Who Says You Need a Car Seat in a Mustang?

One of my favorite things of the summer is going out to dinner with my friend, Emily and riding in her Mustang -- (even if it did used to smell like a high school date -- ha ha Em!). The other night she and I went out and Annalise got her first taste of sitting in it before we left. She even got a taste of being in the driver's seat!

If you look closely, you can see her hair sticking up in the driver's seat.

"Um, excuse me guys, where are the keys?"

"Never mind, here they are. Let's see here, how do I put them in?"

Look at that eager face!

"Just like my mommy, I sure love this Mustang!"

Anna and Riley's Friend

The other night, Anna and Riley were able to play a little with Aidan which they both enjoyed a lot! Anna loves to watch him run around and play with Riley. She gets really excited and starts waving her legs and arms a million miles an hour! Riley especially likes it when Aidan throws the ball for her and Aidan does a really good job telling her to "Sit!" and "Drop it!" while playing ball. Here are some pictures of the fun they had:

Aidan getting the ball to throw

Riley saying "Throw it, throw it, throw it" to Aidan

Sometimes when Stan would tell Riley to sit, Aidan would sit. It was REALLY CUTE!
Here, that had happened and Stan it helping Aidan back to his feet. Notice Miss Riley is NOT sitting though

Riley must have been getting tired here because Aidan is running after the ball.

Anna and Aidan playing with the tool bench

Aidan clapping along to the song from the bench. He impressively had much of it memorized by the time he left!!

Mother of the Year

The other day I put Anna in her Exersaucer and she was really kind of agitated and kept making a weird grunting noise. I thought it was strange because she usually loves to be in it unless she is tired, but this was after her nap. I needed to finish making the icing for a cake for the Lightstreet Carnival though, so I just kept talking to her hoping that she would adjust to being in it at least until I could finished making the icing and putting it on the cake. Eventually, she did calm down and was happily playing. When I was all finished, I turned around and saw that she looked kind of awkward in the Exersaucer. I bent over, looked under it and saw that I had put both of her legs through the same leg hole!!!!! No wonder she was so uncomfortable!!! She couldn't even turn in the seat! Poor little peanut! I guess that is another strike against me for the Mother of the Year award!

Anna's First Kayak Trip

On the Monday after the 4th of July, we decided to take Anna on her first Kayaking adventure. We thought it would be better to take her to a lake to start rather then the river so we went to Rickett's Glen State Park and kayaked on Lake Jean. It was an enjoyable day with great weather and after we finished at the lake (we kayaked for about 2 hours) we walked around for a short bit. The only thing that Anna did not like AT ALL was her life vest. She tolerated it for a while but then started to get upset with having it on. I don't really blame her. Even though it is an infant vest and is her size, it is really long so she could not really bend to sit very comfortably. She was fine for a while, but once she had enough she let us know it. Of course we had to wait until we paddled all the way back to the dock to take the vest off which took some time and she was really mad by then. As soon as we took the vest off though she was fine and enjoyed the rest of the time at the park.

All packed up and ready to go. I don't know how we will eventually get a third kayak on the truck in a couple of years.

Anna and Mommy

Poor peanut in her uncomfortable life vest.
She liked holding on to the paddle and patting the sides of the boat with her hands.

Anna and Mommy

Still on the water before her breakdown of wanting the vest off

Anna and Daddy cooling off

Anna and Mommy after the removal of the evil vest

4th of July

On July 4th, Annalise, Stan and I went to Hershey which is something Stan and I have done for at least the past 6 years (we don't remember if we have done it all 8 years we have been together or not). Being that Annalise is too young for the park we just really bopped around Hershey and Harrisburg for the day. We went shopping at the Outlets and in Harrisburg, enjoyed a tasty meal at Olive Garden, went to Chocolate World and lastly went to the fireworks at Hershey Park. It was a busy day and Annalise was VERY cooperative and easy, thankfully. She loved Chocolate World and actually seemed to really enjoy the outlets judging by the amount of squeals and raspberries that were coming from her during both of those times. I was very doubtful that she would even be awake at 10:15 when the fireworks started, but she was. However, she was not awake for long. She saw the first 5 or so and then fell asleep on Stan and stayed asleep the entire trip home. When we were waiting for the fireworks to start, we had her playing on a blanket in the grassy area where everyone parks and she was having a great time. She seems to love grass and kept rolling off the blanket so she could rip it out of the ground. In all, we had a really great day and cannot wait for next year when she will be bigger and will enjoy it even more!

