Anna is officially a ski bunny! We spent a week in Colorado with Nanny, Poppy Stacy and her friend Emily and Anna really enjoyed skiing and playing in the snow. Both kids loved Wally, which is what we named the giant stuffed bear. Daddy is such a proud Papa with Anna starting to ski at 2 and a 1/2!!

At first Anna wasn't sure skiing was such a great idea, and just as we were about to give up, Stacy came skiing down the mountain and asked Anna to ski with her. Anna was very excited and then suddenly Anna was all about it! We even ended up taking on the lift twice and she skiied down all by herself and was so proud!! Stacy to the rescue!! She was the hero of the trip!!

Here is the big girl, skiing with Stacy and Stacy's friend, Emily.

Here is Wally, their new best friend!!

Phew! After all that skiing she needed some yummy hot chocoloate out of her special tea cups!

It was real hot chocolate...well warm anyway and she was pretty proud of herself!

After we got back, we made Frosty the Snowman out of all the new snow we got while we were in Colorado. Even Carter enjoyed playing in the snow!

Decorating Christmas cookies at Mimi and Papa's!!

Anna was actually very serious about this job and didn't take a break from decorating until it was all over.
Gingerbread houses!! We went to Nora's house and decorated Gingerbread houses with Lily. Ours was the messiest, but we all had a great time, especially Anna who snuck a lot of candy while I did my best to put together a decent gingerbread house. Unfortunatley I'm not very creative and by the end ours was falling apart!!

We put up Christmas Lights this year and both kids had a blast observing the process

Happy Birthday Daddeo!!!

Movie night got very crowded when we brough the picnic table inside so Anna could eat pizza while watching her movie...the problem was when Carter decided he wanted pizza and wanted to sit at the picnic table with Anna and she didn't think that was such a good idea. Especially when he was actually almost able to climb onto the table with her!

I never thought the day would come that they would actually play together...but now they do...sort of. Anna bosses Carter around and he smiles.

Fingerpaint extravaganza!! Very popular activity for Anna...however I continue to curse the day I purchased finger paints!! :-)

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Halloween!!

Anna was a crayon and Carter was a puppy. Originally I wanted Anna to be a princess or Tinkerbell or somemthing really cute, but the only thing she wanted to be was a crayon. Oh well, there's always next year and actually she looked really cute. First we went to the village to trick or treat at the shops with the Stuarts and Anna loved going with Lily, who was Minnie Mouse. Carter got a little chilly so when we got home we changed him into the skeleton sweatsuit that Nani Mullen bought for him.

Yummy candy!!!

After the village we went trick or treating on our street and Anna had a great time because two little girls came to our house and she was thrilled! Then she insisted that we follow them and everytime they got out sight she would yell, "The girls are running away!!!!" We ended up skipping most of the houses because she didn't want them to get away and they were going really fast!!

We went to the Deanna Rose pumpkin patch today with my parents and Uncle Mark and Aubrey. It was a little cold, but turned out fine and wasn't very crowded. Anna had a blast! They had all kinds of fun games and Anna got to pick out her own pumpkin! Carter had fun too but next year will be even more fun when he can finally do something!

Here we are on a hay ride on the way to the pumpkin patch. Uncle Mark and Aubrey came with us and Anna was VERY excited to have them there!! They were good sports about walking around and playing all the games with us. In fact, the entire day was their idea so thanks to them!!

Anna's favorite thing was playing in lots and lots of corn kernels. There is nothing more fun than getting to use buckets and pouring things in and out and in and out....and in and out again...

After naps (I use that term loosely since Anna doesn't nap anymore. She squirms around in her bed instead of napping), we did pumpkin carving. The hilarious thing is that just for giggles we took her shirt off so that we could compare the pics to last year to see how much she had grown. The disturbing thing is that she barely looks like she has grown at all...see below the picture from last year...seriously, the picture below is from an entire year ago...it's just a coincidence that Scott is wearing a red shirt...

LAST YEAR....October 2009...not even 1 and a half yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finished product....great job Daddeo!!! (as Anna likes to say)

Anna and Carter have been having lots of fun playing together at home. Anna is learning to share her toys, which is a good thing because Carter is going to be her size soon! He actually pulled a spoon right out of her hand the other day, even though she was trying not to let him! We were all amazed (especially Anna) by his brutish strength!

Yes, that is Anna's hand peeking out from under her blankie to pat Carter on the head, "That's a good buddy," she says to him. Clearly he doesn't seem to mind. He loves his sister!!

They are starting to spend more time together....

She loves to read him books and he loves to chew on them when she's done.

We spent a fun morning picking apples and doing a hayride last week. She had a blast smelling the "pretty flowers"

Here we are with Anna's friend Lily and my friend Lisa. We've been spending lots of time with them and Anna likes to talk about Lily a lot now.

Anna was very proud of the apples we picked and she got to carry them around, although she found them to be very heavy.

First day of school! Anna started her mother's day out program today at St. Ann's with her friend Lily. Anna had an absolute blast. The teacher said she didn't cry at all and was "cute as a button". We didn't get a ton of pictures because it was raining and a little hectic, but we'll get some next week with Lily outside the school. She was very excited and apparently spent most of the time mothering 2 baby dollies.

Oh, my backpack is so heavy!!!

After I put the backpack on her, she said, "Okay, let's boogie!!"

School is very tiring!!


But she had so much fun that tonight after dinner she got her backpack and lunchbox back out and carried them all around for an hour, demanding to go back to school!!