Likes and Dislikes of a 7 1/2 Month Old

Likes and Dislikes of a 7 1/2 Month Old

She loves being mobile. She'll roll and scoot backwards to all corners of the apartment. She also digs her head and feet into the ground and sticks her bum in the air. She doesn't get far with this move, but it's hilarious to watch.

She hates that she can't crawl. She is a sweetheart, yet a sweetheart with attitude. She will rock back and forth on her knees and yell because she can't quite figure out how to coordinate the hands and knees to forward motion.

She loves her solids. Loves rice cereal, oatmeal, green beans, carrots, peaches, and bananas (well, doesn't love bananas but likes).

Hates sweet potatoes (I don't blame her) and apple sauce. To think about it, she's not a huge fan of her formula but that's because she just really loves her oatmeal.

BYU football games. She loves watching all the people.

But she hates sitting in the stands because of the noise. She likes the game underneath the stands.

That's ok, I can see way better there because there's no one blocking my view. (Those students who never sit down!)

Loves the chico stroller.

Hates the jogging stroller. I think that the fact that she can sit and play in her chico stroller but is strapped down in her jogging stroller may play a part in that, but considering the speed at which I run, she needs to be strapped in pretty tight (insert guffaw here).

She sleeps in her crib!

Yay! (I'm kind of ridiculous. She'll sometimes cry out at night, and I can't help it, my body gets out of bed before I realize it, and I'm beside her crib. By that time, she's gone back to sleep on her own.

Not much hate going on here. Well, she did start to hate sleeping in her bassinet. That's probably because her feet touched the bottom while her head touched the top.

California was so much fun! (We got back on Friday night/Saturday morning.) She loved playing with her aunts, uncles, and cousins. (Did I mention that she loves kids a lot so she really had fun with her cousins.) And boy was she spoiled, and she loved that (as was I and did I). (Sad that I only got one picture with one cousin. There were six others there. Lauren and Annabelle sure do look cute though.)

She missed her daddy so much. That's pretty ironic because we all went to California because Brian had a conference. He was really busy though and stayed at a hotel while Annabelley and I stayed with family.

Loves books...and spoons. Plays with them and eats them all day long.

Will yell at you if you take them away from her.

Loves being outside and gets really antsy if we haven't left the house all day.

Also loves electronics (think cell phones and computers - she is her father's daughter).

She will make you pay if you take them away from her. Just ask sister Tiffany. Annabelle would give her the stink eye for hours each time she took away the cell phone.

We love this little girl. Can you tell?

And without further ado, here are more pictures!

These are my sisters. What are they doing, you ask. They often stand in the kitchen like this. They like to think that they receive strength and power from the surrounding appliances. (Or they could be practicing a yoga pose. Whatever.)

Um, I think T will kill me because I put this photo up. I had to. It perfectly portrays the attire and nourishment received for the duration of the California trip. (Yes, that's fudge. We were putting it on our nightly sundaes. We party, we party hard.)

Annabelle loves to visit with Cousin Lily in Bountiful

And loves her Grandma Carlson

Strutting her stuff in her snazzy track suit

After Stake Conference. She had a blast apparently.

She doesn't quite understand the flash on the camera. She can be smiling up a storm, but as soon as the flash goes off, the following occurs.

I have to explain this picture to let you know that my parents rock. Brian and I had gone to the emergency room early on the Sunday morning of Conference. Amazingly enough, I had a companion from my mission who just so happened to stay the night (Holly is awesome!), so when Brian and I were rushing out, I was able to ask her to watch Annabelle. I'm serious when I say that the Lord really does watch out for us. Anyway, I knew that Holly had to leave at around 7:00 A.M. to drive back to Arizona, so I called my parents at 5:00 and asked them if they could watch Annabelle. They hopped in their car and were on their way (note: they live an hour away). I feel really bad about it, because we got home before they got to our apartment. They still were lifesavers because they cooked for us and washed our dishes and played with the Little Miss while Brian and I caught up on our sleep. Annabelle loved every minute of it (as you can tell sitting on Grandpa Carlson's lap).

Annabelle and Grandma Carlson at "the game"

She thought Uncle Eric was a hoot, and she especially liked sticking her figures all over his face and in his mouth.

The little bum

I Can't Believe I'm Old Enough

to have a nephew serve a mission. Congrats to Ry who received his mission call today - Lubbock Texas, here he comes!

