What a Summer

What a summer Italo, Annabelle and I had!!!! We started the summer off by moving the weekend of Memorial Day and are ending the summer by moving into our new house!!!!! YEAH!!!

We had a fabulous time at my Mom and Chris' house and they were so gracious and helpful in so many ways during the last 3 months. They even made us a wonderful fish dinner with homemade banana pudding on Sunday night to send us off extra full! I guess I will have to get used to washing my own dishes and my own laundry again--dang it!

We are in the land of boxes and mess right now, but last night we got Annabelle's room all decorated and put together and it made me realize how much she has grown up. She no longer needs so many of the things that were in her old room. I have plastic bins full of clothes that no longer fit, toys that are "baby" toys, a bobby, bouncing seat, bottles etc etc etc. I can't even believe how much she has changed since the beginning of the summer! A few of her big changes:

1. She can WALK!!! When we left the Carrollton house, she was just starting to crawl all over the house and Just started to find the stairs and want to climb all over them. Now, she can climb up a ladder, run and pretty much do anything else she wants
2. She does so much TALKING! Annabelle's first word was Uh-Oh and she had just started saying that towards the end of May-now she has a collection of about 10 words and it brings me joy each time I hear them! If I sing the song "Mamma Mia", she will laugh and say Mamma, but mostly, there is a lot of Dada heard around my house! She also says all of her MALE grandfathers names-and LOVES to say them. She says Nonno, Granddad, Granddaddy, and Grandpa. For some reason, she will not say the female variety of Granny, Annie or Nonna, but I hope that will come soon enough. She also can say all the names of the parts of the face and loves to point out everyone's nose, ear, eyes, teeth and mouth. Sometimes the pointing hurts, but it is really cute!
3. She is learning her limits. Before we moved, she pretty much just did what I told her to do-now she realizes she can make her own decisions. I must say she really does a GREAT job most of the time obeying me, but from time to time, she decides to do whatever she knows she is not supposed to do. For instance, she loves to eat the cat's food, she loves to touch "pretties" and she wants to tear all my magazines apart! I refuse to put these way from her, thinking instead that my daughter is so wonderful, that she will simply obey. And like I said, most of the time , she does-but sometimes I walk into a room and just think-OH MY GOODNESS CHILD-IF ONLY I COULD BRING MYSELF TO SPANK YOU!
4. She LOVES baby dolls!!!! Grace left quite a few baby dolls behind at my mom's house, and I have quite a few that were mine when I was little, so there is no shortage of baby dolls at my mom's house. And Annabelle has to love them all!!!!!! She rocks them, feeds them, looks for their nose, ears, eyes and mouth and always wants Mommy or granny to hold them and her. She will give her about 5 baby dolls and then want to be held too. I have to secretly sneak a few out of my arms after I have her so I can actually hold her. It is really sweet though.

So-I am excited to be settled in the new few days-weeks in our new house and see what else she learns to do. Needless to say-it will bring me joy and maybe a few tears from time to time!

By the way-if anyone is bored this week and wants to help unpack boxes-Come on over!!!!!

Fun times with Granny!

This is Annabelle, my niece Grace and Granny (my mom) cooking some boiled custard. It is a good idea to put a baby right next to a boiling pot right...... :)

Chuck e Cheese

I think that Italo has been excited about Annabelle's first Chuck E Cheese experience since she was a itsy bitsy girl. Now that she can walk, we decided to go and see how she liked it. She seemed to like it, but I think there was SOOOOO much to look at, she got a little overwhelmed. But, she is always up for an adventure, so she had a good time.