"I've Gotta Call......"

Lately Annalise has been grabbing telling me very insistently that she has to call different people.   You should really hear the urgent tone of her voice though when she says "Mommy, I've gotta call (fill in the blank)".  The person she mentions the most is baby James who is only 6 months old!  Sometimes I do let her hold my phone for a few minutes and to pretend to call whoever and she will hold a one sided conversation for a minute or so before she says "Ok?  Bye" and hands the phone back to me.

 Dialing a friend....

 It's ringing....

 "Hi! What are ya doin'?"

This is usually how she starts her conversation.

"Ok?  Bye!"

Gym Class

At the beginning of October, Annalise started a gym class on Saturdays at the Sportsplex.  It has been a lot of fun for both of us!  At the beginning I thought that she would be really shy and that it would take a few weeks for her to even do anything, but I was wrong!  Not that she wanted anything to do with any of the other adults there but she has only been afraid to do one thing the whole time we have been going.  In addition to enjoying the equipment and little routines that she has to do, Anna really likes watching the older girls flip in the air.  She always tells me "I do that, Mommy" and "I go over there, Mommy".  I always tell her she can do it when she is bigger, but oh my, I can't imagine the heart palpitations I will get watching her flying around in mid air!
On a recent Saturday Stan took these pictures.  Have I mentioned that I hate camera?  No matter what setting (and you will see that Stan tried a few different ones), nothing seems to work to get decent pictures. 

 Ready to start gym class!

 We always start by doing stretches.  Annalise loves to go find her green square on the floor and obsesses over making sure that she stays on it the whole time.

 Rope swing!  She actually has pretty good upper body strength and does pretty well with this.

 A little trampoline jumping.

 Anna loves to crawl through this tube!

 Usually she goes off to the side without the mat because she is waayyyy too tall to swing with the mat underneath her.  On this day though she only wanted to drag her knees for some reason.  This is one of her favorite things though.  She calls it the "Swingy Swoo".  I have no idea why.

 On the balance beam.  She is bending over to ask me where the stuffed animals are.  The previous week the teacher got out animals and put them on the beam and the kids had to step over them.  It became an issue that week because many of the kids were having fits about picking them up.  Annalise just liked walking over them and would say "Hi, (fill in the blank with the type of animal it was).  She would then just stare at the kids who were having fits.  In fact, she often just stares at kids when they are having fits which I HATE because I am always fearful that she will start to think that that is way to act.  I joke to Stan and say that I am concerned that she took "mental notes" on poor behavior!!

 This child LOVES this pit of foam blocks.  Me, on the other hand, not so much.  My germ radar goes on extreme overload for this one!  But Anna loves it.  She runs down that long trampoline and would jump in head first if I would let her.  Here I am telling her to wait so that I can jump in.  Anna thinks it is really funny when I get in and loves to jump to me!  This summer at the pool should be fun!

 Jumping on the floor tramp

 More balance beam

 And, at last, another one of Annalise favorite parts, the parachute!

 All the kids on top as the parents shake it!

Another awesome gym class is complete!

Gobble! Gooble! Gooooooooo!

Since the weather has started getting cooler and we have not been able to play outside as much at night, I have started trying to do little crafts with Anna.  I am very quickly running out of ideas since I have absolutely no creativity so I am going to have to purchase a book soon to get some new ideas.  Anna is pretty into it and especially likes anything that involves glue sticks.  She also currently LOVES to have her hands traced for some reason.  So, the other night, we made the classic "turkeys made out of traced hands" that adorn the houses of small children across the country at this time of the year.  While we were at it we also made a Native American headband for her to wear.  Obviously I did the cutting but Anna helped with color selecting (hence the blue and orange turkeys) and almost couldn't contain her excitement when helping with the gluing.  Here are our lovely masterpieces:

 Anna was flying her turkeys around the house saying "Gobble, Gobble, Goooooo!"

 I wanted her to show me both of them but she dropped the blue one and did this with the other one.  As almost all of you who read this know, such is picture taking with an almost 2 year old!

 "Hmmmm, needs a little adjusting...."

 "Ahhh, fits great!"

 More Native American turkey flying

This we made another night.  I asked her what she wanted to make and she said a "Halloween Pumpkin".  So, I cut out the pieces and had her glue it together.  I thought she did pretty good!

Pom-Pom Party

The other night I needed to sort about 500 little pom-poms to use in a activity at school.  At first Annalise was helping me but then I think she got a little bored with the sorting after a short while.  She discovered that they were much more fun to blow, toss, flick, dump over her head, etc.  Stan and I got in on it too and this was the result of our living room after our family battle......

 Needless to say the sorting did not get done until later that night!

