

Happy Four Years to us!  Still in love and going strong!

Christmas 2013

Christmas is hands-down, without a doubt my favorite holiday.  I love everything about it.  Derek always laughs at me because I get so excited about everything Christmas.  For me, the anticipation usually starts as soon as it gets cold and snowy outside.  That's when I start feeling Christmas in the air!  Usually in Utah, that's about the beginning of November.  However, Derek is in the "No-Christmas-music-or-decorations-before-Thanksgiving" camp.  We've argued about this before.  He's of the opinion that Thanksgiving should be it's own holiday with no Christmas overlap.  He thinks it gets "overshadowed" by Christmas.  I, on the other hand, do agree that Thanksgiving and Christmas get blurred together, but I like it that way!  The way I see it, Thanksgiving is about being thankful and what do we have more to be thankful for than the birth of Christ?  The two holidays go hand-in-hand in my mind, and therefore, I am perfectly alright listening to Christmas music all through November AND December.  We do, however, wait until the day after Thanksgiving to put up the Christmas tree and decorations.  Sometimes, a happy marriage involves compromising.  :)

This Christmas was extra special because it was Anna's first one.  I kept thinking back to last Christmas when we were waiting for her to come any day.  It's so weird to think that just over a year ago, she wasn't born yet.  The last year has gone by so fast, but at the same time, I feel like Anna has just always been a part of our family.  I can hardly remember what life was like without her!

We went to Denver this year for Christmas.  We were able to stay a whole week, which was really nice, and we got to spend time with all of our family members who live in the area.  Everyone loved having Anna around.  I'm so glad she's the type of baby that will go to almost anyone.  She loves people!  And they love her!

Here are some of the highlights...

Watching the Broncos game and making Christmas cookies at Mike and Joy's.

Going to the Riddle family Christmas Eve-Eve party.

Making tamales on Christmas Eve.  It is an almost all-day affair. It took Karry, Sterling, and I almost 45 minutes to assemble them all, then they had to be cooked in two batches, which took another several hours. Tamales are quite labor-intensive, but oh-so-delicious!

Getting to be in a nativity "pageant" with Scott and Kristine's family.  We stopped by to say hi on Christmas Eve and they asked us if we wanted to join in.  Anna was a rather large and active (and female) Baby Jesus, but I guess she fit the role better than the teddy bear they were going to use before we showed up. :)  I was glad we got to participate because it is one of my favorite Ireland Christmas traditions.

Watching Anna "open" her gifts Christmas morning.  We actually got to sleep in until 8:30...one of the nice things about Anna being too young to care about Christmas!  She loves the baby doll she got from Santa. She is so cute with it, cuddling her and giving her kisses and patting her head.

Building towers with Anna's blocks and watching her knock them down.

Going to Derek's grandma's house for Christmas dinner.  She has a beautiful rustic home nestled right up in the mountains, and I had never been there before.  The view is gorgeous!  We had a traditional Lontine Christmas meal of pickle enchiladas (yes, pickle...don't knock it till you try it!), rice, and pinto beans.  Ted, Michelle, and Trevor were there too and we had a nice evening visiting and exchanging gifts.

Anna got two gift bags full of CUTE clothes from Great-Grandma Lontine!

Spending the day after Christmas in Colorado Springs with the Boyds and Grandma Buckner and Ron. We spent the afternoon eating, playing games, shooting sling shots...and opening more gifts.

Attempting to go to the zoo lights, but changing our minds when we got there and saw the hundreds of cars and people waiting in line!  Instead, we went downtown to the civic center which was less decked-out, but also much less crowded!

All in all, it was a really good Christmas.  Even though Anna didn't really understand what was going on, it was so fun to have a kid around for Christmas.  We loved helping her open her gifts and watching her play with her new toys!

The only downside of loving Christmas so much is that I'm always just a tiny bit sad when it's over. But luckily, with each new year comes plenty of new things to look forward to. Here's to a happy 2014!

11 months old

Anna is 11 months old, only one month away from finishing her first year of life.  I know I say it every month, but seriously, how does she grow up so quickly?  I'm so grateful I decided to start this blog and record pictures, videos, and memories of Anna's babyhood because it's gone by so, so fast.

Anna had another eye appointment in November and her doctor is still really pleased with how her eyes are doing.  That was such good news.  I was looking back at pictures from right before her surgery, and I forgot how bad they were.  It really is amazing how perfectly straight they are now.  That was definitely one of the feathers on our thankful turkey!

She's hasn't started walking yet, still crawling everywhere, getting into everything.  We bought locks for all the cupboards and put covers over all the electrical sockets in her reach.  Thankfully, she hasn't seemed interested in climbing the stairs yet, and she's mostly left the Christmas tree alone so far.

Have I mentioned yet that Anna hates the vacuum cleaner?  Remember how she used to love it?  Well, now she's terrified of it.  For a long time, she would bawl her head off every time I turned it on.  She doesn't usually cry anymore, but she stares at it with wide eyes and quickly crawls away any time it comes near her.

One new thing Anna has started doing this month is giving kisses.  But only if you're really lucky.  She loves making the kissy-lip face.  But when you go in to give her a kiss, 9 times out of 10, she'll turn her face away or cover her mouth with her hands at the last second, giggling.  She thinks it's so funny!  It's also funny because now any time Derek and I kiss each other, she will make the kissy lips at us!

We had our first big snowfall last week.  She liked to look at it through our back door window.  I brought a little handful of it inside and let her play with it on the kitchen floor.  She held it in her hand for a few minutes, then of course put it right in her mouth. :)

I promised I would post a video of her dancing.  She seriously does this ALL the time.  Derek and I were commenting the other day that there are some things she does because we taught her or encouraged her, but some things are totally and completely Anna.  This is one of those things.

Another funny thing Anna likes to do is look at herself in the mirror.  We have this big mirror just sitting against the wall because we haven't gotten around to hanging it.  And now maybe we'll just leave it where it is because it will seriously entertain her for a good twenty minutes.  She will make all sorts of funny faces at herself, it's hilarious!

Well, that's about all I can think of!  Here are some pictures I took the other day of her next to the Christmas tree.  She is such a cutie!