Button, Button

Anna's really into buttons these days. Usually she's wearing an undershirt so she just has to feel for her belly button, but I've caught her lifting up other kids' shirts and saying "button" as she points to their belly button. She also likes to point out buttons on our shirts. And she loves the panic button on our key fobs. We don't love listening to the car alarm though so we try to discourage that one. But it is funny to see the smile on her face after she sets the alarm off. It's probably a face that only a mom or dad could love.Sunday night she pointed to a freckle on Dan's leg and said "button." We thought it was hilarious. Then tonight she pointed to a zit and said "hurt?" What a sensitive child, even if she is pointing out embarrassing imperfections.

Temple Square and More

We thought it would be a great idea to take Anna to Temple Square in downtown SLC to see all the lights--that is until we had to fight the traffic and find a parking spot. In years past we just rode Trax, but we figured with a kid it would be easier to drive downtown. But then we couldn't find a place to park thanks to everything going on at the Conference Center and I forgot the stroller. We finally found a place to park about half a mile away. And it was so cold! The photo above is of Anna in front of a Christmas tree in the Joseph Smith Memorial building.
Anna loved the mural on the wall behind the Christus. She kept pointing and saying "moon, moon!" I didn't even know she knew what a moon was.

I crack up every time she tries to wear our shoes.
One of the best things I purchased recently was a toy shovel for Anna. Whenever I shovel the snow, she wants to use one of our big shovels and that leads to a lot of whining and crying since they are too heavy for her. She loves her shovel and often has to play with it for a few minutes before I can get her to get into the car. I just might have to start hiding it.
For Christmas my mom gave my dad a toy top with the idea that he would share it with Anna. She thought it was pretty cool.
My mom also gave her a Leapfrog Counting Candles Birthday Cake. It has little candles that light up with the touch of a button and you can even "blow" them out. We just let her play with it in the box since she didn't want to wait for us to take it out. Later that night I took it out of the box and put the box on the pile of recyclables. She found it a few days later, took it out of the pile, and stuck her cake back in it. I guess she figured it wasn't as fun without the box.

Christmastime

Anna loves the Christmas tree and slowly, all the ornaments are working their way towards the top out of her reach. In the morning when she gets up, she wants the lights on and she likes to stop at the tree on the way to getting her diaper changed and point out the "sheepies" and the Snoopy ornaments. She also likes to throw them over the stair railing. Then she'll hold out her hand to me, say, "c'mon" and lead me towards the stairs to go get the ornaments. So far she hasn't tried to climb the tree, but she has pulled pretty hard on a few ornaments, causing the tree to lean dangerously. Just one more reason why we don't have any of those pretty balls on our tree.
This photo has nothing to do with Christmas--I just thought it was cute. Anna decided that she wanted to eat her dinner with a very large spoon. I indulged her and took a picture. These days, Anna loves to help. She wants to help make the brownies, do the dishes, anything we are doing. She's also become quite the monkey-see-monkey-do. The other day I noticed that she had my nail clippers and was trying to cut her own toenails with them. Another day, I was in the bathroom combing my hair after a shower and Anna was begging for lotion. I gave her some and she immediately smeared it on her forehead because I usually rub moisturizer on my face after a shower.

Lately she's also into washing her hands and in the middle of eating, sometimes she'll start whining, "han, han!" meaning that she wants me to wipe her hands off. She still eats with her hands, as well as utensils, but I guess sometimes she doesn't want her food to mix.

Last night was the ward Christmas party with a special visit from Santa and Mrs. Clause. Anna just wanted to stand where she could see Santa and say his name over and over again. I don't think she even knows what he does, but I've mentioned it to her before, and she picks up much more than I realize these days. But when it was her turn to sit on Santa's lap, she wasn't interested. She just wanted to stand about three feet away (out of Santa's reach) and stare at him. So with my help and a candy cane, we got a photo close to Santa.

When we got home I asked her if she liked seeing Santa and she very clearly said, "yesh." But when we asked her if she wanted to sit on Santa's lap she said, "no lap." We'll try again next year.

Thanksgiving

Every year I make a pumpkin pie because I like it and it's tradition, an apple pie because that's my favorite, and a cherry pie because that's Dan's favorite. Turns out that Anna LOVES pumpkin pie, which is sort of funny because she loves pumpkins too, but I doubt she knows that the two are connected. My mom was eating pumpkin pie and tried to give Anna some of the whip cream, thinking she would like that. But Anna turned her down and went for the actual pie itself. Later that evening, she pulled herself up onto a chair and found someone's left over pie. Do I sound like an awful mom, letting my child eat other people's left overs? It was only a little bit of pie and hadn't been out for very long, so I figured I'd let her have it. Besides I was playing Settlers of Cataan and so close to winning. I ended up losing though. Go figure!

