VBS!!!

We are having VBS this week and it is so mucy fun!! Annslee loves the dancing and singing of course. I keep trying to catch her doing her songs but then she just turns and smiles ~ poor girl is so used to her Mamarazzi!!






Here we are in one of the 'cut outs' ... I was trying to hold her up so it was kind of hard to do ; )



I have many more to share and their program is tomorrow night so stay tuned!!!

Just checking in~

We are at VBS all week and so we are busy and tired but here is some of our afternoon fun : )




I have some VBS pictures and I will post those later. I am teaching her class and it is so much fun watching her enjoy it : )

Fourth Festivities with Fireman's Foam!

I have always loved this holiday! Annslee loves any reason to celebrate : ) She was thrilled to go to another park for some more fun.

She wanted festive nails and I had the blue polish but needed to go next door to borrow red ; )

The big attraction at this event is the "fireman's foam" We didn't know if she would like it or not and she had no idea what to expect!


She wasn't happy with it at first. She isn't a big fan of having "stuff" on her. The soap was sticky and then grass would stick to that so she didn't want any part of it. However, they also had a huge firehose hooked up and were spraying water to get the soap off and she LOVED that so she kept getting in the foam just so she could go wash off : )


Just to give you an idea of what was happening. Later the foam got well over 6 ft tall but we had moved on to other things by then



We ran into some friends and cousins there. As you can see Gabe and Jacob loved getting in the foam.

We didn't stay at the park for fireworks but came home to do our own "little ones" which Annslee loved b/c they weren't loud : ) She and Jessica watched in style. Some of our neighbors had really big ones so it was quite a show



Sparklers are always fun (not sure about her moves in the first pic LOL) Yes, she still has on a swimsuit!


This morning (of course she slept in her swimsuit) she wanted left over pizza for breakfast. What, is she in college already!!

She did put on a sweater to be doctor to poor sick daddy (they were acting out a M&R episode)


She is napping now and we are hitting the pool when she wakes~good thing she is already dressed for it!

Happy Independence Day!!!!

Here is our little American cutie ready for the party!

I wanted her to wear these glasses but they are kind of big and she thought this was a good look : )

We went to a huge celebration at a park and the police were there on some really BIG horses. She petted them of course and then the nice officer asked if she wanted up. She LOVED it!

Our friend Sara was there and I couldn't resist a pic of these two beauties with their American flag

After having fun in the "kid zone" we ate and then waited for the fireworks to start. A good way to pass the time is a sword fight with a friend ; )

We got our blanket out and she was pleasantly surprised to find "Zoe pillow" I knew better than to stay out past her bedtime without it!

Finally the fireworks started. We have been talking about them a lot. As you may know she has a real problem with loud noises so we weren't sure how this would go. She watches Ru*by & Max and there is an episode about fireworks so we did some pretending about that. They were really pretty and we were really close!

She loved them and stood to cheer!

Then they got louder~ she spent some time cheering and some time holding her ears (or having us hold them for her) Overall, she enjoyed them I think

Time to go home and tackle the traffic. I am proud to report she didn't get in bed until almost 11 and there were no meltdowns

Happy 4th Everyone!!!

The rest of the weekend

Here are a few more pictures from the church BBQ. Her friend Hannah was there and they loved the cow ride. A tractor pulled a string of barrel cows around and it did look like fun



Annslee had already had dessert but Hannah was getting ice cream so Miss A wanted some as well. I told her that she didn't need it so she grabbed Hannah's daddy's hand and off she went (yeah, he got her some LOL)




More cow riding, eating her ice cream and my niece eating an entire pie!!


On Sunday we had a Sunday School swim party and she of course had a blast!

Yes, I know it is already time for a new weekend but I wanted to catch up : )

Annslee's new thing is to say "Annslee try it" about any food (we are LOVING this) and she generally likes what she tries. Last week steak was her new thing.She also tried blue cheese and loved it. We were shocked as it was really strong.Today, they were giving out ribs off the grill outside Kro*ger and I got one. Miss A said she would try it~ well, she loved it and I had to get a pic of course : )I told her that Josie likes them and she yelled "Jo Jo" (Mary you would have loved it!) Yes, she has on a swimsuit~ she sleeps in one, wears one under her clothes, basically is in one 24/7 ~ hey, you have to be ready if a chance to swim comes up!



We are off to one of our local 4th parties and will post on that and the others later : ) Have a safe and happy weekend!

A tradition continues

On Saturday we headed to the church BBQ at the church I grew up in. You can go to my post from last year to see what it means to me. I did want to put pics from the last three years ....my girl is getting so grown up!

