17 Months Old

We have a very busy little girl. She gets into everything and has very big opinions. Some of them are: she loves shoes, mostly because that means she gets to go out, she does not like syrup or anything that has come in contact with syrup, if Mommy and Daddy can do it, so can she, and, under no circumstances, is it okay to tell her no.

I know these make this thing open somehow...

Being a sweetheart

Trying new foods with Daddy.

She's starting to use more words that are understandable. To me and Kelly at least. She says Mama, an occasional Dada, Gabba, ball, pup pup for Woofie, ni ni for night night, ba ba for her bottle, but still mostly just squawking and pointing.

16 Months Old

She looks so much like Abigail in this picture.

She loves waffles and sitting in her own chair like a big girl.

She's a cuddler and likes to run and jump on blankets.

Our friend and neighbor Chris has a sweet little dog that is Anni's favorite playmate.

She's our little princess and loves her crown.

School Update

Kelly is doing great, he is in the top 10 students in the school with a 4.0 GPA. He's finished 2 of his 3 English classes, a computer class, a nutrition class, and skills 2 now. Skills 2 was the hardest class he'll have. The majority of drop outs happen during that 3 weeks. He got an A. He showed up for open lab at 530 am everyday during that 3 weeks to study and get his prep done for the day.Now he's in meat and seafood identification and fabrication. He's learning how to properly do all the different cuts of meat and some classical preparations of them. He made seafood sausage this week.He's made a few good friends and we see them fairly regularly. Chris is a ninja and lives in our apartment complex, so he comes over once or twice a week to visit. Nick and his girlfriend live in Hillsboro and they've come over twice now. We've invited them and Jessica, who is oddly possessive of Kelly, to come over for a Rocky Horror Party. It was supposed to happen at Halloween, but our schedules never lined up, so it'll just happen when we get around to it.

15 Months Old

Anni is still growing in leaps and bounds, mostly in her hair. She has a total of 10 teeth now. Four on the top and on the bottom in front, and 2 molars on the top and bottom. She seems to get teeth in pairs or fours. She's been chewing on her fingers and everything else so much I think she must be working on more, but I can't feel them yet. She bit me pretty hard last night when I was trying to feel for them.No new words yet, just "up."The problem now is that she uses "up" for everything. It's kind of hard to differentiate between when it means up, down, look at me, give me that, or I don't want to play anymore.Empty diaper boxes are one of her favorite toys, she loves being pushed around the room in them like Great Grandma Sonia used to do with her toy box. We're working on the "where's your..." game. She knows nose and head, I'm going to post of video of it later, assuming I can get her to cooperate. We're also teaching her to blow kisses. She gets it sometimes, and sometimes she puts her hand over my mouth instead of hers. It's still cute, so I'll take it.We had a good visit from Uncle Ross, but I'm going to do a separate post for that.Lastly, we got Anni a winter coat. It's only an 18 month, but it's huge on her. She was so excited to get it, she cuddled it all through the store, the whole ride home, then played with for another 5 or 10 minutes when we got home. I had a hard time getting a picture of it because she was running around flapping her arms. Her little hands don't even come out of the sleeves yet. We can roll the cuff for a month or two until she grows into it. Because we bought it big she may not hit a growth spurt till spring, but if we'd have bought it to fit I'm sure she would have out grown it in a hurry.

Horrible Luck

After the misadventure with my car, I figured things had to start getting better. Nope!

I was working out in the garden center last night, when I heard the unmistakable crunch of two cars colliding. I thought, "Oh, that sucks. I wonder who got hit. Probably just some customers."

A few minutes later Josh came out and asked me if I drove a truck with Utah plates. He then told me that MY truck had been the one that got hit. She was 16, driving her grandpa's Mercedes. She thought her foot was on the brake, but was on the gas. When she mounted the curb she panicked and must have pushed harder on it because she not only went over the curb, but also 6 feet of sidewalk, then hit my truck and knocked it a good foot or two. Josh told her she was lucky because she'd hit the car of the nicest person in the store, which was sweet of him. Poor girl, if she's have hit the car next to mine it would have been the biggest jerk in the store.
The insurance company is paying a repair shop to pick up the truck in the morning and for Enterprise to get a rental to us tomorrow too. This mess should be cleared up pretty quickly, thankfully.
The top picture is my truck, obviously, and the bottom one is the front of her grandpa's Mercedes.

My Poor Geo

On my way to work today I got in a car wreck. Someone cut off the guy in front of me, he slammed on his brakes, and then I did, but not fast enough. The jerk that cut him off just kept driving, so he got off scotch free.

Everyone was okay, I've got some whiplash, and my neck and back are hurting, but I'll be fine in a few days. I keep laying on the floor to stretch my back out and Anni keeps body slamming me. Little turkey.

It didn't really do any damage to the other guy, he was in an '05 Ford Mustang. There was a dent in his bumper and I scratched the paint a bit.

The insurance probably isn't gonna do a thing for us, we only had liability on my Geo.

This is the damage.

14 Months Old

Anni is growing so fast! All of her 12 month clothes fit and she's moving into 18 month on some things and not so much on others. We bought some 18 month old pajamas for her to grow into and they just drown her. She doesn't mind so long as it doesn't impede her walking. She's goofy baby and such a cuddle bug. She still just loves that puppy. She'll grab him by one ear and carry him everywhere.

