It's a....

Well we just got back from the doctor's office and the news is..... we're having a boy!! Barrett is so excited to have another boy in the house. It's really funny because our nephew, Cameron, is 8 and he is like the family baby predictor. He knew Anna was a girl (the only one who said she was a girl) and knew he was getting a little sister when his mom was pregnant. This time he said we were having a boy and he was right again!! I think he needs to start getting paid for predicting babies or something!

I'll post another update soon about our wonderful Thanksgiving and stuff, but I just wanted to share the good news! By the way, this is the first grandson on my side of the family after 4 granddaughters so my family is pretty excited. My sister Miriam is due a couple of weeks after me though with her third baby and they are really hoping for a boy, so we'll see what happens! I hope she has a boy too so my little guy can have a boy cousin to play with!

Catching Up

Trying to catch up on the past month or so... what have we been doing? Lets see, going way back to October 17 we were able to go up to Orem, Utah for my Grandpa Andersen's 80th birthday party. It was really neat to be there and see lots of relatives that I haven't seen in years. My grandparents' 7 children were all able to come and be together for the first time in like 10 years so that was really neat for them. We didn't tell my parents we were going up so we surprised them when we got to my grandparents' house. It was so fun! It was a quick trip, but so worth the drive. I love family!

Beautiful drive through central Utah

My Grandparents and all their children

All the grandkids and great-grandkids in attendence

Barrett and I got sick with colds shortly after that trip and just couldn't seem to shake them after a couple of weeks. If you haven't realized my pregnancy ticker by now, I guess I will officially announce that baby #2 is on the way and due May 8. So that is one of the reasons I was so miserable with that cold...they are always 10 times worse when you are pregnant. Anyway, we are doing better now and Anna hasn't been too sick, so we are grateful!

We have had beautiful weather this fall and have enjoyed being able to go on walks outside for as long as we can. It is definitely getting colder, but we have had lots of sunshine! It's nice for Anna and Cooper and me to be able to get out of the house!



Anna is growing up so fast and amazes me every day with the things she knows. I just started getting her the children's Friend magazine and she LOVES it! She carries it around all day and points out "Doseph" and "Hevny Fader and Jesus." She talks so much and it is just amazing to me the things she understands. She was looking at the Friend the other day and told me "Hevny Fader and Jesus. Love ooh." I couldn't believe it! We have been teaching her in home evenings that Heavenly Father and Jesus love her, but she had never said it before and it was so out of the blue! She also pointed out Joseph Smith and stated "Pwophet." Children these days are so prepared to learn the gospel and are so in tune with the Spirit!

Anna also says some really funny things. Any time you ask her what she did in nursery or what she did that day she says "color." So Sunday morning we had to wake her up for church and she had some crazy bedhead hair. Barrett said, "Anna, you have some crazy hair! What were you doing last night?" and without any hesitation and still with very much sleep in her eyes she looked at him and said in a croaky morning voice "color." We had a good laugh at that one! Apparently she even likes to color in her sleep!

Anna is very good at letting us know what she wants and even asks nicely. She often sees something she wants (usually food) and says "Cereal. Get it. Pleeeease!" And then stands there waiting or repeating please over and over until we get it for her or convince her she doesn't need any. It's pretty funny. Sometimes she just walks into the kitchen and reaches her hands up as high as she can and asks please over and over and over and I don't even know what she wants because she just says please! I ask her what she wants and she just keeps saying please so then we have to play the guessing game... ha ha she keeps us on our toes and keeps us laughing. I'll include a funny video of her doing Cooper's tricks. She just started doing them one day when we were telling Cooper to and it is hilarious! Such a funny girl!

Anyway, this post is definitely long enough. We will be in Rexburg for Christmas from December 12th to Jan 10th or so so if you want to see us give us a call! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving this week! I am so thankful for the gospel and for family. What a wonderful season to remember the important things.

Riding on the bike!

Playing at one of Barrett's flag football games

Anna the ladybug with her dad the biker dude??? on Halloween

More videos

I'm starting her out young.....she'll be a runner yet! ha ha




And a hiker too!

