Here she is again, being her silly diva self. The first photo is Anais at her best in faux fur and sparkling jewels. She has become quite fond of dressing up and picking the perfect accents to show off her fashion sense. The second picture is one of my favorites. I suppose I did ask Santa for a happy child and he delivered it to me as requested.

As for the third photo...well, she did need a Christmas dress. (Thank you mom.) There are plenty more photos to come of the holidays. Thank you to everyone for the lovely gifts and great company.

Hooray

Happy Birthday Daddy! We all love you very much!

Telephone

Anais has officially fallen in love with the telephone. Not only does she climb of a myriad of objects to reach our landline, but also talks frequently on her Disney Princess phone my mother bought her as a gift.

A quick thank you to my mother for a lovely visit. I hope your flight was comfortable and all is well.

Birthday

It is December 5th again, and I am very lucky to have a good portion of my family in Washington for my birthday this year. Peter is taking me to the Melting Pot to celebrate and was very sweet with his gift giving. He braved the world of craft stores to buy me patterns for Anais and her dolls. (I recently learned to sew thanks to his Aunt Mary and am quite excited to try out my new skills on baby clothes).

As for Anais, she has been enjoying her time with Grandma, Aunt Sandra, Uncle Seth, and her cousins. She is especially fond of her older cousin Hailey and will hold hands with her as they walk around the house.

Here's the little lady hard at work taking care of the yard on a windy day. She enjoys picking up leaves for the yard waste bin and is always ready to rake or sweep. What a helper!

My First Jack-O-Lantern

Here she is carving her first pumpkin and creating her first choice of a costume...pumpkin mustache girl. We thought she would enjoy this activity and she looked like she would too. After all the excitment of getting set up, she put her hand in the pumpkin and was disgusted. She did not like the gushy inards. Still, she quite liked the seeds and was very proud of her Elmo Jack O Lantern.

Super Chair

Here are a few shots of Anais in her second favorite chair. (Her first favorite is her "thinking chair." She sits here to watch TV or movies). The first shot has her coloring and throwing crayons on the floor to learn about gravity. Such a smart girl.

Next is one of her first experiments with both a fork and spoon.

The last photo is a shot of her painting a special gift for a family member. She enjoys painting and has taken the time to decorate her very special super chair with several of her favorite non-washable shades. Don't worry, the pink paint on her nose has been removed to preserve her status as our prettiest child.

Shopping

Anais is now in a shopping cart phase. She fills the cart, pushes it to the kitchen, throws all the objects onto the floor, then walks away. After being prompted to clean up the floor and place the items back into the cart, she repeats the process.

She also likes to tip it over and use it like a bench. She is quite creative.

We are almost done with her playroom and are going to pick out fabric for her bedroom tomorrow. It feels good to get things organized and decorated.

In brewing news...Peter is going to brew his first batch in the new home this Sunday. Hopefully, all will go well.

For those who don't know, if you click on the photos, you can get an enlarged version now.
I hope this feature will make it easier for all.

Silly Girl

Here is the precious one in some silly moments. As you can see, she is quite the character. Even though she is charging into the terrible twos in full force, she still finds time to make us laugh a little bit every day.

Right now she is taking a gymnastic/dance class once a week. She ignores half of what the teacher says and does tumbling all the way through class. She loves a good somersault.

At the Pumpkin Patch

Working on using an online album for pics. We'll see how it goes.

We're Back

The computer\camera cord has been unpacked and I'm ready to get the blog going again. These photos are of little witch Anais and her friend Wilder. We met for Pumpkinfest in Seattle for a Pumpkin beer festival at the Elysian. It was a lovely time and we hope Wilder is feeling much better now.

On Wednesday, we are going to trick or treat at the Mall. I do hope the baby likes Trick or Treating. The more she likes it...the more candy for her parents! Enjoy the pics.

A New Home

We have finally made it to the new house. We are now going through the process of unpacking and should be done by Christmas. Wish us luck!

A week to go!

Blogs will be few over the next few weeks. I apologize for this, but we are preparing for the big move to our first owned house. We get the keys next Monday and will move in very soon after. I will try to put up pics of the baby to keep the grandparents, aunts, and uncles happy. Wish us luck!

A Blog NOT About the Baby

For the one or two people still interested I bring you the story of Peter's spider. Yesterday a pesky fly was buzzing about the living room. Kind Peter tried to catch it with a glass, but accidentally killed the creature in the process. As he was carefully picking up the tiny corpse, he saw a spider on a little web outside the window. This is a nice spider that stays out of the way and keeps little bugs out of our herb garden, we'll call him Wally. Peter flicked the dead fly onto Wally's web and came back inside. After half an hour the spider was on the fly beginning his feast. When we woke this morning, Wally had created an entirely new web that showed of the fly in a very fashionable way. Peter made that the happiest spider in the world.

In other news, I found out today that I won a Village Green door prize for attending Applefest 2007. I will be picking up my apple basket tomorrow.

