Almost there and lovin' it!

Well as you can see the playset is almost complete! Unfortunately the weather has not cooperated and the swings haven't been put up. Anna was quite happy with the current status though! She had so much fun climbing up and down and then finally enjoying the slide. Just after Dave and I asked how many times we would be taking her to the ER this summer, she feel off the ladder. UGGGHHHH!!! I am hoping she will no longer go down the ladder and instead use the slide. What do you think of my rope work? I did add a little elbow grease to this project! :) Really though, Dave worked soooo hard trying to get everything completed. He did an awesome job!

Thought you might also enjoy some new pictures of our budding gymnast! She is really starting to strut her stuff! :) Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, but she NEVER stops moving!!!

Super Daddy!

Hey! It's me Anna! I am writing to show you how things are going with my new super cool playset. Daddy has been working on it all week (even though the temperatures have been in the 30's and 40's.) He put on the roof this morning and will work the rest of the day to get most of it finished. I hope to send you a final picture of my super cool playset tomorrow. Hopefully it will be of me having tons of fun! :)

Happy Easter!

Anna had a great time hunting for eggs at Grandma & Sugar Pops house this year. We had to hide the eggs in the house as it was quite cool outside this year. She loved finding all of the eggs and enjoyed a few of the treats hidden inside.
We decorated eggs on Saturday with the egg kit Anna picked out herself, hence the Sesame Street theme. I was amazed at how bright and colorful the eggs were. Anna liked adding her own details with the stickers.

On Friday we took Anna to the park because the weather was so beautiful (high 60's.) It was amazing to see how much she has changed since we last visited the park. She is a climbing machine. Anything that looked like it was climbable, she tried! She had a great time and we had a lot of fun watching her. Unfortunately, the weather turned much cooler for the rest of the weekend. I am hoping the weather will get warmer this week during my Spring break.

And the winner is...

We are the proud new owners of this beautiful playset (minus all of those kids!) Of course it is the coolest playset in the neighborhood, so we may have our fair share of munchkins running around! We picked it up this morning and are making room in our garage for all of the boxes. We are hoping the weather will warm up after Easter so we can start assembling! YEAH!!

Anna is finally starting to feel better. She was rid of the evil fever late yesterday morning and is slowly working back up to speed. She is still not her happy go lucky self yet, but we are starting to see some glimpses. Dave stayed home with her yesterday as she was still running a fever into the night and early AM Friday. We were supposed to go to an Easter activity at Dave's work this morning, but decided it would be best to keep her away from other kids and not push her to quick. I am sad because I know that she would have loved being around the other kids and playing. Oh well, maybe next year.

Home, home, home, again...

Well, this is what mommy does when she is home with a sick Anna. As I mentioned in my previous email, this was going to be a very busy week. Well, it turned out a little different that I had planned. Anna woke up SEVERAL times Monday night crying with a fever. I stayed home with her Tuesday, but she was fine. Wednesday I was ready for work and woke her up and she was burning up with a 102 fever. So... Dave stayed home in the AM and I came home for the afternoon shift. I took her to the doctor yesterday afternoon and he said she had an upper resperitory/sinus infection. I gave her the antibiotics and hoped for the best. She continued to run a fever through the night and into this morning, so here I am!! :) When I put her down for her nap a little bit ago, she did not have a fever. I am hoping to return to work tomorrow as I have 27 report cards to finish by tomorrow afternoon, and I still have a few assessments to complete. YIKES!!! Oh well, Anna and I have had fun building towers and playing "coffee" party. She thinks she has a coffee set instead of a tea set, I guess my love of coffee has rubbed off on her. Dave said yesterday when he was home with her, they had coffee in every room of this house. I sure wish I had a picture of that to share with you! :)

Yipppeeee, it's bike ridin' time!

As promised in my previous email, Dave and his new bike. Of course, little Miss Anna couldn't let Daddy ride his bike without her, so she snuck into the picture as well. We haven't brought Anna's new cool tricycle up from the basement yet, so she is riding one that was loaned to us. We are excited that her feet are almost able to push the peddles. The temperature is still quite cool (around 40,) but Dave just couldn't wait any longer! Tommorow is supposed to be in the 50's, Halleluiah!!! I am sooooooo sick of this stinking cold, snowy weather. If only I was independently wealthy, I would move to Hawaii tomorrow!! :)

Sunday with the Starkey's

Just thought you might enjoy these cutie pie pictures! Anna was eating her breakfast before we left for church and I just had to take a picture. :)

We spent the day in Naperville, IL yesterday. Dave wanted to go up to the bike store to look at bikes. He has been thinking about buying himself a new bike for a long time, but kept holding off until he was sure he LOVED riding. He found a very nice bike and is now the proud owner of a beautiful road bike. He was hoping he might get out for a ride today, but of course the weather is not cooperating (30 is a little cold for even a little ride.) The weather man says we might hit 50 this week so he will be watching the weather very closely. We will be looking for fun places to ride this summer. Know of any good places??? He is really hoping to get in some good riding when we travel to his parents house for Easter. They have some great hills for him to ride. I will post a picture of Dave and his new bike when the weather cooperates.

We also looked at another playset yesterday. Some friends of ours have a membership to Costco and told us about the playset they saw. It is a very nice set at a fraction of the cost of those we saw at Rainbow. We went out in the backyard today to measure and see what it will look like in our yard. The nice thing about this set is all of the wood is precut so it would save Dave lots of time hauling wood home and getting everything cut. Of course this may not be a good thing because that means no new tools. :) I will keep you posted, I know you can't wait to find out what we will choose.

Busy week ahead as it is assessment/testing time at school. I just love this time of the year. Parent/Teacher conferences are the week after so I have a lot of work to do. At least Spring break starts right after we are finished with conferences so that will be something to look forward to! :)

More Fun!

We recently visited the showroom for Rainbow Play Equipment. WOW!! We had heard about this company through some friends and knew that it was pretty high end stuff. We basically went to get ideas for our future play set. Well, these sets were incredible! Of course there was a price tag that was a shocker as well. They had many different sizes and the largest in the showroom was only $22,000! Well at least Anna had a ball playing on everything and trying out new things. I would definately recommend these playsets to anyone who has some extra change laying around. Of course we would always accept donations to those of us who are less fortunate. Poor Anna!

Casmir Pulaski, Gotta love that guy!

Ode to Casmir…
Dear O Casmir, I love you so…
you’re a hero for sure
in the great city of Chicago

A Polish General I’m told
a hero to behold
I’m just glad for the day at home
as I celebrate with my coffee and scone!

Can you tell I have enjoyed my day at home??? :)

As you can see we have ourselves a little fish! This weekend we traveled to Arlington Heights, IL with our friends Kyle and Wendi Smith. We met them at a hotel/water park there. It was great for the kids as there was a large pool/slide area that was the perfect depth for them. Connor enjoyed going down the slides as much as possible while Anna loved realized she could touch the bottom while on her hands and knees.
This was the closest we could get Connor to Anna. He is much more interested in slides than girls! :) Our little bathing beauty! It was fun to watch her explore and try new things! :)

PS - Soon after we got back to the room to get a bath and get ready for bed, Anna realized that we had brought Connor's jammies. She immediately gave his jammies to him (we had ajoining rooms) and proceeded to put her own jammies on. So far she has not asked for his jammies and seems quite content to wear her own! Too Funny! :) I know you will be sad to not see her in those blue jammies anymore.