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Last week we all boarded a plane and headed back to St. Louis to spend some time with some of our favorite people in the world. As much as we have loved living in Seattle so far it just doesn’t quite feel like home yet because a few people are missing from our day to day lives, our dearest and closest friends. Heading back to The Lou to see everyone was so refreshing.
We spent the week staying with my very dear friend, Heather, and her family. Thank you Heather! Maya got to play with her bestie Claire every day which made her happier than happy.
The week flew by way to fast. It was filled with fun moments with our dear friends and I could have spent at least another week and still not felt like I had enough time with everyone. I miss our friends in St. Louis so much. I’m glad we got to spend a little time reconnecting with them and just hanging out like old times. Watching Maya and Claire pick up right where they left off, like no time had passed at all made my heart smile.
Thank you to all our dear friends who made our trip back so much fun. We love all of you and miss you dearly. Can’t wait to see you all again, hopefully soon.
Yesterday found us driving an hour and a half north of Seattle into Skagit County for the Skagit Tulip Festival. Even though the weather didn’t cooperate completely, it was cloudy and on and off rainy all day, we just had to head up north to check out what all the fuss was about. We were not disappointed.
Every year, during the month of April, the small town of Mount Vernon puts on this festival. The town is surrounded by fields filled with daffodils and tulips. Little activities and art shows are set up throughout the town. The big draw, of course, is the acres upon acres of tulips. It really was quite a sight. Anna kept saying “Wow, wowwers!” (her adorable word for flowers).
It was so breathtakingly beautiful. I can’t wait for next year’s festival! Maya and I are inspired to plant a ton more tulip bulbs this fall so that my front and back yards look like our own little tulip festival 
We had a wonderful Easter this year. Thanks to a weeks worth of gorgeous spring weather we had daffodils and flowering trees blooming and tulips just about to bloom. Flowers at Easter always makes it feel more like Easter to me. The weather was gorgeous for both our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday and for Easter yesterday.
The girls had a great time at our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. The volunteers hid over 3000 eggs around one of our local parks. There were lots of kids there, but since there were so many eggs hidden around the park everyone walked away with a ton of eggs. Anna missed out on the itty bitty kids egg hunt as they started it early and we didn’t get there in time, but she did manage to pick up a couple of eggs during the big kids hunt (thanks to help from mom) and she held onto those eggs for dear life . Maya had a blast and managed to completely fill her basket!
Easter morning Maya woke up bright and early since she was so excited to see what the Easter Bunny had left her and to hunt for more eggs. She actually woke up before Anna and I had to make her stay in her room playing until Anna finally woke up. The girls were very happy with their Easter baskets and had a great time looking all over the house for the eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden for them. Anna was especially excited when she managed to get one of the eggs open and realized there were jelly beans inside!
We planted magic jelly beans in our garden again this year and Maya and Anna were super excited to discover they had blossomed into chocolate carrots
We spent the rest of our Easter outside enjoying the absolutely perfect weather. The girls were exhausted when bedtime rolled around last night. We had a wonderful spring/Easter weekend enjoying our little family and the glorious spring weather mother nature decided to bless us with.
I hope everyone had a great weekend/Easter.
One of the big issues that has come up as a result of the upcoming arrival of The Surprise is where everyone will sleep. We are lucky that we do have a four bedroom house so we have a few options open to us including the possibility that everyone gets their own room. It is nice to have options and I’m thankful for that.
The question is, which option is best? The way our house the laid out three bedrooms are upstairs, the master and what are currently Maya and Anna’s bedrooms. The fourth bedroom is on the main floor and currently serves as our office. And, when guests come to visit we throw an air mattress on the floor and call it a guest room 
Since the fourth bedroom is on the main floor it doesn’t really lend itself well to being a bedroom for any of our young children. So, really it is unlikely we will go with a bedroom plan that will involve everyone having their own room and using the fourth bedroom. It makes Lorne happy too because he isn’t too keen on giving up his office.
Which leaves us with the most likely room set up, having two of the kids share a room. Maya’s room is huge and would serve well as a bedroom for two. We are pretty sure what we will end up doing is having Maya and Anna share a room, in Maya’s current room and give Anna’s bedroom to the baby. Maya is excited about sharing a room because she really wants bunk beds. I think it will work out well.
