Annika's 1st Birthday!

We can't believe it's been a year since we were blessed with our sweet baby girl. To commemorate her birthday, we'll start with a list of accomplishments and favorites of Annika at year:

• She says a few words (in her own special way) like Ezra, bottle, Mom, Dad, milk, uh-oh
• She's mastered the "half-crawl/half-walk." She can pretty much keep up with Ezra using this surprisingly effective scoot.
• She's mastered eating. She will eat anything- she really will. Although her most favorite thing to eat is the french fry- she is quite the fan!
• She loves alone time with Mommy and Daddy. She really loves her big brother, but when he is not around she just blossoms with all the extra attention.
• She is an amateur climber. I've found her up on Ezra's bed (beaming with pride- of course), up on a chair with one leg flung over the top (that one nearly gave Mom a heart attack at the sight!), in the laundry basket, and on top of a picnic table (it was a kid's size one---but still!). We will have to watch this one a little closer I think.
• She is starting to like to draw. She likes to draw on the magna doodle and with Daddy's pen.
• She loves Elmo most of all (this was true until she received her pink princess couch for her birthday- I've never seen anything like the spasms she has when she sees it!). But back to Elmo for a minute....we never ever watch Sesame Street so I don't know where she gets it, but anytime she sees an Elmo doll she has a conniption! 
• She's the cutest, silliest, happiest little thing and we can't stand how much we love her.

Back to Annika's Birthday:

This is the birthday girl upon waking. Annika knew it was going to be a good day when she woke up to a room full of balloons! 

And the opening of presents begins! Ezra gave her this toy and it was a hit--mostly because it has Elmo. Ezra picked this toy all by himself and he was so proud when he gave it to her! He really knows what she likes!

This is the invitation that Sarah made for Annika's birthday party. We got a TON of compliments on it. She did a really great job--she should go into business. Thanks a lot!

Annika's birthday party was held at the community center and she had many of her closest friends in attendance! Here she is in the crown and tutu Christina made. She looked like such a doll! When she came into the room, she beamed at everyone who was looking at her and pranced around the room, holding mommy's fingers. 

Our first game was "balloon time," where everyone danced around with balloons. As you can see, this was a big hit with Ezra!

After playing with balloons for a while, Josh wowed the crowd with renditions of some favorite songs: the ABCs, itsy-bitsy spider, and "if you are happy and you know it." The kids really loved it--I think we had to sing every song at least twice! Thanks to Josh, Annika had a live band at her very first birthday! Thanks Josh!

One of the first games we played was "London Bridge," which turned out to be a hilarious disaster. Jonathan was supposed to lead the games, but he had no idea now to play the game. Luckily, Jethro explained it so we could sort of understand. I'm not sure we ever did it right, but it was pretty fun!

We also played Ring around the Rosies, which is a favorite game around our house. Annika really had a good time walking with the big kids and falling down when they did. We also played Red Light, Green Light and Duck, Duck, Goose.

After games, it was time for cake. Christina made Annika a cute little cake and we gave it to her to enjoy. Sarah also made some delicious banana bites and jello cups, which were really yummy and the perfect accompaniment to cake! Here is Annika trying to blow out the candle, which worked with a little help from Dad.

Plotting her next move, Annika gets a good look at the cake. She's on the floor, by the way, because we forgot to bring her high chair to the community center...Oops!

Feeling it out, sizing it up...Annika must be pinching herself, wondering "Could this be real? Could this really be a cake just for me?" Only one way to find out!!!

Dunk your head in it! This was her preferred method of cake eating. I wonder if there is a scientific study somewhere out there concerning the relationship between the way babies eat their first birthday cake and their personalities? 

Dad agreed to hold the cake for Annika, and she kept digging in. She took enormous bites!!!

All smiles! Really, this moment is the apex of Annika's life thus far. You would have thought somebody had just handed her the world! And, notice the wonderful cupcake bib, courtesy of Christina!

After cake (and the ensuing mess), it was time for Annika to open her presents. She got so many, she was completely overwhelmed and began asking for mommy. Overall, I think you'll see she did okay in the toy department...

Not a bad haul, huh? This is us on the way home, with 900 pounds of toys and gifts from everyone. 

Thanks to everyone who came to Annika's party. It was a great success! Annika really felt special today! And even more thanks to all those who helped us make it a great party!

Potty Training

This is what I've been up lately. Well, this and cleaning up a lot of messes! We're getting there, so wish me luck! The other little boy in this picture is Dylan (who is also in the process of learning to use the potty). They are both doing pretty good! 

"Uh-Oh!"

As Annika rapidly approaches the one-year mark (only 11 days left to go!) we have marveled at the ways in which she appears less like a baby every day. We've heard her say a few words, for instance, but were never really able to reproduce them. Tonight, she said the first "official" word: "uh-oh." She repeated it countless times, clear as a bell, and seemed to really get a kick out of all of us (Ezra included) laughing and telling her to do it again. It was a real milestone. Of course, we're not entirely sure what to think about the fact that her first word was "uh-oh" since we rarely say it around the house; we hope, at least, that this does not foreshadow a clumsy or otherwise accident-prone child!

