New phrases, words and sounds

AnnaBeth has a few new phrases that she's been using lately...."that's/it's my mama/dada", "whew stink", "love you", "oh no", and "grow". She loves to say "Hi ya!!!" or "Hey, hi!!" when she enters a room (or when we enter the one she's in). A wolf howl and a fire truck siren are also two new sounds (although they sound nearly the same). She attempts an elephant trumpeting sound but only really manages to blow a little air across her lips.

Over the weekend, Bondo had a bout of bowel issues (which involved a trip to the vet and a bill of $137...talk about a hit to the pocketbook!). I awoke to this Saturday morning as he failed to wake me up to let him outside. Thankfully it was all on the kitchen tile. However, AnnaBeth woke up about 10 minutes after Kent and I did. I was in the process of the cleaning up the floor when Kent got her out of her room. As soon as they neared the kitchen, she repeatedly said "whew, stink!". It was hilarious!

Yesterday, AnnaBeth and I were getting ready to leave Nana and Papa's to come home. AnnaBeth wanted to accompany Nana upstairs to tell Papa it was time to go. When she got to the top of the stairs, I was opening up the front door and she yelled "BYE!!!!!!" and started waving at me. It was just too cute!!

I've also been quite sneaky lately when it comes to what I'm feeding her. She will still eat a limited amount of vegetables (mostly just raw carrots and Persian cucumbers) so I bought the Deliciously Deceptive cookbook at Kohl's. While I haven't tried any of the recipes out on her yet (I did modify two of the recipes and came up with a spinach and cauliflower scrambled eggs recipe for myself), it did give me some ideas. I now puree cooked spinach leaves, bell peppers (red, green and yellow) with refried beans. It becomes a weird green color and a little thin, but I spread it on a whole wheat tortilla, melt some shredded cheese on it and she LOVES it! Gobbles it right up!! And the mixture still mostly tastes like the beans (with a hint of bell pepper). Another concoction I came up with is special applesauce. I puree cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash and sweet potato with applesauce and a generous amount of cinnamon. It ends up tasting mostly like cinnamon applesauce with a hint of pumpkin pie filling (must be the sweet potato/cinnamon mix). This is also a big hit with her. I've started offering her carrots and Persian cucumbers at the beginning of her meal (lunch and/or dinner) so she at least gets some fresh veggies in her belly. I add the applesauce to her oatmeal (in addition to feeding it to her by itself) so she gets veggies at breakfast too. Meal time has become a lot less frustrating for me now that I'm able to sneak in some veggies :)

I've also started to go walking/running almost every night. It's not a lot (a mile and a half at most right now) but it's something and it seems to be helping me sleep better at night. Here's a couple of shots of AnnaBeth before one of our outings and some BEAUTIFUL weather shots from July. It may be wicked hot here but monsoon season generates some of the most beautiful sites you'll ever see!

Always interested in buckle straps...on anything!

Visit from Mischa

Mish was in town around the middle of July and we got to spend time with her a couple of different days. It was wonderful to have my friend back on US soil after being deployed in Iraq for 6 months! Here's a few pics from when she was here. 

Being silly

More silliness

Really intent on what she was saying

Strike a pose!

The silliness continues

Loves her cow!

Kisses!!

Say What?

I have NO idea what AnnaBeth is saying here but it must be important since she keeps repeating it. And when I played the video back to her, she was talking back to the video, saying the same thing and getting even more excited than she does in the video.

Smarty Pants

Yesterday I stopped at a consignment store in search of an umbrella stroller. I found just what I was looking for and got it for only $18! I don't think this particular model is sold anymore but I'm pretty sure it was probably around $50 or $60 new. I found another steal while I was there too...a jumbo stuffed Tigger for only $5!! AnnaBeth saw him, said "ooooh!" and I just couldn't resist. Especially for the price :)

Aren't they just SO cute together? Today I got some video of AnnaBeth pointing out a bunch of things in one of her books as well as her demonstrating some animal sounds and saying a few things.

So excited!!

So AnnaBeth just LOVES her Tia YaYa (Laura) and these quick videos prove it! In other news, she's added baseball and apple to her vocabulary. She attempted "lobster" today and it came out as "lala" so good enough I suppose :) And last week, she was "reading" her Curious George book and while doing so, pointed to a girl and said "guh" (or maybe it was "gil")...either way, she totally amazed me! The other day, while reading the same book, I asked her to show me the girl in the red dress and the mommy in the blue dress and SHE DID! I'm so proud of my smart girl!

4th of July

For the holiday weekend, AnnaBeth and I did a lot of hanging around the house playing, reading and napping. We did make it over to my parents to go swimming and my dad grilled a whole bunch of yummy food. Kent was feverishly welding muffler/exhaust systems for Porsche Boxster Spec race cars all of last weekend and wasn't able to join us :( We decided to skip fireworks this year as AnnaBeth would have just wanted to run around and we didn't feel like running after her in the heat with a bunch of people around. Maybe next year though. Enjoy the slideshow!

Quick Scrap

I finally figured out what to do for our Dads for Father's Day...I created a scrap page that I'll print out and frame. I cheated and made the same one (it's 11pm and I'm tired!). I did something similar for our Moms for Mother's Day but I actually made theirs :)