Happy Birthday, Annabelle

This entry is going to be mostly pictures and videos if the fabulous day we had yesterday celebrating Annabelle's 2nd birthday. We spent the morning playing at an indoor playground and eating ice cream.

After we got home, we made her birthday cake, a homemade peanut butter cake with creamy coco frosting. I realized as I was getting ready to put the candles on later that evening that I actually didn't have any birthday candles other than the number 1 we used last year for her birthday. So even though she turned two, her birthday cake says 1. Annabelle made a mess of her herself, but was very excited when I let her lick the bowl of frosting.

Once Michael got home, we opened presents. She got some wonderful things. One of the gifts was a basketball hoop, which I think Michael will enjoy as much as, if not more than, Annabelle.



And she looks absolutely stunning in her new sunglasses, don't you think?

And then we got to sing happy birthday (I didn't think our singing was that bad, but I guess Annabelle thought differently and covered her ears), help her blow out the candle, and enjoy the rich goodness of our cake.


We had a great day!

Girls' weekend

Annabelle and I are having a girls' weekend. Michael is out of town until Sunday night and we have been making the most of our time alone at home. This morning, we spent some time at the library and then at the store, where I picked up a couple of presents for Annabelle's birthday which is on Monday. Thankfully, she's not old enough to understand that I'm getting gifts for her. She saw me put them in the cart and was interested in them, but as soon as we got home, I hid them and she's forgotten all about them.

Over the last few days, we (well, actually I) have been making up a dance to Annabelle's favorite song from our Celtic Woman cd, Sail Away. This evening, we got it on film. It was such a success that I think maybe we'll make up some more dances and even have costumes next time. This video is only a bit of the whole thing. I made a video if the whole song, but that seems a little too long to post on my blog.


After Annabelle was in bed, I watched a movie that I got at the library this morning. It's the perfect movie for having an evening to myself. It's called The Inheritance. If you like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, you'll like this one. It's based on the book of the same title by Louis May Alcott. I quite enjoyed it.

Chatter Box

One of Annabelle's favorite things to do now is talk on the phone. She's liked doing that for several months, but in the past, she only talks on it when no one is on the receiving end. Whenever I did try to get her to say hello to someone on the phone, she was so surprised to hear someone's voice that she wouldn't talk much. In the last 2 weeks, she has started wanting me to call someone and then she'll take the phone from me and walk around jabbering to whoever is listening. Here's a video of her chatting with my mom.

A day of colors

Annabelle celebrated Valentine's Day by colors. Not only was she was decked out in her pink valentine's dress, she also got to share some of Michael's gatorade which turned her tongue blue, and she was given a valentine from a friend that contained a red marker that subsequently got all over her.

Awesome Valentine's Day gifts

Annabelle has received several wonderful Valentine gifts from her devoted grandparents, including pajamas, a shirt, and Dory the fish (from Gma and Gpa Shepherd), some fun counting cards (from great Gma Ellen and Marv), and an awesome Valentine's dress and new movie (from Oma Cyppy and Gpa Brown).

Laughing at herself

Lately whenever I turn the camera on to tape Annabelle doing something funny, she stops what she's doing and wants to look at the camera screen and see what I'm filming. So in order to still capture on tape what it is I want, I turn the screen around so Annabelle can see herself as she's doing whatever it was she was doing. Today, I recorded her looking at herself on screen and this is the result.

Dory

Annabelle loves the movie 'Finding Nemo'. One of the characters in the show is Dory. Today, we received a package in the mail from my parents and sister and one of the items inside was a stuffed, talking Dory. She loved to hear the stuffed animal talk all by itself.

Fun with snow and a football

Although Annabelle does not have a snow suit, I decided we would go outside and play in the snow anyway. She had a blast. An hour later, she still didn't want to come in. We climbed to the top of snow drifts that were 5 feet tall, slid down the slide at the playground (we pushed the snow away from the bottom of the slide), used our rear ends as sleds and slid down hills, and so on.

Here's a video of us playing with a football. I'm sorry that you can't really ever see Annabelle's face. I was using both of my hands to spin the football and therefore couldn't hold the camera, so I set it on the ground. The reason for this video is so you can hear Anabelle's laugh. It's pretty funny.

By the way, Michael showed me a better way to spin the football to make it go faster. In this video, I don't get the ball going too fast.

I forgot...

I forgot to mention two more important things that happened yesterday. One, I started teaching piano again. Right now, I only have one student, but I'm hoping that my name gets passed around and I'll get some more. I'm really excited to be teaching again and there are lots of piano-related events in Rexburg that will give the students lots of experience in performing.

The other cool thing is Annabelle said, "I love you"! Usually, she only says "love", but last night, when I said it to her, she said all three words right back to me. I think that's been one of the most rewarding moments I've had since becoming a mom.

Special kisses for daddy

Last night, Annabelle did several funny and cool things. First, after dinner I gave her a bath. When it was time to clean up her bath toys, I held open the plastic bag we keep them in and without any prompting from me, Annabelle counted each piece she put in the bag. It was amazing. She did it two times in a row. She got every number up to 10 right and in order, expect the number 7. She forgot this one both times. But other than that, she was able to count to 10 completely on her own. I only wish I had the camera with me. I've been working with her, trying to teach her numbers and things, but it usually seems like she's ignoring me. I guess maybe it's worth repeating things over and over again even if I think she's not listening.

The second cute thing happened after we had family prayer and I was about to take Annabelle up to her room for bed. She always gives Michael a kiss before she goes up, but last night she did it a little bit differently. She grabbed Michael's face in her hands and pulled his face to hers and kissed him, Then, she continued to do this about 5 times, each time grabbing his face and pulling it to hers. By the time I got the camera out, she was finished. I did get her to do one more time for the camera. Please note at the end of the clip, Annabelle says, "cheese". She's been exposed to a camera that she knows exactly what to do.

Mutiple uses of a basketball

This morning, I was waiting on the phone with the IRS for almost an hour. I put on Finding Nemo for Annabelle so I could get some tax questions answered without distraction. As I was was hold for most of that time, I saw Annabelle using Michael's basketball in a not so typical way.

Learning our A, B, C's

Since Annabelle has mastered learning her colors (well the colors of the rainbow anyway), I decided it was time we move on to learning other important things, such as numbers, shapes, and letters. So, I made some flashcards and Annabelle has really taken to them. Right now, we are focusing on the alphabet, learning a few letters at a time. Since I took this video, Annabelle has learned a,b, and c pretty well and can sometimes name letters d and e.



This is just a cute picture of Annabelle wearing Michael's suit coat.