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,

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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Duck, duck... goose!

Before we get into the actual duck, duck... goose post, I wanted to tell you (if you didn't know already) that Annabel has RSV. RSV is a respiratory virus. Annabel's pediatrician said that while it's prevalent in kids, it can show up in adults as bronchitis or bad cough. He also said that it's the pre-cursor to Croup, which is a respiratory disease (something about "laryngeal" something or other...) It's shows up as a cough that sounds like a seal bark and can be painful.

So far, Annabel is handling it fairly well. There's the usual fussiness and extreme grouchiness that comes with not feeling well, and of course she tires easily. But for the most part, she's doing ok. She's a trouper! Here's a quick shot of her from this morning saying "cheese" for the camera. Notice all the lovely slime on her face from snot, saliva and who knows what else!


Today, her fever seems to have leveled out at about 99, which is great. So it looks like she's hopefully on the mend very soon. Thanks for the well wishes and great advice that we've already gotten from my friends who've been through it. We'll keep you posted!

OK, now for duck, duck... goose! This past Saturday, the weather was really beautiful. So after Annabel's nap, we loaded her into her wagon with some of the heels from our bread loaves and took a walk to our neighborhood lake. It's always heavily populated with ducks and geese. We thought she'd get a kick out of seeing them in real life as opposed to just in a book.

I'm still getting caught up on pending projects, so these photos are pretty much SOOC (straight out of the camera).

Walkin' through the 'hood on our way to the lake. Riding in her good ole Radio Flyer is one of Annabel's favorite things! And of course, this RF isn't just any wagon... we had to get the "all-terrain" version. You DO know my husband, right?

The ducks come swimming when they see the munchkin tossing out bread. She kept quacking at them like she was having a whole conversation with them, "Come and get it! And don't worry, my mommy only buys whole grain, so it's good for you."

She wanted to get a little closer, so Daddy had to hold on tight! I love how she squats a little and sticks her butt out to throw the bread.

Another angle on her throw. She gets some pretty good height in her tosses, but no so much on the distance. Can you see the little piece of bread she's throwing?

There it is!

Then Daddy took the camera so Mommy could have a turn with Annabel. Of course, the ducks have thinned out a bit. Probably because they've figured out we're just about out of bread by this point. So while Daddy has the camera, he decides to take a few shots of his favorite ducks...

Duck...

Duck...

GOOSE! These guys didn't venture near us for bread, but they definitely kept a sharp eye on their territory. They would get rather honky if they thought we got too close. They kinda freaked me out, to be honest. And I'm not sure you can tell here, but they were HUGE.

We attempted a family self-portrait, but as you can see, our one attempt didn't work very well.

And we'll close with the cutie patootie giving her best, cutey-est, patootie-est face for Mommy's camera. We'll definitely be heading back to the lake with our little munchkin on nice weather days!

Cheers,

Girlfriends

As you know, in January I took a trip with my college girlfriends. I was busy taking a bunch of photos, and none of them had me in them! But I recently (finally!) received some photos from other people on the trip, so I just wanted to share one.


These are some of my college girlfriends, and I am so privileged to have them in my life. People come and go in your life, but to still have your girlfriends after so many years, so many of life's hills and valleys, is a true blessing. Love you, girls (and there's a few of you missing from this picture... you know who you are... love you too)!

Cheers,

Pizza!

Last week we went to a fundraiser at our local CiCi's. Annabel came too and ate her first pizza! Now, she's technically had a bite of pizza here and there, but usually either spit it out or refused to eat more than a bite cuz she wasn't so sure about it. This time, she was enjoying it! I figure if she's good with CiCi's, then we need to introduce her to REAL pizza. Carmine's anyone?? Yumm!!






Does she like it? I think that's a yes!

Cheers,
Cathy

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Mmmmmm... Sushi!

A non-Annabel post! Tonight I am out for a girls' night with my friend, Renee. We had sushi at Piranha, and I have to tell you if you're a sushi-lover, you have to try this place! They have some really creative sushi rolls and menu items.



Here is the Vietnamese Summer Roll. I can't remember everything in it, but it's packed full o' goodness and wrapped in rice paper instead of seaweed. See? Creative, right? Yummy.

Afterwards, we are seeing "The Color Purple" at the Bass. I say "are seeing" because I'm blogging during intermission. Hee. Ahhhh technology!



Me and Renee!

So far the play is fantastic. Love the music! Hope you're having a fun Saturday night too.

Cheers,
Cathy



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OK, OK... I'm back! I'm back!

All righty... it's tough getting back into the groove of things when you've been gone for a week! Much to Chris's chagrin, I only just unpacked my suitcase on Friday. And I've been home since Thursday. Of LAST week. Hee. Anyway, time to get back to things... which means blogging!

