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Archive for October, 2005

Although today is officially Halloween, we celebrated it yesterday as West Des Moines had beggar night on Sunday night. Anya got dressed up in her outfit, Jason & I carved pumpkins and we had lots of fun trick-or-treaters come to our door.

Anya dressed up as a peanut for Halloween–there is a story behind this costume. Ever since we found out I was pregnant, we (mostly Jason) always referred to the baby as “peanut”. Well, since her arrival in July, he has shortened the nickname to “nut” and thought it would only be fitting for her first Halloween costume to be a peanut. So, we looked and looked for a pre-made peanut costume to buy, but there was none to be found. So, Jason (who has the creative gene that I desperately lack) decided to make her one. We bought some felt, a hot glue gun and viola…our own little “nut”. She looks so cute and Jason is very proud of his handywork….take a look at the Halloween pictures we have and see the “nut” for yourself!

Otherwise, everything is going well. Anya is still growing like a weed….she has decided that she has spent enough time on her back and is now only happy when she is sitting upright. She has pretty good head control, but still has some work to do with her trunk strength. But, she would be content just sitting upright on someone’s knee all day long looking around.

This was the first weekend in awhile that we didn’t have a ton of stuff going on. We pretty much took advantage of it and spent some time relaxing. Jason made a big pot of chili on Saturday, we went to church, helped Brad & Steph install a ceiling fan and even slept in a few days. Felt great….

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!!

Today I did alittle experimenting with Anya’s hair and tried her in pigtails. She wasn’t so sure what to think about them at first, but I think they grew on her. Take a look at her newest hairstyle and tell me what you think!

Yesterday was Jason’s 30th birthday….another decade older. We didn’t do anything too wild and crazy to celebrate. Mom, Jason, Jill, Zachary & Noah were in town, so we went out for breakfast yesterday and then I made him supper (yes, I can cook if I HAVE to) and I even baked him a cake!! Then we just spent some family time together last night, so it was a nice day.

Today was back to work. It sure felt like fall today with the cool weather..had to dig my fall coat out from the closet. It really wasn’t enough to keep me warm though, so might have to dig alittle further and find the winter coat. Summer sure went fast…

Our yard is full of leaves, so I suppose we have some raking in our future. Last year the day we decided to rake, there was a 90 mph wind (or atleast it felt that way), so most of our leaves just blew into the neighbors yard. Wouldn’t have been such a bad deal, except then we just got our other neighbors leaves in our yard to replace our original leaves!!

Have a few pictures of Anya and Jason on his birthday. More later….

Today was a very special day in Anya’s short life….she was baptized. She was a very lucky little girl to have so many family and friends come help her celebrate this big day. She was baptized at Lutheran Church of Hope here in West Des Moines and then we had lunch at our house following the service. She had 5 great-Grandparents make the trip, along with a great-great-Aunt, both sets of Grandparents, a great- Uncle and great-Aunt, Aunts, Uncle, Cousins and many other special friends. All in all, we had around 25 people join us and it was a great day. Anya did wonderful during the baptism (only let out one little squeal while getting baptized) and handled the crowd of people pretty good. She wore a dress that her Papa Jim and myself had worn, so it had great sentimental value…and she looked very cute in it.

Mom came down on Friday to help me prepare for the big weekend…she whipped our house into shape and did alot of the prep work for the food. I would have never got everything done without her here to take the reigns. Jason’s Mom and Grandma Bertie and my Grandma Ruth also made lots of salads and goodies for the lunch today also which was a HUGE help…thank God for Moms and Grandmas!!

So, we had a pretty great weekend. Click here to see the pictures of her baptism and I will write more later.

Survived my first 10 hour Saturday back at work today. The day actually seemed to go fairly fast considering we weren’t all that busy. Tomorrow is just 8 hours at work, so that won’t be quite as painful. Jason and Anya got along wonderfully from what he told me. Hopefully if she could talk she would tell me the same thing I called to check in quite a few times and it always sounded like he had everything under control. He says she likes to watch football with him more than I do!!

All is going well here. Getting ready for her baptism next weekend. Sounds like we are going to have quite a crowd, so that should be fun. Looking forward to seeing everyone. Am hoping for nice weather so we can be outside alittle bit on Sunday.

I think we finally got Anya back on track with her sleeping. She had about a week where she slept terrible…she would wake up about every 30-45 minutes and cry, I would give her her pacifier, she would fall back asleep and then wake up again in about 30-45 minutes again..and this went on for the whole night. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what we had been doing differently as she had been sleeping so good up until this point and I finally figured it out….we had stopped swaddling her. So, finally we started swaddling her again and the very first night she only woke up once to eat….it was HEAVEN getting all that sleep!! I did alittle research on the internet about swaddling (I was concerned she would kick out of the swaddle with just a normal blanket) and I came across these special blankets called “swaddleme” so I bought one to try. They work wonderfully……take a look at the new pictures here and see a picture of Anya all cozy in her new “swaddleme” blanket. She loves it.

In other Anya news, she has started to giggle every now and then and it is hilarous to hear her laugh. She mostly laughs at her dad’s funky dance moves when he is happy with something the hawkeyes have done on the football field. She has also discovered her right hand which she now stares at for long periods of time. I keep trying to show her that she also has a left hand, but for right now she is pretty content just knowing she has a right hand. It is just amazing to watch her learn new things.

Well, guess that is all for now. Will write more later.