10 Things About Anna

I realized I haven’t written much about all the cool things Anna has been up to lately. So here are a few.

1. She is so good at putting things away and following directions. We can tell her, “pick up the book and put it back on your bookshelf” or “pick up your shoes and go put them back where they go,” and she will (usually) do it. She can put some of her own laundry away—she puts her pajamas in her pajama drawer, and she takes the stack of little washcloths to the bathroom and puts them in the cabinet. She’s amazing! (However, since putting things away is a much slower process than getting things out, don’t think things are always tidy around here.)

2. She loves music. When I start a CD, she will start bobbing her head up and down. She can hear the the faintest jingle of the ice cream truck when it is still several blocks away, and she will drop everything and start clapping and dancing. Her favorite song right now is “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

3. She eats about one good meal a day. I never know which one it’s going to be. And sometimes I find a food she loves and she gobbles it up, then the next day she won’t touch it. Toddler diet, I suppose. She likes (in a rotating fashion) raisins, applesauce, cheese, oatmeal, breads and crackers, rice, beans, scrambled eggs, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yogurt.

4. She is getting pretty good at using a spoon and fork to eat.

5. She’s still not trying to say many words, but she can make a variety of animal sounds when prompted. Or, rather, her version of them. If you see her, ask her what a kitty cat says. It’s funny. She sticks out her tongue and makes this high-pitched utterance that sounds more like a sick alley cat. I taught her “meeeoooow,” but I guess that’s what it sounds like to her!

6. She likes to pick out her own books to read. This used to take forever while she went through every single book on the shelf and found just the right one, but then I figured out if I grabbed 3 or 4 and let her pick from those, she’s happy with that.

7. She’s not the littlest kid at the park anymore. She has grown a lot this summer!

8. She does great when we drop her off at church. The past two Sundays, she didn’t even make a peep when we handed her to her teacher. She has fun playing with new toys and other kids.

9. She likes to pretend to put on lotion. She’ll touch the pump, tap her hands together, then pat her face, arms, legs, whatever. She’ll also pretend to put the deodorant under her arm if she gets hold of it.

10. She might be a little O.C. Tonight as she was walking through the living room, she noticed that the corner of her Aquadoodle mat was turned up, so she stopped and straightened it out. When she was putting her pajamas away, the drawer wouldn’t close all the way, so she had to open it and poke the clothes down further and close it again. Twice.

Menu Plan Monday 8/31/09

We have a few family gatherings this week, so I didn’t really have that many meals to plan. Check out Menu Plan Monday for more ideas.

Monday: Grilled chicken sandwiches, baked sweet potatoes

Tuesday: out

Wednesday: Pan-seared salmon, green beans, baked potatoes

Thursday: Grilled tomato & mozzarella sandwiches, minestrone (didn’t have this last week after all)

Friday: same

Saturday: dinner with family

Sunday: dinner with family

Why I can’t seem to get out of the house before 11 A.M.

Have I mentioned that I’m not a morning person? I’m amazed at people who can accomplish a list of 100 things before lunchtime. Anyway, whenever I decide to run errands, for some reason, I can’t seem to get out of the house before about 11:00.

For instance, today (after the “morning routine” of getting myself and Anna up, dressed, fed, bed made, bathroom picked up, etc…. you know, the stuff that takes twice as long as it should), I decided to go to Target, since I needed to buy a gift for a family that is registered there. Ahhh, Target. There are usually some good deals to be had there. Since I’m going anyway, I might as well pull up the frugal-freak blogs I read and see what goodies I can snag for next to nothing this week.

Going through the lists, I find the potential to get some Aveeno baby stuff for 50 cents. That’s a good deal! I need to print coupons off the Aveeno site and Target coupons. I go to the Aveeno site and try to log in. Doesn’t take it. Maybe I don’t have an account there after all. I sign up. E-mail address is already taken. Ok, so I do have an account… use the “forgot password” link. Open e-mail, get new password, go back to Aveeno site, log in, try to print coupon. It tells me I need to turn off pop-up blocker. Do that. Can’t find a way to go back to the coupon page. Close window and open site again, then print 2 coupons. Go to link for Target coupons and print 2.

At this point I should mention that my computer, bless its little processing heart, is very old and slow. So, things that take most people about 3 seconds take me about 30-60. That doesn’t sound like much, but over the course of a day it really adds up to a lot of wasted time. (I’m getting a new computer today, by the way!)