Annabelle's Singing Debut

Ok, she doesn't actually sing in this first video. She started to "sing" after I stopped taping her (of course). So here's the story. She loves musicals. She really does, and her favorite is "The Sound of Music." Everytime Julie Andrews sings, "the hills are alive, with the sound of music," Annabelle gets a huge grin on her face, and she eventually starts yelling at the top of her lungs. With this video, she gets a little distracted with Brian's watch (I'm usually the one holding her while we watch the movie) but you can see how much she likes it. And she always watches the entire song.

Here she actually is singing. She generally has yelled herself hoarse by now because she's already yelled along to The Sound of Music and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria.

This just goes to show how big she's getting. She is going to be 6 months on Thursday. To prove it, here are pictures of her first taste of rice cereal.

She was so ready for it. (Although she got TO'd because I watered it down so much with formula. She seemed to look at me like, "Mom, if I wanted formula, I'd drink it out of my bottle; now feed me!" I made a better batch the next day.)

Note: I love whoever it was that told me to buy a suction bowl. Priceless!

So we're having a problem with her rolling onto her stomach and not being able to roll onto her back again. The problem is that she gets mad when she's been on her stomach long enough. With that said, she is a pretty spectacular roller.

And jumper

Yes, I posted a lot of videos. Where else am I supposed to document her life?

Now a quick blurb on Brian and me. We had a fun date night a few weeks ago. We got the idea that we should make pupusas. For those of you who have never had them, they're a great dish from El Salvador that consists (basically) of stuffed tortillas with toppings. You can put whatever you want in them. We like Chicharron and cheese. Here's the thing. On our mission, every hermana from El Salvador taught the missionaries how to do it. Unfortunately, the missionaries are a little slow because Brian and I sure had an interesting time of it. The end result,

They actually were really good (thanks to the chef).

Imagine waking up to this

Umm, that sure is a dozen gorgeous red roses, and they were all for me! For the story, read the end of the post, but first:

Tales of the Little Miss

Little Miss Annabelle is growing by leaps and bounds and is learning to do so many new things. She just loves to suck on her big toe as shown here:

She'll wake up from a nap and eat and talk to her feet for quite awhile before she wants us to go in and get her.

She also has had her first taste of juice.

This was her first taste.

Trying to figure out if she likes it.

And decides that she doesn't.

Actually, she really likes juice now. It was weird for her at first, but as long as the juice isn't cold, she's chuggs it right down.

She's also taking a bit of formula everyday.

At first, she reeeaaaaalllly didn't like it, but now she gets excited when she sees her bottle. I think we have a pretty independent daughter, and she likes holding her bottle herself.

She's now decided she's a side sleeper.

Notice the hand over her eyes. Does it every naptime. Very "woe is me" don't you think?

She's been getting new toys and binkies.

Sad binky story. So she likes to eat, play, and talk to her binkies. Lately, she's been stuffing the handle of the binkie all the way into her mouth and turning it so it gets stuck. She freaks out because she can't get it out or close her mouth. I freak out because she's freaking out. Very scary. So we had to invest in new binkies without any handles. She actually seems to like them better.

Progression of a smile:

How can you not love this little girl? Isn't she the cutest?!

Now the story. When Brian and I were just friends, we would car pool to Utah Valley together. I would drive from Bountiful to Taylorsville, stow my car there, he would drive and drop me off at Lehi so I could hang out with my friend Andrea, and he would then head to Provo to hang out with his brothers. We were "conserving gas." I distinctly remember one night when I was commenting on how when I got engaged, I wouldn't want a diamond ring; a band was good enough for me. I also would never expect my husband to buy me flowers. I mean, who wants a present that dies, right? (Let me just mention at this point, we really were just friends. I don't remember how we got on the subject of rings and flowers ( I was probably trying to give him dating advice), but I promise, this was not a tacky way to get Brian to propose. That came lots later, like two months.) The funny thing is I really believed that I didn't want a diamond ring, and I didn't ever need flowers. They just weren't my style.

A diamond ring and a dozen roses later, I'm glad he didn't listen to me. I often take ring breaks (that's when you hold your hand out in front of your face to see it sparkle), and I love opening a book to reread months or years later and finding a dried flower there and remembering just how wonderful it felt to see and smell the flowers and to remember that I have someone who loves me.

Thanks, Brian, for knowing me better than I know myself. I loev you and thanks for planning a wonderful anniversary (with steak included. I love steak), and thanks to Mom and Dad for babysitting. Happy fourth anniversary to us! (as of the 12th) Happy Anniversary to Jan and Willy and Rebecca and Micah too!