"I can't like that."

Anna's knew favorite thing to say is , "I can't like that." Whether it's the flavor yogurt she gets or the pants I pick out for her or the fact that Elmo isn't in this particular section of the movie, she makes this new proclamation. I can't figure out if she says it so much because she's two and is claiming her new-found independence or if it's because we have laughed so much at her saying it. Maybe it's a little bit of both...

"What is Goldfish doin'?"

Our friends, Adam and Brandi, were in town for Thanksgiving and we met them for breakfast to catch up and meet their new little boy, Fisher. Adam went to UNC with Will and me, but also was part of the UNC clan out in Dallas with us. He met Brandi there, and they now live in Houston. We were excited they were so close and that we could squeeze in a visit.

Fisher is 8 months old and is the cutest, chunkiest little thing. He weighs as much as Anna does at 2!! They were so cute playing together. At one point, Anna looked at Fisher and asked, "What is Goldfish doin'?". All of us looked at each other, completely confused. Then we realized she was referring to Fisher as "Goldfish". She calls every other kind of fish "goldfish" so I guess she figured she could call him that, too! Hysterical!

Rameses vs The Wolfpack

On Saturday, we all went to the Carolina/State football game in Raleigh. It worked out that my mom and dad got to go with us. This is always an interesting rivalry since my dad graduated from State and Will and I are such huge Carolina fans. We all agreed to be civil.:) My dad was fully expecting a blow-out since the Wolfpack haven't been playing so hot. Obviously, the game did not end like any of us expected it to!! My dad was thrilled with the outcome, to say the least. However, the biggest highlight was getting Anna to say, "Go Wolfpack!" and introducing her to Mr. and Mrs. Wolf. Since she has been infatuated with Rameses as of late, this was no small feat. Anna even got to meet Mrs. Wolf and learned how to make the wolf with her hand. Thanks so much, Pawpaw!! What have you done with our little Tarheel??

Thanksgiving 2009

Our Turkey Day was much less stressful this year. It was different from our traditional Thanksgiving, but less stressful all the same. Because my dad's side of the family usually does lunch, and the Heges have been so good to wait and have dinner, we usually squeeze two Thanksgiving meals into one day so we don't have to choose one family over the other. In years past, we've done the Collins lunch in Rocky Mount, which is a lovely 3 hour drive from us. Have you ever tried driving 3 hours after eating a huge meal--not fun! This year, the Collins clan decided to have Thanksgiving at my cousins home outside of Charlotte since so many of us are now in the western part of the state. Yay, we only had to drive an hour this time!! It was much more manageable, especially for Anna. Plus, my family got to come up and hang out with us for a few days. Here are some pics from our dual day.

Anna loved the gorgeous swimming pool and waterfall in Josh and Lisa's backyard.

Aunt Sarah was making sure she didn't fall in since she just HAD to put her hands in it!

Greg and Michelle chatting with Granmama.

Anna and Mimi "flying" on the swing

Since it was perfect Thanksgiving weather, Josh started a small bonfire and we roasted marshmallows and made smores. Here, Anna is sitting with her cousin Savannah.

We drove back home and regrouped, then headed over to the Heges for dinner. Luckily, we had a good 6 hours to digest between meals! I rarely take my camera with me when we are with the Heges since we see them so much, but I had extra foresight and actually got some family pics.

The whole family at dinner. Before the blessing, we asked Anna what she was thankful for. As she went around the table, Erin's friend, Aaron, became "the other E"!

Nannie helped Anna with a post-meal cupcake.

Aunt E and Anna

Four generations

Our family

We have so very much to be thankful for!!

Michelle's Bachelorette Night

My brother, Greg, and his fiance, Michelle, are getting married the weekend before Christmas. A couple of weekends ago, we all converged upon Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach for the Bachelor/Bachelorette Weekend. While the guys were on a boat fishing and at B-Dubs eating wings, the girls hosted a monogram shower for Michelle at the Hege's beach condo. We followed that with a delicious dinner at Bluewater, and then all stayed at the condo for a good, old-fashioned slumber party. We watched The Ugly Truth (awesome and hysterical girly movie) and then stayed up playing "I've Never...". We wrapped up the weekend with a scrumptious brunch at Cameron's grandmother's home. What fun!!

The beautiful bride-to-be

Mimi and Anna

Sarah gave Michelle a monogrammed lunch bag to use when she starts teaching.

Anna loved the huge silver bow on Michelle's big present.

Now Michelle has luggage for the honeymoon in NYC!!

Oh, the things that she says...

One of the reasons that I started this blog was to be a able to capture the cute things that Anna says before we forget them. Well, here are two more additions.

Last night, Anna and I were sitting at the dinner table (Will was in CH at the UNC game). I was talking to her about Thanksgiving and all the family that was coming in a few days. She asked in her sweet little angelic voice, "Mommy, what's Thanksgiving?". I explained that it was a day that we spend with all of our family and think about all the things that we are thankful to God for and we get to eat lots of yummy food. Then I started to list some of the things I was thankful for. As I was rattling off my list, she bursts out with, "...and Diet Coke! Mommy, we need to take the Diet Coke with us to Thanksgiving." As she was saying this, she was pointing to a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke on top of our fridge. Random!! Now, I know that her Nannie lets her have sips every now and then, but I never guessed that would be tops on her Thanksgiving list.:)

Today, I picked her up from school and we were on the way home after meeting Will at Panera for lunch. Her teacher, Miss Linda, had told me that they had read a book about farm animals and Anna was so good with all of the animal sounds. Well, we were on the highway and took our exit. I drove a little close to the edge and ran over the little rumble strip on the side of the road. Anna asked, "What was that, Mommy?". I told her and she followed with, "It looks like a cow!" (I'm pretty sure she meant "sounds like", but I knew what she was saying). I said, "It does kind of sound like a cow, doesn't it?". Then she said, "I think it's a Chik-fil-A cow!". Well, I guess it could be :o).

