"The Anna's"

These are the two little people I get to spend every day with! They are so funny and couldn't be any different. Anna is bald, Anna Belle has crazy long hair; Anna can roll all over the place, Anna Belle can crawl and pull herself up to a standing position; Anna has dark brown eyes and a large smile with no teeth, Anna Belle has the prettiest blue eyes and an little smile and two teeth; Anna doesn't sleep, Anna Belle LOVES to take 2 hour naps; Anna loves her stage 1 solids, and Anna Belle will eat Cheerios, little bits of food, and an occasional pig out session on pureed food.

Though they are very different, they both love to play, especially with any new toy that I pull out. They love to squeal and talk and feed off each other mamamama.... dadadada... babababa.... woawoaw. It is fun that I get to wake Anna up each day and say, "let's go to work, and see Anna Belle!" It is a great job for right now.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Just a quick shout out to the "KING" of the home. Today Dave turned 27 years old. At first I wasn't excited that it was on a Sunday, but it turned out to be great. Because it was conference Sunday we got to spend almost the whole day together! We had friends over for surprise cake and ice cream and enjoyed a little too much steak and potatoes (and other things) for dinner. (Thanks to all that made it over and made the SURPRISE go so well! I think he really enjoyed it!) The rest of the week we are going to celebrate by getting free ice cream and buy one get one free birthday deals around Ann Arbor! Why not drag the birthday out as long as we can right?

I am so proud of my husband and all he does. He is truly an amazing man. I was thinking of words that describe him today and I will try to express a few of them.

Amazing, Dedicated, Funny, Creative, Driven, Writer, Singer, Sports Fanatic, Giving, High Achieving, Honest, Thoughtful, Good Daddy, Patient, Expressive, Hard Working Student, Forgiving, Spritual, Best Friend, Real, Friendly, Family Man, Animal Lover, Educated, Focused, Time Manager, On-time, Loving, and so many more things.

Most of all he is my Best Friend and the Father of my beautiful brown-eyed (after her Daddy) girl and I love him more and more everyday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE!!!

For those who were asking...

Here are photos of our home. I feel like we have it just about where we like it. Though I lost a lot of decorating space in the move, so I'll just get to rotate things, especially with the holidays!

Here is the view of our living room from the front door.

The other view. The front door is on the left right by the stairs. To the right is our dining room and slider to the back porch. To the left of the slider is a door that goes down to the basement. I won't post pictures of these things for sake of time. The basement has a small t.v. room, small office and laundry room. Mostly it is Dave's studying cave and storage. (soon to have some craft things set up...hopefully.)

The kitchen looks out at our neighbor's porch and garden, not a bad way to wash dishes.

Here is Anna's Room (obviously) It has been fun to finally put her pictures up and decorate since we didn't get to do it in our home in Utah. The room came with yellow walls, so that took some time to get used to. It is a very girlie room and I love it! Hooray for PINK! (:


The window looks right out at a large green space. When we first moved in we didn't have curtains and the sun would come right in. Needless to say, Anna woke up earlier than needed. We found these curtains in our landlords stuff. They are not my favorite, but almost match her glider so it works.

I love the LARGE closets in this place! Though hanging clothes is a little different. People in Michigan like to put the hangers in backwards.

You don't see a rod in the closet? Well there isn't one, you put it on the back of the shelf which has a little lip on it. It has more of a cleaner look, but will take time to get used to.

Our sanctuary...not really, but we do get "some" sleep here, that is if Anna has a good night. We didn't do any painting or buy the curtains, that was all the landlord's doing, luckily everything went well with our color scheme. We love all the windows in this place, even though the front is shaded by the many trees, the light is fabulous. I didn't put a picture of our open closet, because the shelves are too high for me, so I tend to throw things up and it gets messy. (okay I kinda did that before the height was an issue, but we won't go into that.)

We are really comfortable here and have loved re-decorating a new home!

Bed Time?? What is that?

This was Anna the other night two to three hours after her typical bedtime. All she wanted to do was play. Playing in the mirror is one of her favorite things these days... and these are her typical "excited" faces.

Two "Anna's," one beaver , weird art work, and a student husband...

Yes, this is my life as of the last two days. Yesterday I started a full time nannying job! The baby I am watching is only a month older than Anna and her name is "Anna Belle." There have been a few crazy moments (no I don't ever want twins), but all in all it is great to be able to take my pride and joy to "work" with me and get paid to take care of her. (: Yesterday was awesome, Anna Belle sleep for 4 hours (yes, the mother and I were both dumb founded). It was a great way to break me into the job. I didn't want to have to work, but I feel fortunate to have found this family. The mother and I get along really well and the babies love to play together, well until Anna Belle pulls Anna's ear or sits on her feet.

About the Beaver, The neighborhood I nanny in is amazing! I went for an hour walk and fell in love with the neighborhood! Part of it reminded me of Holladay, Utah. The biggest reason I love the neighborhood is that there are huge lots and seem to all have their own "woods." The reason I tell you this? Well, today I was doing the dishes and looked into the backyard and there stood a BEAVER! Why in the heck is there a Beaver in the backyard you ask? Well your guess is as good as mine.

The weird art work... The family I nanny for are here from Boston for the school year. They are renting the house from a very eccentric family... VERY! There is art work EVERYWHERE and some of it is BIZARRE! If I can train my eye to look away it will prove to be a success. Perhaps I will post some pictures of that!

And... Yes, I miss my husband already. Dave is working really hard everyday and still feels like he is behind. I tell you, it is hard going from being together almost every day for a month and a half to days that we have to stay up later than needed to catch up on the day. I have to say I am glad it isn't medical school. I am thankful that he is working hard and wish him the best!

My Day with Mia

Finally a Video! (Hint: pause our blog music first)

In case there's any question as to whether Anna and Mia get along, here you go!

Well, we've been trying to post this for several months now! First, we didn't have a firewire hookup to be able to digitally download video from our camera. Then, we moved across the country (you might have noticed). Then, it has taken us several weeks to make it into a small enough file that Blogger would accept it. I'm sad that we couldn't put the whole thing on because it lasts about a minute or so, but here's at least a small part. If anyone has tricks to making downloading video onto a blog easier, we're all ears.

Enjoy!