Annie and Bea playing

In this photo the girls are just getting warmed up for their photo shoot by Uncle Larry. Here they are both in good spirits and having a great time!

Annie is starting to get a little bored, and she's becoming a little dramatic. Side note, Annie's new favorite way to show her displeasure with mom and dad is to plop down on the floor, begin to wail, and then throw her face and hands to the floor. It's so dramatic and hilarious. I can't believe little tantrums are already showing up.

Ladies who lunch. Annie took Bea out to lunch at the Warren Tavern. They both loved sitting next to eachother, although they got a little sick of the paparazzi action so Bea told Annie to get that camera so they could eat in peace.

One photo too many... enough said.

Annie and Bea had a great time playing during the Drummys' visit. For the most part Annie was on her best behaviour, sharing and showing Bea how to do stuff.

Larry, Alex & Bea visit Smackdown!

Since I was a bit delinquent on my blog postings, here are some pics from when Larry, Alex and Bea came to visit a few weeks ago. They came in Wednesday night, and the fun began! Thursday and Friday Annie got to stay home from daycare and play with everyone! They went on lots of field trips and lunches. Annie loves to lunch! I apologize that I'm a little scarce on the details, but I was at work/class most of the time so I missed all the fun! Also, rumour has it the in the upcoming weeks my reclusive co-blogger will be back on the scene with some more recipes and food-goodness! So if you happen to talk to her, put the pressure on!

Wedding weekend

On Friday my cousin Chad got married in Syracuse, and it was also Annie and daddy's first solo road trip! I was a little nervous, due to work commitments Karen couldn't attend, so that meant Annie and I were headed to the wedding by ourselves. Boy was I nervous. Syracuse is a six hour drive from Boston, and worst case scenarios kept popping into my head. What if she had a meltdown in the car? What if I had to go to the bathroom? So many variables to plan for. But Thursday night Karen said something to me that made everything much more palatable, if you have to go to the bathroom, just put her in the stroller. Duh, just put her in the stroller! Suddenly the world seemed at our fingertips!

We headed out Friday morning at 6:30, and the enjoyment began. She soon fell asleep, and about a half hour before we arrived at my sister's house, she woke up. Not bad. Next to me in the passenger seat I had snacks, sippy cups with juice and water, and some of her favorite toys that I planned on judiciously parcelling out. It worked!

We stopped at Leslie's house so we could all ride together. Annie had a great time playing in the car with her cousins, and when we got to the wedding the rest of my family was there for backup, hooray! The wedding ceremony was great, expedient yet thoughtful. The reception was a lot of fun, and Annie was such a trooper through the whole thing. On the way home from the reception to Leslie's, she slept the whole time, and then when right down when we got back. However, the next morning around 5:30 I woke up, feeling someone looking at me and when I sat up, there Annie was, standing in her pack n play staring at me, waiting for me to get her. She played the rest of the morning until it was time for her nap, and then we hit the road. It's about 3.5 hrs from Leslie's to our house, and again, Annie slept the whole time. You could not have asked for better behaviour from our little Annie Bananas.

I also brought my camera and managed to take some photos! Oh, and because everyone loves a good conga line, here's some video from the reception! Unfortunately I missed capturing when Rebecca started a repeat performance of her table cloth cape dance from Jona's wedding, but I'll get it next time Rebecca!

Man oh man has it been a while since I've posted. Sorry about that. July has been very hectic, I was taking two summer classes, a few trips here and there, and have been pretty busy at work. My classes are finally over and I can relax! Boo-yah! Also, for those of you keeping track of my progress, I have two classes left to take in the fall, and then in December, I'm done with my MBA! Cannot wait...

I don't even know if I've posted that AB is full-on walking! Ever since her birthday she has been steadily getting better and better and now she's a crazy lady! Most of the time her walk is more of a run with her arms outstretched leaning forward. I finally got some good video last night, good thing because no sooner had I stopped recording then Annie took a digger on landed face first on some not too soft tile. But after a little TLC from mommy and an ice pop, she felt much better.

Tomorrow Annie and I are headed to Syracuse for my cousin Chad's wedding. Can't wait to have my first road trip with Bananas! The centerpiece of my plan is not to consume any liquids after 9pm tonight, so I can avoid the awkward bathroom with a toddler scenario... We'll meet up with my sister in Broadalbin, so after we make it there I'll have some backup, of course, we'll also be outnumbered between two adults and four kids! Let the good times roll -

Annie loves Mac n Cheese

We have been trying to make much more of an effort to let Annie feed herself lately. Which is not very easy, considering: a) she's very messy, b) she frequently spits out her food, c) she frequently throws her food, and d) I'm a bit anal retentive, so having food thrown all over kind of makes my skin crawl. But we're working on that.

The pics of Annie eating were taken on last Thursday, I had stayed home with her because she had an ear infection and some other stuff, so we'd thought we'd relax for the day. At lunch time I made her a box of Annie's Mac n Cheese - nice organic, whole wheat pasta. And boy is it good. So while we were eating, she was in her high chair and I was sitting next to her, I was starving, and these shells and cheese were pretty tiny, so as I got to the end of my bowl, I may have just stuck the whole bowl up to my mouth to shovel in the remaining shells like a pig. Well guess who was watching, because no sooner did I lower the bowl from my mouth when I see Bananas' bowl heading straight towards her face with shells streaming everywhere! I've just learned a very good lesson about little eyes watching and repeating what they see! And for the rest of the meal, that's how she ate her mac n cheese. I guess it could have been worse.

