Well, things have changed considerably around here in the last 2 weeks or so. Anya has mastered the art of crawling…..and it is keeping Mommy & Daddy on their toes! The first few days she seemed to stayed confined to the comfort of the carpet in the livingroom, but has now decided she needs full access to the house. It is so cute watching her make her way from one room to the next and I am amazed at how fast she can get her little arms and legs moving. And, crawling is not where her new activities stops. She is now also pulling up on the couches, chairs, cabinets….basically anything she can get a grip on to hoist herself up. She “cruises” a bit back and forth the length of the couch, but is basically just happy standing up and watching everyone else move around. Occasionally she takes a hard trip to the floor, but I guess that is all part of the learning process–good thing she has a cushy diaper to land on most of the time.

Tonight I made monster cookies and they are yummy! The house smells nice and sweet too….keeps reminding me that the cookies are in there to eat! Oh, and Jason and I learned something while making the cookies. I accidently used baking “powder” in the cookies and the recipe called for baking “soda”–so Jason did alittle research on the internet and found out some useful information. The sources we found said you can always substitute baking powder in recipes that call for baking soda, but you can’t substitue baking soda in recipes that call for baking powder. Did you know that? We didn’t, but were very happy to find out that we didn’t have to trash the whole bowl of cookie batter!

Here are some recent pictures of Anya’s new adventures and I posted a few of her 9 month pictures.

Happy Easter from the McArtors!

I hope everyone had a very happy Easter holiday. I was lucky enough to have this weekend off, so Jason, Anya & I headed up North to my parent’s house Thursday night and we spent a long weekend there. We had a great time, got to see lots of family, eat great food (thanks Mom!) go to church as a family and just hang out. It was a fun weekend and it is always sad when the time home goes so fast. Here are some pictures of our weekend fun!

This morning we were up around 5:30am (yikes!) for Sunrise Easter church service. It was a bit rainy and dreary this morning, but the day shaped up alittle bit later on. Because we had such early church, we had our Easter meal last night. We had the whole family including Gram Martha, Gram Ruth, Gramps Arnold, Dagmar, Jason, Jill, Zachary, Noah, Mom, Dad and the three of us there–so we were quite the group! It was nice to have everyone all together as that doesn’t happen all that often anymore.

So, now back to reality and back to work tomorrow. Jason is dying to cut the grass (he says we are the only ones on the block who haven’t yet…), so suppose the lawn mower will be making its 2006 debut in the next few days. We have a couple tulips blooming also….so now spring is officially here!

Tomorrow Anya is 9 months old. She has learned a lot of new things in the last month…most importantly crawling. It has been a whole new adventure around here with her being mobile. She still prefers the army crawl, but is now capable of the full-fledged crawl. She thinks it is pretty fun to be able to get here and there all on her own, but it sure keeps Jason & I busy keeping her out of things she shouldn’t be in.

Today we had her 9 month well baby check and we got a happy and healthy baby report. She weighed in at 19.2 lbs and is 28 inches long….growing like a weed! She didn’t like showing the Dr her teeth but other than that she did great at the appointment. Here are a few 9 month pictures of Anya.

This afternoon I went to Indianola with Jodi Scott, her neice Kaitlyn, April Airhart and Anya to get measured for a bridesmaid dress for Jodi and Chad’s wedding in August. The dresses are beautiful and pretty comfortable, so can’t ask for much more than that.

Well, it is getting late, so better close for the night.

This last Sunday, Papa Ron, Grandma Jeryl, Aunt Joni, Great Grandpa Merle and Great Grandma Bertie all came to Des Moines for the day to visit us! It was great having them here and I know Anya (as always) loved soaking up all the extra attention. Grandpa Merle and Grandma Bertie hadn’t seen Anya since October, so she had really changed since they last saw her. Seems like every week she gets bigger and more independant! Anyways, here are a few pictures of Anya with her visitors.

What beautiful weather we have had the last few days. Yesterday when I got home from work, we took a walk down to the neighboorhood park and enjoyed the sunshine. Anya spent a few minutes in the swing, but was much happier watching the big kids play….I know she is counting the days until she can run and play on the equipment herself! Tonight we again got to spend some time outside as we grilled for supper and ate out on the deck for the first time this year! Anya loves being outside….she just tools around on the deck in her little walker looking at one thing after another. She stays pretty busy just trying to figure everything out!

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this yet….but we have more exciting news in our family. Jason and Jill are expecting their 3rd child in July. Noah and Zachary are pretty excited about the arrival of their new sibling (as we all are) and I am sure the new baby will lack no attention with the big brothers around. Anyways it will be a fun summer with another new baby around!

Well, it is about that time, so think I am going to hit the hay.

The look pretty much says everything—it is definitely safe to say Anya is not a big fan of the Easter Bunny!! We thought it would be fun to have Anya’s picture taken with the Easter Bunny….obviously she had a different opinion on that! This picture was even our second run at it. The first time, she burst into tears as soon as she realized we were handing her over to the Bunny for the picture. The second time, we kept the Easter Bunny out of site as much as possible. It was a few seconds before she realized what was going on, but the photo lady wasn’t quite quick enough. So, anyways, this is our Easter picture…enjoy!