Little Talker

Anna has become quite the little talker lately. I'm surprised at how many words she knows. Of course the key is to decipher what she's saying. Mostly we talk about food. I swear when she says bread it sounds like butt or bud. The other day during lunch she was pointing and saying, "bud! bud!" I couldn't figure out what she meant because there wasn't any bread out. Finally I pointed to the package of tortillas and asked if that's what she wanted and she said yes. So I explained that we call those tortillas and gave her some. A few minutes later she said "ti! ti!" with the same intensity as before. Once again it took me a few minutes but I finally figured out that she wanted more tortilla.

In the last day or so, she's really been into applesauce. But when she says it, it sounds like "I saw" or "aa-saw."

We put up our Christmas tree on Friday night and Anna loves it. We have several Snoopy ornaments thanks to Dan's mom. In the morning, Anna likes to stop at the Christmas tree before we change her diaper or get her breakfast. She also likes to point out the different ornaments and say "Snoopy" or "baa" for the sheep.

Saturday night Aunt Christa babysat Anna. They had a pretty good time. When I got Anna up this morning, I was sure she said, "Where's Christa?"

A few weeks ago, I picked up some candy for a sister I visit teach and I thought it would be a good idea to get Anna a piece of Laffy-Taffy to help her into her car seat. I'm not into bribing Anna, but I love to get a treat whenever I go out and so sometimes Anna gets one too. As I unwrapped the candy, I thought, I better only give her half of this candy, but then I reasoned, she can't get into too much trouble with the whole piece. When I went to get her out of the car, I found a big wad of Laffy Taffy stuck in her hair. Oops! I stuck her hair under running water and it came out pretty easily.
Anna had her first bout of the stomach flu last week. I knew she was sick when she got up from her nap and only wanted to sit on my lap. Eventually she started to perk up and get down and walk around. That's when she barfed. So after changing her, I set her on the couch to watch Sesame Street while I cleaned up her barf. When I came back to find her, I noticed that she was sticking the thermometer in her sleeve, taking her temperature. Too bad it's not that easy when I'm trying to actually take her temperature.

Catching up on October

Well, it's the end of November and I'm finally getting around to October. Here are some photos of what we've been up to.
At the beginning of October, Dan and I took a short, over-night trip down to Cedar City. We saw the play, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Shakespeare Festival and we also went out to see the Cedar Breaks monument.
In this photo Anna is feeding Dad his corn. She thought that was a lot of fun.
Dan's parents came to visit for Dan's birthday. They brought a cheese cake and an amazingly rich chocolate cake to his birthday party. Anna loved the chocolate cake and I know I let her eat way too much cake and way too much ice cream.
We got our first significant snow in October. Lucky for Anna, I had bought her a snow coat, gloves, and snow boots the day before. At first, it was hard for Anna to walk around in her snow boots and big, puffy coat, but eventually she loved it. She also loved being pulled around in a sled with her buddy Ryelle. Benji was nice enough to pull Anna in his sled. At one point I said to him, "Wow! Benji that's looks like hard work." He shrugged and said, "It's just like dragging all my favorite things." I thought that was so cute.
Just before Halloween, my sister Christa came home from her mission to the Belgium Brussels-Netherlands mission. We all went up to the airport to wait for her to fly in and several of Christa's friends also showed up. Erica brought Christa four or five boxes of Reese's Puffs. I guess it's Christa's favorite cereal.
It's becoming a tradition in our house for Dan to carve the pumpkin. I showed Anna this picture and it freaked her out. By the way, Anna loves pumpkins. Every time she sees the color orange she says, "pumpkin?"
I made Anna's costume for Halloween. She was a butterfly, but I really wanted to make her a tutu. I also make the wings with hangers and tights. Her costume was a bit eclectic, but I had fun making it.

The other day I mentioned to Dan that Anna does a much better job of playing independently if I don't turn on the TV for her. I hate to do it, but sometimes when I really need to get something done quickly I'll turn the TV on. She mostly watches PBS kids. Anyway, that same day, Anna pulled all the books off our book shelf. Then she decided to test out her crayon on a bedroom door, and finally she unrolled a bunch of toilet paper. That was all before noon. I decided to dress her up in the tp so that's where this photo comes from.
I got to babysit a four-month old, Logan for a few hours this month. I was pretty interested in how Anna would react. When she wasn't standing over him saying "baby?," I was holding him and that made her jealous. Still she's getting a little bit better about letting other kids play with her toys. She just needs more interaction with other kids.

Our Tribute to SYTYCD in SLC