Reading and playing with Daddy

Just a quick update. Here are some pics of Anna reading with Daddy, and then playing peek-a-boo and "climb the mountain" with Daddy. She is becoming more and more animated each day! She seems to have to words, signs, or other ways to communicate every day. I enjoyed having my Spring Break at home with her. We got into a nice schedule, which we will try to keep most of when she returns to day care. They are really pretty good at keeping her on a schedule, so we appreciate that. I took Anna to the library last week for the firt time. It was so cute to see her eyes get wide as we entered the kid's section--she pointed, said, "Bou, bou!" and wiggled to get out of my arms. We chose 3 books to bring home. Daisy the Duck's Favorite Things is her favorite. It's big with bright pictures--it's the one she's reading with Kevin in the pictures.

Easter

We had a fun Easter weekend. On Saturday, we put Anna in her Easter dress to take some pictures around town. We went to a couple of places, including the river front so that Anna could play with her "walker" in a bigger area than her play area at home. She loved having so much room to "walk" in!! She's taken a few steps on her own, but she loves walking with her "walker." As you can see from some of the pics, she was also very interested in the leaves on the ground. It was difficult to get her to look up because she was studying the leaves so much! On Easter Sunday, we dressed her in her cute spring outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Hobart--it fit her perfectly! We spent the morning at home. She was interested in what the Easter Bunny brought her---especially the plastic eggs filled with Puffs! Then we went to our friends' house and had a fun Easter dinner outdoors. The weather was beautiful--so it was really nice to enjoy a meal on the back deck. Before dinner the kids played croquet, and Anna liked checking out the stick at the beginning of the course. She doesn't seem to be afraid of the grass anymore because she was crawling and walking around (with help) on it quite a bit. We ended the day with some wonderful homemade apricot "cakes" that our friend made--similar to a Slovak traditional desert (her family is Slovak). Anna enjoyed these too! Then she fell asleep in my arms (earlier than we expected). She had a fun-filled day. We all did. How lucky am I to have these two wonderful people in my life? ...and our great friends on top of that!

Happy Birthday!!

Anna had a great first birthday! We had a really nice time--invitied a few friends over, cooked yummy food, and enjoyed hanging out. Anna loves to be around people, so she enjoyed having everyone over. She wasn't too impressed with the cake. I had to put a Puff on it to get her to touch the frosting, and then she wanted the frosting off her finger. So funny! She had a small bite of the cake and wasn't very impressed by that either. She managed to get some frosting in her hair with the spoon, and she enjoyed opening presents. I think her favorites were the baby doll Grandma Hobart sent and the Glo Worm. Thank you, everyone, for the great and very generous birthday gifts! She plays with all of them, and loves having the variety of toys in her play room. She's growing so quickly. It's exciting and sad at the same time...