Playing Mama

Anna is so fun and cute these days (not that she's ever not been fun and cute)!! I was cleaning the kitchen when I heard her talking to a baby doll while changing the doll's diaper. Then she took the doll upstairs, so I followed her to see what she was doing. She was in her room talking to the baby about reading her a book and going night night. She sounded so sweet and motherly!

Sorry I didn't get a photo, but here's one of her putting her new Disney Princess dress up shoes on Emma, who was in my lap at the time. After that are more random photos of Emma and Tony and the girls together. Anna has started "reading" books to Emma. She also let me put pigtails in her hair yesterday - she even asked me to do it!!! Her friend Abby just started wearing pigtails and her friend Gracie at school wears them, so maybe she's having some positive peer influences. Anyway, I'll get a photo of that soon I hope!

September Birthdays and Hurricane Ike

As most of you know, we have 2 birthdays in September just in our own house!! Anton turned 15 on 9-9 (same day as my mom but I won't say what she turned, just that she looks and acts younger than her age!). Anna turned 2 on 9-13, the same day that the eye of Hurricane Ike hit Galveston in the wee hours of the morning. So here's some more pics from these exciting events...

Love the background action on the birthday cake shot... I have a very "spirited" 2 year old.... Anton thinks this is due to the color of her hair! I can't remember what she was up to, but I don't recall Emma getting hit on this particular occassion, so don't worry.

Anton's very excited about this very large present!! And it's a picolo (sp???) snare.

And we have another chocolate lover in the family. Luckily his drum set still fits in his room!

Anna loves those Disney princesses! The pictures are dark because the power was out. Also, Anna's hair looks sweaty because it was! Afternoon naps with no A/C were no fun. Actually there were only a couple of rough days. Thank you God for the early cold front!!

Anna's big present is a BIKE! She also got a humongous dog that she loves to share with Emma.

She doesn't actually pedal yet... Tony attached one of Junior's leashes to the bike and we pull her while she steers. Anton learned how to pedal AND lost the training wheels before his 3rd birthday, so we'll see how she does. I think I kept my training wheels until I was 8, so I'll be happy with any age in between. Notice the tree in the background almost on the red SUV. The owner got lucky!!

There were big trees down everywhere. Anna still says "trees bye-bye" all day long. There's some really big tree trucks with a little crane attached and Anna is fascinated with the "tree truck" (and the garbage truck, the fire truck, any kind of bus, tractors, etc.). Unfortunately I wasn't here when the tree trucks picked up the trees from our street, and I rarely take my camera out of the house. SO I can't show you a picture. I also can't show you a picture from play day at Joanna's house last week when 3 very cute little girls were looking out the front window at the big tree trucks picking up the trees on her street. So sorry!

OK so back to some pictures... One really nice thing about the hurricane... Tony's office was closed that next Monday-Wednesday. There was also a really nice cool front then, and we enjoyed lots of time outside and at the one playground that wasn't a wreck.

Now for some pictures I really like that aren't really related to birthdays or the hurricane....Tony had a tree removed from our front yard a week or so before the hurricane (yeah Tony!!) and mulched the beds. Anton made good use of the mulch pile in the driveway before he helped his dad move it to the beds. Here's a random picture of Emma about that time in the exersaucer - she loves being in it and I love that she loves being in it!! She still has hair in this picture.

Here's a couple from the playground the week before the hurricane.

Hey who's that guy???? Finally a picture of my husband makes it on the blog!!!

Here's Emma showing off her rolling over to the tummy skills. In the last few days she has been rolling around all over the place. The other 2 are of her wonderful laugh. She's very ticklish and seems to love to laugh. It is very fun!! You can see her hair is almost gone now. She has some little fuzzies growing so she probably won't be a baldy for too long. I can't tell yet if it's blondish or brownish, but so far, it's not looking reddish at all. People tell me all the time that Anna and Emma look nothing alike. Time will tell!!!