Indoor fun

Annabelle is doing much better now. She is not coughing nearly as much and this is allowing her to sleep better during her nap and at night. She still has a nasty runny nose that refuses to stop running, but I can handle that.

Because she's been sick, we haven't been doing too much this past week. Here's some pictures of what we have been doing.
She loves to put tons of stickers all over my face. This picture is pretty low-key. Once I counted 16 stickers on my face.
Being indoors all day is starting to be hard to handle. Annabelle is not an indoorsy girl, so I've had to be very creative. This video shows one of those ideas. It's not a Lindsey original, but it's new to Annabelle. We made paper airplanes and flew them across the kitchen floor.


And here's some pictures of Annabelle with crazy hair from the hairdo she wore all day.

Update/Beautiful music

Here's an update of Annabelle's condition. She is still sick, although now all we're battling is a bad cough, runny nose, and fever. I took her to the doctor on Monday and I was grateful to find out that she doesn't have the flu or strep throat. Just a minor ear infection and a virus that is taking a long time to get out of her system and causing her to be very subdued, clingy, and crying a lot. She's starting to be able to sleep better at night without coughing every 5 minutes, which hopefully will speed up the recovery process. Other than that, I'm giving her ibuprofen and pumping her full of liquids.

Because of her illness, lately Annabelle and I have not gotten out of our pajamas until late morning. So, when my neighbor knocked on the our door at 9:40 this morning, I was still in my pajamas with my glasses on and Annabelle the same. My neighbor asked if I could watch her two kids for a few minutes while she went to pick up her husband from school. She apparently didn't mind that Annabelle was sick and left her kids with me for a little while. At one point, they were all sitting on the piano playing and I had to get a video. It was so cute.

Sick again

It's amazing to me that Annabelle can go for 22 months of her life without throwing up (spitting up doesn't count) and then all of the sudden, she gets sick twice in one month. Our New Year's Day was spent cleaning up the many messes Annabelle made on the carpet. It took her four days to get over that illness, but now three 1/2 weeks later, she's got the same thing. It started with a cough and runny nose yesterday. Then, this morning, she woke up crying I think because her throat hurt from coughing all night. Then, at about 9:30 am, the throwing up began. It hasn't been nearly as bad as it was at the beginning of the month. We did manage to keep the carpets mess-free today.

It's so miserable to see your child sick and not be able to do anything to help her feel better. She slept a ton so hopefully, she'll be able to get over this illness quickly and go back to being her normal, outrageously energetic, and oh so cute self.

Colors

Lately, Annabelle has been into coloring. I have a stack of colored paper that sits in the bottom drawer of our desk. Annabelle discovered them one day and she loves to get the crayons out and color. These are our latest pictures we've drawn and colored together:
The nice thing is that this has given me an excellent chance to teach Annabelle her colors. She caught on very quickly and now knows all the colors of the rainbow as well as black and brown. It's so amazing to me how quickly little kids can grasp concepts and understand them. Here's a video showing how smart my little girl is.



And these are just some cute pictures of Annabelle.

Visit from Uncle Joel

This weekend, we were delighted to host my brother Joel and his roommate. The only time his roommate was here was at night to sleep. All other time was spent with a cute, special lady friend. That gave Annabelle and me ample time to hang out with Joel. He arrived Saturday afternoon and left this morning. Annabelle was a little shy at first, but she quickly overcame unusual timidness and had a blast playing with her uncle. Now, you should know that Joel did not spend all of his time at my house. He spent the whole day Sunday socializing with BYU-Idaho's finest girls. But, during the time he was here, he was very busy entertaining an energetic almost 2-year old. Here's a video of some of the games they played.



As you can see, Annabelle likes to use her voice, so there was a lot of screaming and running around going on all weekend.

Thanks for coming, Joel. It sure is lonely without you (and much less noisy).

On the phone/playing with friends

As you'll see in this video, Annabelle knows exactly what to do with phones, and I imagine it won't be too long before she's asking for her own phone and racking up hours of phone time.



The other day, a sister I visit teach called and asked if I could watch her two kids for a few hours. Her two daughters are 4 and almost 2. The older one mostly played by herself or watched Cinderella III, while Annabelle and the younger daughter had a blast together. She is only about 2 1/2 months younger than Annabelle and it was so fun to see Annabelle have someone her own age to play with.

Pretty girl

Every morning after Annabelle is dressed, I do her hair. It's usually something very simple like a quick ponytail. She hates her hair being in her face, but she also hates to sit still long enough for me to do anything fancy. Yesterday morning, I decided I would do something a little different. After bribing her to sit still by letting her play with my makeup, which she's ordinarily not allowed to do, I finished the cutest hair style. She looked so adorable that I had to take a picture. It's a good thing she's so cute too because she didn't get enough sleep last night and was being extremely cranky this morning, and it's always harder for me to get upset at her when she's looking so dang pretty.

Count your blessings

This past weekend has been one of gratitude for all the many blessings in my life that I so easily take for granted. There was an incident that caused me to appreciate everything in life, no matter how small and trivial it is, such as making Michael a lunch of three meat and cheese sandwiches everyday.

Thursday night, Michael was involved in a very bad accident that left our beloved Ford Ranger completely totaled. Incredibly, Michael was able to walk away from it with only a few minor cuts on his legs and a small headache. Meanwhile, I was anxiously awaiting to hear from him, not knowing where he was or why he wasn't home yet. I cannot begin to explain the relief and happiness I felt when he finally called to tell me he was all right.

