7 Months Old

Annalise turned 7 months old yesterday. Here are 7 things that my baby girl has taught me in the past 7 months.
1. Patience. This is the biggest thing she has taught me. I have definately learned that I don't need to get everything done at the very moment that I think of it. I slowly have learned that I always find the time and opportunity, it just might not be exactly when I want it to be. Along with this I have learned that nap times are WONDERFUL times!
2. Milestones are really exciting. With every milestone that passes, I often think about how funny it is that I get so excited for her. I still remember one of the first times she rolled over on her own and Stan and I started clapping and cheering for her. She looked at us like we were nuts.
3. What it is like to have your heart melt with one little smile and a little laugh.
4. To greet good friends with a big smile. Anna's "good friends" at this point other than her Daddy and I are her toys. She has a few favorites that whenever she first sees them, she flashes a huge smile.
5. Schedules are awesome. Enough said.
6. What it feels like to not know at all what you are doing. As new parents, this feeling was scary at first, but it is something that you eventually get used to. I actually had a hard time with this at first but I have learned to deal with this by just knowing that all we can do is the best that we can with what we know at the moment.
7. How complete it feels to rock your sleeping baby in your arms. I cannot describe it exactly, many of you know the feeling. I don't know how I lived 29 years without it.

Hard Boiled Eggs, Ring Bologna and a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

For Stan's first Father's Day, in addition to getting him a small gift, I decided that it would be nice to surprise him and make a dinner specifically for him. Actually, I have had this thought often, but whenever I ask him what he wants for dinner, he ALWAYS replies and I quote, "Whatever you want.". Now, I somehow find it to be miraculous that my husband is always in the mood for what I want to eat, but he insists that he is. We have had conversation after conversation about it and he always just wants whatever I do. I also find it odd that we have NEVER ordered the same thing to eat in a restaurant..........but anyway. I knew that I could not just come out and ask him what he wanted to eat so I very nonchalantly the other day said to him, "So, I was thinking today about what I would want as my last meal if I were going to die. I couldn't come up with anything. What would you pick?". Without even batting an eye, my thirty-something husband looked at me and said "Hard boiled eggs, ring bologna and grilled cheese sandwiches." Seriously. I am not kidding. So, that is what he had for dinner on Father's Day (I had a big salad which is my favorite meal). He was really surprised! For dessert, I baked chocolate chip cookies and wrote on them with blue icing (another one of his favs).
On a side note, I found it really funny that he did not at all think it was strange that I was thinking about what my last meal would be. We have so many really weird conversations though that I was pretty sure that he would not think anything of it.
Below are some pics of Anna and her Daddy on Father's Day.

Rainbow

This was the one bright moment in all of the rain we have had recently! How nice it has been to have sunshine the past couple of days!

Meet "Anna the Incredible Hulk"

Ever since Annalise was born, we have had comment after comment from people about how strong she is. Even her doctor and the nurses always say that she is physically very strong. I can personally attest to this claim as many times throughout the day she takes a fist full of my hair or she has a hold of something that I am trying to get from her (which is now really fun since she has discovered how to go both ways in her walker). She has started to play kinda rough in her exersaucer and pulls really hard on a lot of the toys on it. Well the last night, she actually let out a screech, and ripped, yes ripped, a toy right off of it. The toy was not loose prior to that, she just reached up and yanked right off, tearing apart the fabric it was attached to. In the picture above, the toy was in the middle with more fabric attached to it.
Also, this morning, she was in her walker and knocked over a baby gate that was propped against the wall. When it fell it gave a HUGE bang and I jumped. I thought for sure she would start to cry but she looked at it, looked at me, smiled, and started pushing it down the hall. The gate itself is a little heavy, but she was just pushing it along like nothing. Stan has started calling her "Toughy" and she is living up to it!! How funny!

