Five Months Old

Anna is five months old as of last week. She's really growing up so fast. It seems like time is just flying by with her. I absolutely LOVE the fact that I can stay at home with her all day and not worry about school. It's great. We've been able to just play and laugh and have so much fun. She jabbers away all the time now. She's getting pretty strong too. She can scoot on her little tummy all over the place. Sometimes I'll put her on her tummy while I'm cooking and before long she's rolled over twice and made a 360 degree turn. I think that once she starts crawling, I'll be a lot busier. She's a really great baby.

We're Working On It

We've been trying to help Anna's muscles get stronger, so we're teaching her how to stand up holding on to things. She's getting pretty good. It's just amazing how big she's getting.

Welcome to St. Louis

We finally made it to St. Louis. We are so excited to be here. We found a great little townhouse.
Our ward is great here. Everyone has been super friendly, and we've already made some good friends.
Josh started school this week at WashU! He's really happy there. His summer courses are not too demanding which is kind of nice for him to be able to ease into things. Josh takes the Metrolink to get to campus which works great since we only have one car. It drops him off right on campus, so it's perfect. Plus, students get a pass for free, so it saves on gas money. Anna and I got to go visit the campus with him this week. It's beautiful! We walked all around and saw the beautiful architecture. We'll post some pictures later. It's nice that we've finally started this phase of our lives.
We don't have any Missouri pictures yet, but here are a couple of pictures we took on our last day in good ol' Georgia. This is my Grandma Stewart. We're really going to miss her. This is my Granddaddy. He will always keep you laughing. He has a nick-name for Josh....."Curly Top". Can you see it?

So a few weeks ago we started feeding Anna rice cereal. She didn't know what to do with it at first, but she's getting better at it. Sometimes she gets so excited that she kicks her arms and legs and knocks the food right off the spoon. It's makes quite a mess, but it's really fun to feed her.

Anna has learned to roll over from back to tummy and tummy to back. So now when you put her down, she can be across the room in no time. She's really growing up. We're having so much fun with her.

Greg and Karina's Wedding

My brother Greg and his wife Karina were married in the Atlanta Georgia Temple on Saturday. We are so happy for them. It's funny because Greg used to give Diana such a hard time for being from Georgia and now he's got a Georgia Peach of his very own! :)

Grandma Linda and Anna

This is at the Cheesecake Factory the night before the wedding. Greg and Karina did not stop smiling the whole night long.

Jared, Greg, Gerry, Me and John

We couldn't help but post these last two pictures of Anna at the beach in Florida. We had forgotten that we still had a few pictures on our other camera that we had not looked at and we found these. She loved that little bathing suit!

Trip to the Beach

I absolutely LOVE vacation! We just got back from the beach this week. My whole family went down to Florida for a few days. It was a blast. It's always fun when everyone gets together. Anna got to touch the ocean for the first time. She didn't like it at first but warmed up to it a little. I think she just didn't like the temperature. While we were down there, there was a huge storm, and I mean HUGE! I don't know if I've ever seen wind like that before. It felt like we were in a hurricane. We didn't get to spend a ton of time on the beach since it rained so much but what time we did get to spend down there was very fun.
I was absolutely dying to get some good family pictures. We haven't had any good ones since Anna was born, so it was really important to us both. We actually took these off of our balcony because it was raining, and they turned out great.

This is my brother and sister-in-law with their little boy David. They're so much fun!

I think the adults had more fun playing in the sand than the kids did. We made a big sand castle. It was great.

These are my two brothers, looking like studs.

This is the crew all on the beach, enjoying the scenery.

It was so beautiful there. We decided to get married on the beach here almost two years ago. It was really fun to go back.

Anna went swimming for her first time and actually loved it! I knew that she liked the water but it was cold. I wouldn't even get in. She gets her courage from her dad. Mom is definitely lacking in that department.

This is a great picture of Anna with Granny. They just love each other!

And finally, here is the whole crew right before we left our hotel. It was a great trip.

Catching Up

We have a lot of catching up to do. We might be on vacation but we sure have been busy. Since we've been staying with my parents, we've been able to take advantage of having free and wonderful babysitters. Last weekend Josh took me on a surprise date. He kept going on secret excursions to prepare for the night. Finally, about 7 PM on Friday, he blindfolded me and put me in the car. Since I know my hometown so well, he didn't want me to figure out where we were going by where we drove. So he drove around crazy streets and went in circles over and over to throw me off. It was hilarious. We finally ended up at my grandma's house. He carried me down the hill in his arms with my blindfold still on. Once we were on the dock, he took off my blindfold and there was dinner in candlelight waiting for us. It was so much fun. After dinner we got in a little raft and rowed around the lake and watched the sun set. Josh did good on this date! We had a blast.

Anna sat in a high chair for the first time this week. Since we're first time parents, you know we had to document the occasion.

Mother's Day was great! I woke up to my sweet husband giving me a beautifully wrapped present. Josh gave me a sweet card and some fantastic knives. My mom has a really good knife, and I've been raving about it since I got here. I guess Josh got the hint and now I have some of my own. Cooking goes so much faster and is so much more fun when you have good tools.
My dad gave me a beautiful Precious Moment's statue. It's kind of been a tradition to get these beautiful porcelain statues on special occasions. I love them! This statue was of a little baby girl. So cute!
My brothers were also very thoughtful and got me Mother's Day gifts. It was so sweet of them. One of my brothers got me chocolate and some beautiful flowers and my other brother got me the movie, "The Count of Monte Cristo". I'm very lucky to have such wonderful men in my life.

Anna has had a number of visitors this week. This is a picture of my Uncle Gary. It was so nice visiting with them. They're just wonderful.

This is Aunt Carol holding little Anna.

Aunt Carol brought graduation gifts for both of us. We LOVE the gifts. They were perfect for us.

This is my cousin Katherine holding little Anna.

This is Uncle Billy. I think he and my dad look almost identical. They bought Anna a little silver piggy bank with her name embossed on it. It's ADORABLE. We loved it! It was so great to see them.

Rollie Pollie