Funniest Video!

Barrett took this video of Anna when I was being lazy one morning and was still in bed. He brought it up to me later and I laughed the whole time!! I love the slurping noises and how she can't reach the milk. My favorite part is when she gets the marshmallow stuck on her face. Oh, this girl cracks me up.

Fall is here!

I know it has been a long time since I updated this.... I don't even have a good excuse. I just haven't done it! So here is a little picture update for September. (Are you happy now Bethany? ha ha) I'll try to post a video or two soon.
It's been a beautiful month with temperatures in the 70's for the most part. We did have a few thunderstorms, but mostly it has been really nice. There are several parks near where we live so I try to go for a walk and take Anna a few times a week. She loves to swing and would do it all day if I let her! She also loves animals and gets excited every time she sees a bird flying or a cat or a dog. Fortunately for her there are tons of people in Flagstaff with dogs, so she gets to see lots of them besides Cooper. I don't think she even thinks of him as a dog. He's just Cooper.












































On Labor Day we went to the county fair. They did a really cool thing and said if people biked to the fair instead of driving they could get in free. So we went to the fair and didn't spend a dime! Yes, we were too cheapskate to even buy some fair food. It was so expensive! But we had fun biking there and walking around for awhile. Anna loved the animals, especially the turkeys for some reason. She kept saying gobble gobble at them! She knows her animal sounds so well and loves to say them to the animals! I don't know if the animals were too thrilled about it, but we sure had a great time.
Anna is a little bookworm! She loves to look at books and be read to. She brings me books all day long and asks "book? read?" It's pretty cute. We got a new bookshelf and put her books on the bottom and she seems to think her shelf makes a pretty good chair as well as a book holder! She sits in there all the time!


Anna is totally obsessed with shoes! She puts them on her dolls, stuffed animals, and even poor Cooper! He's such a good sport and puts up with anything from her.

I think this picture is hilarious! First of all, she's sitting in a baby bouncer and it's about hitting the floor... Second, she is wearing fuzzy boots that are 2 sizes too big with her church clothes (she loves to wear these boots as well as put them on her teddy bear). And third, she is holding Barrett's Portuguese bible. She doesn't even care if books don't have pictures. She just likes to carry them around and flip the pages. What a silly silly girl we have!

This picture doesn't show it very well, but Anna fell down and got a big dark bruise right on her cheek. She's also wearing the fuzzy boots again! By the way, I do do Anna's hair every day, even though it's not done in most of these pictures!


A couple of weeks ago we went for a little hike on a Saturday. We live so close to the mountains that we only have to drive a couple of miles to get to trail heads. This hike was pretty neat because it went from ponderosa pines to juniper trees (Barrett is standing by an enormous one we found) and then turned rather deserty with cactus and yucca plants. We got quite the variety of scenery! It was a fun little hike and nice to get out in nature. It was my birthday on the 24th and I turned 24! It seemed like my birthday all week because I got packages from family almost every day. Everyone was so nice! It was also because Barrett ordered me some things online and they didn't get here in time so I got presents after by birthday too! I'm posing with the delicious raspberry cheesecake I made myself. I don't know why I made so much for just us though, we still have some in the fridge and we have been eating it every day! It is really yummy though!



While I went to the Relief Society broadcast Saturday night Barrett tried to ship Anna off! ha ha
They had a lot of fun with a box of packing peanuts! I like how happy she is just chilling in the box surrounded by Styrofoam! Those two have a lot of fun together. Anna is so much of a mommy's girl still that sometimes I'm really glad to leave her with Barrett so they can have some good bonding time.

Well that about sums up our month. I'll try not to wait so long to post next time!

Flagstaff

Whew, now that we are here in Flagstaff and are over the unpacking and are back into the swing of things I have a few moments to blog! It's kinda a long story about getting our apartment and everything, so basically what happened is that we used rent.com to find our apartment so they had us emailing the manager through the website. Well we found out that I didn't get half of the emails from her, the most important being the one where she told us she got the application. Basically she gave up on us when she didn't hear back (because I never got her email) and almost gave our apartment away! We talked to her on Monday night August 3rd and headed down Friday the 7th. So that week was a crazy one of getting deposits sent, getting a Uhaul, and planning our trip. Barrett's parents were wonderful and helped us move. We drove both of our cars down (Barrett's mom rode with me to take care of Anna) and Barrett's dad drove his truck and pulled the Uhaul.

