Easter 2009

So let me give you a run down of how our holidays go every year. Get up early, rush through our own family stuff, get everything together, head over to Justin's family, hang out for a few hours, get everything together, head over to my family's house, hang out, play games, get home around 11, get Annie ready for bed, get ourselves ready for bed, go to bed...around 1. The end! Haha, very true, but also very fun! I love holidays!

So for Easter this year we got up early and went to church with Justin's side of the family. Then after church we went over to his grandma's house for hot dogs and egg hunting with little Annie. She loved walking around and collecting the eggs. Every time she would find one she would say "oooooooo egg!" Here she is with her little collection of plastic eggs that were filled with Gerber Puffs thanks to her Ya Ya!

Here she is with one of her four babies. She adores little babies, real ones and dolls. She is so delicate with them and she will rest them on her chest and pat there backs and she "shhhh" when she is trying to put them to sleep. She feeds them food and gives them there bottle. But her favorite thing to do is push them around in her stroller. My friend Katy keeps saying that she must be ready for a little sister or brother, and I keep saying.....no! Haha

Then after The Carlson Easter fun, we went over to my parent's house to have a little more fun! All my cousins....all of us in our twenties......have a Easter hunt every year. We love it! Especially me! I win every year! But besides all that.......there were 67 eggs hidden and 10 of us cousins to find them! Woohoo! After that we ate and played games!

In this picture I am trying to make my arm look skinnier! Haha!!The egg hunt begins!

My brother races over to find some more eggs!

Justin, Stephanie and I were given a hint to were we could find more eggs!

As you can see I am not looking for any in the Ivy like the others are...because I already found them all seconds earlier! Suckers!!Annie's new stroller and high heals!

Here is a video of Annie and her new high heals!

I like to do "now and then" photos whenever I can! The first and third pictures are from Easter 2008, and the second and fourth pictures are from this year! My how things have changed!

Egg Fun

Katy, Erica and I....along with.......3 year old Lucy, 18 month old Annie, 7 month old Wade, and 3 month old Carter dyed and decorated Easter eggs today! Lucky little Katy had both her kids take a nap so she could enjoy blissful sponge painting egg time. Wade took a short little nap with his momma, Erica. And Annie......stayed up the whole time! She loves social settings, and didn't want to sleep. But it didn't bother me any because she just played with Wade the whole time. Anyways, we ate pizza and decorated 36 eggs in all. It was a lot of fun!

Six of Erica's eggs

All twelve of mine...okay okay..Thirteen.....I accidentally decorated one of Erica's! Haha That one is not in the picture!

Katy's eggs! And Lucy got to decorate the one on the bottom left corner.Katy, Carter and I

It's Been A While......

I know, I know.....it has been a LONG time. But in my defense, I have been reallly busy around here. But I so happen to have a week off, so I am able to fit a blog post in. Keep in mind, that most of these things have happened weeks ago.

Lets see.....Annie and I went to the beach to visit Justin while he was working. We got to stay in a really nice beach house. It was GREAT! If you know me, you know how much I love the beach! The weather was actually warmer than back home. We got to take Annie down on the beach for the first time. She has been to the beach a few times before, but has never been "on" the beach. She loved it! Well, except for the occasional fall. Annie hates getting her hands dirty. She doesn't like to touch grass, the sidewalk, and now...sand at the beach. She played tag with the waves, and the waves won. We went to the grocery store and she rode in the little car carts for the first time. She enjoyed that. She also got to do a little shopping of her own with her very own shopping cart. It was a great trip!

She made friends with everyone and every dog on the beach!

The view from the beach house we were at!

Annie has a toy turtle with wheels on it, she figured out she could sit on it and scoot around the house! She thought it was hilarious!

When we got home, Annie got into the flour I put into the trash can...opps.....that was a bad idea!

She is now sleeping in her "Big Girl" bed. Since she loved climbing out so much, I just decided to take the side off and put up a side rail so she wouldn't roll out. She loves the freedom. But, she also knows when it is time to go to bed. She never plays, or gets in and out, she just crawls in and stays in until her wake up time of 10am! So great!

We bought her a beauty set. She is always playing with my make-up and hair brushes. So we figured she would enjoy it. And she does!

The Nichols family and our family go to the park at least once a week. And then go to one of our houses to have tacos! We feed the ducks by my house, Annie doesn't like giving any food up!

Lucy and Annie hold hands while being pushed on our walks.

Now in this video, Annie falls into the water. I freak out because she was sick with a cold and I didn't want her to get sicker........so when she fell I told....or yelled........at Justin, who was standing by her, to pick her up but he didn't want to get his shoes wet...what a man huh?! haha Then I didn't realize I was still recording throughout the traumatic experience.........I'm over protective!

Annie Wants Out!!!!

Our little 18 month old has out grown her crib! She learned how to climb out of her crib on Friday. Anyone who has seen Annie knows she is quite small. Smaller that most her age, she takes after Justin's side of the family. Not mine, I tell you I was a porker when I was little! Not that I am not one now......haha. However, my mother has told me that my brother and I were always shorter than all the other kids...and look at us now! He is 6'2 and I'm 5'11. There was even a time when I was shorter than my friend Katy....and that's hard to believe......she is 5'4!! But all the girls in Justin's family are petite...tall.....but petite. But anyways...... She started climbing out and I got scared because she could hurt herself being so small and all. So I took the front of her crib off. We bought her the crib that grows with her. It starts as a crib, then a toddler bed, then a full size twin bed with head board and foot board.

I took off the front and figured she would have to start learning how to go to bed and stay in bed. We tried it that night and she actually crawled right into her bed and fell asleep. But then after 20 minutes, she fell out of the bed and onto the floor. After that she wanted nothing to do with the bed. So she chose to sleep by the door in her room on the floor! Now I know you are thinking "what kind of mother would let her child sleep on the floor?" "You never knows whats crawling around." But please calm down....once she fell asleep, I picked her up and put her back in her bed. Three hours later, she fell out again and crawled her way to another space on the floor and fell asleep. So I waited, and then put her back into her bed. She managed to not fall out again and sleep until her usual time 10:30am.

So I figured that she was getting the hang of it, and quite surprised cuz she is so young, at least to us. But my Grandmother came up with the idea of turning the crib around so that the front side would now be the wall. The back side of the crib is higher than the front, so now she is unable to climb out because she doesn't have the front to pull up on. And being so small, she cant reach the back side yet! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I outsmarted her!

Now she sleeps just fine in her backwards crib! But there is nothing I can do about the computer table, out bar height kitchen table, her rocking chair, and whatever else she thinks would be fun to climb! She is always moving and always finding new stuff to explore. In a way I kinda like it, to me it means she is using all her muscles, getting exercise and using her imagination. She is just growing up so fast!