Random Fun with Annabel

Here's some random fun with Annabel that I've collected over the past month and a half...

This is a girl who loves the sandbox...and her sunglasses!

 Squishing her feet around in the sand...

 Okay, I've mentioned before that Annabel eats sandwiches from the middle, and I do mean the middle...as you can see here from her hole in this peanut butter and jelly sandwich! I told you I'd show you the picture that proved this... She is finally maybe moving on from this, mostly because she likes shaped sandwiches like Daniel now- I guess I have him to thank! She is finally letting me cut her sandwiches into triangles or squares like Daniel most of the time and she'll eat normally then. Still, every now and again she wants her "butter jelly sammich BIG," and the middle hole re-emerges...

I had made a list one day of cute words Annabel says so I could do a video (which you'll see below) and ask her to say words. So then Annabel was very interested in my list pad and she wanted to write, too. She just looked so cute writing I had to take pictures...

We made S'mores Brownies one weekend (they were just okay, although I have to say I did make them completely from scratch...rare for me! And no, that's not why they were just okay, they just weren't very s'more-like) and Annabel loved helping me. Daniel appeared on the scene a couple times, but was otherwise uninterested. Here they are crushing graham crackers for the crust (and don't tell me you can buy a box pre-crushed, I know you can, but they have milk in them...so we make crumbs ourselves, works just fine and the kids love this part anyway!).

Annabel wanted a turn stirring everything!

Annabel even got her own bowl of chocolate chips to eat while she helped...she kept pausing her stirring job and "sneaking" them into her mouth and she thought she was so cute for doing so! She would be right of course!

Annabel was oh-so-cutely clapping and saying "yay!" for Daniel when he climbed the ladder at the park one day. It was so cute.

 She loves to walk along the curb around the park, just like "mattih" (gymnastics, which she really misses! She's always asking to go there!).

Now, this girl is my swinging girl!!! Annabel LOVES to swing and will swing for at least 20 minutes straight, I timed it once. She thinks it's the best and she loves to go fast! She especially loves it when Daniel pushes her.

The two of them look so cute going down the slide together; Annabel always insists that Daniel go down with her.

 My brave girl climbing the ladder at the park, over a month ago. She's even more of an old pro now!

Annabel loved helping Daniel with his impromptu sink/float science experiment. And yes, those would be her sunglasses she just tested out!

Collecting "helicopters" on the deck with Daniel and having a ball!

This is the oh-so-super-cute way Annabel holds up three fingers! Love it!

Annabel absolutely LOVES these Crayola Slick Stix I recently bought for the kids to try out. These are "crayons" (which are more like oil pastels really) that come out super bright, draw super smoothly, and you can twist them up for more. They are really fun and the kids just love them. They are a bit messy with Annabel mostly because she presses so hard that there are "crayon" bits everywhere and they really do smear. They're intended for older children I'm sure, but with supervision, they're awesome for Annabel because of their brightness and super easy smooth writing. She makes a million pictures with these in one sitting. And I find that I draw more with these, too- they really are awesome tools; Annabel always hijacks my pictures though! Still, we are having a lot of fun with these "markers" as Annabel calls them, and well, she's mostly right, they do have caps!

 Annabel LOVES her new pink scooter! She's still really learning how to do it, but she does love to try. The first time she got on it, she put both feet on and said "Go!" I cracked up and told her she had to walk it. Daniel helped show her how to do it, too. Anyway, she looks so cute trying! She was SO excited to get her own scooter, "own" she says.

Back story for this next picture: I hosted a "book exchange" party this past Thursday night (we had a ton of fun, TONS of books were brought, all the good food and drinks were gone, and my two good friends Patricia and Connie closed out the party at 2 AM!! We had so much fun chatting the night away and had NO idea it was that late!)...anyway, Ben mostly took the kids out for the night, but when they came home, the party was still going of course, and the kids were SO excited to see Aunt Christina, Patricia and Connie (the few people they knew and all three of whom they just LOVE) and of course eat all the good food, too! Needless to say, they went to bed LATE that night, like almost 11:00 I think. You also need to know our air conditioner broke that day- about two hours before the party, wouldn't you know- of course it would happen that way. Now, back to this picture, the kids went with Ben to get the part he needed to fix the air conditioner the next morning, Friday morning, and on the way home, only about 10:15 in the morning mind you, they both fell asleep. It was so darn cute. There went my chance for a nap that day...

And clearly, Annabel was still catching up from the late night Thursday night since she fell asleep in Grandma Mary Kay's lap while Ben and I were out at dance class Friday night. Daniel fell asleep waiting for us, too. And Grandma didn't believe me when I said they would probably fall asleep for them! 'Course I took a picture of Annabel before Ben took her up to bed, still sleeping...

A few cute things we've heard/seen lately:
"Ha-ha"- as in "aha, I did it!" It's so cute the way Annabel does this with two ha's.

When Daniel asks, "Annabel, can I tell you something?", Annabel immediately covers her eyes, not her ears, you'll note. I crack up, on the inside of course because I don't want to actually encourage her to not listen. It's just too funny though and makes me wonder what she's thinking.

Annabel is really into pandas these days. Daniel and I just finished a panda-themed Magic Tree House book; while we read it, every time Annabel saw a panda she'd exclaim "panna" and get so excited. She also really likes Daniel's stuffed panda, which of course Daniel all of a sudden doesn't want to share, so we told Annabel we'd put a panda on her birthday list. Annabel immediately made sure we knew she wanted a pink one! I had to laugh...of course we explained to her that it wouldn't be a panda then, pandas are black and white. Today we were talking about pandas again at some point and right away she said, "black white"- she remembered! Anyway, the pink panda request was just too funny. This girl and her obsession with pink...sigh.

And now, here are a bunch of cute videos of Annabel...talking, reading books, doing puzzles, and even making x's which I taught her to do on Friday. So cute! You'll need several minutes to get through all this cuteness though!

In these two, I have Annabel saying a bunch of words for you... you should be able to figure out most of them. She says "mine" for her own name, and I also had her say the Disney characters' names which are sorta close...

I love how Annabel reads the book Blue Hat Green Hat (by Sandra Boynton) with that cute little oops so I had to have her read that for you. She's also reading Doggies (also by Sandra Boynton) where she's learned that dogs say more than just woof, she now bow-wow-wows with the best of 'em and the nnn-nnn-nnn is what one dog says in the book, so she's actually supposed to do that. Love her "shhh!" for the quiet dogs, too. The dogs also howl on one page and on the last page there is a cat. And yes, my phone started ringing right in the middle of the video- oh well. At least she kept going!

This is our book with Disney-character versions of classic songs; Annabel mostly just names the characters she sees. The wiggling butt page is "If you're Goofy and you know it, wag your tail," and then there's a song to the tune of "Ain't it great to be crazy" (a song I have never heard of!) which goes "Boom Boom, Ain't it great to be Daisy"- Annabel is super cute saying "boom boom be Daisy!" LOVE it!

Two videos of Annabel hard at work trying to put our Cars puzzle together. She can do the top line with all the characters really well...the rest is a little foggy, but she tries.

I taught Annabel how to make x's on Friday with these new "branch" pencils (from my aforementioned book party!) that the kids are loving. Annabel had the most fun making x's all day and each time she says "down, coss" for down & across, which are the words I used to describe the motions, and yes that means it's mostly a "t" but we're calling them x's! Had to take a video because it's super cute. (Also, we were playing school, Daniel was waiting for his mommy and you'll hear him ask me, the teacher, if she's here...) I now have a million sheets of paper with one x on each of them! So fun though!