We took two days to get down here so we got to our apartment around 5:00 (Arizona time), signed our lease, and got moved in. Barrett's brother Jason also helped us move. It was so nice to have so much help. We were a little bit surprised at the apartment since we hadn't seen it at all before we came down, but it is a nice little place. It is a townhouse style so we have our bedrooms upstairs. I like it because it seems more like a house that way. I was sad to find out that there was no dishwasher, but it actually isn't that bad washing dishes by hand as long as I stay up on them.
Barrett's parents left on Sunday after we went to Sacrament meeting at our new ward. It was a fast trip for them, but we appreciate it! We have spent the past few weeks unpacking and organizing and exploring Flagstaff. The city design is very strange since all the major highways in Arizona run through the town. We quickly learned where to turn to not end up on the highway going to Phoenix or L.A.! The city is beautiful and covered in trees. We have found lots of parks and a trail system near our house so even though we don't have a yard at our apartment there are still lots of places for Anna to play.


Barrett started the physical therapy program a week ago and is excited about his experience here. It will be a lot more laid back than we thought (thank goodness) so I will actually get to see him a lot more than I thought! We also found out that his whole third year is just doing internships so we may only be in Flagstaff for two years. I think the time here is going to fly by. Barrett has a former mission companion, Mark Moss, who started the program with him. The weekend before they started school we went down to Mesa with Mark and his wife Paige and went to the temple and did some other fun things. It was so hot there! I couldn't believe it!


We counted that little day trip as part of our anniversary celebration. Our 3rd anniversary was on the 25th so we went out to eat at Olive Garden. I also surprised Barrett by buying some high heels for the occasion because he likes it when I wear them but I always refuse. He thought it was great! ha ha
We are just enjoying life here! Anyone is welcome to come visit us in the forest!

Finally some pictures!

I know these are really late in coming, but here is a slideshow of some of the things we've done this summer. Unfortunately there are a lot of things we have done that we didn't take pictures of either because we forgot the camera (both times we have gone camping) or we had it but didn't take any pictures (swimming and family stuff). But enjoy the pictures we do have!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Venting

Things are still going well for us, but I feel a little frustrated tonight. We are supposed to be moving to Arizona in two weeks and we still don't have a place to live. We tried to buy a manufactured home, but that fell through. We didn't end up selling our trailer and are renting it out instead. I was planning on having over $5000 from selling our trailer to cover deposits for apartments, moving costs, and other living expenses but now we may have to take out another loan. The cheapest places we can find to rent in Flagstaff are over $800 a month + utilities. Yuck.

I really am excited to move and have some new adventures, but it just seems like everything is against us moving there right now. I know things are going to work out and Barrett doesn't understand why I stress so much about this (neither do I, really!) but it really makes me nervous not to know what our plans are. I tend to be a person who likes to see the big picture and plan things ahead, so this is tough for me. Worst case scenario is that Barrett will have to go down without us to start school and find us a place to live and we'll come down after. Not a big deal. So why do I feel so uneasy? Who knows? I think I have a disease called antispontaneosity. Where is my sense of adventure? I should be jumping at the chance to have a little suspense in my life. It's like a good book or movie. Who knows what will happen to the Gibsons around the next turn? Stay tuned next week for the conclusion of this exciting adventure!

In the meantime we're enjoying nice weather, free food (we're living with Barrett's parents until we move), and fun with family. Anna gets cuter everyday and can always make me laugh. Thank goodness I have her to keep me entertained and to keep my mind off all this moving stuff!

Summer Time!

