Dreams & Aspirations

With each passing day, Anna's vocabulary grows - so much so that you can almost have "real" conversations with her. One endearing feature of this is that Anna will try really hard to tell you stories. The stories always start with, "Mama - remember this?", and then she babbles for a minute or so and you can usually pluck a few recognizeable words out of the stream - like Tope, Jake, eat, ice cream, Hayla, car, doggie, the fair, book and dancers (all of her favorite things). And then she ends the story with "Remember this?" It's really cute but each time I try to capture it on video she clams up.

Her talking usually takes a turn towards the silly but I am grateful for the new levels of communication we are experiencing these days. Which brings me to the "Dreams" part of this post...

A couple of weeks ago I had just gotten Anna up in the morning and while I was changing her diaper, she started laughing and said, "Mama. Tope outside. Swinging. Tope outside. Silly Tope. Swinging. Silly." She giggled the entire time she talked. Tope was nowhere to be seen at the time (and clearly doesn't swing outside), so, I asked her, "When did you see Tope outside swinging?" She answered, "At night." Then she laughed and told the story all over again. It struck me then, that she might be telling me about a dream she had. So I asked if she had seen Tope in her head while she was sleeping and she said yes! Now, whether or not it is the case, I choose to believe that it was a dream and it thrills me that she can use her growing chatterbox skills to tell us about them!

Now, as for asipirations, I asked her for the first time this weekend what she wanted to be when she grew up. Without a moment's hesitation and in as serious a tone as an almost-two-year-old can muster, she answered, "Princess." (I agree with Liz, there is a Disney marketing fairy!) Thinking that was too cute to not be captured on video, I whipped out the camera and asked again. This time, she pondered the question a little longer and decided being a princess wasn't for her. Her silly side prevailed and she chose a much more attainable goal...which, if I'm honest, she meets on a daily basis.

All's Fair

We recently took advantage of one of the few beautiful, non-rainy weekend days (which have been few and far between) and spent the morning at a local school fair. We gave Anna the option of going to the zoo or the fair, and she enthusiastically chose the fair. Not that she had any idea what a fair was, but apparently it sounded more fun than the zoo.

To Anna's delight, she got to play in several bouncehouses and had her first pony ride. She was a bit unsure of the horse at first, but warmed up by the third lap (so, pretty much when the ride was over).

As if that wasn't enough excitement, she also got to decorate a cookie, ate Nerds for the first time, and had her first shaved ice, which pretty much cemented the fair as one of her favorite activities ever. Ah, the little pleasures...

Stop Growing!

My sister gave me the cute overalls and shirt below at my baby shower. I remember thinking then, at seven months pregnant, that it would be FOREVER before Anna would wear them. Turns out FOREVER came really fast. It blows my mind!


Anyways, Anna donned the outfit for the first time this week and helped decorate for Halloween, a task she took very seriously.



Later in the day, Tope enjoyed the fruits of our decorating labor...if she were all black, this would be a very Halloween-y picture!

Crazy Feet

Anna has crazy feet - thanks to these CUTE slipper socks knit by Grammy Bergstrom. Thanks, Grammy!