Sweetness

Other than the baptism pictures I finally got around to posting yesterday, I have not really updated on what little miss has been up to. Anna went to her first birthday party on June 6th where there was quite a few other small kids in the 1-2 year old range. It was the first time that she saw that many kids all together at one time and she loved it! The bigger kids were riding around on toys and she loved watching them and shrieking at the top of her lungs. She also really liked the water table and was splashing away in it. Although I brought the camera, I didn't take any pictures myself, but there are some good shots of the fun on my friends' blogs: A Rumble in the Jungle and The Smith Family. Links to those pages are on the left of the screen so you can see Anna at the party there. I guess my excuse for not taking pictures is the fact that Stan had to work, so I had full Anna duty the whole time. In all honesty, I have never been a "picture person" so the fact that I have taken so many pictures since Anna was born is really amazing! Seriously, my whole life growing up, I had a friend who used to take tons of pictures of everything. I used to just get copies of pictures from her.
Annalise also came to the school with me on the last day for the end of the year luncheon. It was over her nap time so she was a little fussy but not bad. I was glad to finally have to opportunity for everyone to see her since I didn't bring her in after she was born because I was a real "germaphobic" the whole winter!
Another "new thing" that Annalise has done is she got in our pool for the first time last night. She really one got her legs in because we really had not planned on going swimming, but she LOVED it! Stan decided to get in quick because he was really hot after working on pressure washing the deck and siding, so I sat on the side and put my legs in. I as holding Anna over the side and Stan took her for a few "rides" in the water. I can't wait to take her in all the way. Looks like probably not this week though because the weather looks really junky!
Here are some random pictures of our sweetness:

All smiles in the morning

"Dee da dee de dee...just layin' here with by binkyyyy..."

"Oh, hi Mommy!"

"Watcha doin' ?"

"I'll help you with the camera."

Chewing on the tag of the fabric book. She can find a tag on anything.

"What?"

"Duhhhhhh..."
This is the trademark "Riley Look". We do love our dog, but we have found over the past three years that she is not the brightest bulb out there!

Anna's Baptism

Annalise was baptized on May 24th, 2009. Anna was really a good baby for her baptism even though she was really tired since it was over her nap time. During the church service she was a little antsy like usual, so I had to walk around with her for awhile but when it came time for her baptism she didn't fuss at all. After we got home, I was sure she was going to be ready for a nap but she got her second wind and ended up staying awake for another 3 hours!! She was really exhausted after that though and napped like a champ for a few hours.
The dress that Anna wore is the same dress that her cousins, Jen, Samantha and Hannah all wore before her, which I think is really neat that all the girls have now been able to wear it. Hopefully Anna's little sister will be able to wear it too in a couple of years (I don't know what we will do if we have a boy next. I guess he will just have to wear a dress =) ).
We did not really get any pictures at the church on our camera but we did get some at home afterwards. I must also add that it was really difficult to get a good picture of a 6 month old in a dress as you will soon see.......

Doing good so far....

Still OK...but then...

...she discovered her shiny shoes...

...began to roll over and pull up the blanket.

Ok, so then I figure I will take some of her lying down.
Anna obviously had a different idea about that..

..she kept swinging her legs over her head.

Notice how her legs are blurry. She had them swingin' away!

We were glad to be able to visit with friends and family after her baptism. We don't have pictures of everyone since, like at Easter, it is hard to do the food and take the pictures too, but at least there are more pictures than there were at my Easter dinner. Grammy, Grandpa and Sylvia, Gram, Uncle Ben & Crystal and Andrew, Uncle Dave & Aunt Lisa and Jen, Uncle Rich & Aunt Michelle and Samantha and Hannah, Brad, Lori and Aidan Smith, the Rileys (Lori's parents), Auntie Emily and Uncle Mike all came over. Here are some pictures of the party afterwards:

Annalise's cake

Our family

Hangin' out with Uncle Rich and cousin Hannah

Hammin' it up with Grandpa..

..and Aunt Michelle.

Visiting with Aunt Lisa. I love Anna's face in this picture!

Cousins Hannah & Jen, Uncle Dave, cousin Samantha and Aunt Michelle

Grammy, Grandpa, Gram, Sylvia and Aunt Lisa

End of School Year

The transition back to work has gone very smoothly (thank goodness!). I can actually say that it does feel kinda of nice to be back into the swing of things there. Of course, with the school year ending this week, I will be back at home again until August but at least I have gotten a taste of what it will be like next fall. Anna took her first trip to Knoebel's last night and she really like looking at all the action and listening to all the sounds. She was extremely smiley the whole time and was not interested in eating her dinner at all since there was so much going on! I did not take any pictures though because we did not stay real long, we basically just went to eat at my school picnic and then walked around for about an hour. We can't wait to take her back another time though so she can view the sights!