Cuteness

Bloomsburg Fair

It's official.  I have definately passed on the "love-of-the-Bloomsburg-Fair" gene to Annalise.  We went for a little bit everyday except for the two that it rained, and she loved it!  In fact, one day as I was putting her down for a nap (after we had just spent the entire morning and early afternoon at the fair) she muttered as she was drifting off "more fair, mommy".  That same day when she woke up the first thing she asked for was to go back to the fair and indeed we did.  No one ever has to twist my air to go to the fair!  Here are some pictures of what seemed to be Annalise's favorite things at the fair this past week.

 

 Annalise loved the Butterfly house

 In the house there were Q-Tips with a sweet substance on it.  The butterflies would land on the Q-Tip to "eat" it.  Annalise was very serious about holding the butterfly.  She kept saying, "I be careful, Mommy." 

 Eyeballing the fountain behind her.  She was also being careful so she didn't fall in!

One the quest for another butterfly.

 One hitched a ride on the back of her shirt!

 Eating dinner with Aunt Emmy.

 Something was obviously funny here.  Could it be she thought it was funny to make Emmy panicked? (He He, Em)

Playing the duck game with Emmy.  This is where she got her beloved butterfly that she now runs around the house with.

 Playing in the corn.  I swear she could have spent hours here.

 Chillin' with Tigger

 Annalise loved this baby calf.  She talked about it from the first night that we saw it.  The day we went down with my mom, we let her go sit with it.

Gram getting Anna situated for a picture.

 As she was petting it she kept saying "Hi Buddy!"

 Still gently petting her.

 I was kind of surprised that she liked the horse races as much as she did.  Anna really enjoyed them though and was disappointed when they were over.

 Watching the races.

 My mom and I took Anna on a horse drawn carriage ride.  I was trying to get a picture but she wouldn't look because.....

 ...she was busy watching the horse behinds saying "Clip Clop! Clip Clop!"

 This was Annalise's version of a "parade wave" to "her public" as she was in the carriage.

I think each day she asked to see the chickens.  So we did even though my heart was POUNDING every moment that we were in that building.  She especially liked the little peeps!

Tutu

Auntie Emmy got Anna a cute little tutu that she likes to put on and spin around the house.  Frequently I have to convince her to take it off to sleep!  She tends to run and spin a lot when she has it on and I have had a heck of a time getting a good picture so these are about the best I can get for now.  Maybe when the novelty of it wears off she will slow down with it a little bit!

The Girls

The toy that Anna has been playing a lot with lately is her Melissa and Doug dolls that are magnetic with magnetic clothes.  It has kept her from digging through her own clothes and putting them on lately so that has been a nice break for me!  She calls them "The Girls" and it is usually one of the first things she goes to in the morning to play with.  You should see some of the outfits she comes up with!

Still Reading

Annalise still has yet to watch anything on TV.  I don't discourage her from it, she just doesn't really have an interest in it beyond a few minutes (like 2 minutes).  At times I put on Elmo or something just to see what she will do and every time she will watch for a few seconds and then want to do something else.  I will take it as long as I can!  It is not that she doesn't have the attention span, she still continues to look at books for long periods of time and desires to be read to for a large part of the day.

 Who's reading to who?

 Perusing If You Give a Pig a Pancake, one of her favs.

"Hey, no more pictures!"

I love how you can see how mullet-like her hair is here.  The back just keeps getting longer and longer while the sides and top are growing, just not as fast as the back!

Stairwell Project

This is the old front door that was there when we bought the house.  You can also see the old 80's wall paper that used to be there.

 The new front door that we put in actually a few years ago.  The wallpaper is gone and we repainted although now that we got the new carpeting in the living room I think I want to repaint again.  You can also see the refinished stairs here.

 The old, nasty carpet that used to be on the stairs.

 The stairs refinished.

 The old, unstained stair railing.  Whoever put this one in, never finished it!

 The new, finished stair railing (well almost finished).

 Old picture of hallway in the basement.

 The hallway in the basement currently.  It is all ripped out and the tile and other things are purchased.  Now it needs to be put in!  Also the little bathroom you can kind of see here needs to be ripped out.  We purchased all new bathroom stuff to go in there.  Again, just waiting to be put in!

The floor on the landing.  You guessed it, we have the stuff purchased, now it needs to be put in!  I don't have a picture of the old floor but it was dark, slate tiles.  It took Stan a long time to pound out that slate.  He said that whoever put it down used the wrong kind of adhesive which made it really sturdy but really difficult to remove!  Stayed tuned for the finished pics hopefully sooner than later!

Welcome Fall!

Even though I LOVE summer and swear I will someday live where that is the only season present, I do have to admit that fall also has a certain charm to it.  I fact that I do like to decorate for fall, and the fact that Annalise was born then as well as the fact that it means that I tend to cook and bake more frequently, and then of course there is the fair, all come together to make it my second most favorite season.  Last weekend Annalise and I spent Saturday doing our indoor fall decorating and she was a hoot!  It was so much fun decorating with her this year (even though it took MUCH more time to do so) because each thing I pulled out of storage she wanted to look at.  She also got really excited over each thing no matter if it was the lite up eyeballs, the halloween tree or even the leaf garland, it didn't matter.  Seeing her so excited made it just that much more fun for me!  I didn't really get any pictures of us decorating since I was monitoring the breakable stuff that Anna was "helping" with but I did take one picture that was significant.  When we were finished I still had these 3 wooden pumpkins and I didn't know where to put them.  I asked Annalise and she looked around the room.  She then picked them up and placed them where you see them in the picture.  She looked up at me and said "They go right here, Mommy.  All done."  She was right, they looked nice right there and we were all done =).