So I recently found out that my dad is going to get married. He's engaged to a woman who lives in Virginia and is planning to move out there when they tie the knot. That means Ong
Ngoai's (that's Vietnamese for maternal grandpa) Annabel-time is being cut short. Because of this, he's been coming over a lot (or she's been going over to his place) so that they can hang out before he moves away. So, since I've been waaaaay behind in the photo taking, I'm going to post a bunch of the pictures that he's taken.

While I was gone, Annabel went over to Ong Ngoai's place after preschool on Wednesday. (Notice the jeans and t-shirt outfit. That's pretty much all Chris dressed her in. Good thing she's got plenty of jeans!)

Having a snack, with her Baby of course!

This one cracks me up. Her Ong Ngoai walks around like this, with his hands behind his back. I noticed that whenever he's around, she walks like this too.

Fun times with the Kangaroo Climber that we got off of Craigslist for Ong Ngoai's place! She loves this thing.

This one was taken since I'd come home. See the pigtails? Proof of my presence, hahaha! We went to her friend Beckham's birthday party, hence the cupcake t-shirt. She just LOVES her kitchen from Ba Ngoai (that's maternal grandma)!

And now that her feet can reach, she's getting really good at driving her little firetruck around. Although, she sometimes gets it confused with her PowerWheels and pushes in the middle of the steering wheel to try to make it go.

One of our favorite things to do together... read books!

This is her "Sing 'n Stage" that we've had since she was little bitty. She still loves to dance and sing with it! Notice that it's next to her changing table (that's what she's sitting on). It's the only thing that will keep her relatively in one place so we can change her diaper.

What can I say about this one? How can you not love that silly face?

Best buds, Annabel and her Baylor. (Macee's still not sure about the mini-person that keeps invading her space!)

With the recent few days of mild weather we've been having, Annabel has been loving the chance to go for walks outside. She especially loves pushing her scooter around!

Another favorite pastime... building with her blocks!

Hmmmm... and while I know that my daughter is extremely gifted and talented, I somehow still doubt that she was responsible for building this structure. Still, makes for a great picture, eh?

And on another of our mild weather days, we went to the park, and Ong Ngoai came along. I took a bunch of photos from that day, but have only gotten to editing these. More to come, but thought I'd share in the meantime.

Ong Ngoai pushes Annabel on the swing. She LOVES to swing... she was on this for a good 20 minutes before she would let us take her out of it to play on the rest of the playground. Even then, she would have preferred to swing some more!

Annabel contemplates going down the big slide. She didn't contemplate for long. She promptly went back down the stairs because despite the fact that she wanted to get to Ong Ngoai at the bottom quickly, she didn't like the looks of that slide.

She finally sat in one place for more than 2.5 seconds so I could get a shot of her looking at me! I can't believe she's 21 months old already. Time flies, doesn't it?

OK, time for bed. Hope you enjoyed this picture-filled post to make up for the 2 weeks I didn't blog because of my trip.

Cheers!

Who's in the kitchen?

Annabel is! Thanks to her Ba Ngoai and her daddy. Ba Ngoai got Annabel an adorable kitchen for Christmas, and Daddy put it together for her. The whole story is a bit of a fiasco, with a rare mess-up from Amazon. But that's over and done with, and the new kitchen arrived earlier this week. Daddy put it together last night:


He's quite a handy dude, that husband of mine. The reviews I read of this particular kitchen set said that it was a bit on the challenging side to put together. Not for my man! All said and done, it took him maybe about 30-45 minutes. Can you tell I'm proud? Nah...

So here's the finished kitchen.


Super cute, no? The only thing missing is a refrigerator, but we can always get that later. The original kitchen that we ordered that Amazon did NOT send us was pink and included a little stovetop/oven/sink and a separate fridge. I was just a tad worried about the pink-ness of it, so when it came time to order a different one (did I mention that Amazon did NOT send us the one we ordered?), I looked for one in natural tones.

When Annabel found it this morning, she immediately set to putting things in the little microwave, cabinets, pushing buttons and loving it. I have video of that, but my phone is acting a bit wonky right now, so I'll have to post that later.

To other news, I'm going on a little girls' trip -- a cruise to Cozumel and Yucatan! I'm leaving tomorrow! I'm nervous as hell about leaving Annabel for this long for the first time. Not because I don't think she's in good hands (she's got an awesome Daddy, and lots of loving helpers). But because I don't know how I'M going to get through the next week with her. I can count on one hand the number of times in our marriage that Chris and I have been apart for a week or more. So that's hard enough, much less missing my Binkie too??!! Oh well, at least I know I'll be with my girls, and they'll help me through it :-) Any advice from you other Moms out there?

In related news, I guess this means I'll be missing some days posting on the blog while I'm on this big boat in the Gulf of Mexico. I'll blog when I can, I promise! But apparently they charge you for every little thing you do on a cruise, so I'll have to be careful with my onboard expense account. Wish me luck!

Ciao for now,