Playgrounds and Horses....

As Anna gets older, we have really enjoyed each new adventure with her. She is now, as I said in the previous post, really stretching her new found Independence. We have been frequenting playgrounds a lot more now that she can walk up the stairs and go down the slide by herself. We went to the private school playground that is across the street from our house (which rocks!..no pun intended ) and took some pictures with Granny's camera before I had to take it back the next day.

It looks like she was flying down that slide...she was actually still! The wind was blowing really hard and she was laughing!

Having fun riding the see-saw horses.

Down the slide on her belly backwards, smiling at mommy.

Okay, she LOVES rocks. She picked them up and yelled "rocks!," and Stephen captured this picture which does just that. I LOVE IT!

Here she is, giving me her rocks.

On another note, we went to my parent's house last Saturday and had dinner since we were not going to be spending Easter Sunday with them, and Anna got the chance to ride a horse. My dad has bred and broken Quarter horses as long as I can remember, and it really is a labor of love. I think he always wanted my brothers and I to share in his love of horses, but he has never said it and never forced it onto us and unfortunately we just aren't into horses as much as he is. After dinner, Dad asked if I would want him to saddle up Gabby (the calmest horse to ever live ) and see if Anna would want to ride with him. I was all about it, cause really, I just wanted to see what she would do. She is fairly wimpy about some things, so I was just curious if she would actually get on the thing. Plus, I knew it would make him happy if she was into it.

So he saddled Gabby up and we spent some time petting her before I actually handed Anna over to dad. She was a little skeptical at first, but once she was on the horse and knew she was with J-Paw, things were great. They rode for a minute, (he just walked Gabby ) and then I let Anna get down, so she could watch J-Paw run the horse. After that, he rode back over to us and I asked her if she wanted to ride again. She said, yes, and lifted up her hands to go to J-Paw. Dad beamed, and gave her a kiss and said, "You don't know how happy that makes me baby." I think more than anything, just the fact that she wasn't scared made him happy. And it made me happy too. Hope you have a great week and enjoy the pics.

Checking out the horse, while T-Ma pets her. Not too sure...

Giving her a pat. Nice and soft....not too scary.

Having a good time with J-Paw

Second ride, much more comfortable sitting on the saddle, and holding the horn.

Ode to Family and a Little Independence (LONGEST POST EVER!!)

Alright, DISCLAIMER!! I know this is long, but I can't help it...there was A LOT to say and show you!

My mother-in-law's birthday was on Friday the 21st. We decided this year we were going to celebrate Easter and the big six O birthday of Peggy Summers on the same day. : ) SO, this is my Ode to the Summers Family. They rock on so many different levels, but here are a few, please see pictures below if you don't believe me.

They love to sit around and chat about things like levers and fulcrums, amongst other things.

( no picture for proof, but if you don't believe me, ask my brother Judd, who as a science teacher, was the authority we called to settle the debate).Pat Summers, Julie Click and Sherman Click (Stephen's aunt and uncle)

Tiaras are involved in your birthday, regardless of age, and multiple people must wear it during the day.Anna and birthday granny in a pretty tiara

Kaylee sporting the tiara

Karen (Stephen's sister ) sporting the tiara

They love each other regardless and come together on holidays and special occasions for each other. (the kindness abounds!)
They like to have fun and most of the time, food, GOOD food, is involved.
Anna seemed to get really fussy once we got to Rockport (see her TOTALLY losing it in the picture with the confetti above..and Stephen's concerned look). She had a 101 temp under her arm (which means it is actually higher..apparently the armpit isn't a good gauge for internal temp). She hunted eggs and did OK once we had her all hopped up on Ibuprofen, but she wasn't her funny self. So, you can see how excited she is in these pics. LOVE the diva "don't mess with me" look.