It shouldn't take an incident like that to make you realize how precious each day is, how wonderful it is to be with our families for eternity. The shock and terrified feelings are lessening each day, but there are some experiences you never forget that help remind you of how blessed you are.

Masks

Yesterday, I decided that Annabelle and I needed to do something extra fun. She is getting very tired of being indoors all day and although we've expanded her "show" options (instead of only Ratatouille and Celtic Woman, we've added The Incredibles and Finding Nemo), I didn't want to spend the day watching her shows.

So after thinking about what we could do, I was struck with an ingenious idea: make masks. We have a bunch of old paper plates and I got out the crayons and markers (which was a big mistake- it only took a moment before I realized markers were way to messy for Annabelle to use) and we decorated the plates. I then cut holes out for our eyes and attached some string to go around our heads. Here are the finished products:


Annabelle was too scared to ever put her mask on, but she sure liked me to put my on. Here's a picture of me wearing my mask and holding up Annabelle's mask.

New Year's Resolution

I like to think of myself as an active participant when it comes to serving others. I feel like I am dependable and people can count on my fulfilling any task given to me to the best of my ability. However, today I realized that when it comes to serving others without being asked to, I don't think I do very well. I'm not sure that I recognize situations where I can be of service. I realize the theme of this post is different from my usual entries where I talk about Annabelle and the events that go on during the week. The reason is because of two separate incidences that happened today.

I took Annabelle to the store to get a few things. After making my purchases and exiting the store, I made my way through the parking lot back to my car, while pushing my cart with Annabelle standing in it and it filled with my bags. The snow was packed down, but very thick. I was having a hard time keeping the cart straight, and several times, it veered into the center of the lane. As I turned to pass between two parked cars to get to the next aisle, I saw that there was a empty cart in my way. There wasn't enough room to get past it, but I didn't want to leave Annabelle alone, standing in the cart while I moved the other one out of the way. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young man turn and look over his shoulder at my situation. He then wheeled around and walked several yards back to where I was and moved the cart out of my way. It was a very small gesture, but the impact it had on me was great.

Then later as I was turning into my parking spot, I saw my neighbor out shoveling snow off of the two parking spots belonging to Michael and me. I think he was a little disappointed that I came home before he was finished, but it gave me a chance to say thank you.

These two kind gestures were very insignificant, but they each made my day a little brighter. I know I'm a little late in making a New Year's resolution, but better late then never. My goal this year is to look for opportunities to commit small acts of service.

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Today, we get to celebrate Michael's birthday. Of course, Michael wants it to be as low-key as possible. So, all we're doing is having his birthday dinner of lasagna and lemonade pie. He won't be getting his present until the next time we're in Idaho Falls because that's where I have to go buy them, and there just hasn't been time since we got back from our Christmas vacation. After dinner, the celebration continues as we will be watching BYU's backetball team take on #6 Wake Forest (which, by the way, BYU is projected to win-YEA!). Hopefully, we'll be happy at the end of the game.

Christmas trip part 2

This second part of the Christmas recap will consist mainly of videos and pictures. Enjoy!

Michael and Annabelle spent quite a bit of time jumping on the trampoline, even though the days were very cold by south Illinois standards.



We had a nice back rub line going, but right as this picture was being taken, Annabelle sat back and Michael stopped massaging her back, which therefore ruined the continuous line of back rubs.

And of course, we had to get some shots of the grandparents with their grandchild, a Brown family photo, and a generation picture. I love Annabelle's smile in this first one.


Annabelle and my mom spent a lot of time playing in the bathroom. My mom found some floatable bath toys and she and Annabelle found much amusement in playing with them. Before this video was taken, they were playing as usual with the toys, but then decided to blow bubbles. My mom started making funny noise and Annabelle would crack up.



Another fun game we came up with was called "charge". Annabelle and my mom would run down the hall and someone would try and stop them.



Annabelle wasted no time turning one of the beds at my parents' house into her own personal trampoline.

Chirtsmas trip part 1

Let me start this post by wishing everyone a happy new year. I can't believe it is 2009 already. We enjoyed a wonderful 2008 and I am looking forward to this year and everything it will bring.

And now, let the Christmas trip recap begin. Let me start by saying how good of a bowler my daughter is. We went blowing as a family and I couldn't believe that Annabelle had a better score than Michael, my brother Joel,and me. Just look below at the scores of one of our games:

The fact that she had bumpers and a bowling ball guiding device were only small reasons for her success. I think she just has pure natural talent. Here are some pictures and a video of Annabelle getting a spare. (Some of you may have noticed that Michael is wearing jeans! His mother-in-law convinced him to let her buy a pair of jeans for him for his birthday and he actually wore them-twice!)


Getting to the bowling alley was a little difficult. It had been pouring rain all day and by the time we left to go bowling, there was probably 2-3 inches of water. The road to get to the bowling alley was closed due to about 2 feet of standing water, so we had to park far away and walk. We had to take two cars because of the number of people, and one of the cars parked closer than the other. Michael, Annabelle, my dad, and I were in this car. Everyone else had to walk through the puddle of water, which then required all four of them having to buy socks at the bowling alley because theirs were soaked through.

We didn't give or receive many Christmas presents due to not having room in our suitcases to bring them back. But one thing Annabelle did get from her grandma was an inflatable tube through which she can crawl. It was a huge hit.



My siblings, Michael, and I all received what's called a "slanket"- a blanket with sleeves. It's revolutionary. Here are some pictures of the slanket.