I love summers in Rexburg. This summer is crazy as they usually turn out to be. I am way behind on posting my pictures but hopefully I will get them on here soon. I figured it would be better to write about things without the pictures than do nothing at all! About a week ago we moved out of our little trailer house that has been our home for almost 3 years. We are living with Barrett's parents for about a month until we move to Arizona. Barrett's sister Jacque moved into our trailer so it was kinda funny helping her move into our old house. I'm actually not very sad to leave it though.
Since we have only had summer weather for a couple of weeks we haven't done a whole lot of summer activities yet. We did go canoeing with some friends about a week ago and had a lot of fun. Thanks Cody and Brittany! We have gone on lots of bike rides since I got a used baby bike seat for Anna. She loves to ride the "bipe"! I have been running quite a bit lately and really love it. I ran the 5k for the Teton dam marathon and just ran the 4th of July 5k. I have really enjoyed racing again after a 5 year break! I placed 3rd in the Teton dam 5k with a time of 24:04 and 3rd in my age group (7th overall) in the liberty 5k with a time of 22:10. I was pretty proud of myself because I only trained for a few weeks. I have forgotten how much I enjoy competing.
Anna is growing up so fast these days. She started walking around the first of June and hasn't stopped for a second. She loves to walk around the house carrying as many toys as she can fit in her chubby hands. She loves to climb things, especially stairs, so she really likes living at Grandma's house. Grandma also has a big back yard and a trampoline or "bouncy" as Anna calls it. She really likes to bounce. Anna talks so much that sometimes I forget she is only 14 months old. She can say over 40 words I think ( I keep losing count) and learns more all the time. It blows me away how fast she picks things up and how observant she is. She copies me all the time so I have to be really careful what I say and do!
We had a lot of birthdays in our families this past month or so. My sister Lara's was on the 17th of June, Barrett's sister in law Amy's was on the 20th, his sister Bethany's on the 29th, Barrett's on the 1st of July, and my brother Greg's on the 2nd. My niece Myah's birthday is on the 7th too. Lara Jane turned 12 this year and Greg turned 18! They make me feel so old! I've been graduated from high school 5 years now. I can't believe how much faster time goes when you are an adult. I remember being a kid thinking that it would be an eternity before I was grown up, but it went by really fast.
Anyway, we had a fun 4th of July just going to the parade and spending time with family. We are enjoying being close to family right now because we won't have anyone close when we move. It will be a big change for us, but I am excited to have a little adventure. I hope everyone's summer is going well!

Family Vacation

I have a lot of catching up to do, so here we go! May 11-18 we went on our first real family vacation. My sister Miriam and her family were living in Cleveland, Ohio so we went to visit them and see some Church history sites. She and her husband have two little girls: Hannah is 2 1/2 and Myah was 10 months. We flew into Detroit where they picked us up and then we drove into Ontario, Canada. We spent the night in London and drove to Niagara Falls the next day. It was a beautiful day! After enjoying several hours at the falls we drove to Rochester, New York and stayed the night there.
We spent the next day in Palmyra visiting all the Church sites there. We had beautiful weather and it was so wonderful to see the places where many important things happened. We were able to visit the Whitmer farm where the Church was officially organized, the hill Cumorah where the gold plates were buried, the Smith farm and the Sacred grove where Heavenly Father and Jesus appeared to Joseph Smith, and EB Granden's print shop where the Book of Mormon was printed for the first time. It was a lot to see in one day, but the girls were troopers and we had a great time. I especially loved the sacred grove. It looks like any other forest in the area, but has an amazing spirit because of the special event that happened there.
We stayed the night in Rochester again and then drove to Cleveland the next day. We did a lot of driving those first few days, so we all relazed that night and enjoyed being together. We went to Kirtland the next day and once again had a wonderful experience. We were able to visit the Whitney store with the school of the prophets room upstairs, the Whitney home, saw mill, and ashery, and of course the temple. Also at the visitors center they had a bronze sculpture exhibit that a woman named Amanda Johnson did of the Savior. The sculptures were beautiful and she has never taken a sculpting class or anything. We also visited the Morley farm, which was one of 3 places we saw that day where the Savior had appeared. The other two were the temple and the school of the prophets.
The next day was saturday and we went to the John Johnson farm in Hiram, Ohio. Joseph and Emma lived there for a time. That was where they lived when they lost their twins, adopted the Murdock twins, and lost one twin when the door was left open when Joseph was tarred and feathered. It was also the place where many of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants were given, including section 76. There was a special spirit in the revelation room upstairs in the farm house where those revelations were received.
On sunday Miriam's husband, Damon, graduated from dental school at Kase Western University. Barrett and I took all 3 girls to church while Miriam and Damon went to graduation. That was an adventure! We enjoyed being together that evening and the next morning before Damon drove us back to Detroit and we flew home.
It was a long trip with lots of mile covered, but we were so happy to be able to visit family before they moved and to see so many Church history sites. Thank you Miriam and Damon for taking us everywhere! We had a wonderful trip! Here is a slide show of the trip. More updates to come!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Doing the Mogli walk!