Let the battle begin!
(And just might I add that I really hope that between the ages of 2 and 3 that Anna's hair on the top and sides of her head get with the program and GROW ALREADY so we can lose the 80's mullet!! =) 

Annalise's First Trick or Treat!

I was undecided about whether or not I was going to take Anna trick-or-treating.  I mean she isn't interested in candy and she is so shy that I never thought that she would ever actually want to walk up to a house that she didn't know, much less say trick-or-treat or even look at the person when he/she answered.  But, I did get her a costume and I didn't want to feel like I wasted my money so we decided to give it a try.  We only went to a few houses in our development and she sure did surprise me!  I had told her throughout the week that if she wanted people to give her things to put in her beloved pumpkin that she would have to talk to them, etc., etc.  Well, she remembered and walked right up to the first house with me and loudly said to the woman "Trick or Treat!".  I was shocked.  I guess she really wanted something to put in her pumpkin!.  Anna thanked the woman and as we were walking away she said excitedly, "Wow!  I like that lady!".  She was so thrilled to get those pretzels.  So we went to a few more houses and then went home which Annalise didn't mind doing at all.  I just told her trick-or-treat was over and she was like, "OK, we go home now".  Love that girl!  When we got home I though for certain that she was going to want to try the candy, but all she cared about was the bag of pretzels.  So we found other uses for the candy.  We sorted it by color, type and size, we stacked it up, we counted it and talked about the letters on the wrappers and that was it!  I am really glad that we took her out because she was so excited the whole time and just wanted to run, run, run.  I am lucky that I got any pictures once I put that costume on her!

 Little ladybug

 "Here's my pumpkin and I'm ready to go!"

 And this was the view I of her the rest of the night.  She literally ran the whole time once that costume was on!

 She had absolutely no time for a picture with me.  Especially when we got to the first house!

 Anna wanted to walk right up and ring the door bell.

This was the very first house we stopped at.

 Trick-or-Treat!

 She then had slightly more patience for a picture after we got one house under our belts!

 Next house with Daddy!

 Love that costume!

Checking out her loot!

Catawissa Halloween Parade

This past Saturday, my mom and I took Anna to the parade in Catawissa.  I had not been there in more than 10 years but from what I could remember I knew it was going to be crowded....and it sure was!  It really is a nice parade though.  Annalise loved the parade and was very focused on picking up the candy and putting it in her pumpkin.  And again, I was prepared for her to finally ask for a piece of it and I was going to let her have one.....but........she never asked!  She got another little bag of animal crackers just like the other parade and that was all she cared about eating!  Too funny!  I really think it is because she is not really interested in trying new foods unless I coax her or tell her it is really good.  Since I have done neither with the candy I think that she just doesn't want to venture on what it might taste like.  Like I have said before, I will continue to take it while I can!  These are the only three pictures that I took because it was dark and there were a lot of spooky masks around (which ranks right up there with my feelings about birds) so I was focused on other things than picture taking. 

 Anna and I waiting for the parade to start

 I have no idea what is going on here.

Homecoming Parade

Last weekend after Anna's gym class we went to the Homecoming Parade in Bloomsburg.  Because of the timing of her class, we were not sure if we would make it or not, but we did with only a few minutes to spare!  We only have ever taken Annalise to one other parade about a year ago, so this was a whole new experience for her.  She loved it of course once she got over the "shock" of people throwing candy =).  I really wish I would've gotten a picture of the look on her face when the first people threw candy her way.  She was clearly startled and didn't understand at first why people were throwing things (yay for knowing this is something you normally shouldn't do).  Anna got the hang of picking up the candy and putting it in her little pumpkin and interestingly enough, she didn't even ask for one piece of it.  I have never discouraged her from candy, I have just purposefully never mentioned it to her and she doesn't see us eat it.  I guess that is why she wasn't really interested in eating it, she just wanted to pick it up and put it in her pumpkin.  I was ready and braced for her to ask for some and was going to let her because I don't want to turn it into a "forbidden fruit" but it never happened, which made my day.  The biggest hit for her was the strand of dice beads she got since it was a Las Vegas theme and a little bag of animal crackers.  Anyway, enough yapping and here are some pictures.

 Waiting for the parade to start with Daddy.

 A little snack while she waits.

 This was the first time Annalise used her camp chair outside and she thought she was really something else sitting in it =).

 Her little pumpkin that will be used for many Halloweens to come!

 As always since she was a tiny baby, even though she is shy, she still loves to know what EVERYONE is doing!

 Now something has her attention....

 ....it's the start of the parade.  Annalise had a lot of head boppin' going on!

 Getting braver to venture out to get the candy with Daddy.

The one (and probably only) advantage of having a shy toddler is that she doesn't even attempt to venture away from us once we tell to not to.

 Anna did a great job of just picking up the candy.....

 ....putting it in her pumpkin......

...and sitting back in her chair to happily wait for more!!