Current Anna Facts

Little "Anna-isms" at (almost) 27 months: [I don't count in months anymore because it's too complicated.]

New phrases:
"What are you doing?"
"Here you go"
"Try?"  (wanting to give you some of her food)
"Piece of donut?"  (a bad leftover phrase she breaks out once every few days still remembering the donuts I brought home 2 weeks ago)
"oooh stinky poopy!"  (could be pretty much anytime)
"okay, bye! see you later!" (while waving and walking away)
"you knock it off!"  (a classic Miss Sandy-ism she picked up and it is the hardest thing not to laugh at)
"I'M STUCK!" (anytime she is somewhere she doesn't like, i.e. in her carseat on the way home from Miss Sandy's)

Sings:
Under the Sea (from the little mermaid)
Jingle Bells
Head Shoulders Knees & Toes
Frosty the Snowman

Teeth:
Almost all 20 teeth are in.  Has 1 full and 1 half molar to come in on top. Seems like these are taking their sweet time.
Lets us brush her teeth most nights without a fight. Definitely depends on how tired she is...
Need to schedule another check-up soon.

Has really taken to using stall tactics when she doesn't want to go to bed. The other night she told me, clear as day "Okay mommy, you read this doggy book, okay thank you" (in the dark at 12:30am).  Then she sat up and said "I have to pee pee" and I told her to go right ahead. To which she told me again and I said "what, in the potty?" and she enthusiastically yells "ME TOO!" (her reply when she really wants something you suggest)  Coming from a kid who is not potty trained and barely sits on her potty seat, this was very clearly a ploy to let her out of her room. (Didn't work)  Also can't forget the time she repeatedly asked me to have Daddy make her a sandwich.

Recognizes colors, but most of the time any color you ask is definitely 'BLUE'. You can try to get her to rethink it but it seems she really likes blue.

Counts very well, although sometimes we go 1-2-5-6-9-10!  Excited counting.  Like counting up the stairs (one of my best counting teaching spots).

Speaking of the stairs, she can climb up and down all by herself 99.9% of the time. Likes to hold the handrail and also your hand. Will climb alone, but if you are standing next to her she prefers to have your hand for support.

The last few weeks she has only wanted Daddy to read her bedtime stories after pretty much her entire life having me do the entire routine. Sometimes she would ask for him sporadically but this has been consistent. If I sit down in the chair to read after pajamas, she clings to Doug saying "Daddy read, Daddy read", marches over to me, pulls my hand to get out of the chair and pats it for Doug to sit down. It is both sweet and sad (for me). I like that they get a little extra time together at the end of the day though. I wonder how she'll do with Doug gone all week..

Has a great memory that is only improving. When we got to a house on Saturday we had looked at for Grandma & Baba (1 week prior) she looked outside when we pulled up and said "Super Mike!" (the nickname of our realtor). Little things like that amaze me!

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff but this just came to me and I want to be able to look back at all the fun and funny little things she's been up to!

What we've been up to!

Since we last spoke...

We had our first wedding of the year in Rhinebeck - great place!  They received a fresh coating of snow and made the whole town seem more magical. The wedding was at the Beekman Arms Inn and I would really like to go back and really explore the area. Very cute.

Congrats Mehren and Guy!

Anna stayed overnight with my parents. And took her first selfie.

Anna got a new lunchbag and fell in love with it!  Looking like such a big girl now!

We got MORE snow. It never, ever ends................ (HOW MANY DAYS TILL SPRING?!)

View of the map of roads one day as we got a storm and work let us out a bit later than they should have.
Took me 2+ hours to drive 3 miles home. 

She's good pretending to play with snow, but we will NOT be heading out there until she actually puts on her snow clothes herself and asks to go out.  The end.

Had Alex's 3rd birthday party... which happened to be held right at nap time.  We decided it would be fine and all the playing and jumping around would wear her out so she would pass out on the 1.5 hour ride home.  HAHAHHAHA.

having an amazing time!

a future Olympian

all kinds of Marist babies!

And yeah, we went to the Super Bowl!  By chance, a friend of Christina's was in town going to the game and got tickets for us to join him!  It was seriously last minute (I think we found out about the tickets on Wednesday), but SO fun! What an experience. So glad to say "we went to the Super Bowl", as some people want to do that their whole lives.  The trip to and from the stadium (which is normally very easy) turned out to be a full-on nightmare. I hate to talk about it, as it makes it sound the day was no fun - which was hardly the case - but NJ Transit really dropped the ball and it was a rough start and long ending to the day.  Overall, super cool!!

