One Year Old Today!

Happy birthday to my beautiful, smart, wonderful baby girl who makes every day so much fun! We love you!!

She liked the cake!

Family picture

Excited about her presents.

Picture with PaPaw

Fueling up for the party. She LOVES bananas, and will eat about 4 a day if you let her!!

New red wagon from YaYa.

We had a great time celebrating AnnaLynn's first year. Thanks to all the friends that came out. My mom, Brother and sister-in-law, and my dad all came down for the festivities. Laura Skyped in from South Carolina. Love y'all!

So much to say, you really don't have to read all this, it's more for my memory than anything.

So much has happened since the last post. Let's see if I can remember it all, probably not, but I'll write what I can.

AnnaLynn now has seven teeth, the most recent one broke through on May 26th just after the sixth one did. Her diet has expanded dramatically. She eats almost anything we do with the exception of choking hazards and possible allergens. I hardly have to blend her food for her any more which is great and saves a lot of time. I just make sure it is chopped up well.

She is walking like a professional, actually she is running most of the time. She took her first step on Easter as she was trying to reach an Easter egg. Her vocabulary is grow, although you probably would not recognize most of the words unless you were around her frequently. She can say Daddy, doggie, kitty, ball and she's starting to say Momma. She also makes the sounds but not quiet the pronounciation for thank you, look, and Granny. She can also tell you the sound for a doggie (bark and sniff), a lion, sheep, elephant, and monkey... however she does not do these consistently on command yet.

But what she can't say with her mouth she can do with her actions. She is so smart. If you say "AnnaLynn, where is your ball?" She will look and find her ball. You can then say "AnnaLynn, get your ball and bring it to Momma," and she will do it. This is just one example of many things like this. She can also point out lights, her drink cup, her blanket, books, blocks, and more things are being added to this list daily.

She thankfully still takes about three naps a day! Which is great and she loves taking them. She only gets really cranky when she's tired and isn't able to go to her bed.

Tony has finished the Spring semester at Asbury online!!! We were all excited about that. He has three more years of online classes then he is done! He is currently in Birmingham, AL with the youth group on a mission trip. The little updates I get sound like they are having a great time!

We recently celebrated Tony's 30th birthday! We had a surprise party on June 6th, four days before his actually birthday. I think he caught on a little toward the end, but it was still a great, fun time. Tony and I also celebrated our fourth anniversary. My mom came down to Denham Springs to watch AnnaLynn for the night. It was the first night that we had been away from her for the whole night. Mom said she did great and they had a ton of fun, never even noticed we were gone, which is great and a little sad, but only a little.

I am currently in Montana with Mom, Granny and AnnaLynn. We are having a great time. We got her on Saturday June 11th. AnnaLynn really did a great job with flying. Three flights!! Yesterday we went to GNP. The Going-to-the-Sun Road is only opened to Avalanche Creek, so we drove there and then walked to trail of the cedars and checked out Avalanche Gorge. The park had a ton of snow this year, more than normal. So, the water is extremely high everywhere. Sacred Dancing Cascades was so full and beautiful. Granny said she had only seen it that full once before! It reminded you how powerful and scary water can be! AnnaLynn loved hiking on Trail of the Cedars. She did such a great job. The weather was cloudy, drizzly, and a little cold, but we had a great time!!

Today we are enjoying a day in Whitefish. More later. Love to all.

AnnaLynn's Doings

Of course, I'm terrible at keeping people updated on this blog because, simply, I just don't make the time to do it, and when I do I usually get so frustrated with the blogger that it's no fun anyway.

I have been trying to keep a short running list of some of the things AnnaLynn has been doing.

Here it is so far:
Week of Christmas 2010 - started "army" crawling
Jan 9th ish - started saying ba ba ba ba ba
Feb 22nd ish - started pulling up to a standing position
March 8, 2011 - started crawling with a "normal" crawl
March 11th ish - Since I don't think AnnaLynn needs a pacifier when she is awake and in a good mood… When she wakes up, I say "May I have your pacifier, please?" and then take it out of her mouth. She has never complained or fussed. Then around March 11th ish after she woke from one of her naps I said "May I have your pacifier, please?" and as I went to take it out of her mouth she spit it out! After the next nap she did the same thing, and then I realized that she knew exactly what I was saying and was responding without my making her!! So cool!
March 17-19 - first beach trip. She was unsure about the sand at first, but after being slowing introduced to it, she loved it. She also went swimming in a pool for the first time. I thought she would not like it, she still gets a little overwhelmed in the bath tub with water goes in her face. But she loved it! She was kicking her feet and moving all over the place. It was too cute!
March 22 - started saying ma ma ma ma ma
3rd week in March - started getting mad when she didn't get what she wants or what she wants was taken away from her
March 25 - slowly starting to "cruise" on the furniture. She needs a motivator which is usually Eastwood our cat, puffs (little rice treats that she loves!) or mommy or daddy.

