Welcome, Santa Claus!

Last weekend Anna and I went along with the Smiths to the Santa Claus parade in Bloomsburg. Below are the only two pictures I took because shortly after I took them I got Annalise out of the stroller to stand in the street to watch. That was the end of the picture taking because my efforts were then geared toward making sure she didn't try to walk/crawl off! She liked the parade though and bopped to the music and even waved to Santa!

Anna looking like she is thinking something is very suspicious before the start of the parade.

Aidan and Anna chillin' before the start of the parade

Daddy's Favorite Pajamas

Here are some pictures of Annalise in Stan's favorite pajamas. Last summer we were shopping at Carter's in Hershey and Stan found these pajamas for Anna. He rarely has an opinion about such things so when came over to me with these that day I knew we had to buy them for her. Every time she has them on Stan says "She's so cute!" about 500,000,000 times. Seriously. Actually come to think of it he does that everyday so add another zero to that number and that is how many times he says it when she has the monkey pajamas on.

Crazy Hair

This is Anna's crazy bath hair. I'm sure she will REALLY appreciate these pictures when she is a teenager =).

Balloons!

Annalise really loved the balloons that Aunt Emily got for her Birthday Party! She has spent many days pulling them around the house. She has even learned the word balloon....she doesn't say it of course, but if you ask her where her balloon is she looks for it until she finds it and either brings it to you or points at it.

Annalise's Birthday Party

Last weekend we had Anna's birthday party. She had a lot of fun and was exhausted that evening. She loved being able to explore the Lighthouse room and toddle around with the other kids. She really seemed to enjoy ripping the paper off of her presents and much to my surprise she put very little paper in her mouth. She seems to be quickly growing out of that "I am going to put everything in my mouth" stage. Here are some pictures of her party.

The room at the church we used for Anna's party

Exploring in her walker

Exploring from a different angle

She loved these little chairs -- may need to get her some for home!

Some partyers

More partyers

More partyers

and more partyers

Her cake

Mommy and Daddy blowing out her candle

I am lame and would not let Anna have any of the extremely unhealthy, sugar loaded cake. I made her an Angel Food cake cupcake. At first she didn't even know what it was until I broke off a piece and fed it to her.

She still was not sure of it......

..but then decided that she liked it and dived in.

Eating her Angel Food cupcake

Opening gifts....as you can see she had lots of help at first

She was into the gifts...Christmas should be amusing

I guess I wasn't it getting it to her fast enough.

She really looked over each and every gift after we opened them!

As you can see from her expression gift opening is very serious business!

In all we had a great time celebrating Anna's birth with everyone! This past year has been such a joy and a blessing to share with our sweet girl. Happy, Happy Birthday to our little Annalise! We love you!!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Annalise!!

November 2008

November 2009

Well....not really yet. At 11:49 tonight she will be one year old! I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone by! At this point in the day last year I was finally checked into the hospital after a few hours of walking. When my contractions were 10 minutes apart, I called like I was supposed to and they told me to come in to be checked. It was about 5 am when I called and about 6 am by the time we got everything around and got there. The doctor check me and I don't remember how many centimeters I was, but apparently I was not enough to be checked in to the hospital but the doctor felt that if I walked around for 2 HOURS or so that I would probably speed up the process and she would check me in. So, off Stan and I went to walk the campus of Geisinger. At that point I was already getting some pretty intense back labor so when Stan had his back turned, I would sneak away and find somewhere to sit down. He would then try to coax me to walk more...and I would comply....only to find another spot to sit for a minute or so. That back labor was sooooooooo intense and only got much worse as the day went on. I was determined to make it as long as I could though without any drugs. Anyway...we walked and walked and walked and returned for me to be checked at 9 am. The walking worked and I was checked into the hospital. The rest is actually somewhat of a blur until I got to the point where I needed to begin pushing at about 9 pm. I did end up getting an epidural around 7 pm or so....I could not take the back labor any longer. The next time I really hope that I don't have back labor because I think I probably could have made it if it were not for that. Before I got the epidural I asked the nurse if there was anything else that I could have that would just take the edge of the back pain and she said for back labor the ONLY thing that works is an epidural....so I wimped out and did it. Actually now sitting here typing at that point I had no idea that Anna was going to be over 9 pounds so actually maybe it was a good thing I got it because the pushing was something else because of her size!!!!! I do plan on next time again going as long as I can without anything and see if I can make it all the way. Anyway, after about 2 hours and 49 minutes of pushing, Annalise Olivia Hess can into our lives....and timely on her due date I might add. As I was pushing I was determined to get her into this world before the clock said midnight because of course I wanted to make the deadline!!!! This has become quite a joke between Stan and I. The nurses told us that supposedly Anna is supposed to have a lifetime of luck and good fortune because she was born naturally on her due date!!! So we will see........
I am going to post some pictures tonight after she goes to bed because I have a million things to do at the moment.

Last year on this day....

Last year on the is day, it was my last day working at school. Well, I guess I was "working". I had a student teacher and was more like "monitoring from a chair" because I couldn't breath much less stand up for too long. At this point, even though it was the day before my official due date of the 22nd, I was still on the outside thinking that I would be back at work the following week because it was my first baby and first babies are always late right??? Well obviously I was wrong. I do think that a little part of me did know that I would not be back the following week because I remember staying at school until like 5:00 that night putting the finishing touches on all the things I needed (or thought I needed) to do before the baby came. It was a good thing I did that too...because little did know what would unfold a few short hours later. I would say at about 9:00 that night I was really uncomfortable. I had been for some time because I did have a 9lb 3 0z baby which made breathing quite a task but I was REALLY uncomfortable that night. I managed to doze off on the couch for awhile and woke up around midnight when the contractions began..............nearly 24 hours later I would meet my sweet princess.........