Date Night with Datty

OK, I know I'm behind. However, there are a couple of people (who will remain nameless) who have yet to upload pics from the Collins Girls Weekend--you know who you are!!:)

When we got back from the Girls Weekend last Sunday, it was my turn to host the Bunco girls at our home. We meet once a month and it was my month to host. So, I got to kick Will and Anna out of the house for several hours. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Bunco, but Will managed to get a few on their "date". He decided to take Anna to play Putt-putt.

***For those of you who are unaware, our daughter has developed some British tendencies: she has stopped pronouncing Daddy as "Da-ee" (with no D's) and has switched to the UK version of "Datty". As long as she doesn't start calling me "Mummy", I'm OK with it. It's so cute!***

Anna got to pick which color balls she wanted...

Where did it go?

She liked the animals as much as the golf.

Fun with Datty!

Her swing is good...now we just need to work on that whole aiming thing!

Tutas and Teetees

OK, so this may be a little TMI for some of you, but hysterical for others. I forgot to include one of the highlights of the weekend with Anna and Oren!! To back track, I had fully anticipated this conversation to happen while we were in Dallas, because I knew Anna would be taking a bath with Clayton and Drew. She is usually very observant and had yet to be exposed to "male parts". I had even had a conversation with Will about what he wanted our nickname for that to be and had consulted with several other moms about what they called it. Clayton calls his a "teetee", so I decided that went well with our "tuta" and was fully prepared (so I thought). However, the entire weekend went by with lots of baths and diaper changes and nothing was ever mentioned.

Then, Oren came to visit. On the second night, they were in the bath tub and Oren started peepeeing in the water. Well, Anna immediately noticed and decided to take her little pointy finger and place it on Oren's "junk" and ask, "What's that, Mommy?" After giving Mom and Sarah the "Oh, @#%$" look, this is the conversation that transpired:

Me: "That's a teetee. Girls have tutas and boys have teetees."

Anna: "Anna has a teetee." (big grin here)

Me: "No, you are a girl, so you have a tuta. Only boys have teetees."

Anna: confused look ensued...

So, I thought it was over. Whew! Well, later that week after Anna had gotten out of the bathtub Will was talking to her while I was putting her diaper and PJs on...

Anna: "I have a teetee." (holding her hands over her crotch)

Will: "Noooooo, only boys have teetees. You are a girl, so you have a tuta."

Anna: "Anna has a tuta."

Will: "Right."

Anna: "Anna doesn't have a teetee. Only boys have teetees."

Will: "That's right."

Anna: "Girls have tutas."

Will: "Yep."

Anna: "Does Mommy have a tuta?"

Will: the "what am I supposed to say to that?" look

Me: "Yes, Mommy has a tuta because I'm a girl just like Anna."

Anna: "Does Daddy have a tuta?"

Will: head in hands

Me: "No, Daddy's a boy, so he has a teetee. Daddy has a teetee and Oren has a teetee and Clayton has a teetee because they are all boys."

Anna: (looks at Will) "I want to see it!"

And conversation over, thank you. I quickly explained that we don't look at other people's teetees and tutas and we speedily transitioned to story time. She's barely two years old--did we really just have this conversation???

Trick or Treat 2009

Halloween night was dampened (literally) by the seemingly never-ending rain, but we managed to squeeze some good times out of it anyway. Right after Anna put on her precious Tinkerbell costume, it started pouring. So, we decided to ride over to Aunt Erin's and visit. When we got back it had stopped raining and was starting to get dark. Anna and I headed off to trick-or-treat while Will manned the fort at the house with Miller.

The first house we went to was across the street where our babysitter, Eileen, lives. While her mom was holding the door to reach for the candy bowl, Anna just paraded right inside. I was mortified! At least it was someone we knew and not a complete stranger.:) Then, it was like a light bulb went off inside her head and she remembered the end result of this trick-or-treating thing. Soon, she was saying, "Let's go to that house" and that one and that one and that one...

The funniest part of the whole night was when a group of older kids walked by and one of them said, "Look, there's Tinkerbell!" Anna whipped around to me and asked, "What did he say?" I explained to her that he knew that she was Tinkerbell because of her costume. For the next 5 minutes, she kept repeating, "He knows I'm Tinkerbell!" over and over. It was so cute!

The rain kept quite a few of our normal trick-or-treaters away, so we have A LOT of left over candy. Will is not too upset about it.....but just wait until that next dentist appointment, honey!

Halloween Par-tay!

Friday night, Will and I took Anna over to Nannie and Pop's house for a sleepover and headed to a Halloween party hosted by our friends, Paul and Sarah. They have a reputation for going all-out for Halloween costumes and parties, and this year was no exception. But we had a little something up our sleeves, too....

We had a great time with great friends and even learned a really fabulous game called Four On a Couch (kudos, Jenn). I highly recommend it, especially with a little drinky-drinky!! It was hysterical! Needless to say, I was not feeling well come Saturday morning, but it was well worth it.

This was Will's idea...but it was funny.

Jenn and Tyler as Jenn and Tonic

Sarah and Paul as Jon and Kate (complete with "the Kate hair")

The fantastic girls! That would be Cheer-i-O there in the middle:).