The top pic, you can kind of make out Annie and mommy getting close to some birds in Davis Square. The last time I mentioned Davis I talked about all the hipsters around. This time, the picture is so far away because immediately to Annie and Karen's right were these amazon hippie leftovers in full on parkas (it was 70 and sunny that day...), with an entire loaf of bread feeding the pigeons. It's always something...

Playdate in GP

I've been patiently waiting for my co-blogger to update some of these posts... but it's been a week! So I'm going to make up what happened.

When we were in Michigan, Annie got to meet Mommy's friend's niece, Lydia. Annie and Lydia played, chatted, and had a great time. In the second pic from top you can see Lydia slapping Annie on the back, Annie just told a really funny joke. And in the bottom photo Annie is asking Lydia where she got her earrings.

Annie + water = loads of fun!

We were in Detroit last weekend for the wedding of our good friends Carmie and Steve. The wedding was great, and the reception was at the Detroit Athletic Club, where you probably remember is where Karen and I had our reception. I have some video to post later, so I'll cover that in another post.

Annie had such a great time with Grandpa and Grandma Drummy! She is such a champ, she loves everyone, and Grandma Drummy even got her to nap for almost 5 hrs one day, soundly defeating my previous record! Karen and Annie flew out Thursday morning, and I joined them Friday evening. The weather was beautiful, and Annie got this new bathing suit!

On Saturday before the wedding we took her to the park, where they have this great children's splash area. There's a small wading pool, and then all these sprinklers and other fun things that spray water out! I'm happy to report that Annie loves the water. I can't tell you how many times she got sprayed in the face, and she just laughed it off! At one point Annie and I were under this sprinkler just getting drenched and she's laughing the whole time. I think showers might be in her future soon! And she even put her head under water... Which, wasn't exactly her doing... She was sitting on my lap in the wading pool and I looked away for a second and next thing I know her head is under water! I quickly pulled her back up, and there was a smile on her face! That's one easy going kid!

Leftover

I don't know how I forgot to post this photo! It's our favorite from the weekend of Annie in her lifevest before heading out for a boat ride.

A day in the life of Annie Bananas

So people ask me all the time, what's a typical day like for Annie Bananas? Well, there's two answers- there's a typical week day where AB goes to daycare and we go to work, and then there's the weekends. I'll cover both.

The photo above is from a week day, you can tell because: a) I don't wear suits on the weekends(I'm not Alex P. Keaton), and b) AB has her pants hiked up, her keys, and her purse -- she means business! During the weekdays, AB has been waking up in the 5-5:30am territory. Which is not ideal. So what we usually do is one of us makes a bottle and gives it to her in the crib, and then we hope that after she finishes the bottle she will fall back asleep until 7. This is 60% effective. If this doesn't work, Annie comes into bed with mom and dad and usually is playing in between us while hitting one of us on the head with her hands and kicking the other one. Or she's standing, pounding her hands against the headboard laughing the whole time. Sesame Street starts at 6, and that will semi-entertain her, but around 6:40ish Elmo comes on, and the minute she hears him start to sing she pays very close attention. I think her favorite part is when Dorothy asks Elmo a question and Elmo asks a baby (if you haven't seen it, it's actually pretty funny because no matter what baby Elmo asks, the answer is always the same -- nothing!).

We then shower, taking turns watching as Annie plays on the floor, crawling around either trying to get into the bathroom, exit the room, or climb up the plant stand. Fun times! Then one of us takes her to daycare, which is about a ten minute drive from our house, and after dropping her off parks at the T station. The other person picks her up and brings her home. At daycare Annie gets breakfast, lunch and a snack. They do a lot of art projects, sing songs, and lots of playing. There are lots of toys that Annie gets to play with there. Not to mention they have these padded areas where she can climb around and bounce all over.

We usually get home around 6 from daycare, then it's a mad rush to make dinner (I should say, Karen make dinner), feed Annie, bath (every other day), and then bed around 7pm. Annie usually is no problem going to bed, which is nice, because after she's down then we eat and hang out until our bed time.

On the weekends... She has been following the same wake up schedule, and we still try giving her a bottle and cross our fingers (and close our ears) that she will fall back asleep. We're pretty relaxed though, so if she wants to get up, one of us gets up with her and we play. On the weekends AB usually takes two, two-hour naps. One in the morning, about 2-3 hrs after she gets up, and then one in the mid afternoon. We go for lots of walks and go to the parks. She loves to go to the grocery store with Mom, and she's getting pretty fond of Costco (the samples don't hurt either!).

4th Festivities -- and BIG news

We spent the 4th up in NH with the Kattmans. The weather held off, somewhat, and only rained for a few hours in the afternoon. Which gave us the perfect opportunity to take a nap, very needed since AB got up at 5:30 that morning... It was a lot of fun in NH on the lake and I took some video of the fireworks. Oh yeah, and I did this all on my super iPhone!

And now for the big news... On Sunday Annie took her first unassisted steps!!!! Wow! And the best part was she did it in front of both of us, and we didn't have to hear that she took them at daycare and we missed them! We worked on walking for the rest of the weekend. She usually will take a few steps on her own now, and then fall to ground and resume her very fast crawl.