Updates on the parents: Tony and I have been doing really well. We are still getting everything here in Denham figured out. Tony is having a hard time being motivated for school right now. It's amazing how much hard it is to be motivated when you are taking online classes. He is about to really get hit with a ton of stuff. April and May are going to be crazy months for our church. We will be starting a new casual worship service which Tony will be apart of the worship team. We are also putting on the first annual Youth Silent Auction which is the largest fundraiser for their mission trip. Many other end of the year things will be happening around here too. All of this along with Tony's final tests and papers and papers and papers. :) Prayers for his diligence and perserverance would be wonderful!

I am starting to take on a little more responsibility with things at the church. I'm helping out a lot with the silent auction and have stepped into a leadership position with the greeter team for our new church service. I am very excited about this because I really want people to feel welcomed and to be excited to be at church! I am also considering/praying about other areas that I might serve. I have been reading through and discussing the book Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer with another lady in our church. It has really been a great book so far. I find myself thinking about the things she talks about in it more than I expected. It's all about taking control of what we are thinking about and not just letting our minds drift. It's about realizing that our minds are important tools that can be used for good or bad and we need to make the choice of how ours will be used. Very interesting stuff, and I'm glad I'm reading it slowly and discussing it with a friend. I do hope that this meeting time can really develope into a woman's Bible study where we are not afraid to go deep into the Word and challenge each other and ask questions and prayer for each other - a way to get to know the women that I am serving with.

Anyway, life is so good. I praise the Lord for all of the many, many, many blessings He has given to me. I often sit and wonder why would the Lord bless me so much. I am doing the very thing I have always wanted to do - be a mommy, and I am blessed enough to have a husband that completely loves and supports me staying at home to care for our precious, loving, healthy, wonderful daughter. My family (my whole family) is the greatest gift the Lord has given to me. I love you all! Ok, time for some cute pictures:Typical after-dinner picture. AnnaLynn is so funny how she sits in her booster seat. She likes to hook her two big toes on the tray table and just leave them there. So cute!She loves listening to (and sometimes playing with) daddy on his guitar.

6 Month Dr. Apt

AnnaLynn had her 6 month healthy baby check-up on Friday the 18th.
Stats:
weight: 17 pounds - 50th-75th percentile
head circumfrance: 17 cm - 50th-75th percentile
height: 27 inches - 90th percentile
She also received her 6 month shots.

About 3 days ago AnnaLynn startedpulling herself up to a standing position when holding onto something sturdy like a full laundry basket. Very cool.

So far she has eaten rice cereal, peas, broccoli, butternut squash, and corn. Next will be green beans, carrots, and sweet potatos then we might move onto bananas, apples, oatmeal, etc.

December and January

Christmas week AnnaLynn started Army crawling. Although she hasn’t perfected the “normal” baby crawl, she is practically a pro at Army crawling. It’s no secret when she starts moving around either… you usually hear uh uh uh with each inch forward, especially if she is chasing Chaucer (her favorite thing to do when on the floor) with the frequent scream/squeal of delight when she is close to him. Chaucer doesn’t pay her much mind. It is really funny when you see AnnaLynn working so hard to crawl down the hall to get to Chaucer and then Chaucer just gets up and walks right past her to another room. It doesn’t slow her down, though; she just turns around and goes after him again. She sure does love him.

While in Kentucky (first two weeks of January) AnnaLynn started “talking” saying bababab. She just all of a sudden did it one day while I was holding her. I’m sure it won’t be long until she is making complete sentences with three and four syllable words.

January 18, 2011 AnnaLynn had her first solid food – rice cereal with breast milk. She did very well and has been enjoying it ever since.

January 24, 2011 I noticed AnnaLynn’s first tooth emerging – she never showed signs of it bothering her. It’s her lower left center tooth. So cute, but it sure does hurt when she bites down on your finger now.

January 29, 2011 AnnaLynn first tried English peas – didn’t like it; we have a hilarious video of her disgust face. However, I being determined to help her learn to love veggies have decided to hide the green peas in rice cereal. She is doing well with them that way.

February 5, 2011 AnnaLynn’s first butternut squash. She seems to enjoy it, she didn’t reject it and actually ate quite a bit. Yummy!!

She has a well-baby doctor’s appointment in two weeks, so I’m sure I’ll be updating again after that.