We started planting a garden. We're planting strawberries, peas, cucumbers, squash and bell peppers. We're pretty excited about it. There is a great little spot right outside our back door. It makes it really feel like home when you can plant your own garden right outside your door. We're pretty excited about it. Anna got the giggles at dinner the other night. We just had to snap a few.

This is Anna blowing us kisses.

Anna played outside while we worked in the garden. She liked playing with the water from the hose pipe as it went all over the ground. I think she was so happy to just be outside in beautiful weather.

This picture just screams, "Dutch," which translates into "Ducks." Anna calls everything a duck and gets especially excited when she sees anything flying in the sky.

Anna loved the water on the ground.

Anna came up to the glass and smashed her face against it. I thought I would never stop laughing. It was so funny. She likes doing this when I'm in the shower too. It's just so stinkin' cute.

I think she thought it was funny too! It was a great night.

Zoo, Take Two

It was BEAUTIFUL in St. Louis today. The high today was 72 degrees with a wonderful breeze, so we decided to take advantage of it. We went to the zoo and it was wonderful!! The zoo is SO much more fun now that Anna is a little older. She loved seeing everything. She waved at all the animals. Our favorite part was just watching her look so happy to be there. It was a wonderful day!

Anna loved the giraffes!!

"Bye-bye!" See you later!

Simple Happiness

Here are a few pictures just for you to enjoy. Notice the picture that Anna is looking at in this first image. It is a picture of someone getting baptized. Every time Anna sees it, she gives the guy a big high five. We think it's hilarious.

Lately, whenever we ask Anna a questions she shrugs her shoulders and puts up "I don't know" hands. She ALWAYS does it, even when we know that she knows the answer.

We bought Anna a huge box of new books. Well, of course she is only interested in the box. She played with it all night. Her daddy even pushed her around while she sat inside and giggled. A night like this is always a great one.

Anna is learning how to draw. She grabs the color crayons and heads straight for the WALL!!! How did she learn that?? Tonight she took the pen to daddy's legs, her own legs, the pillow case, the box, and eventually some paper.

Best Investment Yet

Yesterday Josh and I bought a baby video monitor. It is wonderful! They are really expensive if you buy them from the store, so we found one on craigslist, (of course). This one came with TWO cameras so we can set one up in Anna's room and one in another kid's room and watch them both by just changing the channel. We love that it has night vision. I guess it would be pointless if it didn't. We got if for only $40 too!

Last night, we set it up in Anna's room and after we put her down, we just sat in front of the screen for 20 minutes and watched her. It was HILARIOUS!! We always thought that she just went right to sleep because she is always so quiet. WRONG!! She scaled her crib up and down, threw her blankets out, did belly flops...anything but sleep. We were cracking up. It was so funny.

We mostly got this kind of monitor for peace of mind. Sometimes we wonder if she is asleep or even if she's OK or standing up or whatever. So, now we always know. I would definitely recommend getting one of these.

Our New Kitchen

We bought Anna a little play kitchen from Wal-Mart for only $45. I thought it was a great deal. It is SO cute. She loves opening all of the doors and turning the stove on. The stove lights up and makes a "water boiling" noise. She giggles hysterically everytime she turns it on. We were so excited to give it to her. We couldn't believe it took us two hours to put together. It was well worth it though!

Anna and Daddy!....or in Anna's words, "Anna and Josh".

Boot Scootin' Boogie

Anna found my boots yesterday and had me put them on her. She loved them. She couldn't even take a single step in them, so I took them off, thinking she would want to walk around. She promptly held up one boot at a time and stuck her feet in the air. She wanted to keep them on no matter what! Notice how in the picture below, one of the boots is completely backwards and the other is sideways. No wonder she can't walk in them.

When Anna learned to hold her own bottle, we were so proud. Now she's learned to hold her own bowl. Oh, how she is growing. I made her scrambled eggs this morning and she loves them. She loves for me to give her the whole bowl at once. I know it makes a huge mess, but what the heck! It makes her happy. She must have really liked it because her face was glued to the bowl for several minutes. I could hear her heavy breathing when she stopped to take a breath but she definitely wasn't going to put that bowl down.

She is usually very distracted by the camera but today all I got was a quick glance.

And then more of this....

Shhzs

We have really been slacking on our blog. Life just gets so busy. My mom keeps asking me to post a new blog and so as I started to this morning, I realized, we haven't really taken any pictures in the last few weeks. Sad...
So, of the couple of pictures that we do have, we decided to share these with you. Anna goes through phases. They never last long but they are in full force when she's in one. For example, she has recently learned to say "shoes," which sounds more like "Shhzs". The other day she kept bringing us her shoes, wanting us to put them on her and then she would just grin ear to ear walking around the house. When we took them off of her, she promptly brought them back to us, sat in our laps, and waited as we put them back on her.
She also went through a short two day hat phase where she only wanted to wear this cute little beanie we got for Christmas. It was adorable.
She goes through word phases too. For the longest time, everything she saw was, "Josh" and now it's all "mum!!"
It's amazing how much we love this little girl. She cracks us up. When we're not with her, we spend all of our time talking about her. She's the love of our lives.
We'll work on blogging more and taking better pictures.