Hi Mia!

Ana just cannot WAIT to meet her cousin!

In other news Ana and I went on a girls night out tonight. The two of us went out for dinner together while daddy was cleaning the house! Oh what a deal!!! We had a great time. I swear Ana just gets cuter and cuter by the day.

Mia is here!!!

Finally (10 days late), little Mia Jasmin Phillips made her way into the world. 7lb 6oz and gorgeous!!

We are flying to England on Tuesday. Ana can't wait to meet her new cousin!!

Wow!

Ana just walked over to a box of tissues, pulled one out, and blew her nose! Man, the things she learns at daycare!! I had NO idea she could do that!!

High heels!

The shoe obsession continues! Ana went into my closet this morning, selected a pair of shoes that she liked, then put them on and clopped around the house! She looked so proud of herself :-) I can't believe she is so grown up!!!

Fast runner!!

Playing Peek-a-boo

Ana in black and white

Bye!

Even better girlie shoes!

James took Ana shopping yesterday and let her pick out her own shoes!

She loves them!

Ana is a dancing fool!!

Favourite shoes!!

Ana is SUCH a girl. She already has favourite shoes. She loves these penguin shoes and will either try to put them on herself or will come running over and hand them to me and stick her foot out expectantly! She also loves to drape things around her neck and put things on her head.

Merry Christmas

.....from our family to yours!

Please click

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1164826206

Waiting for Baby Mia!

My sister is due tomorrow! We are all so excited! Ana can even say Mia :-)

I think I am more impatient that Mel is! I am dying for Mia to come out. Come on little one.......join the world! I'm kind of hoping she'll be two weeks late though so I can be there for the birth! Mwahaha!

Our day out

This weekend we had a busy time. We went to the Covington Christmas parade. Here are a couple of rare pics of the 3 of us watching the parade - taken by one of the people in actually the parade! (How amazingly cute are Ana's little white gloves??)


After this we headed to Atlanta and went to Piedmont park, which is beautiful this time of year. We hung out at the playground and Ana played the bongos! We also took Briscoe to the off leash dog park. Unfortunately he is a bit of a wimp and got beaten up by a female Lab!


Then we went out to dinner. Ana will copy everything we do lately, so here she is in the restaurant copying me shaking my head!

I shake...

Ana shakes....

We both shake....

Understanding Ana

So I've always marveled at how parents are able to understand their toddler.

Child: "jhblba oij s juhiuh s oio joiohfrb kuh ife"
Mum: "yes, you can have some pineapple honey"

Eh????

So anyway, it is actually pretty easy when it is your own kid. Here's a handy guide to understanding Ana:

Do = Dog
DeeDee = Daddy
Burble = Purple
Babeee = Baby
Bleu (French pronunciation) = Blue
Lloll = Yellow
Ba bye = Bye bye
Ma ma ma (arms outstretched) = Pick me up!
Uh uh uh/Muh, muh, muh (pointing) = Mummy, could I please have some of your dinner?
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee Meeeeeeeeeee (screeching and pointing) = Mummy, can I please play with that dangerous object?

"No" she says perfectly, and constantly. She shakes her head too. It is cute.

Dec 1st - We are ready for Christmas!!

Ana the Gangsta!!

Things Ana Does

I tell you, raising kids is not for the weak! Here is a list of annoying things Ana does!

- Fighting diaper changes and getting dressed. She acts like she is being tortured, and it usually takes both of us to dress her!
- Resisting being strapped into anything (car seat, high chair, stroller, etc). This has to be seen to be believed! She arches her back and braces with her legs and cries. She is so strong!
- Walking around the house just whining for no reason
- Deliberately throwing food on the floor during meals and thinking it is cute to peer over and say "uh-oh"
- Hitting me in the face
- Pulling the cat's tail
- Pointing at things she wants and squealing "Meeeeeeeee" until I give it to her
- Screeching to be picked up and then immediately wanting to get back down again
- Fighting sleep. If you are tired just go to sleep! No need to make a production out of it! Geez!

Luckily she also does some really cute things too!

- Laughing a really deep belly laugh when you tickle her or chase her
- Splashing in the bath
- Dancing
- Clapping herself for every achievement
- A cheeky smile
- Repeating things and learning words
- Experimenting with locomotion. She has a funny walk where she hunches over like an old woman, one where she walks with her butt out like she has shit herself (which she probably has), and one where she drags one leg like a wannabe hoodlum
- Carrying things around with her that are far too big for her. Seriously, she looks like a contestant in World's Strongest Man!

Example:

Thanksgiving

We have returned from our trip to Florida. A good (if exhausting) time was had by all!

