A Special Annie Holiday Tune

I just had to record this. . . it was SO cute. What I didn't record was that she rewound the song THREE times and sang it over and over. Is it possible to freeze time?

A Very Spook-tacular Halloween!

What a FUN day Halloween was! My sister Sam came out from Connecticut to spend a week with us. She arrived VERY late the night before Halloween, so we saved all the fun for one day: pumpkin carving, etcetera. It was a crazy day, but we got plenty of laughs.

Here is my little "ghostie." Rhett is 5 months old now and wearing the same onesie (which is nearly too small for him, btw) that Carson wore for Halloween when he was 7 months old. Cute though, no?



Here is my silly and cute little Goose and her jack-o-lantern. We cut the top off for her and then she cleaned out the insides. We were working on our pumpkins and looked over to see if she was ready to have us cut the face and, well, she'd already done it! With the little saw. I was thinking, "oh, great, mother of the year award for me" and then I remembered that she's been picking door locks with a paring knife (WITHOUT PERMISSION AND PRIOR KNOWLEDGE ON MY PART) since she was 3. She knows her way around a knife. (I'm TOTALLY being sarcastic and joking--I'm sure she is lucky she didn't cut her finger off). But, I thought her jack-o-lantern face was cute, albeit slightly small for the size of pumpkin. It's tough to tell by the lighting, but the eyes and nose were literally just slits!



Like I said, the day was full of humor. After we got the pumpkin mess cleaned up, Annie came in with the above two items. She wanted to "bob for apples." I laughed out loud. Not only for the obvious reason that the apple wouldn't even fit in the water container, but because she was throwing herself her own little Halloween party. It was like she was personally going to see to it that we did every possible Halloween activity in one afternoon. So funny.



At long last, it was time to don costumes and head out to trunk-or-treat, followed by trick-or-treating at grandparents and the neighbors. Here is my little horsie Rhett with his Aunt Sam.



My poor little Carsie had a cold that day, so he wasn't really thrilled to have his picture taken or perfectly posed in ANY pictures. Here is the best we could do of him as Pirate Carson. Mid-cough.



And here is my beautiful Princess Annie. It was a LOT harder than it looks to get her looking this beautiful: convincing her to hold still for the makeup, not losing it as she screamed bloody murder while I pulled back her hair, trying to convince her to wear accessories that matched rather than clashed with her dress, helping her to understand that the plastic high heeled slippers from Wal-mart would not assist her in remaining upright as she walked through the damp leaves over an uneven sidewalk in the dark. But alas, we arrived at the finished product, and I must say, I was pretty dang proud of how great she looked.



Here she is again with the cutest little Minnie Mouse ever--SO CUTE!



Imagine my joy when we arrived at the Trunk-or-Treat and my son walked up to this cute couple and said, "whatcha got?" How do you explain to a perfect stranger that your 2 year-old really DOES have manners, that you've spent a whole week teaching him "trick or treat," followed by "thank you?" After getting over my initial embarrassment, I thought it was pretty funny. Thank goodness the nice couple pretended to be overwhelmed by my kids' cuteness, so I didn't have to feel too badly.



What a FUN night for all of us. The best part, of course, was raiding their candy after we put them to bed. Mwaaaaaaaaah. . . wonder how many more years I have until they notice that all of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that were there on Halloween night are suddenly gone the next morning. . . .

HaPpy BirThdAy RyAn!

I thought as a nice gift to the mustached marauder known as my husband, if those of you who know him could share as a comment on this post, a memory or funny story about Ryan! Not too embarrassing, but something fun for him to read later!

Funny Annie-ism

Annie: Mom, I did something bad.
Me: (thinking, uh - oh, now what!) What did you do?
Annie: I choosed the left!
Me: What does that mean?
Annie: I should have choosed the right, but I choosed the left!

Turns out she got magic marker on the table. But, that's okay. I told her mom makes mistakes all the time. Funny kid.

Charlotte and her web

Here she is--Charlotte (so named by Annie), our garden spider. And just in time for Halloween. Well, actually, she's been with us all summer (or since our tomato plants got too big to pass the tiller between them, anyway). The pictures don't do her justice. She is HUGE. Her body is easily the size of my thumb. Seriously. The size. . . of. . . my thumb. Can you hear me emphasizing this? I cannot emphasize it enough. The first few times I saw her (and she was much smaller then, by the way), I was very very very frightened and not so sure I was going to follow my spider policy, which states the following: "If spider is found outside, that's his or her home and leave it be. If spider is found in MY home, it's 'adios' for the spider." But, in the end, adhering to the policy was to be the decision. It helped that I didn't want bugs to infest and destroy my tomato crop, spiders are good for that apparently. Her web is really big and beautiful. I tried and tried, but I can't get it to show up more in the picture.