It also reminds us of that time, not so long ago(!) when Ezra said his first word. Of course, we were also worried about his word...which was, of course, "Ezra." What kid says their own name as their first word? What kind of narcissist were were raising? 

Anyway, it reminds me of something the linguist Steven Pinker said in his book "How the Mind Works." To paraphrase: we spend our lives worshiping the achievements of Shakespeare, or Darwin, Freud, Dickens, or countless others, for their ingenuity, perseverance, genius. But nothing they could ever do compares in the least to the average child's growth between the ages of zero and two. 

It's really true--to think that just one year ago, Annika was born without a clue how to identify the world around her or what to make of existence, and now, just a year later, she's mastered so many big parts of life. And speech is probably the greatest advance any child can make. It's extraordinary. 

Congrats, Annika!

(Oh, and by the way, here are some great pictures Christina's friend Kayli took of Annika when she was a wee little one. How cute!) 

The Fort

As many people may know, Christina's parents have moved from Wyoming to Utah. When Christina was in Wyoming helping her parents pack their stuff, she really wanted to find the little fort she and her brother Alan received as a Christmas gift when Christina was about 5 years old. Christina's mother and grandmother made the fort themselves, and Christina wanted to make sure Ezra and Annika could play with it. Unfortunately, nobody could find the fort when they were packing.

Luckily, we got a surprise package a few days ago from Christina's mom that had the fort inside. We immediately went to the store and bought a card table. Unfortunately, however, the card table (like everything else in America) got bigger over the past 20 years or so. So Christina spent the past few days taking the fort apart, sewing on an expansion, and making sure everything fits just right. She just finished tonight and Ezra and Annika will be so excited when the morning comes and they can play in their new fort!

ICE CREAM TEST RESULTS:

Christina :

You are passionate, creative, and inspired. Black raspberry ice cream is an unusual color and flavor, so some people might consider it strange, but your exciting personality is what makes you so delicious. You bring a juicy burst of flavor to everything you do, and your life is packed with one memorable experience after another.

3% of the people who took this quiz got the same evaluation.

Jonathan:

You're as popular and relaxing as vanilla ice cream. You go with the flow, and get along with all sorts of people. You appreciate peace and simplicity, so you sometimes find crowds and loud noises overwhelming. You are a chilled-out, calming influence on the people in your life, and your friends appreciate how supportive and flexible you are. 

32% of the people who took this quiz got the same evaluation.

All of this "ice cream personality" stuff really makes me want to have some ice cream... is there anyone out there who has an ice cream maker we could borrow? We're going to try some black raspberry ice cream--it sounds interesting!

Ezra's Creative Side Showing!

Lately, Ezra's creativity has gone through a bit of an explosion. This can be good--he's learning to make things himself and having fun imagining different worlds and trying to mimick what Mom and Dad do. For instance, he often says "I'm going to work. Love you. See you later" and he packs a backpack and walks into the living room. After a while, he comes back and says "I'm home" and explains that he plays with Dad and Dustin (our neighbor who is also a grad student) at work all day. Of course, it can also be very amusing, as Ezra has really fancied "made up conversations" lately in order to get what he wants. He will say something like, "Annika told mommy 'I don't want to go to the playground I need a nap' and mommy say 'you go time-out' yesterday. She said that. Annika did" or something to that effect. Or he will say that mommy gives him cookies in order to try to get dad to give him cookies. The more frightening made up stories include: "Annika punched my face and pushed me into the ground. She did that yesterday" and variations on that general theme. 

Anyway, so these are some of the more interesting bits of creativity Ezra explored in recent days. 

When Ezra wants to wear sunglasses, he always gathers all the glasses he can find in order to try to balance them on his face. Here he actually managed to put three pairs of sunglasses on his face at the same time! He was pretty proud of himself!

Usually when Ezra is completely quiet for 30 minutes or so one prepares for a disaster of sorts. On this day, however, he cleaned all the toys in his room so that he could play with his blocks. He got the blocks and a while later called for Dad to enter the room and see what he made. When Dad came in Ezra said, "Daddy, look at my airplane. See it? It goes high in the sky to Grandma's house!" If you look at it, it is really a pretty good rendition of an airplane. And, of course, all airplanes go straight to grandma's house!

Quote of the day

Today I received this email and I thought I would share it. It is a quote from the Relief Society lesson on Sunday. I'm in the Primary now and I miss going- although I do enjoy being with the little kids. I've thought a lot about what it means to have charity and what one has to do in order to obtain it. It is a lot to think about but I really think that working to have charity is one of the most important things we can do-- but also the hardest. 

"Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you
acquire and make a part of yourself. And when the virtue of charity
becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again. …

"Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other,
when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give
each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is
accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having
patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to
become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might
have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's
weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity
is expecting the best of each other"

Elder Marvin J. Ashton (1915–94) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:"The Tongue Can Be a Sharp
Sword," Ensign, May 1992, 19)."