The arrival of Annie

Annabel's invisible friend Annie arrived recently.

The first time I recall her mentioning the name was when she was in the bathtub. We opened the drain, and when Annabel heard the water going down, she said

"Annie went down the drain to the ocean."

And we asked "Who is Annie?"

"Annie is my friend and she went down the drain in the water". She said.

Since then, she's mentioned Annie just about every day. They play together, and Annabel is often waiting for Annie to come over. When rooms are messy, it's often Annie who is the culprit and it's Annie who orders food that Annabel never seems to be interested in eating.

Interesting that their names are so similar :)

Busch Gardens

carousel, originally uploaded by Rgold.

We spent a day at Busch Garden's before leaving Florida. Now Annabel has seen Carousels before. She's seen animals before. She's even seen Carousels and animals together in the same place before (The San Francisco Zoo has them both).

But never has she seen carousels, animals, flying dragons, stuffed animals, slides, pirate ships, ice cream, lollipops, and rollercoasters all in one place.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home from all the excitement.

funny words

"cowapater" = caterpiller

"chicken nudditz"= chicken nuggets

"backack" = backpack

"kwistin" = kristin

"wob" = rob

Cornhead

We flew from Iowa to Florida today for part II of our holiday vacation. We got to the airport a bit early and had to spend several hours hanging out in Des Moines International Airport.

I've spent many hours in this airport over the years, and I have appreciated this cornhead gag-gift many times in years past. Annabel found it yesterday and couldn't resist trying it on.

Somewhere there is a picture of Kristin wearing it that I took many years ago. I'll have to dig that up someday.

UPDATE: I just ran accross the old picture while organizing some photos. This is it and it was taken in March of 1999. Clearly not much has changed in 7 years. Note that they have the same display rack behind the display with the same merchandise in there...

:)
 

Christmas Toynado!

Christmas in Iowa. This is Annabel's second, Gaby's first, my 14th and Kristin's 35th.

We flew in on Christmas eve and didn't get home until after 11. Gabby was up all night, and so were we. Next time we're going to come a few days early to make for an easier adjustment.

we had told Annabel all about Santa, but she was so tired when she woke up, she forgot that she was supposed to get presents!

She figured it out pretty quickly though and the day descended into a sort of atavistic toy orgy. Annabel had a great time playing with her cousins, Mary and Abby. They dressed up, played with toys, played hide and seek, performed play-surgery on a very sick little puppy, and filled a play-house with decorative glass beads that they took from the candle display. A great time was had by all.

We had a great Christmas dinner at Roger and Shiela's house.

Then today we went to Kristin's dad's place where Annabel tried on the leather hat he recently got in Australia, and then we came back to Kristin's mom's place for a Christmas party.

Bunnies and Squirrels Are My Favorite!

We watched the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer TV special tonight.

There is a scene in the snow where Rudolph is walking Clarise, a cute little girl-reindeer, home from school. They are surrounded by woodland animals including raccoons and bunnies and birdies who serenade them with "There's always tomorrow", a happy song about rainbows.

Annabel turned to me and said

"Oh! The bunnies and the Squirrels are my favorite! I want to hold them in my hand because they are my families. They are so cute!"

I think they really made an impression...

Annabel's first night in her big bed

Annabel had many firsts this week-end. her nana's 60th birthday......a first. built her first snowman, and slept in a big bed for the first time. wow what a week-end.

Nanna's 60th Birthday Party

It was Nanna's 60th birthday this weekend. Kristin, Rick and I set up a scavenger hunt for Annabel and her. It was 6 clues and it took them all around West Bloomfield to the various places we went with my mom as kids. At each place there was a little bag with balloons, presents and the next clue.

The 6th clue took her to the fox and hounds restaurant where we had a surprise party waiting for her.

Kristin and Rick did most of the prep work. I drove the car for them and shot pictures of the two of them at each clue.

I had a great time, and I think they did too.

 

On Nana's 60th Birthday

Annabel and Nanna getting ready to head outside to build Annabel's very first snowman!

Annabel's first face

This is Annabel's first picture of a face. Those two marks at the top are the eyes, then the mouth right below that, and then the nose at the bottom :)

I wittle daddy

Annabel is starting to understand some abstract concepts. Yesterday morning I was lying in bed and she came up to me and she said.

"You grown up, Daddy"
And I said "Yes, I'm grown up"
And she pointed to herself and said "I wittle"
And I said "Yup, you are little"
And she said "I Growing Daddy, I growing up".

Big ideas for such a little girl...

Candy is for eating!

We all had a pretty happy Halloween this year. Annabel was both a lion and a cat (on two different days), Gabby was a chicken, and mom and dad were both vampires (although never in front of the kids).

We got the chicken costume from Maryann who had used it for her daughter Lily last year. It was homemade, with a white feather boa for feathers and yellow dish gloves for the chicken feet. Somehow Gabs kept kicking the feet off though, and we had to pluck the feathers because they were itching her, so it quickly became just a white onesy with a red chicken head thing (what is that called, a chicken crest?).


