It's all about the lighting

Chris had a project last night. We thought we'd add a little light to Annabel's kitchen set. The place in our house where it sits now isn't super bright without turning on all the kitchen, breakfast and hallway lights. That means $$$ on our electricity bill! So we got some under-cabinet lighting at Ikea and installed it in her kitchen.



Voilà! Didn't her daddy do a great job?

On a separate note, I had a chance to stop by the hospital to say hi one of Annabel's new friends the other day.



Welcome, little Kate!! Isn't she a cutie patootie?

Cheers,
Cathy

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Closing doors

Annabel's latest "thing" is closing doors. She wants to make sure the door is closed wherever we go... whether we are leaving a room or entering it. Yesterday, we went and visited Daddy at work, and as we were leaving, she went to close the door. But his doorknob was a little higher than a typical door, so she really had to reach!

Reeeeeeeeach! (Please forgive the fuzziness... the shutter on the iPhone isn't very fast).

Cheers,

A Shopping Caste System

Today, Annabel and I went to the Galleria to pick up my watch. I was having it repaired at a store there. After picking it up, we had a little time to kill, so we walked around a bit. Well, I walked, and Annabel observed from her stroller. As I went from store to store and floor to floor, I discovered that the Galleria has a caste system! Yes, the first floor holds top end, posh brand-name stores. The second floor holds the "middle America" shops, the brands we all know and love and shop (on sale). And all the "bargain" shops are way up in the nosebleed section (third floor).

The obvious illustration of this store hierarchy is the BR (Floor 1)/Gap (Floor 2)/ON (Old Navy) conglomerate that anchors one end of the mall. Here are a few other examples in their corresponding retail categories to further illustrate my point.

Eateries: La Madeleine / Corner Bakery / Subway
Footwear: Gucci / Nine West / Payless
Accessories: Louis Vuitton / Fossil / Claire's
Cosmetics: L'Occitane / Bath and Body Works / Perfume Village
Jewelry: Cartier / Zales / Fast Fix Jewelry and Repair

I mean, I get that they are sort of grouping their stores by customer segment, but it's a bit extreme, don't you think? I mean, I own a Louis Vuitton, use Bath and Body Works lotion and eat at Subway. I can't possibly be the only who does that. Am I? Oh well. I guess that's why I'm not a mall designer!

In any case, here are a couple of pics from our adventures at the mall. Our girl is a fun shopping partner!

Annabel insisted on holding on to our excellent clearance finds at the Gap. Although, I know this picture looks more like I stuffed the bag onto her seat with her. But I didn't!

See? Clutching that bag like a new baby!

We also checked out their playground. She had a lot of fun because there was so much to do and not too crowded. And she especially enjoyed it since it featured one of her favorite types of playground equipment...

A tunnel!

I haven't been to the Galleria in awhile, so this was fun going outside our usual routine. Even though I disguised myself in my sunglasses and hood the whole time we were on the third floor.

Cheers,

Library fun

Today, our local library held storytime for toddlers. It's great because they go all out with songs, stories and even a puppet show. And the best part is that it's free!

Unfortunately they do not allow pictures during storytime, so I took this one in the kids' section afterwards.


Annabel loves those kid-sized chairs! Wonder where I can find one...

Cheers!
Cathy

Why I love digital photography

Four words: TODDLER-ON-THE-GO!

I must have thousands upon thousands of pictures of Annabel, from birth to present. How many of those are actually print-worthy? A fraction of them. Thank goodness we are in the digital age, and I can snap away without worrying about my film budget. Still, I gotta say that sometimes the throwaways are fun. Case in point... When we went to the park the other day, here is what most of the pictures that I took look like.

Girl on a mission... headed from the swing to the slide. Never mind that Mommy is trying to get her to at least look in my direction! (And on a side note, yes, I do realize that her hair clip does not match her outfit at all. But it was the only one I had within reach at home as we were leaving, and sometimes, within reach is the best you can do.)

And up the steps we go... camera? What camera?

And then back down again. Nope, still can't look at Mommy! We have to watch the steps of course, to make it down again.

Incoming!! I really need to be faster. I think only a couple of her hairs are in focus here. Perhaps I should get a sports lens.

And I'll end with her cute diapered-butt. I have a lot of these shots. Really. I can't tell you how many. But I love every stinkin' one of them.

Cheers,

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,