Protip: if you want a free visit from your local fire department, make sure someone does a bad job installing your water heater, causing your carbon monoxide alarms to go off one Saturday morning.
Everything is fine, although I did embarrass myself asking them if I could take a picture for my blog.
Here are some amusing (at least to parents and grandparents) things Anda has said lately.
Me: Look at that big belly! Anda, do you have a baby in your tummy?
Anda: No, just ice cream.
Anda: What you say in your mouth?
Anda: What's that?
Me: That's Daddy's cologne. It smells yummy.
Anda: It smells like lemonade?
She has an amazing memory and likes to remind us of pretty much every thing that has ever happened, prefacing 70% of her speech with "you 'nember when..." For example:
Anda: You 'nember when...What's Harry Potter's friend's name?
Me: Hermione?
Anda: You 'nember when Hermione turned into a killy cat?
On seeing a picture of John the Baptist: It's Hagrid!
On seeing Uncle Steve's mustache: What's on his face? It's a moon beard.
After passing gas: 'Scuse you burp in my bum.
Me: I need to get curtain rods.
Anda: I need to get curtain rods.
Me: I don't know if they'll have the one I want.
Anda: I don't know if they'll have the one I want.
Me: Mommy's so smart.
Anda: I'm so smart.
She has come up with her own exclamations. My favorite being "L is such a letter." This is a (slightly changed) line from a Sesame Street song, but she uses it instead of saying things like "Ow" or "Wow." Believe me, even if you can hear her do it, it doesn't make any more sense.
I've learned from listening to her that I must frequently say the following:
"Just one minute"
"Oh. My gosh."
"Good girl."
"That's right."
"You're so smart/pretty/strong."
[This post is going to be long and have a lot of pictures, so get your scrolling finger ready.]
Dan's work had a health incentive this summer. Anyone who walked or ran 647 miles (the distance from here to Anaheim) before a certain date was entered into a drawing to win tickets to Disneyland. Dan was the first to complete the distance, so he automatically won two 3-day tickets for us. I knew all that exercising would pay off!
Anda is free until she's 3, and I am now in my (much easier) second trimester, so we decided to go sooner rather than later. We drove out to CA last Sunday and got back on Friday. (And I have to say: Anda was surprisingly well-behaved in the car.)
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were nonstop Magic Kingdom fun. We warmed Anda up with the familiar carousel, and everything was smooth sailing from there.
With a 3-day pass, we ended up seeing her favorite attractions multiple times. She especially liked "Pirates" and this ladybug ride (similar to the teacups).
There was a Little Mermaid ride in California Adventure that we would take her on whenever the big kids were doing big kid things. I think she ended up doing that one somewhere between 10 and 15 times, and she still was not thrilled when we told her "last one."
She even loved this little roller coaster in Toon Town. I know it doesn't look like she's enjoying herself, but let me assure you, she begged to ride this roller coaster no fewer than 5 times.
The only thing she didn't like was the Matterhorn. It had a "scary monkey".
We stayed at my aunt's house, and since she and my cousin have season passes, they were able to come meet us at the park on Monday.
My sister, Amy, came out on Tuesday and got a two day pass so she could play with us too.
We got to meet lots of celebrities, including the Mouse himself.
While Dan was on the big kid coaster, I told Anda she could ride the carousel or meet Buzz. She chose to wait in line to meet Buzz. The same thing happened with Woody.
But she was even excited to meet characters she didn't know.
The princesses were probably the biggest highlight for everyone. I don't think I've ever seen her so excited before.
She even loved the princesses she'd never heard of.
Although she was not too sure about this fellow. Frankly, neither was I. I don't get this Pixie Hollow thing.
All in all, we could not have a had a more successful trip. She fell asleep on the way home every night and was raring to go every morning. She even ate breakfast and wore jeans, when the promise of Disneyland was looming. I sure am going to miss that incentive.
Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I was under the weather more often than not this year during the season. We still managed to do most of the required festivities, though.
I took Anda to the pumpkin patch down the road which had a corn pit,
petting zoo,
hay maze,
and, of course, pumpkins.
