Sassy Pants

I was cleaning the house this morning and missed Anna for a few minutes. When I went looking for her, this is how I found her:

She had Bo-bo and was curled up in the bouncy seat with the music effects on just watching. I guess old habits die hard!:)

On to the sassy pants story...

After I took the picture, she asked to get into her old crib. I picked her up and put her in there and then started telling her that we were getting ready to go downstairs and eat lunch. To preface her comment, we have been recently working on manners when you need to walk where someone is standing or sitting and manners while someone is talking. We have been working on getting her to say "excuse me" when someone is in her way (instead of shoving them) and to place her hand on my or Will's arm (to get our attention) and wait for us to finish so she doesn't interrupt. These are hard concepts for a two-year-old, but she has been doing pretty well with them so far.

Anyway, as I was telling her this, she put her hand on my arm, said, "Excuse me, Mommy. No more talking!". What?!! And then I broke code--I lost all parental composure here. After I had stood up from being in the fetal position laughing hysterically, she took both of my cheeks in her hands and said, "No more talking, Mommy!". When I got my wits about me again, I asked her where she had heard that before (because I certainly don't recall having said that recently). I asked her if Miss Linda and Miss Kelly say that at school and she grinned and nodded her head. So, here we go. Anna's playing teacher and Mommy must be the student. There's a first! Wonder where she got those sassy pants from??;)

And his name shall be...Benny

In an earlier post, I mentioned that we welcomed The Elf on the Shelf into our home this Christmas. It has been so much fun watching Anna's face each morning as she tries to find his new hiding place. Let me tell you, this elf has come up with some pretty creative hiding places!!;)

The children's book that comes with the elf says that you are supposed to name him as soon as he shows up so that he can "start his assignment" to watch all the little boys and girls. I really wanted Anna to name him, so we have been asking her what his name should be. We have even started suggesting some. "Franklin" and "Kenan" were a couple of suggestions, just to see if Anna thought the elf had any UNC roots. Unfortunately, these were vetoed. She would scrunch up her face or just say, "No, that's not it" and continue whatever she was doing.

Well, yesterday after she found elf's new hiding place for the day, I was determined to give him a name so we could call him something besides Mr. Elf. So, I started rattling off names. I decided to start with family names, so I went through all the males in the family. I was starting to think it was not meant to be when I moved on to uncles. I said, "Is his name Benny?" Anna turned around with a surprised look and said, "Yes, Benny!" This almost made me tear up because my dear Uncle Benny passed away last year after a long, hard battle with cancer. I know that he's been up there in heaven looking down on us, but now I just know that he's the one grinning at us in that elf costume!

So, we now have Benny the Elf watching us every day. It makes me think that elves and angels have an awful lot in common.;)

4th Annual Collins Girls' Weekend

FYI: I'm catching up on a very much desired, but very delayed post. To make my life easier, I copied my sister's blog post. I changed some of this to fit here, but it's ultimately her story.

The first weekend of November, Sarah, Anna, Mom, and I loaded up the van and headed to Boone for our 4th Annual Collins Girls' Weekend. Mom's good friend is gracious enough to let us use their family condo for the weekend. What an amazing place it is! The view is simply breathtaking.

The trip started Friday night when Mom made it up to Winston. We quickly loaded all of our stuff and took off. We put a movie in and Anna got her headphones on, and everyone was good to go. Between watching Anna and gabbing away, we were up there in no time!

We got to Boone and made our grocery run. We stopped by the RedBox to get a movie, and against some Yankee girl's suggestion, we went with Nights in Rodanthe. There is no way Richard Gere + Diane Lane + Nicholas Sparks can be a bad combo. Damn if they didn't find a way to make the badness happen! We couldn't complain...we each had a Blue Moon and a carton of ice cream to ease our troubles!

The next morning we got up and headed to the porch to soak up the mountain view and to sip on some coffee. Anna wasn't quite awake when we got out there, but it wasn't long before she was sampling (quality control testing) everyone's coffee. It was quickly decided that Anna needed her own cup to feel like one of the girls.

Wakey, wakey!

Anna and her own coffee cup!

Happy as a clam! And the gang's all here! Bobo, Elmo, and Llama llama. We're ready to go!

After a few hours on the porch we suited up and headed to The Mountain House for an unbelievable breakfast. It truly was a smorgasbord and the ridiculous 2 year old we had with us actually pronounced it, too. She was even able to repeat it for her Datty!

The rest of the day was consumed with shopping at the Tanger Outlets and then stopping to get some Mellow Mushroom pizza to take back with us. We are so adventurous that we were almost ready for bed at about 7 when Anna went down for bed since she missed her nap. We did manage to watch Must Love Dogs and stay up for a bit, but it wasn't too long after that we were all cuddled up in bed.

We had such a great weekend! It's always so good to get away from the grind and just be able to sit back and relax. Next year we'll have another Collins girl to add and I'm sure in the future there will be plenty more!