I hope you all enjoy this video because it makes me laugh my face off!



When Anna doesn't have pants on it hurts her knees to crawl on the kitchen floor so she discovered a way to crawl with bare legs without hurting her knees. We call it the Mogli crawl because she looks like Mogli on Jungle Book when he's trying to be an elephant. It really is the funniest thing ever. She will crawl along just like normal on the carpet and as soon as she hits the hard floor she starts the Mogli crawl. Pretty smart, actually, but it is so funny. She keeps her knees all straight and sticks her little bum in the air. It is so cute!

Happy Birthday Anna!

It was Anna's first birthday on Sunday, April 19th. This year has gone by so fast! I can't believe how quickly she is growing up. On her birthday we did our normal Sunday routine: church and dinner at my parents' house. Then at 7:00 we went to her Grandma & Grandpa Gibson's house and had a little party. We took lots of pictures of Anna, but I realized after it was all over that we didn't even take pictures of all the family that was there. We didn't even get a picture of Anna with her Daddy on her birthday! :( I'm sad about that, but I guess you live and learn! It was a fun little party anyway. Both sets of grandparents were there along with my brother Greg, sister Lara Jane, Barrett's brother Jason was there and his sister Jacque, her husband Ricky, and their kids Cameron and Katelyn.

We let Anna open her presents first (after she walked all the way across the living room between Barrett and I!) She got spoiled! She got two Little People play sets: a boat and a farmer with a tractor. She also got a book, a toy phone, and a ball. She loves them all!

We sang happy birthday to Anna and lit one candle. We thought she was going to attack the cake when we let her at it because she was struggling in my arms to get to it while we sang to her. It turned out that she really only wanted the candle though! When we let her get the cake she just took little pieces out of one corner and was really dainty about the whole thing. Grandpa Gibson tried to show her how it was done, but she liked doing it her way (big suprise). Here's a slideshow of her party:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I just wanted to include some things about Anna in this post. She is a really happy girl most of the time and loves to make us laugh. She recently discovered how to fake laugh and knows it's really funny! Anna says quite a few words including daddy, momma, hot, hi, hat, and out. She is working on learning a few more, but mostly she just says daddy to everything. It is really funny. It usually goes something like this:

Me: Anna, do you want a cracker? Can you say cracker?
Anna: Daddy!
Me: Not daddy, cracker.
Anna: Daddy!
Me: close enough. Can you say thank you?
Anna: Daddy!

Me: Anna, that is a doggy. Can you say doggy?
Anna: Daddy!
Me: that's close! Do you want to go visit Grammy?
Anna: Daddy!
Me: I give up!

She cracks me up! Anna is a really good eater and loves almost everything I give her. Some of her favorites are pasta, cheese, hot dogs (really great, I know.), crackers, and bananas. She loves to feed herself and I have to be careful because she stuffs everything into her mouth at once! Anna had her 12 month doctor's appointment on Monday. She still weighs 21 lbs (she hasn't gained weight for almost 6 months) and is about 30 inches tall, so she is getting tall and skinny! She still has some baby chub but she has thinned out a lot. The doctor said she is healthy and doing great. She had to get 6 shots, though, so that was sad.