The question remains as to when to make the transition. Anna is still in a crib with no indication she isn’t enjoying it or is even considering trying to climb out. I hate the idea of prematurely switching her to a big girl bed and opening up a potential can of worms when it comes to nap time and bed time. However, I don’t want to have to buy another crib for what would likely be a fairly short period of time. So, in all likelihood, I’ll move her to a big girl bed before the baby comes so we can use the crib for the baby. The summer seems the best time to make the transition as we don’t have to worry about strict bed times and early wake up calls for school. And, hopefully, by making the transition in the summer everyone will be sleeping well in their new digs before Maya starts school and before I am again thrust into the sleepless newborn phase.
I know it will all work out, and I’m probably worrying too much about it, but hey I’m a mom and that’s what I do
This little monkey. This little ball of giggles and snuggles turned 20 months old yesterday. 20 MONTHS! That is two thirds of the way through her 2nd year already. In just 4 short months she is going to be 2. Crazy!
Anna at 20 months makes me smile and laugh on a daily basis. I love this age. Her vocabulary is incredible and her communication skills are stellar. There is rarely a moment of frustration where I don’t know what she is trying to say. She can name at least a dozen or more animals. She can easily tells what she wants or needs. She carries on little conversations half real words, half babble that make complete sense, it is amazing.
Anna is hysterical. Her little Annaisms make me laugh on a daily basis. She is at that age where she will not let you get her on video doing anything. If she sees camera she stops what she is doing and runs away. There are so many things I would love to capture on video to watch later when she is driving me crazy. I need a more sly way to get video of her Instead I’ll have to write it all down for now.
A few of my favorite Annaisms at 20 months…
She can name tons of animals. We’ll go through some of her animal books and she’ll know about 80% of them. However, there are several animals that she refers to only by the sound they make, even though she knows the actual name for them. A pig for example is always identified but a nasal grunting sound. A cat is a “meow” and a horse is a “neigh”. She uses these sounds so enthusiastically it cracks me up every time!
The way she interacts with our cat, Louis, is just darling. It is something that needs to be seen to be truly appreciated but I’ll try to do it justice with my words. For starters she calls him “Lou Lou” which is so adorable and has us all calling him Lou Lou now. In the morning he always comes into her room with me when I get her out of bed and she’ll cry out “Lou Lou” when she sees him and then say “mon” (come on) to get him to follow us downstairs. Whenever she sees him doing something she thinks he shouldn’t be doing she’ll say “No Lou Lou” like this little mother. If she catches him on the counter or the table she’ll shout “NOW” (down) at him. She snuggles and kisses him constantly throughout the day. I love it. They are quite a pair.
She loves to sing and dance. If she wants to hear music she’ll bring the remote over to you and dance to tell you what she wants. On and off throughout the day you’ll hear her singing, which is truly just adorable. If she hears a song at the store or on the radio that she recognizes she’ll start singing along. The other day in Target Pink’s Try came on and the whole rest of the time we were in the store she was singing “try try try”
The girl is funny and she loves to know you think she is funny. If something makes you laugh she gets this look on her face that I can’t even really describe, it is pure pride, and she’ll perform whatever it is she did again. She even seems to understand that things stop being funny after a while and will move on to something else before she hits that point. We may have a little comedian on our hands.
Thanks to her big sister she is surrounded by princesses on a daily basis. She has taken to calling all princesses “lella” (Cinderella). When I put a skirt or dress on her she looks down at it and says “oh, lella, pree” (oh, Cinderella, pretty). It stems from Maya wanting to play real-life princesses with her one day and both of them wearing their fanciest dresses to dance around the living room. Now she thinks she is a princess every time she wears something other than pants
One of my truly favorite Annaisms is how she says goodbye. She used to just say “bye” and wave, then one day she all of a sudden started saying “bye you”. It is adorable. She says it every time. She’ll wave her cute little wave and say “bye you”. It is so cute I love it.
I could go on and on. She is full of adorable little sayings and expressions these days. Her zest for life is contagious. Anna at 20 months is a doll. Now if only I could get her to perform for the camera so I can try to record some of this posterity.