We spent Christmas with Amy’s family this year and it was fun to have all of her family together in the house.

Overall, Christmas was very different this year.  First, we did not open presents on Christmas morning, but rather that evening because Emily and Nick didn’t get in until 1pm on Christmas.  We had SO many presents that we weren’t able to open them all that night and had to resume opening them the next day.  We also had a baby shower for Emily the day after Christmas.  The shower was so lovely and Emily had so many great friends help her celebrate Baby Sass.  We finally finished opening stockings the evening of the 26th and then hit the road to head back to Louisville on the 27th with Emily and Nick.  All in all Mom and Dad hosted a wonderful Christmas even though it was short and super busy.

A few of Anna’s favorite gifts for Christmas included:

- Tom’s Pink Sparkly Shoes from Emily and Nick

- A shopping cart from Allison and Dan

- Tag Jr. reading set from Pom Pom and Poppy

- Wooden table and chairs from GramPam and Grandpa

- A play kitchen from Santa

Anna was a VERY good girl this year and it showed in all of the great presents she received!

Wow, it’s been a long time since our last post…apologies for the delay.  We had an action-packed Christmas & New Year’s, so we’ll break it down into a three separate posts to catch you up.  It will go a little something like this:

- Part I: Christmas
- Part II: New Year’s/Allison’s Wedding
- Part III: Birthday

We’ve been gearing up for the holidays and Anna has been very excited with all of the festivities.  She helped us decorate the tree, met Santa (sort of) and has been enjoying all of the lights around the house.  She’s not a big fan when Mommy & Daddy sing Christmas tunes, but if Grandma has her way Anna is sure to join the Singin’ Weisenbarger’s soon (Grandma’s made-up family singing group that would do a barnstorm tour of the US–like the Jackson 5 & Osmond’s).

She loves to say “Santa” whenever she sees a picture of him, and has been carrying around a little Santa figurine with her that she calls Baby Santa.  It’s only a couple of inches tall but she loves it.  There is a Santa candle upstairs that she refers to as Mommy Santa, but we haven’t figured out yet if they’re related or not.  We went to visit Santa at a restaurant one morning when they had a special Breakfast With Santa, but when it came time for Anna to get her picture taken with jolly ol’ Saint Nick she did not want to have anything to do with him.  Oh well, maybe next year…

Anna was a big help with decorating the tree.  So far she’s been really good about just admiring the ornaments and loves to turn the lights on & off.

Aunt Jane brought over some cookie making supplies the other day and Anna had so much fun with it!  We baked them and then let Anna ice & decorate them.  Her favorite part was adding sprinkles…actually, her favorite part was eating them but luckily she left enough for the rest of us.

We headed north to Seth’s parents for Thanksgiving this year.  Anna kept herself entertained for most of the car ride with books, stickers & games and was very good.  While home we played outside when we could, went to the mall, saw the annual Blaze of Lights parade and started to get some of the Christmas decorations out.  It was a full house but Anna loved playing with her cousins and spending time with family.

Hey Everyone!  I am finally getting around to posting pictures of our fun little Halloween celebrations.  Anna and her cousin Joey went as matching bumble bees on Halloween thanks to thrifty costumes purchased by Pom Pom at Kid’s Closet in Hoptown.  We had our dear friends the Kichler’s over with their sweet twins Mike and Emma.  They have been on the blog before, so I’m sure you are familiar with them.  We had dinner at our place and then headed over to Westport Village for some light trick or treating the Friday before Halloween. Here are some pics from that evening.

Then on actual Halloween night, Seth and I raced home so that Anna could Trick or Treat at a few houses in the neighborhood.  We were so proud of her!  She was so brave!  She walked right up to those front doors, knocked on them all by herself (“by myself!” as she likes to say these days) and said “treat or treat”, probably because she doesn’t know any tricks yet.  We went home after we visited all of our neighbors and all passed out candy until bedtime.  Anna was so proud of the candy she got and has been dragging her Halloween stash around ever since.

