Anna Meets Santa!

Continuing on with the Santa theme, we managed to capture some video of the Anna/Santa meeting at the mall... She did great at her first ever visit to the big guy... enjoy!!



Stay tuned for 'Behind the Scenes' footage of Anna as she navigates Phipps...

Really, how much cuteness can you take?

The amount of time available for blogging during the holidays is greatly diminished. However, given the need to feed the demanding public, here are a few pics of some recent cuteness.

Anna's impression of the cutest baby in the world:

Carter's impression of the cutest toddler in the world (Anna looking on in awe):
Oh yeah. Nearly forgot about that guy!

Mommy and daddy even get in on the action:

Stay tuned for more adventures in cuteness!

Now THAT'S funny

You can even get the t-shirt, a Christmas MUST for one and all, at http://www.snorgtees.com/piberational-p-563.html.

Anna really wants to walk...

...and this is her new way of getting closer to doing just that!  Anna likes to grab onto knees and practice walking!  She is propelling herself and making progress.  We've also seen her stand on her own (without the benefit of tables, people's legs, couches, the fridge, etc.) a couple of times for a few seconds here and there.  She's getting close!  Here are some shots of Anna on the move, using Dad as leverage...

We're just getting used to her crawling, so we're not quite sure we're ready for full on walking!

An announcement

Anna has something to say.

Anna loves to play in her "doggy bed" (a soft-sided kiddie play pen on loan from Pete & Katie).

Anna does not always get to play in her doggy bed.

Anna at 9 Months!

New Video! Anna is nine months old this weekend (can you believe it?), and over the past couple of months, she's crawled, stood, started to formulate words like 'Wow,' 'Uh-oh,' 'Mamamamama,' and 'Dadu' (we're assuming she knows she is calling us that!). In addition, she's got two teeth on the bottom, four coming in up top, and her hair is getting thicker.

This clip is her 'Nine Months Birthday Video' filled with milestones and general everyday cuteness from the past couple of months.

Ashley's newest nickname for Anna is 'Fluffernutter' - don't ask, it just works. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Day!

We had a great Turkey Day at Joyce and Guy's house yesterday. For those who do not know, their house was horribly damaged in a fire on CHRISTMAS EVE last year. But, being the amazing survivors that they are, they rebuilt and were able to come home a month ago. So last night they cooked an AMAZING Thanksgiving dinner. There were some big surprises when we arrived! Leigh came all the way from Cally-forn-I-A, Whitney came up from Orlando, and Tripp was down from Baltimore.

Leigh and Pam in mid gossip, posing for me

Whitney on the download
Mass tryptophan casualties. That's Joyce on the far left and Guy sorta in the middle. Jan is in the back holding Sophie, Pam & Tom's new baby. Leigh on the right, Nannette has my baby and her baby, Hattie, is on the floor.
Mimi getting some good ribbon time with Anna

Tripp-tophan!

As usual, I didn't really have my camera in action to get very many pics, but I managed to get a few. We'll be going back up for dinner tonight chez Pam et Tom, so I'll get some more.

Anna's baptism

On the Festival of All Saint's, we had Anna baptized at St. Luke's Episcopal Church where Park and Thomas went all through childhood. In fact, Carter is such an active member that when I called to schedule the date, the woman said after I gave my name, "Oh, you must be Carter's daughter in law!"

We are so happy to have Thomas and Elizabeth as her godparents, but I don't seem to have any pictures of all of us together that day. In fact, I don't have any pictures of my own at all, so feel free to send any taken!

It was really amazing to have all the family together, too. In all there were over 20 of us there! From "my side" there was my mom & Allen, Pam & Tom, Joyce & Guy, my Dad & Christine, Laura (Jason was home with the boys), JM, Cindy & Brett and Jeffrey & Nannette. From "Park's side" we had Carter (Donna was sadly very sick - we missed you!), Gia, Chris, Cole & Gracie, and Thomas, Elizabeth & wee-Carter. Whew! I could be blanking, so my apologies if I left anyone off!

Hallo-dorable!

Just a little cuteness I thought I'd share from Halloween.

Voodoo Too

More from the Voodoo front. Friday night, we had the great pleasure of hanging out with the Threalls.......my friends Kat and Torrey and their triplets. Mostly these are photos hijacked from Abby and Kat. Hey, they didn't copyright.

Kat wrangling the triplets, Gretchen, Ronan and Blythe, for bedtime.

Neil and Sully jouer au futbol Miss Anna and mama in turdville ;)

Anna was such a little bad*** in her Pantera onesie......that was one of her costumes.

Mama and Abby-normal

Voodoo Fest!