Annabel had the lion outfit at least two months in advance. I think we ordered it during her second Lion King infatuation stage which has been over for at least a month (She has since moved on to Cinderella). Occasionally, maybe once a week she would ask if she could put it on then run around the house and say "roar".

But then a week or so ago she saw the cat costume at Costco on a trip there with Kristin and Nanna. Apparently Nanna helped her put on the costume in the store and then of course we had to buy it for her. We felt the need to use both costumes so it was lion at the party in the park and lavender kitty cat for trick or treating.

I think Annabel found the idea of trick or treating a little to good to be true. We had explained it to her in advance and explained the system and taught her how to say "trick or treat." She did quite a good job in the dress rehearsal.

On the big night though, it was a little different than in practice. I had to carry her to the doors since having her walk would be too slow. By the time we got to the doors, she was too distracted by the candy and the costumes and all the people at the door to remember what to do. We would walk up the steps to someone sitting on their front porch with a big bucket of Candy. Annabel would stare, transfixed.

I would have to prompt her, "What do you say?"

She would say nothing, totally focussed her orange bag as the candy is being placed in it.

"What do you say?" I would ask again, this time getting close to face to get her attention.

"Thank you," she would answer.

I would sort of shrug and laugh and start to walk away and then she would turn to me and say, "Daddy, I got more candy!"

In the car on the way home she actually said gleefully "Candy is for eating!".

We also made two pumpkins this year. On the second one she was a little bit scared when I poppede the eye out of the eye-hole I had cut in the pumpkin. She is starting to get the idea that some things are scary.

Kristin and I went as vampires to a costume party hosted by a co-worker of mine at a local restaurant. I put some time into getting the costumes together. I got us colored contact lenses and fake teeth. It came together well, I thought.

Pictures attached.

where is thumbkin

Annabel learned to sing "Where is Thumbkin" at preschool. I had no idea that she knew this song until one day I started to count her "fingers" and she said "no mommy, that's my thumb" when I included her thumb in the counting. Then she launched into the song, "Where is Thumbkin," and started wiggling her thumb. Most of the time, however, she wiggles her index finger and sings:

"Where is Thumbkin, Where is Thumbkin, Here my am. Here my am. How today sir. Runaway. Runaway. Runaway. Runaway. Runaway. Runaway..."

I colored daddy!

Annabel saw me messing with my cellphone to upload the doctor picture and asked if she could play with it. I gave it to her and when I got it back, she said "I colored daddy!". This is what was on the screen. Apparently she did.

Doctor Goldman

We got annabel a doctors kit. This morning she came up to me wearing her glasses and stethascope and she said "i need to listen to your heart daddy. You sick."

Cat names

Annabel named her little plastic kitty-cats today.

Kristin asked her "What are your cats names". She gets asked that sort of question a lot either from us or from others, and up until today she could only come up with either the animal name (like "Cat") or a color ("Blue").

Today she named one "Ribbon" another one "Two-o" and the last one "Far-fack".

Two-o is interesting because she is able to answer "Two" when asked how old she is. Looks like she found a way to re-use that answer to a different question. Smart!

I also like it because it sounds like the a 2.0 software release. It's the new kitty kat version 2.0

Wrook wrook whyin, daddy

someday I am going to miss Annabel's toddler diction. Her L's sound like Wr's. We passed this ornately engraved gold door on our walk this morning and she noticed a lion on a crest. she saaid "Look! Look! Lion, Daddy" but it came out like "wrook wrook, whyin, daddy". So cute.

Home again, home again Jiggity-jig

Kristin and the kids are back after 2 weeks in Iowa. It seems like its been forever. I'm so happy to see them.

We are at breakfast now and annabel is doing her strange and unique 'hodah, buddah' chant wherein she turns her head to the left and says "Hodah", then whips it around to the right and says "Buddah". I think that it's her own original expression, but I wouldn't be surprised if it starts to catch on with other two year olds at the park. It's very catchy.

She still has very strong ideas about things. When I put her down at a table in the cafe she protested: "No daddy! Go go that way", and she pointed to a different table. "Sit sit there".

This is a picture of her after re-locating to her preferred table.

Annabel is 2 years old

Annabel turns two today!

We have now had three different birthday parties for her over the course of the last two weeks in three different states.

She loved them all, and now walks around the house singing 'Happy birthday to you'.

She is changing and growing every day. She is almost using full sentences now. Last week, after reading "The Giving Tree", she turned to me and said "How about Doctor Suess now?".

She is staying with Kristin and her family in Iowa for the next two weeks while I am back in California working. I'm afraid that she will come back fully grown up!

Billy-bob binky

This is annabel in seat 15a on the plane on the way to iowa. She is learning to put on her shirt. Somehow she managed to get her head through one of the armholes and the rest of the shirt just flopped over her head. She happened to have her billy-bob binky in, which created this very convincing jawa look.