Now you're talking!

Anabelle has had quite a jump in vocabulary over the last few days. It seemed like overnight she was able to say at least 10-15 new words. Most of them actually sound like they should too! Here is a list of the words she currently has in her repertoire and uses regularly.

no

whoa

eat

bowl

kitty

more

see

shoe

up

let's see

go, go, go

hi

bye-bye

bear (pronounced "ba")

on

sit (but it sounds more like shit)

baby

hello

This list is what she will spontaneously say, but she will also repeat a lot of what we say. Guess it's time to start being careful what I say around her. Her top 3 most used words are no, whoa, and see. She says "no" a lot during the day, which is pretty typical for a toddler. I think she uses it correctly about 70% of the time. Hopefully we will start hearing "yes" soon. She says "whoa" any time she almost falls, actually falls, anything around her falls, she throws something, or when she is attempting to put something somewhere and it falls over. I think it's pretty funny and cute. She says "see" when ever she wants to be a part of the action. If I am cooking, cleaning, looking at something, reading something, she says "see?" and tries to get in on the action.

Getting Anabelle to talk for others is quite tricky. She clams up around other people, won't talk on the phone (although as soon as I hang up she's all about saying "bye-bye"), and won't talk on video chat. I have been trying to catch Anabelle with my video camera but it is challenging. She sees the camera and has no interest in talking. I was finally able to get a little bit today of Anabelle at the park and then playing with John. I haven't learned yet how to edit video so I am sorry the second one is a little long and the end of the first one should really be cut off- Anabelle decided to eat a wood chip-YUCK! Anyway I will continue to try and catch her saying all of her new words. It is exciting to be able to understand what she wants and to hear her little voice. All of the sudden she is turning into such a big girl.

Learning new skills...

Anabelle has learned a new skill (please excuse the blurriness of these photos)

One might think that this is a good skill, but trust me it is not! Anabelle can now reach a lot of things she really shouldn't have access to.

Like the stove, salt and pepper shakers, knives and utensils!

Or the refrigerator and freezer.

Dirty dishes, the coffee maker, cereal, my calendar and a cup full of pens, pencils, and scissors.

And finally the sink and sponges.

These pictures are just the tip of the ice burg on the number of times I have walked into the kitchen and Anabelle is attempting to get into something. So it has been a busy week around here and I am re-thinking the location of some items in our kitchen. Prior to this I was able to give Anabelle some freedom and have her do small tasks like take something to the kitchen table while I was downstairs, or get something that she wanted by herself. But I can no longer do that because the first thing she does when she walks in the kitchen is to go straight for the chairs and pull them to what ever she is interested in. When she is "caught" in the act or asked to get down, she looks at me and says "see?" as in "Mom, I want to see." I try not to get frustrated with her, she is just curious, but at the same time it can be exhausting. So now you see why I haven't been posting... I have been chasing around my little one instead. I guess I should be thankful that she hasn't put it together yet that she can do this chair climbing routine in other rooms of the house to get into other things.

Dancing on the Riverwalk

Sorry for the lack of posting, not too much has been going on here and therefore I had no pictures to post. The week after 4th of July was spent recuperating, having play dates with our Mommy group friends, and running errands. During the weekend of the 4th Anabelle caught a bit of a runny nose and since then it has developed into a cough and now I think I am catching it too. Combine that with 90 degree days, and we have been laying low this week. Today we were finally ready to get outside and enjoy some sunshine, it was a beautiful day with temps back in the high 70s.

The Naperville library puts on an event each Wednesday afternoon in July where they have stories, dancing, and a puppet show along the Riverwalk at the Amphitheater. We decided to grab some lunch from Jimmy Johns (which BTW turns out to not be the best place to grab lunch for a kiddo-no PBJ, and no kid sizes) and eat our lunch while we watched. Anabelle didn't listen to the story portion much, choosing instead to focus on eating her lunch while making several attempts to run away from me. She did however like the dancing portion, they did all her favorites (Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes). They also did a jumping song that she liked as well. All of the kids looked like they were having fun, and it was pretty well organized by the library. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

Lots of parents and children attended.

Munching on turkey and cheese.

Dancing!

4th of July fun and fireworks!

This 4th of July we went to a friends place for a pool party. John and I have been going there for years, but this is the first time that Anabelle joined us. They have an absolutely beautiful house, yard and pool! We had a great time swimming, eating bar-b-que, and hanging out with good friends. Anabelle had a great time too!

Anabelle loved the sprinkler...until it was turned on.

Playing in the pool with Aunt Darcy.

Swimming with Daddy.

After swimming it was time to run around the yard a bit.

After all the fun in the sun it was time to head home because we were having some friends over to go watch the fireworks. Before everyone came over I snapped some photos of Anabelle in her cute watermelon outfit, a gift from Aunt Bonnie.

Later that night we walked over to Ribfest to watch the fireworks. While waiting Anabelle ate some corn-yum!

oooohhhh..... aahhhhh!

Wow!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!

Last week, Anabelle and I went to the park for a picnic lunch.

Mmmm... blueberries.

Time for some swinging,

climbing,

and sliding.

Breakfast with friends.

A little for me, a little for you.

John and I celebrated six years of marriage, we had a yummy dinner date together.

Ribfest

It's that time of year again where the streets of Naperville become crowded and you can hear loud music thumping from the festival close by. We live about a 10 minute walk from Knoch park, which is where they hold Naperville Ribfest. Last year we went without Anabelle and listened to Sammy Hagar. This year we decided to take Anabelle with us for her first taste of Ribfest. In order to skip the long lines to get in, we remembered to pre-pay for our tickets at Jewel-Osco earlier this week. By doing this you also get a $3 discount, Anabelle gets in for free because she's so cute. Ok, really all kids under 11 are free.

Today was supposed to be really hot, with highs in the upper 90s, but it ended up not being too hot of a day. Anabelle and I waited for John to get home from work and finish mowing the lawn, and then we were off. By getting there around 5:30 we managed to beat a little bit of the crowd-but not much, it was still pretty packed. We got in and headed for a shady area, and low and behold we found a great spot to spread out our blanket and chairs, we were surprised to find such a great spot. After that we went to the food lines. They weren't too bad yet, we decided to divide and conquer. John and Anabelle waited in the rib line while I went and grabbed 2 blue raspberry lemonades and a bucket-o-cheese fries. That's right, a bucket! I know what you're thinking *Awesome!* and you would be right. Making my way back to John and Anabelle they were just about done, all in all we only spent about 10 minutes waiting in line-not bad for Ribfest. We meandered through the crowd and made our way back to our blanket and chairs and settled in to eat. Anabelle was a definite fan, eating more cheese fries than anything else. After eating we hung out for a bit, enjoying the beautiful weather and music. Anabelle continued to munch on fries, while breaking into spontaneous dance parties. She stayed entertained by climbing all over and in and out of one of the chairs we brought. John and I came up with entercontained, a new word for when your child is entertained and contained in an object. After awhile Anabelle started getting restless and we were ready to go, so we packed it all up and walked home. We were both pleasantly surprised with how smoothly everything went and that is was enjoyable. You never know when you bring a toddler to an event like this. I was able to snap some cute pics, of course!