Happy Birthday Anna!

We celebrated Anna's birthday a day late with a family get together. We invited our family members that live here in Utah. We just had cake and ice cream but had a lot of fun visiting. At Anna's 1st Birthday when everyone started to sing to her she started crying. This year she did much better with the singing but when we tried to get her to blow out her candles it was a no go an she hid behing Mom. I guess that is the down side to being the oldest and not watching siblings do it all year.

Singing to Anna

Trying to get Anna to blow out her candles

Anna is into this huge Snow White kick. She loves to watch the movie everyday and would watch it all day if I didn't limit her to one showing. She also has little Snow White figures including the dwarfs that she loves to play with - hence the cake. For those that are really good at making beautiful cakes, skip over the picture. I wanted to fill in the lines but ran out of time. Oh well, the thought was there.

Matthew and I had her open her presents from us and my parents in the morning before the party. I don't think she quite grasped the idea of the phrase "open presents" but after she got the first one done she seemed to enjoy it. Christmas won't be a problem.

September

The beginning of the month we took Anna to her first baseball game. We got a chance to get some tickets to the Orem Owls game. Once she saw a ball in the air she got more excited. I think she had a good time. We only stayed for 3 or 4 innings and then took her home.

The middle of the month I took Anna home for a last minute visit with my family. Matthew had to stay home because of responsibilities he had here that weekend. While I was home I took Anna to a parade in Shelley for Spud Days. It was her first experience with candy collecting. After watching her cousins collect candy and having me take her hand to show her, she got the idea, I think. She is enjoying her spoils now although I have to monitor her daily intake.

We spent eight days in Portland the end of Sept. visiting Matthew's family. We stayed with his parents and two of his sisters came as well. I was able to meet his sister Mary for the first time which was fun.

We spent a couple of days in Lincoln City, OR. We took Anna to the beach and she saw a beach and the ocean for the first time. She didn't mind walking on the sand in shoes but once we took her shoes off she had no interest in walking on the beach. She didn't mind having Matthew take her out into the water though.We swung by the outlet mall before we left and Anna found a bus to drive. We had one unhappy girl when we had to pull her out kicking and sreaming.

When we got back to Portland we spent time with family both Matthew's and mine. One day we

went to feed ducks with Matthew's sisters which was fun. I also got a chance to spend some time shopping with my cousin and we went to dinner with the husbands that night.