Butterfly Festival!

Yesterday, Annabel went to visit butterflies in Plano. Of course, our camera battery was dead so these are pictures taken from our phones. Better than nothing!

At first, our cutie pie was a little cautious about getting up close and personal with the butterflies. She thought they were a tad unpredictable!

The butterflies were mostly monarchs. There were hundreds of them! So beautiful.

After a few minutes, she decides they aren't too scary after all and tries to get to know them a little better.

We had to be careful to keep an eye out for stowaways!

They seem to really like Chris. Not that I can blame them!

This one tickled my head.

This picture is actually blurry because my daughter wouldn't sit still, not because the butterfly was in motion.

They gave us little cotton swabs dipped in red Gatorade to attract the butterflies. So no, those aren't matches!

It was really fun watching them "eat" from those cotton swabs!

Annabel was really enjoying the whole experience.

Time to go! Annabel gives the butterflies kisses.

Cheers,

Cookie dough... Or not

(This is one of those blog posts I've had sitting on my phone for awhile. Finally getting it on the blog! Whew!)

Annabel's latest favorite toy is Play-doh, which she refers to as "cookie dough."

You guys are well aware of my position on candy during the holidays by now, I'm sure! So for Halloween last year, I found these big bags of mini Play-doh cans to give away.


I had a bunch left over because we didn't have very many trick or treaters (I can't imagine why!) So it came in handy when it came time to fill Easter eggs for Annabel's pre-school class. Don't worry, there were colors like pink, green and yellow that I used for the Easter eggs. Imagine getting black Play-doh in your Easter egg!

So of course, Annabel got some Play-doh in her school Easter basket and demanded we open it as soon as we got home. (have I mentioned how bossy she is getting? Hmmm... I wonder where she gets that from...) I played with her, but the real fun started when Daddy came home.


See all those round circles of Play-doh? Chris introduced the idea of using the Easter egg half as a cookie cutter... Hence the labeling of her Play-doh as cookie doh.


See how much fun this is, Mommy?

Wonder what the next hot item will be in Annabel's world?

Cheers,
Cathy

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Back in the land of the living (almost)

Wow, I took some hiatus! Sorry about that, friends and family. It's just been a busy couple of months around here, with birthdays and visits, and who knows what else?

I do actually have about three blog posts that I started on my phone, and that for some reason or another, haven't finished. So I'll be posting those here in the next few days as well.

I finally got around to editing a few of the pictures that I took of Annabel with the Easter bunnies, and while those of you who are my friends on Facebook have seen these, I thought I'd post them here anyway. Especially since I haven't posted anything else in so long!

Annabel with her Ba Ngoai. This little stinker was in NO mood for pictures that day, for whatever reason. I'm just glad that I got at least one good one with each of her grandmas!

Annabel with her Nonnie and the bunny. This was taken when we first arrived to the site, so she obviously wasn't in her Easter clothes yet. But this was the best one with Nonnie, and I'll take what I can get!

A little later, Annabel's friend, Haley, arrived. Her mom is a very close friend of mine, and it's been a big blessing that they adopted Haley so close to the time that we had Annabel. Like it or not, these girls are going to be BFFs! If the evidence of our buying them the same outfits and dressing them alike all the time isn't enough, you can see that they were both too busy socializing to even look at the camera.

Seriously, those two pictures were the best ones of them! Oh well, there's no denying their matching cuteness.

Coming soon, pictures from Annabel's birthday party! I can't believe my baby is TWO. Here she was two years ago...

Five days old!

And here she is today (ok, technically a couple of months ago, but you get the idea)...



Cheers,

Wordless Wednesday

Ok I know this post is supposed to be wordless, but yes, Annabel has BOTH thumbs in her mouth while in the swing at the playground. I had to laugh!

Cheers,
Cathy


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Annabel hearts frosting

With two candy holidays so close together, and a rash of birthday parties, Annabel has had the opportunity to sample a lot of cakes, cupcakes and the like recently.

The surprising thing is, my carb-loving girl only eats the frosting. To heck with the cake!