Getting through the backlog of posts here, we shall begin with Voodoo Fest. We had a great trip, stayed in the Marriott downtown and most importantly, got to spend time with Abby, Neil, Sully and Jack. We only took the punkins out to the festival during the day, since yes, the do freaks come out at night, and never more so than in New Orleans at a festival titled VOODOO where NIN is headlining.

Photos from the first day, right after the clouds made a beautiful path for us.

Anna and Jack-Jack being cuter than imaginable.
Abby-normal and Jack in his goth shirt.

Duuuuude and the zonked out punkin.

Discussing the finer points of true coolness.

New hat

I just had to get this picture out to the public!

Long time, no blog.

Well, we have been slacking heavily on the Blog front... we have been busy, busy going out of town and working around the house, so the blog has been neglected. We assure you everything is great and Anna is doing well. She's getting huge and we are loving every minute of it.

We've recently been down to Pensacola to play on the beach, and we are heading to New Orleans this weekend for the Voodoo Fest and visit Abby, Neil, Sully and Jack.

Promise to have pics and video up soon when we get time!!! Keep checking back and thanks for your patience!

Some pix I've been meaning to post

So, because I started this post before the "Long time no blog" post, no one may notice that this post is here. Oh well! The pix are still cute :)

Violet, Ellie and Anna

Carter and the dreaded ball of terror.......seriously, we have no idea why, but Anna is terrified of this ball.
Violet licking the lid of her yogurt
Anna inspecting Ellie's ear
Anna and Ellie having a discussion en espanol, naturally, about the color red....ROHO!

Burt's Pumpkin Patch

We headed up to North Georgia today to see the 'famous' Burt's Pumpkin Patch, where there were pumpkins-a-plenty, and even a hayride!

Just north of Dawsonville, Burt's provides the option of purchasing pumpkins, squash, corn stalks and other grown goodies. Their rules included not sitting on, hitting, dropping, kicking or otherwise abusing the pumpkins. As they announced these rules every ten minutes over the loud speaker in between what seemed like an endless version of Flatt & Scruggs' 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown,' most everyone there (mainly kids) were sitting, hitting and kicking a pumpkin. Pretty amusing. Here's a snapshot of the scene:



Also amusing were all the folks with wheel barrows (provided by Burt's) to haul around their anywhere from $6 - $75 pumpkins. Size matters at Burt's.

Here are some shots of Anna amongst the pumpkins (most were as big or bigger than her!):

The next few shots are of Anna breaking the 'no sitting or standing on pumpkins' rule!

After all the pumpkin madness, we went on a hayride, where a group of people hung out in a flatbed full of hay and were pulled by John Deere tractors through Burt's farm. It was 'interesting' I suppose, but Anna seemed to love the tractor a little more than the scenery - this shot may explain why:

No idea... anyway, here's the Hayride:

Anna checking out the tractor over Daddy's shoulder (and getting sleepy!):


We can't wait to go back (or to another one a little closer!) when Anna gets a bit older. Overall, it was a fun day!

Anna and Cart Cart

Wanted to share some recent times that Anna and her Cart Cart have had together... I see a lot of her in him and vice versa, so I thought it a good idea to post the below:



Two of my favorite people!

The Lounge

Once again, as promised, we'd like to present our daughter. Recently, she has begun crawling and is getting better and better by the minute. Her favorite stationary pose continues to be 'The Lounge' although sitting normally has begun to creep up on the favorites list. Here is a taste of said preferred pose:

scratch all that!

Nanner crawled at daycare today. She had that look of determination, stuck her tongue out of her mouth with intense focus, got up on all fours and before my very eyes it was left knee forward, right knee forward. Lyla did not stand a chance against the fierce pursuit of the Bo-Bo-Nanner. She reached her hand out and THERE! At last! Lyla's foot had been captured.

Anna also has a tooth now. It must have broken through sometime during the day yesterday, because as of last night, there was undoubtedly a tooth (bottom front, the left one - her left).

My baby is growing up waaaaay to fast.

The Almost Crawl

Anna is on the verge of her first legit crawl... currently, she can get to where she wants to go, but it's by rolling or 'stomaching' as I've just now coined it.  But mainly, she just gets on her hands and knees, then rocks back and forth several times before conking out.  So, as promised, below is such an occasion, as we try and lure her with her toy 'tambourine.'

She's so close!!

Going, Going, Gone!

Anna has been sitting up on her own for a little bit now.   This did not come without some missteps along the way, however, and we caught some of the previous 'learnings' in action via the camera... see below the progression of events on one of her first tries to sit up on her own:

Looking good so far....

Hold it, hold it.... hold it...

...and touchdown!

Her preferred pose is 'the lounge' which we will have video evidence of soon.  She's got quite the personality!