GO FOOTBALL!

the insane 90+ minute wait to get off the train, into the station

guys with serious guns everywhere you looked

TSA style security to get into the stadium

crazy view!!

us before the game. Me, trying not to have a panic attack over the height!

halftime show starting to set-up

the helicopters at the beginning of the show were basically at eye level with us. SO crazy!

the die-hard football fans!

view of fireworks from our seats. Felt like 10 feet behind us

I wonder if those were going off above our heads too?

oh look, let's wait for another hour to get on a half empty train! Cool!

security holding people back

We stayed at my parents house since Anna stayed overnight and we wanted to make it easy on them getting ready in the morning, etc. but we woke up to MORE SNOW, so the whole day kind of turned out differently than we thought. It's pretty for a little bit, but no one wants to play in it... I can't go out to help shovel because we can't leave Anna unattended for that long in the house and driving in it stinks. Again... how many days till spring?

Then, a couple days later, Anna and I were having a great night playing. She was in a fabulous mood, happy, easygoing. We were about to go up for bed when she wanted to read a story downstairs on the couch. She went to reach for something on the side table and her hands slipped and BOOM, smashed her face into the table - mouth first. I heard the awful noise and knew it wouldn't be good, and I was right.

whoops

Thankfully her teeth didn't go through her lip and I was able to calm her down relatively quickly. We watched a little bit of Rudolph (yes, still watching Christmas movies in February) and she let me put an ice cube on it to help with the swelling. I gave her some Advil before bed and hoped for the best. Doug was working late & I'm glad I didn't have to call him to come take us to the ER!

The next day, even though it was fat and red, she didn't seem to mind. She just recovered like a champ! Let us put "lipstick" (aquafor) on it and it was healing in no time.  Kids!

the morning after

I'm pretty sure this was the next day. 

Just a day later, we celebrated Baby John's 1st birthday! Can't believe it's been a whole year since Doug's godson was born!  Again, he had a ton of snow on the ground when he came into the world and seems like there was a theme this year - had to be at least 12 inches on the ground, frozen solid. The party was a great success. The birthday boy was in a great mood, playing, eating cake, having a great time. Anna even got in on some fun and dressed up as Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Again, another party during the middle of nap time didn't bode well for us around 3pm and we knew it was time to pack it up. She was NOT pleased with this decision and made it very well known. Another hour long trip home without a nap .....  sigh.  Overall it was a great day to celebrate an adorable little boy!

John was finally totally into hanging with Doug!

even gave a few high 5's

phase 1 of dress-up

phase 2.  deep under cover

I finally put on my big girl panties and picked out a new pediatrician!! I had asked Facebook for some recommendations and the moms in the area came to my rescue, giving a few really good suggestions. I made some 'interview' appointments for last Monday and I'm happy to say I really liked one of the doctors. She came highly recommended with lots of praise and I felt like she would be a good fit. Anna was with me for that appointment and she loved the office - they have a fish tank and some cool toys, plus lots of pretty murals on the walls she liked pointing out all the things she knew. There were a lot of positives to the office and I hope we'll all be very happy there!  Anna doesn't "need" to go back till her 3-year well visit, but I'd like to have a doctor settled on before she gets any kind of sickness we need a professional opinion on!  All I need to do is fill out a form to get all of her records sent over from the old doctor and we'll be good to go! Very happy with this and hope we don't have to go through this process again...

Got more snow and sleet and ice.  Had another snow day.  The end.

Celebrated Valentine's Day, although it ended up being very low key.  Since we had a snow day the day before (off of work), we decided to nix the plan to go out to breakfast with Anna before school/work.  Afterwards we all met up at home, opened our treats, had burgers & fries and cupcakes and just relaxed.  The rest of the weekend was a bit of a whirlwind so I'm glad for that night!

that devilish grin..

had to give her a flashlight in order to occupy her for some pics

but all she wanted to do was talk to me about it

which makes for some funny pics

Like I said, the rest of the weekend was crazy!  Doug and Todd got to work early on Saturday putting up the backsplash in our kitchen. It was painstaking work (with a few breaks for food) and a couple extra trips to Lowe's for more tile (by me), but they did it. It looks amazing!!  Our next kitchen step will be to refinish all the cabinets white, but for now, this little extra step will help us deal with the ugliness that remains ;)

still sort of light out...

much darker. bigger mess.  tired guys

the finished product!

ahhh I love it!

So that's about that for now.  Another snow on the way for tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited. Grandma and Baba are on their way for a visit this weekend & I know Anna is going to love every second of it!!  Till the next time...