Coupons printed, I announce to David (who is working from home) that we’re off to Target. What about Quaker stuff, he asks? Oh yeah, I can get a good deal on that too if I can come up with enough coupons. I go get my coupon file. Sunday’s coupons are still sitting in a pile on the kitchen table, so I file those. Find some Quaker coupons, but need more in order to get the deal. Look up Target deals again, go to coupon site, select coupon, and try to print. Tells me I need to have Java enabled. Java is enabled. No telling what the problem is. David says to send him the link and he will print it. He does. He closes window because I forgot to tell him to print 2. He does it again, and fortunately it prints.

But wait… the registry list, which is the whole reason I was going in the first place! Pull up registry list on Target site and print. (Later, leave list lying on counter and have to print in-store anyway.)

Almost ready! But first, make Anna pick up some of the multitude of items she has strewn about while I’ve been doing all this, put shoes on her, get a sippy cup of milk for her bag, load up… and we’re off.

11:15 A.M. Sigh.

I got a cute gift, some Quaker granola bars for 74 cents a box, and some Aveeno baby wash for 50 cents a bottle. It’s worth it, right?

I know, I know, a little advance planning would help all this. I intend for Sunday afternoon to be my planning time, but I seem to have more planning to do than time. Especially when I take a long nap instead. :)

Menu Plan Monday 8/24/09 (yes, I know it’s Tuesday)

A little late with this one, but here it is! Once again, we put off grilling because David was still recovering from his bad flu-like bug. So it’s on the menu again for this Saturday; maybe it will happen this time!

Monday: Chicken strips, baked sweet potatoes, sugar snap peas

Tuesday: Cheese tortellini, green salad

Wednesday: Pan-seared salmon, green beans, baked potatoes

Thursday: Ham and cheese frittata, home fries, fresh fruit

Friday: Grilled tomato and mozzarella sandwiches, minestrone

Saturday: Burgers, potato wedges

Sunday: Chicken quesadillas, fresh fruit

Visit Menu Plan Monday for more ideas.

Menu Plan Monday 8/17/09

Here I am, squeezing it in while it is still Monday. Grilling didn’t happen Saturday due to David’s getting sick, so we’ll try it this Saturday. As always, check out Menu Plan Monday for hundreds more menus. You can surely find something on there to answer the “what’s for dinner” question!

Monday: Ham, green beans, roasted potatoes

Tuesday: Spinach manicotti, green beans, bread

Wednesday: Sweet potato chili (new recipe for us), cornbread

Thursday: same

Friday: dinner out

Saturday: Grilled burgers, potato wedges

Sunday: Chicken quesadillas, fruit

Laundry helper, revisited

As you may recall, Anna got an early start helping me with the laundry. Now, it is one of her favorite things! If I try to do it without her, she hears the machine filling up and comes running to help me.

She helps carry it to the laundry room:

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We have a new ritual; she sits on top of the dryer and I hand her things to throw in the washer as it fills up:

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Then I hand her things to put in the dryer, give her the dryer sheet to throw in there, and she shuts the door!

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Ok, so this may be pretty boring to you, but it’s so cool to see her learning to do the things I do. She mimics everything!

The Wonder Place

I took Anna to The Wonder Place down in Little Rock this morning. It’s a really cool place for young kids to play—they have all kinds of fun stuff to play with/in/on. Anna had a great time and we’ll definitely be going back! It was pretty crowded due to their special admission price today, so my apologies to the other moms for your kids’ pictures being on my blog, but I couldn’t really avoid it in some instances. :)

The “River Market” area:

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The water table:

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Menu Plan Monday 8/10/09

So far, so good with the meat reduction thing. I’m enjoying it! We got some all-natural, grass-fed ground beef (frozen) at the farmer’s market this past Saturday. We’re going to grill this Saturday so we’ll make some burgers with it.

Monday: Leftover black bean/chicken tacos, Mexican rice, fruit

Tuesday: Corn on the cob, roasted red potatoes, green beans, rolls

Wednesday: Salmon, baked sweet potatoes, corn on the cob

Thursday: Homemade mac & cheese, sugar snap peas, carrots

Friday: Homemade mac & cheese, steamed broccoli, carrots

Saturday: Burgers, potato wedges

Sunday: Chicken quesadillas, fruit

Visit Menu Plan Monday for more ideas!

At the Park

David is off today, so he got to go to the park with us this morning. (We usually go to story time at the library, but they take the month of August off, so we’re going to the park instead.) Look how big she’s getting!

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That’s what Nanas are for…

… to let their grandkids do things that mommies and daddies won’t… in this case, push whatever keys she wanted to on Nana’s computer. Anna thought that was great fun! (And congrats to Nana for recently switching to Apple! Yea!)

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After which, of course, Anna insisted on getting on our computer:

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Yep, she thinks she can do whatever she wants to around here!

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