Winter Festival

So one of the slap-in-the-face things Seasson & I have noticed about Sioux Falls is that they love Christmas. I mean that people here crazy LUV it! The day after Halloween I can't tell you how many Christmas decorations and lights went up. Also, all those Olsens and Johnsons arn't afraid to scream that December is for Christmas and nothing else. There is a Winter Festival held down at Falls Park which consisted mostly of lights (see blurry pic), free hot cocoa and cookies, and a Santa appearance. While being incredibly popular it was pretty dull - good thing that Jill came with us.

We did get to ride the Sioux Falls trolley from the downtown area to the park which was fun for Anna.

We went shopping and had dinner downtown beforehand which was the best part of the night and we were able to pickup an early Christmas gift for ourselves - love it!

Halloween 2009

This was the first year that Anna could really trick-or-treat on Halloween. She was pretty hesitant to talk to our neighbors at first but wasn't worried about digging through their candy bowls.


We double-dipped and used that same turtle costume last year but she was only just starting to walk.



Here's a video of Anna in the neighborhood - i hope that she didn't get freaked out by the camera i had when she answered the door.

New House - Dining Room

Anna's Room

Here is a tour of Anna's big girl room that she'll hopefully be sleeping in soon.

Anna Playing Around

Here is a video of Anna messing around with daddy's baritone and singing!

Anna Playing Around

Anna has graduated from the bottle and loves these sippy cups. It's so much easier now that we have all the bottles packed away.

We also got Anna her own shades to prevent theft (and breakage) of our own shades. She'll keep them on her face but also likes to hang them from her neck.

Here's a video of Anna jumping around. She can now get both feet off the ground. Let's hope she doesn't start jumping on Neko's tail.

She also jumps and dances whenever she watches Sesame Street. Yeah, she's a little close to the television but this is only when Sesame is on.

Memorial Day 2009

Hey Everybody - we just recently had a visit from Nana and had some friends over for Memorial Day. This is Anna's first serious modeling pose (except for the sauce on her nose). She's starting to ham it up when the camera comes out instead of shying away.

That picture reminded me of another photo of Seasson we had when she was younger but just a few years older than Anna. I definitely see some similarities here.

Nana got Anna a water/sand table with some chunky plastic animals. It's perfect because Anna is completely OCD about washing her hands in the sink and now she can just play with the water table outside and feed the urge. Of course she's found the benefit of mixing water and sand together - lovely.

She also got a bubble mower because the neighborhood kids frequently tell us to mow our lawn. Anna loves it when the bubbles come out. Now I'm trying to figure out how to rig the bubbles onto the real lawnmower and put her to work.

Our friends Chris, his wife Weiman, and their daughter Audrey came over for a Memorial Day pork-BBQ blowout. Ribs and pulled pork....in your face swine flu! I feel like the swine flu rumors scared down the price of pork, so we've still got a freezer full of hams, sausages, etc. Nothing washes down BBQ better than a nice cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon? Chris swears that PBR is a trendy college beer again, so we put it to the test.

Audrey and Anna were born within a week, so they're real close in age and should theoretically get along, right? We'll come back to that later. All I cared about is that Audrey loved the ribs and hummus. Anna seems to have lost her taste buds and has already settled on a diet of hot dogs and chicken nuggets. However, she does eat much more exotic foods at daycare - that's
another story.Everybody was cool during dinner.

Still cool playing with bubbles.

But then they became very interested in the same toys for awhile and got into a couple of disagreements. Kids will be kids I guess.