Sunday, September 25, 2011

Our Crazy Sweet Toddler, Our Anna Girl

Today was a momentous occasion, a day we have been looking forward to for many many Sundays,the day when Anna got to go to the nursery class at church. When we got to the nursery I was a little nervous for her, but she just walked right into that class like she owned it and did not look back. Mid-way through church Kent and I couldn’t help ourselves and just had to peek in the little window to see how she was doing. She was seated with all the other kids in a circle watching the leaders sing a song; so cute. When we went to pick her up they said she did really well. She handed us the picture she colored, but it really wasn’t colored. They said instead of coloring her picture during coloring time she ate the crayons. Yeah for the first day of nursery.

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Whenever I am making dinner Anna always wants to help, so I try to let her help most of the time. It actually is more work and a lot messier but I figure it is good for her. I always let her put the salt and pepper in the pan, and stir whatever needs to be stirred. The other day she helped me put the potatoes in the pot after I cut them up. Kent lets her stir the cake mix whenever we make cake. She is becoming quite the cook. :)

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So one day when Anna was sitting in the water tub, playing with the hose on the front lawn she started drinking the water out of the hose. I was watching her and all of a sudden she decided to put her whole mouth around the hose. As she sealed her lips around it, water shot out of her nose. It was so funny I had to laugh but it startled her pretty bad. The only way we have gotten out of the house this hot summer is to go to splash pads, pools, but mostly just our hose on our front lawn with a plastic tub. She could spend hours just playing in the dirt, grass, and water. She actually learned how to dunk her head under water and hold her breath in the pool too.

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One day Anna decided she wanted to put head bands on all her dolls and then she made sure Elise was wearing one too. She understands a lot of what we say and is picking up new words all the time now. She likes to make believe play with her dolls too.

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Sometime she wakes up with crazy bed head, with two pacifiers in her mouth, or with her legs sticking out of the crib.

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She loves corn on the cob, and to help sweep the floor and basically help us do whatever we are doing. One morning Kent drank the last of the milk from his cereal bowl and the next thing we know Anna was trying to do the same (Dayna made the same mistake a week later). We realized she watches everything, I mean everything we do and tries to do likewise so we really have to be careful.

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Anna is her dad’s BYU football watching pal and loves to see her “papa” weekly. We love it that my dad is near by and comes over often. She even sometimes allows me to do her hair up cute. It is finally long enough to at least put it in pigtails which I am excited about. I have big plans for it when it gets longer.

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Anna’s favorite person in the world is her sister. She loves loves loves her and hugs her often, at times to the chagrin of Elise. In the morning when Anna comes into my room Elise is always the first person she looks for and wants to see and give kisses to, I am now the afterthought. When Elise and I got home from our 3 day trip to Utah I greeted Anna at the airport and only got a smile but when she saw that Elise had returned too Anna squealed with delight and did a little happy jig in her car seat. I am glad that they love each other.

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She is our crazy sweet toddler, our Anna girl.

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Utah Extravaganza 2011

IMG_3965We went to Utah to see two very special people graduate from BYU; my brother, the Young Brigham from Brigham Young and Kent’s sister, the cougar riding hooded Maria with her Master’s. Congrats!

Kent and I love, I mean love going back up to the Y to visit, to eat chocolate covered cinnamon bears from the bookstore, and remember good old times.  What a wonderful place!

After living in Arizona, Utah is seems so lush, green and cool. It was so beautiful.

We got to visit with a bunch of family and old room mates and friends and meet some of their spouses and kids! That was fun.

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After the commencement ceremony we got together at a park with some of  the Slack family. Uncle Tim couldn’t couldn’t get enough of Elise and played with her the whole evening. We had yummy KFC and had fun chatting and playing.

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We somehow got the four blue eyed cousins together to pose for a picture too.

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The next day was graduation, and we were all over campus! We dressed the girls in Blue and White and tried to instill into their little hearts the desire to graduate from BYU one day.  I thing they thought that their Aunt Maria and Uncle Brigham were pretty awesome for graduating.

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My whole entire family met up together in Provo, so that was really neat. We were all able to be together on Friday so we spent the afternoon together on campus and ate lunch together in the Wilkinson center.

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IMG_3980There was in fact one more graduation that day that I did not mention, my sister in law, Jane Ann! She actually graduated BYU last year but being in New York at the time, she never got to walk or wear a cap and gown so she borrowed Brigham’s and we had a simple family impromptu two minute graduation ceremony for her. What a gal!

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That evening we had a happening BBQ party at South Fork Park – my personal favorite park in all the world. It was so fun to visit a bunch of family, eat yummy burgers, and play bocce ball, and ultimate frisbee.

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OK, I have to tell this story. So last year when we were up at the same park I took a cute picture of me kissing Anna’s cheek when she was a baby, and I wanted to get a similar one of me kissing Elise…but as you can see she did not try to look cute for the picture.

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Kent also hiked Provo Peak with Brigham, we walked up to Bridal Veil Falls with the girls, Elizabeth and I attended a Zumba class with Shayla. Elizabeth made us green shakes for breakfast one morning, we ate 6 different type of pizza one night with Maria and Joel, we visited lots of old friends and roommates, we stopped in St. George on the way home and visited the Brigham Young winter home with my parents and attended the St. George Temple.

Side note: driving from AZ to UT is not fun with a baby and a toddler. But driving through the night is even a worse idea the driving through the day.