Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve

We're all set for Christmas tomorrow. A cookie is out for Santa. Presents are wrapped.

Wishing everyone a happy Christmas!

Note - Both my computer and camera are having issues - wonderful timing. Therefore I haven't posted in a while. I have some catching up to do once things get fixed. Hopefully, we'll get some pictures of Annmarie up tomorrow.

Swim Lessons

I've mentioned before how well Annmarie is doing at swimming. It took until the 3rd lesson for her to feel really comfortable going out on her own - not hanging onto me or the teacher. But once she figured it out she was all about exploring the pool.
AM: "I'm going far, Mom. All by me self"

Me: "She's headed for the deep end"

Teacher: "It's all the deep end for them"

Ah, yes, true, very true.
Ring a ring a rosie
We've also taken off one layer of the back bubble, so she would have to work a little harder.
One of the first things they learn is how to climb out of the pool.
Everything is closing down for Summer break, so we have a little break from swim lessons, but we'll start back up again in late January. And we'll keep swimming at the beach.

Annmare's 3rd Birthday Weekend

We celebrated Annmarie's 3rd birthday all weekend.

Here's what we did.

Annmarie woke up to this new play kitchen...
And our family birthday banner that goes up for everyone's birthday.
But back to the kitchen for a bit - the thing had about 10,000 pieces. Yes, I'm exaggerating, but not by much. Look for yourself.
That's love. It's ok though, the 4 1/2 hours that it took us to put together was totally worth it, AM loves it.

AM asked have her toenails painted a couple of weeks ago and I told her I would do it for her birthday.
She insisted on blue and picked out the color a couple of days before.We then went out to breakfast.

Here she is just wondering why her babyccino is taking so long.
There they are.
We had a nice breakfast and AM discovered that you could hear the ocean in a seashell. She thought that was pretty cool
We then got ready to go to the beach.
We went down to the sea pool. The pool was a bit chilly, so we didn't do much swimming, but Annmarie got to quickly show Dad how she swims. We then played at the beach.
We walked home and AM took a good nap and I tried making her a 'big' cake.
Total Mom/Cake fail. The cake came out too dense and not meant for stacking. I think the recipe I used was more for a sheet cake. I also blame our oven, it doesn't bake very evenly.

Anyway, I just used one of the round cakes and Annmarie still loved it and said - Wow, that's a big cake. We had tacos (AM's favorite) for dinner and opened the coveted can of black beans.

She was very excited for her candles this year and for us to sing happy birthday and eagerly wanted to blow out the candles herself - unlike last year.
And really, how did she get so big.
Three. Wow.
On Sunday, we went back to the beach. This time we went over to the peninsula side where the water is a bit warmer and calmer and there is a lot of shade. Great for kids and families.
Annmarie got to show off her swimming skills and didn't want to leave.
We had saved a couple more presents for her to open.
It was a great weekend, one completely devoted to Annmarie. We tried to make it special for her and include all her favorite things. It would have been nice to have a party for her this year, given we didn't have one last year and I think she would have been really into it, but she really seemed happy with everything. She pretty much got undivided attention from her two biggest fans all weekend.

We love you to pieces, Annmarie.

Happy Birthday!

The Week

Not much to blog about this week; with barely any pictures taken.

Jamie is working A. LOT.

Killing all sorts of critters that have invaded our house. Pictures of them are on Jamie’s Facebook page. I can’t bring myself to post them on the blog because I can’t look at them anymore. I have had to terminate a few myself and unlike Jamie I didn’t take any pictures. Needless to say we are having the house sprayed.

Oprah is in OZ! It’s all over the news, but I’ll have to wait until next year to see the shows.

Annmarie has thrown the two biggest fits ever in her life in the last two days. One because I would not let her play with my iphone. She has taken to calling people on my phone. And another over something just as stupid. Certain privileges (primarily the TV) have been taken away and hopefully she is starting to get that this behavior is not appropriate.

Trying to figure out what we are going to do for Christmas. It will just be the three of us and Jamie has two whole weeks off from work!

One dead car battery and two car inspections this week.

Annmarie is rocking the swim lessons. She’ll swim all on her own, with a back bubble on of course. So proud.

Library story-time. Playgroup time.

Annmarie has a fierce babyccino addiction.
Annmarie finally has her own bed. After jumping from hotels and corporate apartments and then our guest bed, Annmarie has her own new bed in her room. Once we get some things together I’ll take pictures.

Some little girl is turning THREE tomorrow. All she has asked for is a chocolate cake with pink frosting and sprinkles. I’ll of course grant her her wish and she will be getting some other stuff. In fact, as I type this Jamie in assembling a kitchen which may just break him.

Pictures from the week