Daddy and Anna at Chocolate World

Anna "singing" to Daddy in Chocolate World =)

Still whooping it up....

Anna with the World's Largest Chocolate Bar

Waiting for the fireworks in the back of Daddy's truck

Daddy and Anna after the fireworks started. She was zonked out by then.

Weird family shot

The little peanut asleep amidst horns honking, people yelling, vendors yelling to sell things and a fireworks display

Goin' Huntin' and Fishin'....

.....Ok not really. My parents go to Maine each summer which always includes a shopping trip to LL Bean. This year they brought Annalise back a little pink fishing vest and a German Shorthaired Pointer stuffed toy that looks like Riley. Now she is set to go fishing and hunting with Gramps! Here is a picture of Anna in her vest with her latest "catch"...

Looks like her puppy is not interested in hunting today.

Umm...I think you are supposed to clean the fish before you eat them!

First Carnival

Last night we went to Annalise's first carnival with the Smiths. Just like at Knoebel's last month, she loved looking at all the lights and people and loved the sounds. She at first was pretty mellow but after a ride on the Merry-Go-Round she was wound up. I am discovering that she is really easy to feed at home, but if there is any distraction around (not just something major like a carnival, but any person that usually is not around) she really does not have much time for eating! I was impressed that without eating she was still in a pleasant mood and jazzed up past 9:00! That is a new record for her!

Mommy and Anna on the carousel

Mommy and Anna
Brad and Aidan

Aidan on the cars
He really liked these!

Riding the train
It is funny, I can clearly remember riding this same train at this same carnival as a kid. The ride seemed to last much longer back then!

Brad, Lori and Aidan &
Mommy and Anna go for a train ride

New Activity

One of Anna's new favorite activities is to put all of her stuffed animals on the floor. Since she is mobile (not crawling yet but she rolls across the floor to get where she wants to go) I cleaned off the bottom of her changing table and put her stuffed animals there. She loves to sit and take each animal one by one, look at it for a moment, toss it to the side, and pull a new one out. She can do this for quite some time.

"Hi! Check out my new game!
Take out a glow worm...toss it to the side"

"Take out a rabbit...toss it to the side"

"Still watching?"

"Take out a giraffe...toss it to the side
The fun never stops =)!"

"Mommy, dit-a-fun"

The title for this blog comes from something I said to my mom when I was a little kid. The story goes that she and I were swinging on a swing together and I looked up at her and said "Mommy, dit-a-fun" - translated "Mommy, this is fun". Of course, over the years, this little catch phrase was jokingly used again and again. Well, Annalise and I went on a swing together for the first time on Sunday and I kept thinking about this as we were swinging and wondering if she was thinking that "Dit-a-fun". She enjoyed the swings, but she especially loved the going down the sliding board with me. She would get so excited and wave her arms and legs with a huge smile on her face. She also like sitting on this tiger thing they had there but I think she really just liked attacking more than the movement when she was on it.

Anna and I on the swing together. It was hard to take a picture and hold her at the same time.

Trying it by herself

Inspecting the right side of the swing. Apparently much more interesting than looking at Mommy.

Inspecting the left side of the swing. Also much more interesting than looking at Mommy.

Relaxin' in the swing

There was a group of kids running around. Also, much more interesting to look at then Mommy.

A smiley girl =)

A top shot until I realized she was.....

.....gnawing on the swing!! How completely GROSS! Mommy was grossed out because she was thinking about how many people had touched the swing etc., etc., and we were done with the swings then.

Our feet before we went down the slide

Snapshot while going down the slide.
I was surprised that one came out that well. I was just holding the camera out and hoping to capture her face.

"Mommy, dit-a-fun" Face

The slide
Yes, again something else more interesting than you guessed it, Mommy.

The poor tiger thing that she liked to attack

In all it was a fun little trip and I look forward to going back!!!!!