Making a New Friend and Rolling Over

Today, Jeannette and Madi came over for a visit! It was so good to see Jeannette again (it's been almost 5 years!) and to finally meet her daughter Madison. We had a grand time catching up and Madi was mostly interested in poking at AnnaBeth's eyes, which AnnaBeth wasn't too keen on. But hey, babies are curious about eyes :) The pictures are little fuzzy because Madi is one active 11 month old! And while we were talking, AnnaBeth rolled over for the very first time!!! Yes, I missed it :( She was playing in her activity gym on her back and then I looked over at her and she was on her tummy! I tried to get her to do it again but she was tired and hungry and starting to fuss. Oh well, I'm sure I'll capture it on video soon.Hey Ma! Another baby!

Ooh what pretty eyes you have! May I poke them????

We <3 Laurie Berkner!

If you don't know who Laurie Berkner is, you should totally check her out. I've been a fan ever since watching the DVD while babysitting Casey and Carly (and yes, I still get some of the songs stuck in my head sometimes). I don't really want AnnaBeth watching TV but if I'm going to have the TV on while she's in the room, it might as well be something that's somewhat educational so we've been watching a lot of Noggin. Laurie doesn't have her own show but Noggin will play one of her "music videos" during a little "let's groove to the music" segment and she is also shown during Jack's Big Music Show. AnnaBeth doesn't generally show a lot of interest in the shows unless there is singing and even then, she only sort of pays attention. Every once in awhile, she'll be into the show enough to interact with what's going on. However, if Laurie Berkner is on, she is GLUED to the TV!
I guess I'm going to be buying the DVD in the near future so we can watch Laurie Berkner to our heart's content.

Learning to Read

AnnaBeth is getting a head start on learning how to read. She did quite well with this book and only needed help with a couple of words :)

Needs a little help with the big words like "elephant"

4th of July

Our 4th of July was fairly uneventful as we spent most of the day at home. We did go to Wayne and Julie's for dinner and enjoyed spending time with the family. Matt and Jill even made it back from Vegas before we all went home. Papa took a whole bunch of pictures of AnnaBeth, especially when she was laughing so once I get those, I'll have to post some of them. As you can see, AnnaBeth had two festive outfits for the holiday. Her dress was a tad big since the size was 6 months but she still looked really cute in it. And her other outfit was just for laughs :)

AnnaBeth talking

AnnaBeth has recently found her voice and its just about the cutest thing ever! I tried uploading the videos here on the blog but the files are too big so youtube it is :) Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhGbb2ymbjw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNqcmohSwx0

A Visit From Crystal

On Monday (6/29) my very good friend Crystal whom I've been friends with since kindergarten (yes, that's almost my entire life) was in town visiting from Michigan. She moved there two years ago and this was her first visit back home. We only had a few hours to spend together but we managed to do all of our catching up in that short amount of time. She totally spoiled AnnaBeth with a bunch of outfits, some books and a Curious George band related video :)Here AnnaBeth is wearing an outfit that she received from our good friends Karl and Jessica. She looked ever so pretty in it and as you can see in the picture, she knew she looked quite beautiful!

Daddy's Little "Helper"

Last weekend AnnaBeth "helped" her Daddy while he was working in the garage. She loved being outside!!

Going over her checklist of things to do for the dayWondering who she should call first

"Helping" Daddy