Anna is a little busybody and gets into anything she can. She still won't walk on her own because she is so scared of falling down, but she is a really fast crawler! She is really good to play on her own while I am busy and loves looking at her books. She also likes to dance and is learning the actions to songs. It amazes me how quickly children pick things up! Anna loves to be outside and loves to climb things. She enjoys riding in the stroller when we go walking or running. She has the cutest little voice and is very expressive. She is always noticing things and making little voice inflections to express herself.

Well I've made this post really long already, so I'll stop here. I'm just adding one more thing: here are pictures of Anna a year ago and one now. She has grown so much! We love our sweet little girl!

Easter and stuff

Yes I have been slacking off in my posting. Anna has been sick quite a bit in the past few weeks and she requires a lot more attention when she doesn't feel well. Barrett graduated last week (congrats honey!) so that has been a big relief for all of us. It is nice to see him a little more often and to have him be able to spend time with us at home instead of doing homework. We're still waiting for the weather to warm up so we can do some fun outdoor stuff. We are looking for a baby bike seat so we can go on bike rides with Anna so if you hear of anyone selling one let us know!

Conference weekend was fun to spend time with family. We watched most of the sessions at Barrett's parents' house and had fun spending time with his family. My sister-in-law Amy was up from Utah so we had all 5 grandkids on that side together. They were really fun to watch together. back: Cameron (7), Hailey (3)
front: Katelyn (8 mos), Carson (2 mos), Anna (11 mos)

It's amazing how much watching conference changes when you have little ones. I'm definitely going to have to read the talks over again since I missed bits and pieces of most of them. I still really enjoyed conference weekend and seeing our wonderful leaders.

We had a fun Easter weekend last week. My mom did an egg hunt for us on Saturday and then we had a nice dinner at my parents' on Sunday. Anna was so cute looking for eggs on Saturday and in her Easter dress on Sunday.

Showing off the eggs in her Easter basket



Modeling her cute Easter dress. It's size 24 months!

Anna loves to walk around holding someone's hand. She will take a few steps on her own if we make her walk in between us, but is still too scared to try walking by herself. I'm not in any big hurry to have her walk though. She gets into enough stuff already! She is such a happy baby and makes me smile. She has figured out that everyone thinks it's really funny when she does a fake laugh (it is really funny!) so she does that quite often. She will be a year old on Sunday the 19th so I will do another post after that for her birthday.

Congratulations Barrett!!

This post is dedicated to my wonderful husband, Barrett. He has been so busy this semester trying to finish up school and traveling all over for grad school interviews. We found out on Saturday that he got accepted to physical therapy school at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. That was where Barrett really wanted to go at first so we're pretty excited. He starts in the fall so we'll probably be moving down there in August. Way to go honey! I'm so proud of you!

Barrett has put up with a lot from me this semester.... ok this past year trying to adjust from being busy on the go all the time to stay at home mom. Lets just say I have a lot to learn about being a wife and mother instead of being a very busy student! Barrett has been so sweet and understanding and he always makes time to listen to me. He is so good with Anna and tries to spend time with her every day. We can't wait for this semester to be over so we can spend more time together as a family.

I love you so much, Barrett, and I am so proud of you! Thank you for working so hard to take care of us!

Is it spring yet?

I've been a slacker about posting lately. Anna has been sick on and off for the past month and I've been putting it off because it takes so darn long to upload photos and stuff on here. Then the other day I was looking at someone else's blog and discovered smilebox. It is sooooo much faster at uploading photos and videos!
So this post is dedicated to smilebox and the wonderful winter adventures we have been having cooped up in the house. Anna is extremely active these days and gets into everything...Cooper's food, plants, the laptop, dvd player, garbage, etc etc. She is so much fun though and is even talking a little. She says Daddy all day long (of course not mommy) and even calls Cooper daddy. It's hilarious! She also says hi to us and hot when she goes near the heaters. Here is a little slideshow! Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Gibson Look-alike Meter

Our suspicions were confirmed....

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Patience is a virtue...one I don't posses!

