Happy 1/2 Birthday Anna!

Mom trying to take a new picture with Anna, instead I get spit up down my shirt and in my hair and she has a smile on her face. Take two. Much better.
Anna's New Ride - Day One
End of ride 2. :) Note: Wally the Walrus in upper left corner. She's sitting on the other side of the tub now as she'd much rather sit up.
Peekaboo!

Love that smile!
Jumping is hew new favorite pasttime.
What a killer smile she has!
The end of mommy's photo shoot.

Hard to believe that Anna has been apart of our lives for 6 months already! It seems like such a long time ago that I woke up to know that this was the day we'd be bringing our baby into the world. And here we are, a short 6 months from that day and Anna has grown and changed so much!

She's quite a character these days. She giggles when you tickle her neck and tummy with a gruffy voice. She will eat anything from her shoes and socks to prunes and sweet peas. We've moved on for the most part from 3-6 months clothes to 6 month and some 6-9 month clothes. I'm still trying to put her in as many warm new clothes I have before spring and summer truely get here. So she may only wear an outfit once at this point. I've loaded her closet up with her new 6-9 month clothes and have to put her clothes away in shifts as they don't all fit very well. She has a turtle in her crib that plays music and lights up. Now that she can shift her body all over the place, she gets rough with the turtle and starts kicking it with both feet. At bath time, we have Wally (the purple walrus) and if he takes a dive or is out of her sight after she has him, the world has ended. She scrunches her nose up like I did when I was little when she laughs or smiles, she blows bubbles and rattles her tongue. Those big blue eyes don't miss a thing. She is starting to look for us if we get out of her sight, like whips her body around whoever is holding her to see the other. Everyday is a new experience, exciting or scary, but she's more than amazing.

I hope we've ended the boughts of sickness, for awhile anyway. Last week we brought Anna in to the doctor to have her checked out. She seemed to run a slight fever on and off and pull at her ears sometimes. She's at the stage where she may start teething, but it ended up being an ear infection. So I brought her back in a couple days later to see if it was on it's way up or down. It was getting better, so we didn't need to do antibiotics. The doctor applauded us. :) She's such a trooper.

We continue to introduce new foods to her and she takes them all, some with a slightly sour face, but ends up whinning for more with her mouth wide open. On the right, I've made a list of what she's eating these days. :) She rolls all over the floor now, trying really hard and sometimes succeeding in reaching her scattered toys. She can stand up by the couch, but doesn't know how to move her feet or hold her balance. She loves it! We're practicing sitting up with some success. It usually ends in a reach to whatever she wants in her mouth and back on the floor we go.

The weather has finally cooperated for us to go outside! We invested more into our darling daughter with a bike trailer so we can all go on bike rides. Gary is currently the lucky recipient of pulling her. The first trip, a bit brisk, resulted in crying and a short ride. Tonight, it was beautiful and we had a half hour trip. She started out hanging out with scary hairy guy and ended up crashing for the duration. Along with that, we put shoes on her. She didn't know what to make of those things on her feet. It's almost like she forgot how to stand. It was hilarious.

I could gush more about the amazing Anna, but I think that's all the excitement for the past week or so. :) Gary and I are doing well. Enjoying the outside and seeing Anna really experience it for the first time. We're still in the midst of spring cleaning (the basement right now) and am still working my theme for the year of "decluttering". So far, doing alright with that. :)

I hope this finds you all enjoying the beautiful weather!

Love,

Gary, Christie and the Baby Boogarino (yeah, we call her that sometimes)

Beans and Butterflies!

Never a dull moment at the Tidd house. First, Anna has been introduced to the art of computer building with Dad last Friday evening. What a momentous occasion for all!
I feel your pain, Anna. (She's not always smiling). :)
Then just when you think it can't get any better, we introduce green beans to the arsenal of yummy mushy Anna food! Once again, she ate it like a champ and still does. We also tried carrots later in the week, but we think it either didn't agree with her or she's teething as she spit up a lot that day after eating it. So we're going to try another veggie tomorrow.

Then we treated ourselves to an afternoon at Fredrick Meijer Gardens to see the Butterfly Exhibit. It was beautiful and Anna wasn't going to miss a thing! She followed the butterflies all over and enjoyed touching (not grabbing, we're learning to be gentle) all the foliage. We can't wait to go back and walk the sculpture park.

I finally got a picture of Anna with her Easter baskets. She doesn't really sit by herself, but we managed to get a couple pictures in before she attacked her basket. She, of course, went for the chocolate. Good girl. :)

I don't know if most of you know that Anna has a mullet. She's had it since the day she was born and it's great. I wanted to get a picture of it before she started to get more hair. She also loves pulling on our hair and our face.

She has quite a grip! Speaking of grip - she loves to sleep on her tummy so at night when we checked on her she had her arm a little bit out of the crib clutching the bars. So we moved her away so we wouldn't be woken up to cries of being stuck. Then we went to wake her up in the morning (yes, we have to wake her up usually) and she had her whole arm out of the crib.

So we rounded out the week a day home with mom b/c Anna had an upset tummy from the carrots we think. But now we think she's teething. No signs of teeth that I can see or feel, but I'm sure they are on their way. That morning, we left her on the floor on her blanket to get stuff ready for the day. About 2 minutes later we check on her, this is what she did. What a character!

And the week wouldn't be complete without a sunny photo shoot with the lovely Anna. I can't resist! All of my discs for my camera since she's been born have been labeled Anna and the month. She's certainly taken over our lives in such a wonderful way and can't imagine life without her!

We've been thrilled to be able to take walks, open windows in the house and the car and see the sun again! It sure makes such a difference. Gary and I are doing well. Work is good. Sidework is good. We've been working on being better stewards of what we have. I didn't really know what the word meant until recently and it's been on my mind ever since. We've been having people over to our home for dinner and sharing in fellowship, going through our boxes of stuff and getting rid of/donating what we don't need or want anymore, recycling things to better the environment, things like that. I guess we're following the trend of being more "green" but it's really doing what God has already commanded us to do a long time ago and "rule" of the earth and treasure it for what it is. It may be small, but a little goes a long way sometimes.

Have a wonderful Lord's Day tomorrow and I'll leave you with this picture. We talk a walk with Anna, it was a little breezy and apparently it took it all out of her. I put her down on the floor for 2 minutes, came back and this is what we found. Too cute!

Love to you all!

Gary, Christie and the Booger