June 2008

June 2007

June 2006 (the bottle wasn't hers)


I also had to switch my calendar today from June to July. Usually this means "yay, one month closer to our beach vacation!!" I have to admit today it was a little unsettling as it also means only 2 months left until that September 1st cut off! Please continue thinking of us as we try to remain hopeful that we will receive our referral in time. Many of you know this but our referral for Annslee came on September 1, 2005 so I am finding it hard to think of Sept. 1 as anything other than a day of celebration. I pray my optimism is rewarded : )

VBS, Vandalism, Very happy

Like I said, I had a hard time getting good VBS pics but here is a pretty cute one. As you can see from the bucket labeled girls~ the boys won! Miss A was not amused but managed a smile here. (for the record the boys loaded it with pennies so the girls really brought in more $$)


We check out a lot of library books around here. Here are two of them and you will notice she chose to label them as her own : ( Of course we had a long chat about this and she understood that she is NOT to write in books (especially ones that don't belong to her!) A few days later it was time to go return them and get new ones. For the first time ever she did not want to go to the library. I kept asking her about it and she finally said "Annslee write book" and almost cried. I finally got it out of her that she thought the librarian would be angry. We did go and we got our new books and all was well~ but when we got back in the car she said "library teacher not spank Annslee" I assured her that no one would be spanking Annslee, much less a stranger in the library : ) Poor girl, I guess it was really weighing on her mind the whole time we were there but hopefully this means she will not do it again.



(notice she still gets a letter or two a little off but we are working on it & she always underlines her name when she writes it ~plus it looks like she was in a hurry writing these~ must have been watching for me to catch her LOL)

THANK YOU SECRET BUDDY!! We loved our hair package and of course Annslee appreciated the doll that she gets to work on! She literally squealed when she saw the bar*bie!!

Girl Power!!!!

Yesterday Mia's mommy needed to do some work in her classroom so we got to spend the day with Mia! I didn't want to move Annslee's carseat so when we put Mia's in the girls got some close time : ) It worked out fine for their 'girl power' fist pump but about halfway to the movie theater they did have a little fight over a slinky lol

We went to see a movie and they had on their matching purple tank tops. I really was prepared for a lot of "are they twins?" questions but got none! Maybe it is because they look nothing alike and one of them was calling me Mama and the other saying Laura ; )

I think this is Annslee letting me know I need to sit down and put the camera away

They really wanted to nap together but it just wasn't working. If Annslee didn't have VBS last night I would have just let them play but alas, Mia had to come downstairs to sleep.

Annslee's face is cracking me up! Basically she wanted the microphone and was not amused that Mia had it. A minute later Mia said "hey, it isn't working" and Annslee announced "off" Yeah, since she didn't get the mic, she just turned it off

She has been at VBS all week at a church near our house. I have yet to get good pics but here she is dancing to the "Beach Beattitudes" The bucket you see is the coin collection and the boys are winning. She is NOT happy about it. She actually woke up yesterday morning and her first words were "Boys winning" and a big frown (she is VERY competitive!!)

Her little world

We have had some great weather (mid 80s) and we have tried to enjoy it as much as possible.


Daddy brought home PINK ice cream per Annslee's request (he got some with chocolate chunks in it...bonus!) She didn't wait for a bowl or spoon : )

What's the problem Mama~ was I suppose to share?

Of course we have been swimming!!

This picture made me laugh...Daddy is turning his head I am sure to avoid the splash but it looks like he is checking out the blonde pregnant lady and ignoring our daughter jumping in LOL

Just some tidbits~

*her new thing to say is "ok Mama(Daddy)" about everything...she says it so sweetly

* she is so polite...I am serious, she says "please" and "thank you" about everything. She chews with her mouth closed (a big one around here) and doesn't talk with food in her mouth : ) She says "excuse me" when she poots or burps (and she then laughs of course)

* she is working really hard on not sucking on her two fingers...she wants so badly to be a 'big girl' so we are trying to play that up

*she LOVES little ones and will try and help any "baby" she sees. It is so sweet to watch

*she still drinks mainly water and milk but has discovered pink lemonade (yum)

* her favorite food is broccoli and if you ask her what her fav food is she says "broccoli, carrots & corn" and in that order

* she loves to sing and dance ~ actually she is really good at it too

* she is a great swimmer and quite a diver (working on that) she never jumps in feet first and has a great shallow dive as demonstrated above (usually a belly buster)

I know there is a lot more but I can't think right now.... I need to write these down more often as she changes so fast and I forget so easily ; )