Anyway, after being on antibiotics for a few doses she is perking up. Stephen took Monday to stay home and I stayed home today with her (her fever has to be scarce for 24 hours before she can go back to school ) and got some hysterical pics of her eating yogurt. She is in the independent stage where she wants to do everything herself. So, here she is making a mess, but, she is eating yogurt by herself. Notice the large ghetto bib. I had regular ones, but didn't think it would catch all the spillage...and man was I right. : ) My mother-in-law left her camera here so it could finish downloading pictures the other day and man was I having a ball playing around with that thing. It is amazing how much clearer a digital SLR is compared to just a regular ole' digital camera. Anyway, enjoy the pics and have a fabulous week!How sweet is that face! UH!

Weekend with Kaylee...part deux

I had to pay homage to I love the 80's on VH1. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, it really doesn't matter. Anyway, I flew to Dallas this weekend with my niece, Kaylee. She has never flown, and man was I excited about that experience...really...I was. She is so funny and it was really cute. She had a great time, didn't freak out, and was fairly charming to those on the plane around us. Here is her picture as we were about to take off.
We had a good time. We had a connecting flight, where we just stopped in Houston and never got off the flight, just waited for new passengers to get aboard and head on to the next destination.
While in Dallas we had our eyes checked by Dr. Karen Summers ( my sister-in-law) and I was good, no glasses needed ( yet). She says I will need them when I hit around 40. Kaylee however was in need of glasses for reading and school work, so she will get a new pair of purple glasses in the next few weeks. I will post a pic later....she looks pretty cute. I like the way glasses look on me ( isn't it the way it goes, if you need them, you don't want them...if you don't, you are itchin to wear them. ) so Karen let me wear a pair that had a small prescription on Sunday when we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. OK, let me just tell you, this is ONE ROCKIN ZOO. I had a BLAST. Every animal you could think of, except Panda's, only in San Diego I discovered, and it was just a very NICE zoo. See pics below....



This is Kaylee in front of the male lion that we saw. He stood up while we were watching him and started to roar....yes that is what I said. I bet you are thinking...that is so cool, I wish I could have seen that. WELL....lucky for you, I had my video camera. I was SO stoked that I captured this majestic animal on film doing something most don't get a chance to see.

He sounds kind of wimpy on camera, but in person, it was pretty amazing and VERY loud.

Last but not least, the story of the weekend. Kaylee has a Barbie that her Aunt Karen got for her. She is like a beach Barbie or something, with a bathing suit and glasses and all that. First of all, she wanted everyone to wear the Barbie's glasses, including her, see picture below. Also, she named her. The story goes like this. We are all laying on Karen's bed watching Wonder Pets, which is a HYSTERICAL show if you get the chance, anyway, she says about her Barbie,
"Her name is Hannah." Which we think, ah, what a pretty name. Then she says ( with a strait face mind you), "that's her last name, her first name is Cockstube". Karen and I about wet our pants. She had been gibbering randomly earlier and apparently came up with Cockstube, and liked it. So also shown are some pictures with Karen and Kaylee and Cockstube Hannah. (notice how Cockstube Hannah is waving at you) Sorry about the red eye...my removal thing on my computer is on the fritz. Last but not least, the flight home, she looks SO innocent. Love it. I wish the people who sat in front of her that she inadvertently kicked most of the way home could have seen this. She really is awesome. You just have to take two breathes and remind yourself of it sometimes. : ) Five year olds are relentless and if you are a parent of one, or you teach Kindergarten (Tommie I don't know how you do it! ) let me know and I will pray for you often. : ) Have a great week!

Weekend with kaylee...part one

So this past weekend, Kaylee, my niece, came to visit. As you know from past posts that Anna absolutely adores Kaylee. As do I. Here are some reason's why Kaylee is the best...around. (If you are singing the Karate Kid theme song....you ROCK)

#1 She makes Anna laugh ( see previous post and laugh really hard)

#2 She says things like," have a lovely day!" to random strangers. ( how awesome is that?
What 5 year old uses the word lovely?)

#3 She is amazingly resilient. This is a little girl who lost her mother a year ago this week, and
was uprooted and moved across the nation with a new family, with a new school and new friends. She learned to read in 9 months and can spell her full name when she couldn't tell you what an "A" looked like last March. (WOW.)

