Anna tells Santa Claus what she wants for Christmas

I have to tell you guys, this was our second trip to see Santa this year. The first one did not go so well. But the Santa today got Anna's approval. I got some really cute pictures and I believe I owe it all to the fact that she recognized Santa's voice. Underneath the red suit and beard, it was Anna's babysitter's husband. :)

Merry Christmas!!

Check out these cute little girls...Upon my request, Mom made them matching Christmas dresses. :) I love how they turned out. Too bad I couldn't get a picture of them both looking up at the camera at the same time. Here's the only picture I have of Katie looking up...
Now if I could only crop the two pictures together, I would have a really good one. Oh well, maybe next year...

It's Christmas tree time!!!

This is Anna as I was telling her about the Christmas tree and how it's decorated with lots of lights and ornaments and stuff... You can tell she was very excited about it. Ok, maybe I'm stretching the truth a bit, but it makes for a better story for these cute pictures. :)

So she made a new friend. I didn't expect it, but she was much more interested in the snowman than the tree.

They were introducing themselves to each other, but I'm not sure what Mr. Snowman said that made Anna make this face...She looks a little concerned about something, but that feeling soon passed as she moved on to eating his leg.

I just love that child.

Happy Thanksgiving.....yesterday!!

I'm running a little behind I guess. But better late than never, right? Anyways, here's the Thanksgiving princess. :) If she could talk (in a language that we could understand), I believe that she would tell us that she is thankful that she was able to participate in the Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. She really enjoyed herself with all of the new foods. It was definitely more interesting this year than last. This is all she did last year...
Wow, things sure have changed. :)

It's a birthday party!!

Here comes the birthday girl!!

Opening presents is too much fun...

That worm has SOOOO many legs...
Wonder what's in this big box?
"Mom, are you sure it's ok if I rip this paper?"

"Is all of this mine!?!"

"No pictures, please."

This is definitely the way to go...

Two peas in a pod. Aren't they the cutest!?!

Aunt Sandra can come back anytime and push little miss Anna around.

I would have to say Anna's first birthday party was a big success. The little girl had so many friends over, got lots of awesome stuff, had lots and lots of cake, and played with her new toys until she couldn't hold her eyes open any longer.

1 year old

It's hard to believe Anna's already a year old. She's grown from this...to this...and from this...

to this...

and from this...

to this...

and from being the only grandchild...

to being one of the two...
This little girl is so excited to be one!!!

Anna will be one year old before the milk expires

Last year at this time, I was VERY pregnant. I remember making a trip to the grocery store, much like I did this past weekend, and when I grabbed the gallon of milk, I thought to myself "this expires AFTER Anna is due to be born." At the time, that was so exciting to me. I remember it like it was yesterday. Feeling the excitement that she would arrive before the milk had a chance to sour. That I would be smelling poopie diapers before I would smell bad milk. I know, it's ridiculous, but I was excited about it. But this year is a different story. I bought the gallon of milk that expires after Anna's birthday. There is some excitement. Excitement for her first ever birthday party and her first taste of birthday cake. But I'm also very sad. I know I've talked about it here before, how it's hard for me to grasp that she's growing up. But wow! No one ever told me how much they grow and change in the first year. Or maybe they did, I just didn't realize the extent of the growing up. I know it's only been one year, but it seems to have flown by. Anyways, I just wanted to share the milk story even though it is totally irrelevant to all things. It's just one of those things that I think I will always remember about being pregnant. Maybe I'll share another story soon. I know you will all be waiting in anticipation.

Of all the insects in the world, I love only these two!!

I thought it was funny that Anna and Katie both happened to be insects for their first Halloween. Anna was a great ladybug, and Katie was a killer spider!!

I think in this next picture, Anna was asking mammaw, "what's a ladybug?"

And then she probably asked, "why can't I just go back to wearing the pumpkin shirt? It's much more comfortable."

Update

Since it has been awhile since my last post, I'll just update you guys by using some pictures. First up, here's Anna at the pumpkin patch a couple of weekends ago. I know, I know. You don't see any pumpkins. I promise there were pumpkins. We even brought one home. But I failed to document anything from the day other than this.Regardless of the lack of pumpkin pictures, it was a fun time!!

Second, here's Anna showing off her new babylegs! I love these things. They're basically leg warmers but made for babies. I recently found them on sale for half price so now Anna has 2 new pairs to add to the collection. I have a feeling they are going to be used A LOT this winter. They're perfect with a onesie when it's a little bit cool outside. And I'm sure you're thinking, "isn't that what pants are for?" And to that I say, have you ever seen pants look this cute with a onesie? Anyways, they're great. I wide highly recommend these to anyone with a baby or anyone buying for a baby. And that's all about that. Moving on...

Next, Anna got to explore the driveway a little bit. She wasn't real excited about crawling on the concrete (who would be?), but she did for the sake of exploration. And lastly, Anna and pappaw had a fun time tonight. He chased her around the living room...
She was giggling the whole way. She would stop and turn around to make sure he was still coming and then she would take off again (yes, he was crawling on the floor with her). Then he finally got her.
Well, that catches you up to speed with us. I'll try to keep you more up-to-date on all of the happenings at the Katchur house from now on.