This was at our friend Jake's birthday party. Note the big white glob of frosting at her mouth and the big chocolate hunk of cake left on the plate.


The other morning, Nene and Hot Dog came over and brought donuts. And they brought one special bunny donut for Annabel. See how she gazes adoringly at all that sugar? She's never experienced so much at one time.


"Really? This is for ME?? No fooling?"


Annabel strategizes how she's going to intake all this sugar before Mommy comes to her senses. Perhaps we start with these yummy eyes...


Mmmmm... Frosting! It's hard to see here, but the donut is still whole while there's some noticeable thinning in the icing. Fortunately, she quickly experienced sugar shock and didn't eat much more than you see here.

Hmmm... I've been posting a lot about sugar lately. I think I need to go look for some vegetables or something.

Cheers,
Cathy

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Wordless Wednesday

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Puppet phobia

Every few weeks at storytime at out local library, they will do a little puppet show. It turns out that,


Puppets:Annabel as Dolls with freaky blinking eyes:Cathy.*

Yep, poor thing is freaked out by the puppets. Even after the show, the kids could pet the dog puppet. Annabel just stood there, staring at it for several minutes before running to cling to my legs. Keep in mind we have two bigger dogs at home that she regularly pounds on - I mean, pets - with much glee. Ah well, like I say with just about everything she does... It's just a stage, right?

Cheers,
Cathy

*For those of you too far removed from our old SAT days, that was one of those word analogy things. A is to B as C is to D. Sorry, just trying to mix things up a bit. Hee.


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There's nothing like handmade

My friend, Emily, who has become a sewer/knitter extraordinaire, made a poncho for Annabel. We were inspired by one that we saw online on Etsy, and it must be said that the one Emily made is so much cuter!

I know the poncho doesn't match her outfit here. We were heading out the door to go the lake in our neighborhood and grabbed it at the last minute when we realized it was getting chilly. But still, the glaringly non-matching pants don't take anything away from the adorableness of the poncho. Or the girl in it!

Here's the view from behind. Another nice thing about it is that it's roomy enough that Annabel will be able to wear it next year too.

With her daddy. She's saying "cheese!"

And with the hood off. Annabel loves her new poncho! Thanks, Em!!

Cheers,
Cathy

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Let's go fly a kite

Yesterday we got a fun little kite as a party favor from a birthday party we went to. So since we are getting gale force winds in these parts, we took the kite out. Annabel loved the "pretty kite!"


The kite is that tiny yellow dot above the house. It got pretty high!


Chris attempts some tricks with the kite. Shortly after I took this one, it nose-dived into the backyard.

I took a turn with the kite too, and it was pretty fun! Chris took a couple pics on his phone, but I wasn't pleased with how I look in them. So as the author of this blog, I reserve the right to withhold less-than-flattering pictures of myself. Ha!

After a bit, the wind got the better of us, and the kite took a header into one of our trees. We were too busy trying to extract the kite to remember to take pictures, so here's one of the aftermath:


That's the poor kite's tail still in the tree. I guess we'll try to get it out... someday...

Cheers,
Cathy

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The dreaded "F" word

It's not what you think!! It's actually...

FUNDRAISING!!

Yep, it's time for Annabel's school's spring fundraiser. It's actually pretty cool, a little different. It's a flower catalog called flowerpowerfundraising.com. And not like 1-800-FLOWERS or anything like that. It's actually flowers (bulbs) and plants for your garden or landscaping. See? Pretty cool, huh? (Work with me, people!)

Here's the link directly to Annabel's school's fundraising site. You can order directly from this site and all items will be shipped to you. No middle man (ME!) bugging you and hassling you! And 50% of what you spend will go to Annabel's school!

So why am I blogging about it? To ask you to buy, of course! PLEASE?!?!? Here are a few items in the catalog (click on the photo to go to the ordering site):

20 double freesias mixture ($10). Apparently these bloom mid-late summer. All the flowers in this catalog are so pretty, it ALMOST makes me want to plant a garden. But then, who would I hire to take care of it?