#4 She is part of one of my favorite memories that speak to the sweetness of a child. Quickly:

She came to visit one weekend after we had just moved to corpus, and she was having problems with associating the appropriate word in the right place, like, she would say "WHO are we having for dinner instead of WHAT are we having for dinner. She had these issues with the five W's. So she is visiting and I put her to bed in Anna's room. At about 3 in the morning I wake up because someone is talking. I hear in the monitor, Kaylee say, "who am I?" Then, she says, in a very sweet voice that sounded soothed, "Anna." I realized as I lay there that she meant, WHERE am I. She woke up and didn't know where she was, and seeing Anna's crib reminded her and she was comforted. UH...it was GREAT. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Here are a few pics of Kaylee Marie that are my favorites.

And I HAVE to add these, because they are SO cool! You may think they are scary, but this is ALL natural, no filters or messing with the color contrast in Adobe. These were taken in the slide at Chic-fil-a this last Saturday. I love the way they turned out and I am thinking about painting them for her room. Very fun! I like how the pictures look like they are in progression.

Anyway, i hope you don't have nightmares about my red-orange child....but I think they are cool. : ) Have a great week..you will get more pictures of me and Kaylee soon and I am sure some stories, since we are flying to Dallas to hang with Aunt Karen next weekend.

A few things that make me smile....

The weather has been really pretty here lately, and in the evenings we will take Anna outside and let her play for a while. This really makes me happy. When I was in college I would eat lunch with the squirrels on campus during the spring and have a chat with God. Being outdoors always makes me feel closer to Him, and I love that feeling while spending time with my family.

We took some pictures the other day while outside and some turned out ok, but the main thing I want to point out about these pictures is why we took them. Anna has refused to have anything to do with girly stuff like putting up her hair. I find this is true with most toddler girls because they are too fussy to let their mothers touch their hair, so I try not to come down too hard on her. : ) However, when I see Tessa Grace with her hair up, I sigh a bit, because she looks SO cute and I know Anna has all this cute potential ready to be unleashed!


Anyway, the day of the pictures Anna had let her teacher at school put up her hair in pig tails. Anna had actually requested it by grabbing the rubber bands and taking them to her teacher. YEAH! This made me SO happy because there are now possibly some "hair up" days in my future! Apparently some of the other girls were getting their hair put up. ( they were having a "salon" day ) Who says peer pressure is a bad thing?! Anyway, the pictures unleashed the cute potential I knew was within her. : )
And lastly. You. You all make us smile. In moving to Corpus and with all of the sickness going around, socialization has not been something we have had a lot of time for. I have though, at night, when Stephen is at work, had time to blog and look at your blog. It does my heart good to see you and know that things are going good or bad, to read encouragement in comments and feel encouraged by your stories. I think this whole bloggin thing has really been a great blessing for Stephen and I. (thanks Holly) We LOVE to share our precious child with our family who lives far away, whether you are blood or not. : ) And we LOVE having the window into your world to know how you are doing.

How sweet is this picture?? I just love the "feel" of the lighting.

Precious moments on film.....

Here is the video I promised a post or two back showing Anna and her cousin Kaylee. Like I said, Kaylee makes her laugh. In fact, after videoing her and her Great Granny, I have
figured out that most everyone makes Anna laugh.

We went to East Texas this past weekend to visit my Granny. ( My mom's mom. ) Mom had to do double duty on this trip and spend some time with a dear friend who had just lost her mother. While she was in Whitehouse, we spent some quality time with Great Granny. Apparently she cracks Anna up too.
She was perfect this weekend, sleeping when I wanted her too, eating all food prepared for her by Great Granny ( which I was nervous she would be picky and hurt feelings) and was SO personable.
She was abnormally SUPER good. Not that she is normally bad, but she was literally perfect. I had no moment where I was aggravated or embarrassed. Anyway, it was a really good weekend. Hope you enjoy the videos, I think they are sweet. It is nice when you have those little moments in life. Anna was sitting with my Granny on the window box in the early evening and the lighting was pretty, ( even though it did not video well ) and they were having fun together. It makes for a very nice memory and I am glad I have it on film. : ) As cheesy as it is to use that overly marketed phrase, "precious moments", they really and truly were and I am glad that I will always have them. Hope you all have a great week.