Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Anna can stand by herself!

Marion informed me yesterday when I picked up that Anna stood by herself! Uh oh! So, she now knows how to bend her knees while standing in order to pick up a toy from the floor, and to bend her knees in order to ease herself from standing to sitting again.

Marion also mentioned that she'd tried giving Anna applesauce with no luck! Anna still hates applesauce! She'll eat sand, dirt, but keep that applesauce away from her.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Anna's nine month photos

I have had really good luck taking Anna to the nearest Target Portrait studio for pictures. I'm thrilled with how these pictures turned out, despite the fact that Anna didn't want to sit still.

This first picture is my favorite, I think it really captures her personality. The photographer quickly snapped it as Anna crawled toward her.















Here is another nice pose, with the infamous Duckie. Anna seems to like all kinds of duckies.



Anna now has seven teeth, four on top, three on the bottom. The seventh came through this week, and I think the eighth is on its way. Seems like a lot of teeth!

More soon!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

The latest about Annaboo-girl!

Hi everyone! Anna's mommy, posting again about my sweet girl! Can you believe that next month she is going to be one?

As most of you know, Anna's main nickname is Boo. She responds to both Boo and Anna, thank goodness, though Saskia is convinced that by the time Anna gets to school she'll forget what her real name is and miss responding to roll call in class.

As you see in the last post, Anna has been pulling herself up to stand whenever possible. She'll stand, grasping onto something for a minute or two and then you can see her little legs start to tremble and then she'll plop down on her bottom. It makes me nervous to see her standing in her crib, as I can only lower it a few more inches. Sometimes when she plops down she'll hit her head or face on whatever she was grasping, which provides a scare as well. More falls come while crawling around. Sometimes when she's crawling as fast as she can she misses putting a hand down in front of her and has to catch herself to keep from hitting the floor. Or, she'll try holding something in one hand while she's trying to crawl, which will either cause her to slip a bit (Duckie) or make a lot of noise (a hard sided toy). Either way, she doesn't let these things slow her down! It's sweet to see the knees in her little pants showing wear from crawling around all day.

Speaking of Duckie, he continues to be Anna's favorite little buddy. I feel horrible because I didn't pack him for our trip to Holland, at the time I didn't know. She was so happy to see him when we got home! So, for Anna's nine month photos I brought Duckie along for her to hold while posing. Maybe later I will post some of the pictures from that session, they turned out really cute and Duckie is at his cleanest! Last night while Anna was sleeping I slipped Duckie out of her grasp and threw him in with a load of laundry, so he's pretty clean again today.

Anna has continued to try all kinds of new foods. There are a couple soups that she and I have gotten at Turtle Bread that she has really liked--the minestrone and the chicken vegetable were big hits. She even liked the kidney beans, celery and onions in them! Anna in general loves orange vegetables, but isn't too keen on green vegetables unless they're in a soup. For a snack she loves eating Cheerios one by one, and we have some fruit snacks that she loves, too. I have found that she will eat strawberry applesauce, but not regular applesauce. I don't get that one. Maybe if Edwin makes applesauce again this fall we should just add red food coloring to it?

Anna continues to babble but still no individual words. If I encourage her she might say momma, but she hasn't caught on to call me that. She's said dada at times as well, but once again hasn't caught on to call Edwin that yet. I wonder what she'll call Saskia?

Another sweet thing--Anna loves books! She adores lift-the-flap and pop-up books the most, but will also crawl over the the coffee table and pull out a few books to flip through, trying to find the photos. Anna also continues to love the Curious George soundtrack and will pound on her CD player until it starts playing music. Our favorite song is number 9--Reduce Reuse Recycle. The other day we learned that Anna also loves the song "Signed Sealed Delivered" as sung by Lisa on the American Idols CD. Anna will sit, bounce, and clap her hands whenever her favorite songs are played. Because she is so funny to watch with her full body clap, of course we play those songs over and over. And over!

Anyway, that's all I have for now and if I have time later I will try to scan and post Anna's last pictures from Target.

Take care everyone!