Ten

I have about ten MILLION things to blog about, but I never can get started....so I made a deal with myself to write about just ten of the exciting things that have happened around here lately!

1. Anna took her first steps, a few "single" steps here and there, two "official" steps on her birthday at Conner Prairie, and then six steps to Memaw on Friday. Then she got sick (sinus infection and fever) so she hasn't taken any more.

2. Adele had a playdate with her best buddy, Andrew on Monday. She was an absolute darling while he drove her around in the Barbie Jeep after she got over the fact that he didn't really want to play "prince and princess"

3. We took Anna to target to get her one-year pictures taken. She was very serious and not very smiley, and then she ended up sick...which is exactly the same as what happened to Adele for her one-year pictures. Uncanny, those two girlies!

4. Memaw and I took Adele and Anna to a local mini-golf range. Adele tried to get the hang of using the golf club, but I think it was pretty frustrating for her. She mostly ended up picking her ball up and dropping it in the hole. I was carrying Anna in the sling (she was a sick little trooper...poor thing!) so I couldn't really "coach" Adele as much as I wanted to, but I'm pretty sure Adele had fun anyway. (And Anna got lots of mommy snuggles in the sling, so it was win-win-win!)

5. Memaw and I took the girls to Conner Prairie to find out if the sheep that went into labor during our visit on Thursday had had her babies yet. She hadn't...false alarm. Speaking of false alarms, it was "Civil War Days" weekend, and there were guns going off everywhere. At one point we were probably not even 20 feet from a gun as it went off repeatedly. Adele was not thrilled.

6. We spent some time flying a kite on Saturday, but Adele got mad when I put Anna in the stroller and shouted her favorite phrase (for the time being...) "Never!" "No, mom, I said NEVER put Anna in the stroller, Never!" We realized later that she got the line from "Tangled" (Her second-favorite phrase is "Hey guys, what's going on here?" I think it's from the Lion King 1 1/2, but I'm not sure...

7. Anna has stopped saying many of the words that she used to use. She used to say mama, dada, woof, bapa, this, that, ball (well, "ba" but she does mean ball), moo, baa, and la (la la), but has recently only been saying bapa or this/that for everything. She calls most people "bapa", and points to everything else and says "this" or "that". I think that's because she is trying so hard to walk, and regression is normal when a new skill is developing. She did have a funny word for "shoe" yesterday (I find myself calling them "eesh" since that's what Adele said for the longest time) I think it was something like "wish" (it definitely ended with -sh). She loves her shoes and gets excited when we get them out, she'll even hold her foot up, eagerly waiting for us to put a shoe on her!

8. Adele got her hair cut yesterday. All morning she went back and forth about wanting it cut, and finally I just took her. I didn't want her to get upset and cry, so I was VERY nervous when the stylist made that first cut, but Adele is getting so much attention from her new hair cut, I don't think she minds one bit! We cut about 4 inches off, I kept the stylist from cutting an extra inch, but now I'm almost wishing we had made it a bit shorter. It is still long enough for a pony tail, and she has a few layers that are helping her bangs grow out more evenly.

9. Anna has definitely become attached to her "green blankie"-which makes me happy! We had an exciting experience with her "my-key" (I swear, she has called it that once or twice, and it stuck!) several weeks ago when we went to the zoo with our friend Stacey and her son, Hunter. About five minutes after arriving at the zoo, I realized that I had lost her blanket. I checked with lost and found, retraced our steps, even going all the way back to the van and found nothing. We got there just as the zoo opened, so there weren't all that many people there. I tired not to be too worried, but I had no idea how it could be so lost when we had only just got there. I was given a number to call "at the end of the day" if the blanket hadn't turned up in lost and found (which it hadn't), and Stacey convinced me to call it. The man who answered the phone had just been handed the blanket. It was definitely a happy ending, but I do wonder what happened to the blanket, and what kind of adventure IT had to tell of its day at the zoo!

10. Adele and I have started a garden. It is called a straw bale garden, because our vegetables actually grow in straw bales. We have planted carrots, peas, lettuce, green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons and pumpkins. We also picked up some strawberry and pepper transplants (because our pepper seeds didn't sprout), and some oregano, basil, chives, cilantro and spearmint transplants to add edible foliage to the sides of the bales. We also have sunflowers growing in a patch of the yard near the clubhouse. Stay tuned for more about our garden as the gardening season progresses!