Entertaining Ana in a small condo was virtually impossible, so we spent a lot of time at parks and playgrounds. Here we are at the pool. Gotta love S. Florida weather! Ana loves the water and threw a tantrum when it was time to leave. She has no fear either and tries to stick her face in the water.
We got to meet up with Shelley and Lily, and Jen and Baby Dean which was really fun! Ana and Lily were best buds right from the start and played together pretty well (for 1 year olds). Dean is so cute, and a really happy baby! It is always great to see our old Tallahassee friends. I wish we lived closer together :(


We also visited a safari park which was great! They had a water park there but we didn't know so we didn't take swimming clothes. We were so trashy - Ana went in naked (well, just a swim diaper), I bought a pair of kids shorts which were skin tight, and James took his shirt off and rolled up his jeans. Ha ha! Ana is obsessed with my sunglasses lately so she was quite the little diva!


The best part of the day was getting up close and personal with a giraffe! Ana even got to feed one! :-)

In Florida

James took Ana to visit Grandma Madeline in West Palm Beach yesterday. She is having a wonderful time. I'll be flying down to join them tomorrow.

Like an idiot I went out and got hammered last night, so I spent all day today in bed dying with a hangover! So much for making the most of the free time to get caught up! Oh well!

I got my hair done in honour of the occasion! Everyone commented that I look a lot like my sister when my hair is straight. What do you think?

Here's a couple more pics of chaos from my night out. Evidently straightening my hair makes me act like Mel too :)


That is a bin lid on my head in case you were wondering!!!! Oh, and I have seaweed stuck between my teeth. Classy!

Getting an edumacation

One of the advantages of living next to a College campus are all the cool opportunities Ana will get. Last night Ana and I went to an Oxfam hunger banquet, a basketball game and a Diwali festival. Ana LOVED basketball. She was transfixed by the game for a good 20 min, then she got all excited and was yelling and clapping. She even danced on the court at half time. We left in the second half because she was trying to run onto the court and I was scared she'd get mowed down!

She is smarter already....she said her name today!! She said it loads of times in the car, but since we have got home and I am chasing her around with the camera she has not repeated it (of course)

Today was Ana's Thanksgiving lunch at daycare. The parents were invited to have lunch with the kids (although they didn't actually feed the parents....cheapskates!) I did a lot of rearranging of my classes to make sure I was there. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our camera :( It was nice to see her during the day though.

New Skills

Ana is much more talkative these days. She is learning to imitate things we say. She says bye bye, ball, etc and she is working on her ABC's. So far she mostly says A B D. I will attempt to get some talking on video! Here is one attempt. It is a bit long because I don't know how to edit!


She has also mastered the art of walking backwards. We were pretty surprised by this, as I thought that was a pretty advanced skill. She is also a professional climber. She gets up on the couch and runs up and down it, she climbs on the coffee table, and even scaled a kids rock wall the other day!

Birthday Party

Ana's friends Sara and Sofia turned 1 this weekend. Here are a couple of snaps from the party.

Ana in her snazzy tights!

I don't care if it is your birthday, you are not getting my shoe!

Really cute little boy we tried to set Ana up with!

Sara loved the singing......

Sofia did not............

Opening presents with mum and dad (we got them the backpacks)

Metatarsal

I have a celebrity injury!! Apparently I fractured my 2nd metatarsal playing futsal about 3 weeks ago. This is commonly known as the Beckham injury. Clearly I am more hardcore than Beckham because I did not stop playing when I did it, and I have been running on it ever since. Including, I might add, running a VO2 max test last week *cough* 51.8 ml/kg/min *cough* (probably meaningless unless you are Judgey or Tracey, but basically means I rock). The only thing I have not been able to do is walk in high heel shoes (I doubt Beckham had a problem with that.....but I bet Rooney did).

Aug baby meet-up

I belong to an online group of mums with babies born in August 06. We've been friends since we were pregnant and sometimes we get together. Today a few of us met at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. Ana is so much bigger than the other kids!

Here are the adorable babies (all girls oddly enough)

L to R: Piper, Ana, Abigail, Cami, and Emma

Babies and mummys!

Ana and Abi looking at a leaf

Ana and Abi fighting over a handbag

Ana and Abi fighting over raisins. I swear these two will be best friends when they grow up. They are a lot alike

Ana going for a wander

...and running away from me


Swinging and flying down a slide!

Happy Halloween

Introducing Ana - the worlds most miserable M & M!!



Soon she cheered up and was ready to go. Trick or treat is a mean business in our area, so here she is limbering up to take the neighbourhood by storm!


Hanging with my friends' kiddos!


Trick or Treat? Inspecting her loot! This was in the driveway of the first house we visited. She didn't get the concept of collecting the goods, she wanted to eat them as soon as she got them!


Do you think this kid likes chocolate much??


Here we are earlier in the day getting ready. Sitting on the porch eating popcorn

And drinking beer!!

Ana was trying to hard to get to my beer! Lil drunkard!!!