Stomping the Divots

Saturday was beautiful here in RI so we spent the afternoon at the polo match in Portsmouth with a bunch of people from Josh's work. You're allowed to pull your car up near the field and tailgate as long as you want before and after the match -- fun! We sort of half watched USA defeat Jamacia, but were primarily focused on Anna (what else is new?) and eating (ditto)! Anna wandered around saying hi to all the spectators and making herself at home with anyone who had good toys. Here are some other highlights:

Stomping the divots with mommy

A rare family photo (of course someone had to close their eyes!)

Josh doing one of his favorite things -- grilling tubular meat product

Anna hanging out with her buddy Hadley

The two sides of Anna: 1) double fisting 2) studying intently (she's definitely ours!)

Gank Yee (i.e. Thank You)

Just when I think she's 100% Josh, she goes and picks up her purse and pretends to chat on her Barbie phone, reminding me that she's definitely my little girly girl. Whoa!


On the other hand, there's this photo... I opened up the bottom kitchen drawer to let her play while I was making dinner and she managed to dig out this Arizona momento shot glass that I didn't even know we owned. Sigh.

In the past couple weeks, Anna's picked up about 25 new words. It's as if she just woke up one day and realized she could talk. "Melmo" (Elmo), "bauba" (bubble), "watt" (water),"eye-knee" (henie)... the list suddnely goes on and on. My favorite though, is her attempt at saying "thank you":

OBX, Paris Hilton, and Kisses for Everyone

It's hard to believe it's been almost a month since the last blog post. We just got back from our trip to the Outer Banks. We stopped in Phila on the way down and stayed two nights at Josh's parents house. While we were there, I snapped this photo of Anna petting a little bunny that we found in the yard. Her gentle pats quickly turned to violent wacks, so we had to tuck Mr. Bundersen back into his hole moments after this photo was taken.

I didn't take quite as many pictures as I might have liked while we were on vacation, but I did managed to catch this one cute photo. Anna wasn't quite sure what to make of the NC beach, but she definitely had fun at the pool and at the house playing with her Grandmom and Grandpop, and her "cousins" Erik, Leah, and Becca. Her favorite thing about vacation? Fruit Loops.

While we were in NC, we drove out to see the giant sand dunes and Josh took the "running down the giant mound of sand" challenge, nearly giving me a heart attack in the process. I was pretty sure he was gonna break his leg. I caught the moment on camera:

So we're back to the regular routine this week. This morning I nearly died laughing when Anna pointed to a photo of Paris Hilton on the computer and yelled "Maaa meee!" Just a few minutes later though, a photo of Tom Cruise popped up and she yelled "Daaa deee", so I guess there's truly some distorted perception there. She also cracked me up when I caught her climbing into her bin of toys. I had to run for the camera.

She's Walking!!

It's been a long time coming, but last night Anna finally walked. Out of nowhere, she stood up and took about eight steps across the room -- as though she'd known how to do it all along, but was just holding out on us! I managed to catch a few awkward steps on video this morning. This video also shows her practicing one of her new favorite words: no. She says "no", "down", and "sit" all the time now.

In other news, Josh and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary on Saturday night. (Unfortunately, we forgot to bring a camera to document our rare night out.) Josh's cousins Laura and Kimmy came to visit for the weekend and watched Anna for us while we enjoyed an over the top dinner downtown. Sometimes it's nice to be married to a spender!

Our Beach Babe

This summer we're taking advantage of having some really nice beaches within 30 minutes of our house. Anna loves everything about these day trips to the shore -- the ocean, the sand, the people, the snacks... Her face in this photo says it all. She's completely fearless. Even a getting toppled over by a wave and inhaling a mouthful of salt water doesn't phase her.

Little Corny... But Still Pretty Cute

We took our first stab at professional photos a couple weeks ago. I patiently waited for a day when Anna got a nice long morning nap, thinking that would be the key to smiles and cooperation. Turns out, the long nap worked against me. Anna had way too much energy and would hardly sit still. It was nothing short of a miracle that the photographer got at least a few decent shots. Sadly, all of the "good" photos had some corny element like the white plastic heart or -- sigh -- the super gay forest scene, but once I saw Anna's cute little face up on the order screen, I had to put my photo pretention aside and order a few.

Thanks Em!!

When we got back to RI, there was a HUGE box from my good old UM friend Emily, full of birthday presents for Anna. While I think Anna's favorite part was throwing the purple packing shreds across the room, she definitely liked the fuzzy Elmo card and couldn't stop looking at her first set of "crayons". Personally though, my favorite was the cheetah print bib. Only Emily could get something like that past the Josh inspection. Thanks for all the goodies Em! ...and as long as I'm posting, here's a cute photo from the PA trip that I forgot to include on my last blog. This is Anna and her "cousin" Becca on the float at Josh's Grandmom's pool. Anna was totally fearless in the water: