What is that you're saying?

I had almost forgotten about this video that I took on December 7th. AnnaBeth was in the bath and was repeating some phrase something fierce. I can't tell if she's saying she missed me or if she's wanting to go to the store or if it's something entirely different. And her screeching is her way of mimicking Rufus' meowing.

Orlando/PRI show

Late last week, Kent and I went to Orlando for a performance race trade show convention. AnnaBeth stayed with his parents while we were away. It was my first time leaving her overnight and I did tons better than I expected to! I didn't realize how important the need for alone time was until this trip. There wasn't anything super spectacular about Florida but it was certainly nice to get away. One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing the new Narnia movie in 3D. It was totally amazing!! Anyway, here are the pictures from our little trip. And here's a little video of one of the rooms in the Ripley's Museum. It was tilted all funny and was REALLY hard to walk in there.  I was constantly stumbling while trying to make my way across and out of the room.

Christmas Pictures

Laura was kind enough to snap some pictures for our Christmas card at Freestone park a few weeks ago. The weather was perfect and the pictures turned out so nice!! We brought lots of bread for the ducks to keep AnnaBeth occupied for the pictures since we knew she wouldn't sit and pose and I'm glad she didn't want to because we got some really good pictures this way! Enjoy the pictures!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is when we do our annual Porter family pictures and this year, AnnaBeth did NOT want to cooperate and sit still for the pictures. She constantly wanted to get down and explore but we somehow managed to get some good shots. We took her to feed the ducks after lunch and she was just in awe over all of the ducks!! We were also able to celebrate Thanksgiving at Nanu's where AnnaBeth had fun coloring. She nearly refused to sit at the table and eat with us (kept saying "awwww man!") so coloring was really the only way to get her to sit still. Here are the pics. Here's a video of her feeding the ducks at Freestone Park on Thanksgiving day. She had SOOOO much fun!

Coloring, Brownies, and Videos

AnnaBeth has really been into coloring the last few months. These are from last month (at 19 months). She colors quite vigorously and even holds the crayon properly (now...doesn't show in these pictures)! She uses mostly her left hand for coloring (picks up the crayon with her right and will transfer it to her left) but will occasionally color using her right hand. Either hand she uses, she holds the crayon as you or I would. The lid for the container is now totally covered in scribbles =)

 Lounging around with her boof

 And one day she helped me make brownies. She got a little taste of the batter and didn't care for it at all but she sure enjoyed them once they were baked with a little vanilla bean ice cream on top!

Here she is getting a big kick out of Bondo pulling her around by his tail.

And here's a short video of her talking on my phone....its too cute!

Pumpkin Patch and Halloween

We took AnnaBeth to two pumpkin patches this year. One that had a TON of animals to see and one that I knew had cheaper pumpkins =) And for Halloween, she was a bumblebee fairy. She was SOOOO cute and was a big hit at the fall festival at church. On Halloween night she did such a great job walking from house to house to collect candy. We were so proud of our big girl! We took Bondo with us and he even got a treat at two houses! Here are the pictures from the pumpkin patch and Halloween.

A Day At The Park

One day in mid October, I took AnnaBeth to the park near our house (down the canal about 1/2 a mile). She walked there almost the whole way! She had a blast swinging, playing on the playground stuff, observing ants on the way home and even picking up a little pine cone treasure. Enjoy the pictures!

October Birthdays

October means birthdays for me and Jacob, which I love being able to share with him. We always go to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate his birthday and then we have a family lunch to celebrate our birthdays together. This year we did a family trip to the Phoenix Zoo before our lunch and it was fabulous! AnnaBeth wore her "Curious George" backpack so we wouldn't lose her and she LOVED petting the goats. She did fall and scrape her knees, enough to bleed a little, but we have a very tough little girl and she didn't cry for long. The site I use for the slideshows is acting up and making it difficult to upload my facebook albums so from now on, I'll just hyperlink my facebook albums. Here are the pictures from Jacob's birthday and from the zoo.