Summer Garden Collection ($20) contains 6 Purple Liatris, 10 Peacock Orchids, 7 Mixed Gladiolus and 20 Mixed Harlequin Flowers. Gorgeous! If only I knew what to do with them all!

Top Hat Blueberry ($30) includes1 Top Hat blueberry plant (ships in a 4 1/2" pot), Terra cotta colored planter and planting medium. This plant will fruit by its second year. How pretty! And fresh blueberries without paying $3 a pint!

And there's tons more, like one of those hanging tomato planters, lots and lots of different flowering bulbs, other fruits, etc. And did I mention, 50% of what you're paying goes to Annabel's school!

I'm going to browse and see if maybe they have a lemon tree, or something else fun like that. Or maybe I'll get the blueberry thing. Then I'll blog about how I kill, er I mean, care for it.

Happy Shopping! And THANKS!! (And I promise I won't complain when you ask me to buy stuff for your kid.)

Cheers,

What a difference a year makes!

I have a feeling that I could use that blog post title for a lot of things, but I happen to have pictures to illustrate this time.

I've been busy, busy, busy editing all the photos from my bunny mini-session day a couple of Sundays ago. So I haven't been able to edit any of the ones of Annabel, including the ones with Annabel and her Ba Ngoai or her Nonni (I think that's how we're spelling it). I did edit one real quick just so that I'd have one to post. But to think, this was Annabel last Easter...

She was terrified of that bunny. I mean Terrified, with a capital T. I'm sure the photo on the photographer's camera right after this one was of her with her mouth wide open in cry/scream mode because she didn't want to be anywhere near that bunny.

And this was Annabel this year...

She just loved those "munny rwabbits!" It's amazing how much they change so quickly, isn't it?

Cheers,

Daddy and Daughter

I originally titled this post "Daddies and Daughters," but I really only talk about one daddy and one daughter here, so I removed the plural. Not sure it has the same impact, but oh well :-)


I love my husband. He is the best husband and the best father I could ever ask for. He works very hard at his job, providing for his family as the sole breadwinner. We used to be a dual-income household, but after getting laid off and not being able to find an equivalent job, I decided to stay at home with Annabel. And Chris fully supports my decision to do so. He does household chores and pitches in with mine when he sees that I'm a little overwhelmed. He goes above and beyond in caring for Annabel, and - even better - clearly loves every moment of it. Even changing stinky diapers! He absolutely loves Annabel and me, and tells us and shows us a thousand times, a thousand different ways every day.

I'm not trying to brag, or paint him as this perfect guy. He's about as perfect as I am, which is to say, sooooooooooo not. I'm just trying to say that I appreciate him.

While I like having family portraits done with all three of us (and when we can, including the red-headed, four-legged kids), I really enjoy taking pictures of Chris and Annabel together. They are my two favorite people in the world, after all.


Cheers,

In bloom

I'm sorry I've been behind a few days on my blogging. It's been a fun-filled and action-packed few days! Annabel's Grammy came for a visit, and she's been dubbed a new name. Annabel can't say "Grammy" so she's been referring to her as "Nonni" instead. The deal was sealed when yesterday, Annabel was looking at some of the pictures I had taken, and she pointed at the them and said, "Nonni!" It's funny how these things happen. Remind me to tell you how she got an uncle named Hot Dog someday.

I also had my first round of mini-sessions for my photography business this weekend. I'll post about that soon.

This morning, I looked out into our backyard to this beautiful sight:


This is the tree that was given to us by Annabel's aunties to commemorate her birth. It was planted when during her 30-day meet and greet. Hard to believe that was almost two years ago.

How beautiful!

Cheers,
Cathy

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Cookie Monster

Remember that blog post for Valentine's Day where I was ranting about sugar for toddlers? Well, he who casts the first stone and all that...





I still say Pixie Stix are all kinds of wrong! Yeah, who am I kidding? There's at least that much sugar in an Oreo, huh?

Cheers,
Cathy

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