At this very moment Anna is in bed, where she has been for almost an hour and a half without sleeping. If this were a one time experience I would not be writing about it, but I am at the end of my patience at the moment because she does this quite often. It's always in the afternoon or evening; she goes down for her morning nap without a fight.
Here's the routine: nurse Anna, make sure her diaper is clean, then lay her down in bed with her pacifier and bear blanky.
1 minute later: Anna is standing up in her crib, banging on the wall and yelling and babbling.
2 minutes after that: Anna is tired of banging and yelling but can't get down from the side of the crib. Begins screaming.
Few seconds later: I go in her room, lay her down again, crawl on the floor for 2 minutes looking for the thrown pacifier, put it in Anna's mouth, tell her to go to sleep, leave.
Repeat. Over and over and over. For 2 hours.
After 2 hours: nurse Anna again (she's hungry by now) and she goes to sleep while nursing. Frustration.
Right now I'm trying to decide if it is worth it for her to go to sleep on her own or if I should just go nurse her. It is so frustrating because I know she can go to sleep on her own; she usually does in the morning. I always have this dilemma of whether I should feed her and let her go to sleep eating or whether I should keep laying her down until she goes to sleep. It's basically a lose-lose situation for me because she doesn't go to sleep on her own when I feed her, but if I don't feed her she won't sleep very long because she is hungry. What to do?
I always give in. She's just too pathetic.
Oh, I forgot the step where she cries uncontrollably until I pick her up and try to rock her to sleep. After several minutes of trying to control the squirming Anna is placed back in bed to scream again. I love being a mom!

The Amazing Anna-mobile!

Apparently I was a little premature on my statement in my last post about Anna not crawling yet. The next morning after I posted that I looked down at her playing with her toys and noticed her slowly making her way across the living room! I was so excited! I'm sure all of you more experienced moms are thinking t yourselves, "she's acting excited now, but just wait until Anna starts getting into everything!" I just want to state that I am fully aware of the joys of having a mobile baby! The main reason I am so excited for her to be crawling is so that she can get to her toys on her own and doesn't have cry and scream with frustration at not being able to move. And really, I feel more sorry for the dog than anything because now she can catch him and pull at his fur! Poor Cooper! Anyway, here is a video of her cute beginning crawling. (She's still a little slow and hasn't quite got the technique down yet).

Four hours later.... I have tried uploading the video twice only to have it tell me something went wrong. So if you want to see the video of Anna crawling go to my facebook!

A long needed update

I haven't posted much for awhile so I'll just give a short update. We had a really nice Christmas with both Barrett's family and mine. It's fun having both of our families so close because we get to open presents at both houses so it's like having two Christmases! We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at my parents' house (where Anna decided not to sleep) and the rest of Christmas day at the Gibson's. Anna had a lot of fun ripping the paper off her presents and playing with her new toys. She was actually really good, especially since she hadn't slept well for 2 days. (We are still working on the going to sleep on her own thing).

We didn't do anything really exciting during Barrett's break from school, just enjoyed spending time together and with family. On new years eve we stayed at my parents' again so we could stay up late and not have to wake Anna up to go home. She slept a lot better that night (thank goodness!)

Anna is growing up so fast. She is still not crawling, but she gets around somehow by scooting on her stomach. I think she uses her toes or something. I think she will get the hang of it soon. She is so close...but then again I've been saying that for like 2 months! Either way she would rather walk around holding my hands all day. She loves to stand up next to the furniture or anything she can. She just learned how to clap her hands last week and it is so cute! I'll have to put a video on here of her clapping. She thinks she is so funny. We love her!

Barrett started classes again this week. He is so ready to be done with school here. I think he's already counting down the days until he graduates in April. We won't find out if he's been accepted to physical therapy school anywhere until February or March. I can't wait to find out where we'll be moving!

Well, I've written enough and Anna is crying for my attention. I'll try to stay more up to date in the future. There are more pictures on my facebook because they upload way faster.

Opening presents at my parents' house.

Opening presents on Uncle John's lap at Barrett's parents'. She was so tired!

By request...

This is Anna's latest trick. She is so funny!