We have had a jam packed October, full of great activities with Anna and lots of our friends.  In order we have:

1) Celebrated Allison and Dan’s engagement with 2 wonderful showers

2) Taken a day trip to Miami with Mom and Dad to see the Redhawks play.  This was Anna’s first visit to campus (and definitely not her last)

3) Gone to a wonderful pumpkin patch out in Shelbyville with the Rechters (Jeff, Rebekkah and Joey) for pony rides, bouncy houses, petting zoos and pumpkin picking

 

4) Had fancy pictures taken in Lexington then visited with the Harris family.   Click link below for a preview of the photos:

http://www.zoombugphotos.com/photography/2011/dimples-family-photographe/

 

5) Visited with Aunt Mimi during her short trip to Louisville

6) Dressed up as a bumble bee for Halloween and trick or treated for the first time (pictures to come)

 

In addition to these great activities, Anna is developing more mentally as well.  She is starting to put words together for adorable first phrases like:

• “Baby diaper”
• “Not my daddy” or “Not my mommy” – unsure of what this phrase is all about
• “More please”

We have so many pictures from October that we will probably be posting more soon!

We still need to catch up with what’s been going on lately, but we wanted to post a video from August showing a few of Anna’s new favorite things.  In this video she is 19 months old, and starts off by showing us how she can jump.  At the time, this was still a work in progress, but now she is pretty good at it and often times incorporates it into her dancing.  For some reason Anna would always include a clap when she jumped and then would usually crash into the couch or ottoman for emphasis.  After demonstrating her excellent jumping ability (with Elmo in hand, no less), we quizzed her on the letters in her alphabet puzzle.  Anna loves this puzzle, and we always tried to say the letter when she put it back in the correct spot.  She picked up on them very quickly, and now will occasionally shout out a letter she see’s on TV or a book (our favorite is definitely when she says “dub-a-dub” for the letter W).

 

One of the most exciting things that happened over the summer that we have not yet mentioned on the blog, is that my sister Emily and her husband Nick are pregnant with their first child.  We could NOT be more excited for them.  Yaaaaayyyyy!  They made the announcement in an adorable way.  While we were on vacation, they sent out packages to the immediate family with a frame inside and a note.  Inside the frame was a picture similar to the one below.  That Peepers is so creative!

Anna and I were the only ones home when we received the package.  I captured a few pictures as she took in the news that she will no longer be the only grandbaby on the Rechter side.  (She threw the frame after this picture, if you want to know how it went.)

Baby Sass is due in March.  Thankfully, the happy couple has decided to find out what they are having.  I sort of hope that we will be sending the bins of Anna’s baby clothes out to CA, but will be equally as pleased with a little boy.  We will keep you posted on their progress.  Congrats Em and Nick!  XOXOXO

Wow, time truly does fly by when you’re having fun.  It’s hard to believe that we haven’t made a post to the blog in over a month!  We are very sorry about that, and promise to do much better in the future.  So many things have been going on…since our last post, we have:

- Gone on vacation
- Visited with grandparents, aunts & uncles, cousins and friends
- Moved to a new room at school
- Worked on our ABC’s
- Much, much more

For this post we’ll just put a few pictures and a video, but this week we’ll try to recount the past few weeks in chronological order.  Be on the look-out!

Here is a video of Anna after a nap.  I went up to check on her and she tried to play a trick on me and act like she was a statue or something.

Anna loves puzzles, and a while back we found a gently-used, wooden one with the alphabet at a neighborhood yard sale.  We debated on how long we should wait until we gave it to her, because she still enjoyed her other ones with farm/jungle animals, fish and bugs.  I think she was a little overwhelmed at first trying to figure out where so many pieces, but now she loves it, and she has just as much fun taking the letters off the puzzle as she does putting them back on.  I caught a few pictures of her playing with it, and will post a video soon.