Oh, and it gets even better--I LOVE tomatoes, but I couldn't bring myself to pick the ones on either plant that her monstrous web was attached to. After a while, I realized she wouldn't chase me and try to kill me, so we made peace. I kept my distance still, but we shared the occasional conversation, and Ryan tossed her grasshoppers every now and again. He said he watched her wrap them up and even eat one. . . . pass. . . No thanks, I'd rather not see that.




Anyway. Sometimes I'd come out to the garden and she wouldn't be in her web. I couldn't bring myself to pick tomatoes on those days. Who knew where she'd be? Gives me chills.




Ryan told me one day that she let him pet her belly. Now THAT is strange. Why? I ask? Why would you WANT to pet the belly of a spider? But alas, he does love animals, so. . .

Anyway, I don't know how long she'll be around. She has survived the few frosts we've had and moved her web twice. I think I might even be sad when we part ways.

An Early Morning Carsonism

7:15 AM, in our bed

Dad: Are you my friend?
Carson: No, I just you boy.


classic.

My FIVE year old!

My "baby" is five. When did this happen? It's like I blinked and she was five. FIVE! She's headed for kindergarten TOMORROW! She's starting to read. She (much to my horror yet amazement) unbuckled her brother from his swing and transferred him to his bouncy chair all by herself today. She said "mom, come sit by me and I'll give you a love" last week when I was sad that my family had left. She is SUCH a grown up little girl I can hardly believe it.


I thought I'd share a few pictures of her through the years and what I love about her:


This is one of the first digital pictures I have of her. Her earliest pictures are film and I haven't scanned yet. This was on Easter morning in 2005 and she was 8 months old. Annie is such a sweetheart. You can tell by looking at that sweet little face. She is always full of love for her parents and her brothers, friends and her new little cousin, Kate. She loves to snuggle and express her love through hugs and kisses. Makes my day every time she gives me a good squeeze.



She's just so dang cute! This is probably from the summer she turned two. She had this Elmo obsession. Aunt Kelli and Uncle Mike bought her this Elmo for her 2nd Christmas (I think it was about her size, too) and she took it everywhere. Here she is in our backyard enjoying the day. That's another thing I love about her. She loves to explore and try new things. She is really independent and can find a good activity or project just about anywhere.

This can sometimes be a problem:
Here she is at about 18 months. Every parent's dream (I'm sure) is to find their child standing on a desk they didn't know she could climb onto, in front of a cabinet they didn't know she could open, holding a PERMANENT marker they didn't know she could uncap, drawing pictures of Sid the Sloth on their wooden cabinet doors. awesome.



This is my little daredevil doing her "big jumps" when she was three--in fact, it very well might have been on her third bday. I love that she is adventurous and just a little fearless!



I love this picture. She is the BEST big sister in the world. They fight and steal toys from each other, don't get me wrong. But from the very moment we walked through the door with Baby Carson (and also Rhett), she has been so tender and never jealous. I overhear her saying sweet and kind things to him all the time. She teaches him how to do things, gives him hugs and kisses. Last night, in fact, she had a sleepover at grandma's and phoned to tell us goodnight. Well, to tell CARSON goodnight. "May I speak to Carson, please?" was the greeting her dad got when he picked up the phone. I could hear what she was saying, and she said, "Carson, do you miss me? Say 'yes'" To which he replied "yes." Then she said, "I miss you too. I love you Carson!" I wanted to cry until I heard his little voice say "dih-doo" (thanks) and then I decided to laugh instead. What a funny pair they are!



I won't gab on and on about the hair. . . heaven knows we've covered THAT one, but I love(d) her beautiful curly hair. This is Annie at my parents' house in CT. I love that she loves my family. And they love her. She loves to talk about her aunts and uncles and Papa and Grandma Foof all the time. When we visited last summer, she warmed up to everyone and had so much fun.

I love this little girl!

. . .and here she goes off to Kindergarten. . .

Love ya, Goose!