Here's the latest

I just thought this was too cute. I guess Anna wanted to get out back and play with the dogs.

So, it's been awhile since my last post. Sorry about that, I guess I've been a little bit busy. I don't have any one specific thing to update you guys on, so I guess I'll just share some random thoughts...

First, I think I've mentioned before how the Baby Einstein DVD's are my friend. (They allow me to shower in the mornings by keeping Anna occupied.) Well, I feel like she gets bored with the same old videos every day (or maybe I'm the one that gets bored with it), so I was trying to find something new. And you guys may have already seen these, but I hadn't and I'm quite excited about them. They're called the Praise Baby Collection. I bought the "born to worship" dvd Friday night, and I love it already!!! I watched it twice with Anna today just because I like singing along with it. Basically it's the same thing as a Baby Einstein except that it's familiar church songs instead of Beethoven or Vivaldi or whoever (which of course, there's nothing wrong with the classical music, I just get tired of listening to it over and over again). I can't wait to get all of the other DVD's (there's only 2 or 3 others) and maybe one of the CD's so we can even listen in the car.

Next thing, and this is more about me than Anna, but I'm just really proud of myself and I guess I want to boast a little bit. So I've been going to the gym the last few months and I'm very excited to report that so far I've lost 32 pounds!!! When I started going, I didn't really have much faith in myself that I could really stick with it, but I have surprised myself. I even went 5 days this week!! Yep, everyday, Monday thru Friday. I really shocked myself with that one. But anyways, I still have a long way to go, but with the progress I've made so far, I feel like the journey is possible now. I'll let you guys know when I've lost the next 32 pounds!!

I'm not sure what else I can tell you guys. There really hasn't been anything new going on with us lately. Basically just the new dvd and the weight loss, other than that, everything's pretty much the same. Guess I can't complain about that.

Swingin'

Anna didn't smile much while she was swinging, but I think she liked it. She would smile and giggle when she looked at me, but there were so many other things going on at the park that had her attention most of the time. There were lots of other kids playing, an airplane flying over, some other people playing soccer, a little girl next to us that was swinging her baby doll, and a family walking their dogs. Now that I think about it, I wonder if Anna even realized she was swinging.

Happy Birthday Pappaw!!

One more milestone reached

I knew this day would come. I was just hoping it wouldn't be so soon. Anna's pulling up all the way to her feet, which in itself is not so bad. It's the fact that now that she is on her feet, she'll start walking. That's the part that I'm not ready for. But, wow, she's so proud of herself. And I think she knows that I'm proud of her too because I can't stop taking pictures of her standing up. She was really giving me the big grin tonight.

The Great Shoe Debacle

This is how it all went down...

Here she was, just minding her own business, looking all cute...

then I go and mess it all up...

You can tell by the look on her face, she's not thrilled with these new things on her feet. But I thought, we can work through this...

I was wrong. She got one shoe off and before I could get it back on, she had crawled (very quickly I might add) across the room. She sat up and looked at me like, "what the heck are you trying to do to me?" Needless to say...She got the other one off too.

Maybe we'll try again later.

Someone warn me about things like this, please.

Some of you know how I feel about a messy eater. I have taken precautions with Anna to ensure that she is raised to be a low-mess kind of girl. You can't really tell in this picture, but when she first started eating at 4 months, I would slip her little arms under the belt that held her in the bouncy seat. I know this may sound a little cruel, but really she didn't mind it. She didn't know any different, she just thought it was normal. And it did what I wanted it to do, it kept her little hands out of her mouth because you can see what a mess her mouth is. So anyways, with that said, I wish someone would have told me about these......

Yes, Anna loves them, but look at this ......

Next time I'll know that her clothes need to come off before she starts on a biter biscuit. Holy cow, what a mess. Needless to say, she went straight to the bath after this (it was bath time anyways).

Ok, so moving on...Anna's 9 month birthday came and went a couple of weeks ago. It's the weirdest thing, it feels like it hasn't been that long, but at the same time it feels like she's always been here. She's just growing up too fast. I had finally gotten to where I was accepting that she was crawling, and now the pulling up stuff. I may have to tie her down somewhere so that she can't learn to walk until she's 2!!! I just don't want her to grow up so fast. Before I know it, she'll be having her first dance recital, learning to play the piano, and going to her first slumber party. Maybe I should stop worrying about it and just enjoy today. Wow, what a novel idea! I'll have to give that a shot.

Ok, but for now, this is my self-assigned task. I think I need to be working on Anna wearing some shoes. (But first I'll need to buy her some shoes because I don't think she even has any in her closet. Poor kid.) I can only think of 2 or 3 times in her life when she's ever worn shoes, and they were probably sometime in the first 3 months of her life. I don't really think she necessarily needs shoes right now, but I'm afraid when it comes time for her to start wearing some, she's not going to like it. Then what? She can't go barefoot forever. Though if I did the tying up thing till she was 2, she wouldn't need shoes for awhile.

Well, I suppose that's it for now. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted on any messy dinners and shoe adventures with Anna. Oh, and don't worry, Judy, I'm not really going to tie her up. :)

*Update on the green cup situation: She only felt the need to sleep with the cup that one night, and there have been no fits thrown since then. Maybe she was just having a bad day.