Summer Fun!

Anna practicing writing her own name in the sand!

Look what I caught! :)

Future super model! :)

Anna "hanging" with her friend Connor Smith

Anna loving the "sand mountain"

Mommy and Anna at the beach in New Hampshire

Anna and Keegan

Ok, ok, ok, so I am not very good at keeping up with my blog. SORRY!! I tried to keep it together for a while, but then times like right now when two little arms are begging to sit on my lap and "help" me type happen and I run off to play. :)

We have been having ton of fun this summer. I cannot believe that it is the middle of July already. YIKES!! That means you know what is just around the corner. BIG HUGE YIKES!!! :) Anna and I traveled to Boston the second week of June to visit with my sister, Jason and Keegan. Despite the yucky weather we were able to sneak in a trip to the beach and find lots of other fun things to do! :) We traveled to the beach in Michigan for a long weekend with our friends Kyle and Wendi Smith and their little guy Connor. Anna and Connor had a blast playing on the beach and building castles with their daddies. I am off this weekend for a little get-away with my teacher friends. It will be nice to hang out and catch up. We are off again next weekend to visit my dad and step-mom in Michigan. We haven't seen them since last July, so it will be fun for Anna to see Papa and Grandma B. Our final trip will be at the end of July to Indiana to visit Dave's parents. Whew! Busy, Busy, Busy!!! Of course we keep busy during the week with playdates, gymnastics, trips to the pool, bike rides, and playing at the park! :)

As you can see I am throughly enjoying my summer and love having this time to spend with my family!

Birthday Bash!

Well, I am finally getting around to updating the blog. Anna celebrated her third birthday since my last post. I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. She is such a big girl now! Above you will see pictures from Anna's first birthday celebration. Her birthday party with friend wasn't until the following weekend, but we couldn't let her actual birthday slip by without a little celebrating. Auntie Kris sent a little chef's outfit to get Anna on the road to chefhood a little early! :) Mommy and Daddy bought her an easel, which as you can see, she is already putting to good use practicing writing her letters. Makes my big teacher heart happy! :) The following weekend we had her birthday party with friends at her favorite place "Golden's Gymnastics." We were able to invite a few of her "older" friends due to the nature of this party! Everyone had a great time and Anna was loving every minute!

I just had add this little video of Anna's little singing performance. I know it is sideways and a little dark but it's all about the song. ENJOY!! :)

Holiday wishes

We had a wonderful Christmas. Anna was soooo excited for Christmas and couldn't wait for the big day to arrive. We spent most of the week in Jasper, IN with Dave's family. Dave's brother Steve and his wife Jen flew in from California. Unfortuately, his brother Rob and wife Niki had to stay in Kansas City and work. We sure missed having them there. Anna had a great time with Uncle Steve and Auntie Jen, as you will notice in the following pictures. :) I enjoyed catching up on some much needed R & R and a few books I have wanted to read.

Wish we could have spent Christmas with all of you. Anna really brings so much joy into our lives and we throughly enjoyed every minute of our time together. The best part is that Anna was able to celebrate Jesus' birthday as well. We wanted to make sure she understood the true meaning of Christmas.

In the following video you will see Anna with my new "magical" trash can. We told Anna that you have to say "Abracadabra" in order for it to work. She is just mezmerized by the whole thing. :)

Happy New Year everyone!

New pictures!

Thought you might enjoy a few pictures from Anna's church performance a few weeks ago. She did great and was not afraid in the least to sing in front of 600 people. :)

Busy having fun!

This is a picture of our budding gymnast. We went to a birthday party at the gymnastics place and Anna was totally in her element. She could care less about the other kids, she wanted to try everything. She hopped up on this balance beam (not very low to the ground as you can see) all by herself and walk across without any help! Anna loves to play "going to sleep." She decided that she and her friends along with Daddy would take a little nap.

Anna wanted to do her own hair for church last week. Let's hope she will let me do it this week as she will be singing up front with her class! :)

She has discoverd the art of paint! She used her Halloween money from Grandma B and Papa to buy herself some paints! Thanks Grandma and Papa!

Fun Days!!!

As you can see we have just had a grand old time over the past week. Anna has just been soooo excited about Halloween. It is so fun to watch her eyes light up when she saw other kids in their costumes and all of the treats she received. She really understood how this whole Halloween thing worked this year, so she just had a blast. She started the day with a party at daycare, then I picked her up early to go trick or treating at Daddy's work, then we finally made it home to trick or treat in the neighborhood. We only went to our close neighbors because she was pretty much done and had more than enough candy! Auntie Shannon stayed at our house and passed out candy while we took Anna around the neighborhood. Thanks Auntie Shannon!! Surprisingly we had a lot of candy left, we did not have a ton of kids come this year. Good for me as I can put that in my treasure chest at school (as if they will need anymore candy! :)

I had parent/teacher conferences Thursday and Friday (to add to all of the excitement!) 23 out of 25 parents came, so that is a pretty good turn out for me! I will have to hunt down the other two and hope I can lure them in some how! Sadly the two conferences that I didn't have were the ones that needed it the most.

Otherwise, all is well from here! I cannot believe that today is the first day of November! When I was working on lesson plans yesterday, I couldn't believe that we only have three full weeks until Thanksgiving! I love this time of the year, more fun times to be had!!! :)

Catching Up!

Anna wearing her dancing shoes!
Anna and her new found friend (and cousin) Katie.
This is my going to work outfit.
Little Miss Gardener, she wants to do everything mommy does!

Is that a glimpse of the raspberry monster?
Oh no, another glimpse!
Yep, it's me and these raspberries sure are yummy!
Anna enjoying her trip to the pumpkin farm

These pumpkins make cute little seats too!
Look, I picked out my very own pumpkin!
That sure was a lot of work!
Anna and our neighbor girl enjoying the rare opportunity to run in the street while they cleaned the fire hydrant.
We were so glad the weather was warm enough to enjoy this rare opportunity!

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers over the past few weeks. Our trip to Michigan went very well and enjoyed seeing family again.

All is going well here. The weather has been super fabulous, so we have been out and about enjoying the beautiful October weather. Dave has been riding quite a bit lately as this coming weekend is his big ride in Indiana. Last year was his first trip to the Hilly Hundred (Lots of BIG hills, 50 miles each day) he did a great job last year and will do even better this year! Anna and I will stay home and find something fun to do.