2 years old!

Today is Anabelle's 2nd birthday! Look at how much she has grown this year!

September

October

November

December

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

Happy Birthday Belle, I hope you have a fantastic fun filled day!

Getting ready

The packages are arriving in the mail daily. Toys are being assembled. The guest room is hiding fun toys to be wrapped. Yummy food has been bought. The decorations are being prepared. Cake making is being planned. Party dresses are being ironed. We are definitely getting ready for a Birthday Party!!

John puts together Anabelle's new tricycle.

I went to bed before he finished, here is what it will look like completed. More pics to come on Saturday!

The weekend

One of Anabelle's favorite things to do is to look at books. She loves to be read to and will bring you books and say "reese!" which of course means "will you please read this book to me?" She also loves to look at books on her own. Here she is on Saturday morning hanging out in one of her favorite "book nooks". She loves to sit in her room, buried underneath her stuffed animals and pull books off her shelf one at a time looking at each one until she is covered in a massive heap of books and must dig her way out.

Anabelle has lately increased her passion for the arts. For such a long time we tried to get her to enjoy coloring, but she didn't seem to show much interest. In the last week or so she has really become more interested in drawing, and now likes to sit and color with markers or crayons for quite a while. Here she is on Saturday afternoon working on a masterpiece.

Sunday we had some friends over to watch the Bears game, after the game was over we spent some time outside enjoying the beautiful weather. Anabelle watched the "big kids" play bags while eating her snack picnic style.

Then she decided to join in the fun. Although I am pretty sure the rules say that you can't walk on the board.

In our yard we have a HUGE butterfly bush. Last year it was pretty big, but this year it is really ginormous! I love to look at it through our kitchen window, it attracts butterflies, bumble bees, and humming birds, and is really fun to watch!

Sit!

One of our favorite things to do around here is to walk to the Barnes and Noble book store. It's a nice walk along the Riverwalk, not too far. It started as something to do in the winter months, and so when the weather got nice we kinda stopped going. The other day we were taking a walk downtown and when we passed the bookstore Anabelle pointed and let me know she wanted to go in by screaming loudly "go go!" We didn't have anything else to do, so in we went.

We took the elevator up to the 2nd floor and made our way to the children's area. The weather outside was beautiful, so we had the whole thing to ourselves, which was pretty nice. They have a large train table for the children to play with, so we played with that for a few minutes. But then Anabelle spied the stuffed animals. Lately she is very into gathering her stuffed animals and making them "sit!" in a line. She does this at home on the floor, couch, chairs, you name it. She frequently gets frustrated and wants you to make the animals "sit", it seems when she does it they fall over. She is very picky about where they must sit, and in what position. We are working on having her make the animals "sit".

Anyway... on this day she decided to take out all of the animals and have them "sit" on all of the story time benches. She was very good about doing almost all of them herself, except for a few who wouldn't cooperate, so Mommy helped. Here are all of her animals.

When it was time to go she was very good about putting all of the stuffed animals back on the shelves, with only a little bit of protesting about the very last one- the monkey in her arms. She seemed to have gotten attached to him, but I explained we have more monkeys at home and that seemed to work- for that day at least :)

play!

On Labor Day we went over to my Mom and Dad's for dinner. While there, Uncle Mike and Auntie Steph wanted to take Anabelle to the park nearby. Anabelle had a great time, and when they came back they even had some cute pictures to share with us. Thanks Mikey and Steph!

You can leave your hat on...

Anabelle has been very into hats lately. She loves to find hats and make you put them on, and sometimes she even likes to wear them herself. The other day I was cleaning out the hall closet and came across a hat that we got as a freebie from the children's expo that we attended last winter. It is from the company that sells Cuties (clementines). Anabelle immediately put it on and wore it for quite a while that day. She even wanted to wear it after her night time bath. That night before bed I got her to take it off and hang it the hook in her room. The next morning when I went in to get her the first words out of her mouth were "hat!". Not "mommy" or "hi" or even the "daddy?" that I sometimes get. But instead a emphatic "hat, hat, hat!" while pointing at the hat. So of course the hat went on and she wore it again for a few hours that morning. She looked so cute in it I had to snap a few photos.

Since that morning she likes to wear the Cuties hat for a little while when she comes across it, but thankfully she has gotten over the initial excitement. I think it would make for some hot days if she was determined to wear a winter hat to the park.

The other day I got Anabelle dressed and ready for a day of fun and she just looked so cute I decided to take her outside and snap a few pictures. I think she looks like a little school girl here with the polo and pleated skirt.

Hi! My name is Appabow.