Our New Swingset

Anna LOVES to swing. I mean, she really loves it and could spend hours just swinging. We have made many treks down the street to the neighborhood playground and have spent many hours at Tanglewood swinging. She will do an occasional slide, but ultimately just wants to swing. I love the fact that she likes to do something outside. We have neighbors down the street whose kids are ALWAYS outside. We call them "the outside family". Will and I have talked about how we want our family to be an outside family, too. I try to push the sunshine and activity as much as I can.

So, Will and I decided that we would get a swingset for Anna for Christmas. We wanted a nice wooden one that would last and did some shopping around. With our backyard being an oddly shaped triangle (since we're on the corner), we had a hard time finding one that wouldn't have to go in the middle of our yard and take up all the space. We lucked out and found a deck company that also builds playsets. They were able to custom build one for us to fit our yard for only a little more than the ones we looked at from Costco and Sam's. Plus, Will was ecstatic that he didn't have to spend 18+ hours putting it together!!

The only down side was that we couldn't get dates close to Christmas so that Santa could "bring" the swingset to her. Oh, well. It's just fine being a gift from Mommy and Datty. The guys came Friday and built it but Anna didn't get to play on it because we had errands that afternoon and left before they finished. Then, of course, it rained all day long Saturday, so today we finally got out there! She was so excited and kept saying, "There's a swing in my yard!". We all tried out the swings and the slide. It has an infant swing and a sling swing as well as a glider, so we have many stages to grow into. And the playhouse is very spacious. Miller was having such a fit about all of us being up in the playhouse, that he even got to get up there, too! I see many, many backyard hours spent playing out there in our future. How fun?!

It was a little chilly, but someone didn't want to wear her jacket!

It even has a picnic table underneath! Anna said, "We can bring my yogurt outside!".

Anna liked that when she is up in the playhouse, she can see into the neighbor's yards.

Excited about sliding!

The Simple Things

Anna and I just had the most pleasant lunch! We sat outside on our deck with the glorious sunshine on our faces listening to the wind in the trees and the sounds of the neighborhood. We watched the leaves fall from the trees and Anna would laugh when they finally hit the ground. We saw the squirrels running around and talked about the empty nests in the trees and where the birds were for the winter and when they would come back to live in them. It was so sweet! I wish I could remember to stop every day and have moments like that!

Mimi Fixed It

My first true encounter with protecting Anna from things I don't want her to see or hear...

My mom, or Mimi to Anna, found the most adorable series of books. The first one was Llama Llama Mad at Mama. It has precious pictures and some hysterical rhyming (No more of this llama drama!). It's about going shopping at the Shop-O-Rama and Llama Llama decides to throw a little temper tantrum. He then finds out what can happen when you're nice and help Mama Llama. Anna loved it! Soon after, we found out that Webkins has just come out with a llama. I have yet to delve into the whole Webkins thing online and doubt I will anytime soon, but the stuffed animal was too cute for Mimi not to get for her!

Then Mimi found Llama Llama Misses Mama. It was perfect because it's about Llama Llama going to school and missing his mama. Anna has had some periods where she has been more difficult to leave at school, so this was perfect timing. However, the first time Will and I read it, it used the word "hates" in it. Who would write "hates" in a children's book? The teacher in the book is trying to get Llama Llama involved in what the other kids are doing and takes him over to the reading rug where some other kids are reading a story. It says, "Llama Llama hates that book."

I think this is awful! I don't want that word to be in Anna's vocabulary! Well, too late for that. I guess she picked up on our hesitation or lack of comfort with that phrase. I started reading "doesn't like that book" instead and she "corrects" me every time. I'm hoping that she will eventually forget about it if I keep saying the new phrase. But then I didn't know what I was going to do in a few years when she starts reading. Enter Mimi...

I told my mom about it and she was as up in arms about it as I was. She is, of course, a teacher after all. We took the book to Wilmington with us a couple of weeks ago (because we have to read it every night before bedtime). While we were there Mimi decided to fix it. She got on the computer and found a similar font in a similar size and printed out new words. She glued them into the book and even got her colored pencils out to make the background look the same. I was pretty impressed with her work. Now that the book is fixed, how do I get Anna to drop "hates" from her vocabulary?

New Tradition

Our family, along with quite a few others that have found out about this precious new idea, are starting a new Christmas family tradition with The Elf on the Shelf. The box includes the elf himself and a cute children's book to explain the "laws of Santa Claus". Apparently, this elf is assigned to a home to report on the children's behavior to Santa. Each night, he flies to the North Pole and updates Santa and then flies back in time to find a new "hiding" spot in the house. Each morning, it's a game to find where the elf has decided to hang out for the day.

Now, the kids are not allowed to touch him or he will lose his magic. And Santa has told the elves not to talk:). But you can talk to him and tell him anything that you want Santa to know (like what you want for Christmas). Cute, huh?

We read the book for the first time Monday night and the elf showed up for the first time yesterday right on top of our entertainment center! It was so cute because Anna really did try to talk to him. You are supposed to name him, but we have yet to do that. Wonder where the elf will be today?? ;o)