six whole months

Happy half birthday Anna Banana!

The half birthday girl had a bit of a rough day... we believe she has a stomach bug as her meals were not sitting well with her, especially breakfast. She spent all morning in bed and seemed better this afternoon so we went for a little walk, had a puppet show and baked a special treat for dinner (Mom's and Dad's wedding cake recipe - carrot, yum!).

I love the idea of celebrating half birthdays, especially for her, because her real birthday is so very close to Halloween. As I was reading up on them, apparently this was common for babies born at Christmas and it also came up in Harry Potter....we are still trying to figure out where....anyone know?

I might have gone a little overboard here, but after the week we had, we (meaning I) needed to celebrate (power outage and multiple snow storms mixed with wind, a battle with mastitis, which I can say I am winning).

We love you Banana, get better soon.

Excerpt from her card on the table;

To Anna, whom we've loved from the start,

with every inch of our overflowing hearts.

You've grown so much from then to today.

It's our greatest joy to wake up with you and play.

an indoor day

The weather today has been wet and cold and tonight we are apparently getting more - a storm warning is in affect for this area, so that just means we are inside for a few days. We are okay with that, as we desperately need moisture, we are getting our rain barrel on the weekend (proceeds from the yard sale) and someone is very happy learning to put things 'in and out'.

adventures in foodland

Food intake is going well - we tried sweet potato and so far so good. I must say, it works better when Dad feeds her and when she sports her new bib all the way from NYC - thanks Grammy!

On another food note, we were very pleased to hear this morning that our favourite neighbourhood restaurant was named one of the top 100 in the world, how cool.

edited post with a few sweet potato shots, yum!

weekending and a birthday

Lots of story time, cuddles, yard sales, snow storms and pancakes. What a combo!

Happy Birthday tomorrow Uncle Craig, kisses from Anna coming your way...

squashed!

A big day here, someone had their first taste of food, an acorn squash...I felt that it was rather fitting for a fall baby. Can't say she loved the taste, especially after nice sweet milk from Mom for the past 6 months, but as you can see, she ate every bite and now she is down for her afternoon nap.

I must say, a few things that helped were my Cuisinart hand held blender and these cubes, total time in the kitchen, about 30 minutes with really no cleanup. That wasn't so bad!

happy earth day

Stew and I's gift to Anna before she was born was a tree. We planted this apple tree in our backyard for her and upon examination today the buds are starting to pop out. We are very pleased as we didn't know what we were doing when we planted it.

bits of red and blue

We've been noticing over the past few days that Anna is getting more hair...just alittle bit every day it seems. We started noticing in the bath that you can now get a good lather going, in the morning there are a few sprigs sticking up at the back when she wakes and now in some of the pictures you see a nice orangey gold colour coming up. I can't tell you how happy this makes me, and I want to give her about a million more kisses every day. Today we got some good hair shots...and I finished our official picnic blanket for the park, beach and everywhere we will go this summer. It is huge - large enough for a full family to eat on and most importantly nap on after. It doesn't pick up grass, it's light to carry and it doubles as a tablecloth in a pinch.

grandma's here

We are enjoying a great visit with Grandma this week - she is here helping out while Mom goes to the dentist, doing lots of chatting and getting lots of Anna kisses in. Today we all went to aquafitness and Anna was big hit with the seniors group that comes in after us. She sits in a flutter board most of the time while us Mom's get a workout (today was triceps and arms, ouch), so we like to keep her extra warm on the top. Thanks Aunt Katie, those hats are coming in handy....again!

spring has arrived

And Anna is wearing short sleeves for the first time - is it wrong that we want to eat her arms?

stairway corners

Here's looking to a great weekend ahead. I'm a little backlogged on our posts and have lots to share, so check back in this weekend.

things we are lovin'

The return of the sun and spending the day at the park with lots of fun Mom's and kids

Our new friend - Benjamin Larson - born today to Jennice and Cory, welcome to the world little guy!

Thursday night knitting classes

Chocolate banana bread pudding with chocolate gelato (oh my goodness, I should have taken a photo before we devoured it!)

Neil Pasricha and his blog (we especially like his post about teachers.....so true!)

The return of Sarah's House and being able to PVR

Anna learning to use her legs

a jammies day

If you're going to be in your jammies* most of the day it might as well be in style - Aunt Kate got these 'cows' for Anna in PEI before she was born and as you can see she likes them, anything with pattern and this kid is hooked. I happened to wash them up a few weeks ago thinking that 2T (as the label says) would be just right for her around the fall, well, not so much, the top fits and the bottoms are only rolled up twice.

* an official Barrie girl word for clothing donned most nights after work or dinner, especially Friday's.

On a side note someone is getting harder to photo (sans flash), as she's really getting the hang of the jumper, couldn't pass up the excellent light...the snow mixed with rain continues friends, we are hoping for a break by Thursday.

it's a soup day...

Weather today is -3 mixed with snow and rain (that's my front garden above, sorry tulips...I knew I shouldn't have raked you this weekend) and Anna has come down with the chicken pox (6 spots and counting). So... we are staying in and enjoying a big stack of library books, including some classic's on CD (someone got her own library card this weekend) and making a big pot of soup...that should help.

kitchen corners

Friday night pizza night in action. We are enjoying some haystacks and Jamie this evening.

Someone is very tired after a long week of trying to get back on schedule. Next week we are back to regular scheduled programming - have a great weekend friends!

new views

Someone is getting a fresh perspective on her world - from a seated position, yes, almost sitting up.