I drew a few designs for Anda to pick from, and she went with the "scary" face (in the middle). We also have a Cowboys pumpkin and my go-to skeleton face.
I insisted that Dan and Hannah sign up for the Halloween Half Marathon with me this year. I ended up getting the stomach flu and puking 8 times on Thursday night, and was still not feeling up to it by Saturday morning, but they both did great. Dan was in the top 200 of 4000 and 13th in his age division.
Hannah was pretty mad at me in that last tenth of a mile, but she finished strong and did have her friend, Anneli, to help her through.
On Sunday night, we got invited to Dan's uncle and aunt's family party. We missed out on trunk or treating because of my stomach flu, so I was really excited to have a reason to put on Anda's costume.
Dan did a good job with his last minute rock star get up, but my librarian was less than stellar. Remember, I had been really sick.
I didn't think Anda would love anything more than the dressed up dogs,
but then the dancing began. This poor girl got to be Anda's dance partner pretty much the whole night. She was pretty sweet about it.
At the end of the night, we went to their neighbor's house to see their haunted house/decorations. I have never seen anything like this! For 25 years this woman has constructed a professional level spook house for the neighborhood kids for free. I didn't get any good pictures, so I stole a couple from Teresa's Facebook page.
It was really an awesome Halloween party.
Halloween night was pretty anticlimactic, but I think we were all okay with that. Anda was not terribly interested in putting her costume on and neither Dan nor I were terribly interested in forcing her to do so. His foot got hurt pretty badly in that race and I was feeling under the weather again, so we gave her a couple of pieces of candy from our own cauldron and called it good. I got a 5 pound bag of the good mini candies, but our house is in the no-man's-land of our neighborhood, so our doorbell rang a grand total of 3 times. We are not hurting for leftover Halloween candy here, trick-or-treating or not.
Once again my parents came to town, and once again I took no pictures of the good times and fun we had together.
However, I did remember to bring my camera when we went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze and Pumpkin Fest at Thanksgiving Point!
It was amazing. There were no lines at all, and no one even checked to see if we had tickets to get in! Granted, there were no concessions to buy, and the Pumpkin Princess area was suspiciously vacant...Oh, because it was actually not open yet. Apparently I (and several other parents, I might add) read the website incorrectly. We were asked to leave the premises for liability reasons. Everyone was very, very disappointed.
We decided to go over to the little barn instead (which I think did more business than usual that night, because of all the disappointed families). It seemed like a poor substitute for Pumpkin Princesses to me, but oh, how wrong I would turn out to be.
We went on a hayride, then Anda was very happy to pet the baby cows and ponies. One of them was very pleased to pet her back. With its tongue. Right on the face. I really wish I'd had my video camera at that moment.
That's all great, and Anda had a good time, but as you know, we have an even more exotic petting zoo just down the road. How were we going to make up for the lack of Pumpkin Princesses? Especially with a two year old who refuses to participate in just about everything (which, by the way, has recently included eating)?
Nana suggested we try to get her to ride the pony. I said there was no way. I was wrong.
Smile, Anda!
Smile, Clancy!
Waving to her posse and having a grand old time.
She was so excited to ride the pony, it really did make up for Cornbelly's being closed. I guess that just goes to show that I don't know anything ever at all under any circumstances. Fortunately, Anda's not a teenager who is old enough to remind me of that yet and Nana isn't one to rub it in.
I don't have a good segue for this, but check out the fly that photobombed this picture. Good shot, Rachel.
I forgot to bring my camera most of the time we were in Virginia, but I did remember it when we headed to Amazement Square, the local children's museum. We were really excited to go and waited until our last day to do it. Unfortunately, it was closed for renovations the ONE WEEK out of the year that we were there. I guess that means we'll just have to go back to Virginia soon.
Since I had my camera though, we took Anda to the little splash park and took some pictures of her being cute. She was not very interested in getting wet, but she really liked prancing around the fountains.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable and much appreciated vacation. We did lots of fun things that I didn't even mention here, because it's pointless without pictures.
But I think Anda's favorite part of the trip (aside from spending lots of time with Nana and Papa, who didn't let me lift a finger the entire time [which was obviously my favorite part of the trip]) was playing with Dooley Dog.