She doesn't like posing for the camera much, so to get good pictures I have to take tons and sort through to get the best. Usually the cutest ones are when she's not even paying attention to the camera. After all this time of being skinny she's getting a fat little Buddha belly. I love this picture because she's just jutting it out there.

She loves to open and close doors and if one of us isn't home, she'll go through the whole house opening and closing every door looking for us. If you go into a room and shut the door before she can follow, she'll stand outside it and pound on it, just screaming. She doesn't like not being allowed to be right in the middle of what we're doing.

Anni still loves bath time and loves being naked, like all babies. She was biting her pirate here and just let go of it with her hands, so she kind of looks like a dog with a toy. She does it a lot.

School Update

Kelly is kicking butt in school. He's acing all of his quizzes and goes in early to study so he can spend a little more time with Anni and me at night.

How could you stand to be away from this face?

They're kind of like boot camp as far as the dress code. He has to be in full uniform all the time: a toque (the hat), jacket, pants, shoes (polished), apron, side towels, and cravat (a tie thingy), it all has to be perfectly pressed and clean and he has to be clean shaven (except for existing facial hair).

Yesterday we found out that he was awarded a $1500 scholarship for an essay that he wrote about why he was going to culinary school. I'm so proud of him, and all the people in his presentation group are really happy to have him with them now.

Anni wearing Kelly's toque.

After this week he's done with his first class, skills 1 and sanitation. Skills one was mostly knife skills and some product ID. He's gone through about 30 pounds of potatoes at home and in class practicing. The hardest cut is a chateu. It basically looks like a 7 sided football that's 3 inches long. Today, he had to ID 80 herbs and spices for a final. Tomorrow is the knife skills final, he has 2 hours to do 5 chateus, 8 large dice, 12 medium dice, and 12 paysanne of potatoes, 18 julienne and 24 brunoise of carrots, 12 julienne of green pepper, 12 batonnet of celery, half an onion in a perfect medium dice, chiffonade 6 leaves of spinach, and supreme 1 orange. A paysanne is 1/2 by 1/2 by 1/8 inch cube, a brunoise is a very, very fine dice (1/8 inch cube), a batonnet is a perfect 1/4 by 1/4 by 2 inch rectangle, a chiffonade is the finest strip you can cut, and supremes are perfect segments of citrus with no peel or membrane.

Monday he starts Nutrition and Writing/Composition. He won't be using his knives for these ones, so they'll get packed away for 3 weeks.

Baby of Mine

Anni is really getting the hang of walking. She gets faster and more coordinated every day. She walked all the way from the couch, across the living room, and down the hall into her room today, with out falling. It was impressive.

In a way it's kind of sad, but she's a toddler now. She looks like a toddler, not a baby, and she's acting like a toddler too. She throws tantrums, won't eat, and does things just because we told her not too. It's a good thing she's cute.

Baby Hazing

Anni has officially initiated Kelly and I into parenthood. She had a diaper blowout during her evening nap, and decided to paint her crib with it. It was smeared across her face, in her hair, and all over her feet.

I called Kelly in to come and see what she'd done. He took her clothes, bedding, and Woofie and put them in the wash while I did the same with her. She laughed through her whole bath.

If she weren't so cute most of the time, I'd have been really upset. She didn't know better, and I did the same at her age, so we'll just continue on and not feed her corn anymore.In other news, Kelly's doing great in school, work is going well, and Anni seems to do well at daycare.

13 Months Old

Anni is walking on her own now, not just when we coax her. She'll do it when she's carrying something or when she wants to get from one thing to another and there's nothing to hold on to.

She's screaming like a banshee right now, but normally goes to bed really well and is taking her naps without us cuddling her to sleep.She loves to eat grown up food with us and does really well with it. If she doesn't like it, she pulls it out of her mouth and hands it to me. It's frustrating sometimes.She loves our nightly walks and will just sit in her pack and watch everything go by. We walked through the Catholic Missionary Retreat/convent next to our apartment the other day and she was just jabbering up a storm. There was a little nun praying as we rounded a corner, so we tried to hush Anni, which of course, makes her louder. Poor lady, she didn't seem to notice though.

Our New Home

Bye-Bye Grandma and Grandpa

We have arrived. The trip was long and boring, but we made it without incident. We left at 9:30pm, drove through the night and arrived at our new apartment at about 1:30pm. We unloaded everything and just kind of crashed. We've been putting everything away through the week and just have a few clothes and odds and ends left. Kelly's parent's, Ross, Lesa, and Nate came up with us. We couldn't have done it without them, they were just awesome.

The view from our side balcony

Looking from our living room toward the kitchen and hallways Grandma and Anni in baby's room Our room and bathroom

Our living room

Lesa in our tiny kitchen

Anni is having a hard time adjusting, but it getting better now. She's finally figured out that she has free run of the house and can go where ever she wants.

We live right next door to a nature preserve, so we go walking there almost every night.

I got the job at the Lowe's in Portland, it's my same position, so I'm really happy about that. I start on Saturday.

Kelly had his orientation on Monday and got his uniforms. He starts class on Monday, he's really excited.

Kelly got me a webcam for my birthday, so we are set up on Skype. Video chats await!