Day at the Zoo

Almost Two

Well, Anna will be two on April 10th. So we are busy preparing for Easter and her birthday and her upcoming Baptism. Her talking is becoming somewhat more fluent. She seems to use a lot of double abbreviated words...for instance...Nina is Ne-Ne, and she loves the Winnie the Pooh movie, her favorite character is Tig-Tig. As everyone says "they grow up so fast"...I guess she is, I noticed the other day that her feet were resting on the footrest of her high chair. She is also starting to poop in the toilet..YEAH! Before I know it, she will be driving and dating....UGH!! She just walked in as I'm typing and said chair-chair....insisting that I pull the chair to the computer so she can see what I'm doing. So that means typing is over

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More Pictures

New Pictures

We have been very busy and I have just been too lazy to sit down and write anything. Anna is doing quite well. She has been using words sporadically for the last 1 1/2 months and she is now establishing quite the vocabulary. Anna had a great time during her first Christmas. At first she didn't grasp the concept of gift opening, but as she became more familiar....she wanted to open everyone's gift. Nina was a great help with teaching her destructive gift opening techniques. Now that we have a computer in the house, it should be a little easier to keep this thing a bit more current(like taking my laptop out of my bag qualifies as difficult). So, I won't ramble on today...Here are some new pics!

Been a while

The first picture is "what happens when you give an 18mo. old a box of powdered sugar donuts"

As you can imagine we have been very busy. Busy with work, holidays, Anna, football watching etc. So many things to do and never enough time. We all seem to be more susceptable to getting sick. So we have had two rounds of colds, flu's and sore throats. The recent World Series victory by the Phillies allowed Anna to enjoy her first parade. And based on the sports trend in Philadelphia...possibly the last for a very long time. Kim's office is on the 2nd floor of Market St. and we were all able to gather there to enjoy some food fun and the best view of the parade. Despite all of that, we did manage to get Anna out for a short time for Halloween. She was dressed as the most adorable Lady Bug. Although we did not visit many houses and get much candy she had a great time. She has also in the last couple of days started to say a few words. We never know what its going to be, but she has said Nina, Doug, Doggie, Down & Ball very clearly...and of course her favorite phrase is Ut-Oh. She wil get to "enjoy" her first OSU-Michigan game next weekend and after that its off to Ohio for Thanksgiving.

Flashback to June

Last night our friends Jim & Cathy from Wisconsin emailed some pictures that they had taken just moments after we were given Anna. We didn't really have any photos of the event so I was so surprised and happy that they were able to give us such a precious gift. It made me think of how that day unfolded, the heat, the rain, the flight and the bus ride to where we first met her. The anticipation and uncertainty were overwhelming, but now it seems like she has been with us for some time. Watching her learn, grow and develop her own personality is a wonderful experience. Its seems like it was so long ago that we were in China but it has only been a little more than 3 months. We are very lucky to have each other. Anna started in daycare a few weeks ago and she has adjusted well. Her teacher, Miss Pat is very good with kids and has a great passion for small children. Today when Kim picked her up she had a few grass stains on her pants, grass stains=having fun. All three of us have had a cold for the last few days so we are all anxious for this weekend to get here. Since the weather has turned cooler Nina is able to go for long walks so we all benefit. Hopefully this weekend we can take them both to the woods where Nina can run off her leash and Anna can throw rocks and experience all of the things that come with roaming in the great outdoors. Our Saturdays have been mostly filled with watching the Buckeyes and other football games. I keep waiting for the day that Anna starts talking but she seems to lack the desire right now. Halloween is right around the corner and Anna has a couple of costumes to choose from. I'll keep you in suspense. Kim and I still have to come up with some really good costumes for the big Halloween party in two weeks. We are really leaning towards Mike and Carol Brady but that isnt solid yet. It will be hard to top my Magnum PI costume from last year. Gotta roll.