Developmental Milestones Not Mentioned in the Books

This week saw a return to the doctor for her 15-18 month visit (ostensibly to give her vaccinations, but she managed to run a fever postponing the shots a couple of weeks). During the visit we're always given a list of things to look for developmentally. Unfortunately they seem incomplete. In an effort to provide more education, I present them here:

• Child should be able to remain precisely out of reach. Instinctively knows the location where, even if you are leaning forward, will be able to evade capture.
• He/she will show awareness of any items containing a liquid other than water (ex. coffee mug, wine glass, bottle of beer) that are left unattended.
  
• Given a choice of drawers or cabinet drawers, child can sense where items containing highest 'Toddler Index"* are and go straight to them.
• Child can seemingly 'hear' attention being paid to them from anywhere in house and requires it to maintain a minimum volume. Any unacceptable dips will be accompanied by a reminder as to why he/she is center of the world.
  

* "Toddler Index" calculated by dividing the dollar value by the average number of times the item must hit floor before breaking. As an example, a $20 porcelain item would have an index of 20 ($20 / 1 x), whereas a $4 stuffed animal would have an almost infinitesimal value ($4 / 10000).

Must-Read Summer Books

Recommended after many re-readings:

Blue Skidoos to the Farm
Blue and Steve ask for help as many things are missing. Once skidooed to the farm, you must assist in matching the animals with their babies, their sounds, and their food. Cunning sub-plot to discover Blue's favorite, favorite animal.

Everything I Know About... the Potty
From the first line "We're potty experts" to the last "", this book is teeming with information about the potty. Important to view book in theoretical, rather than practical sense (who actually uses the potty anyway?)

Disney's™ The Little Mermaid
A modern-day Lord of the Flies taking the reader through a trip through the de-evolution of humans placed into an extraordinary situation. Breathtaking illustrations.

Angel/Devil

Well, we have reached a lovely phase where our little one tends to be either really good or quite devilish. One minute she is unloading the dishwasher and helping to put away clothes, and the next she is ripping up her books and unplugging the television. She has also discovered the fine art of climbing onto the kitchen table. Pretty soon we are going to have to put up shelving five feet off the ground for anything we don't want her to touch. Thankfully, she spends 51% of her time on the angel side of things.

We've Gone and Done It

Well, we finally made the leap into home ownership. We are currently in escrow on a 1900 square foot house on a 1/3 acre lot in Federal Way. If all goes well we will be moving in on September 24th. I have no photos at this time, but will post them as soon as we get them.

In other news, all of us Cockerham-Twiggs and Twiggs have been fighting an uber-virus. It appears we are on the tail end at last. Even the baby's runny nose seems to be slowing.

The photos this week are from the Pacific Science Center. It was their annual Bubblefest and Anais found the bubbles quite the tasty treat. She enjoys it there more and more the older she gets.

That's it for now. I am off to enjoy the sun while it lasts.

Beer Pics

Here are a few of the photos from our brewing experience. A month or so to go and we will be able to taste our first professionally brewed beer.

Things are busy as usual. We went to the beach, library, and science center this past week. Today I am attempting to pickle beans using my grandma's recipe. We'll see how that goes.

Don't forget--It is the finale of So You Think You Can Dance this week. The baby and I like to dance and clap for our favorites. She is the much better dancer.

The Amazing Peter

I just want to take a few minutes to applaud the efforts of my husband. Not only did he spend all day Friday helping his parents paint their house, but he also managed to mow the lawn, put away all the laundry, brush the dog, vacuum, help with the dishes, and take a walk with the family. What a guy!

Today's photos revolve our musical drawer-opening virtuoso. She has discovered the beauty of clanging lids and will perform on demand. Tucker will watch for a few seconds, but will then run away. He does not appreciate the performances.

Stuck Hand

Our little angel has a curiosity that overrides her common sense. About once a month she puts her hand into one of her toys and gets it stuck. I think she believes she will one day conquer this foe and be able to pull the hand in and out with ease. I have included a few photos of this. (For legal reasons I must state that this was a re-enactment and no babies were harmed in the making of the pics).

She has also taken to movies with a musical format. She is now watching the Les Mis concert video and dancing to the music. Tenacious D's Pick of Destiny really got her interested. If they ever make a PG version of the film I will have to add it to her library of DVDs.

Busy Week

A lot happened this week. Peter and I went brewing at Diamond Knot, while Anais spent an entire day with Peter's mom and dad. I'll do a blog about the brewing process with photos later after getting all the pics in order. We went to library group, did a 10K Volksmarch at Renton River days, and had a visit from Wilder and Molly. Anais really liked Wilder and cried waving bye bye after they left.

Anais received an entire bag of dress up clothes from my mom and she has been wearing a selection around the house. I have included photos of two such outfits. I also posted two shots of our little darling sucking on the vacuum hose. I do not encourage her to do this, but I found it quite funny even as I was telling her "NO."

APB: Missing Pig Part

What: Baby Back Rib Bone

Where: Some Place in House

Suspect: Master Criminal Dog, AKA Bad Tucker

How: After obtaining a rib that was given to him as a treat to enjoy while the family was partaking in their supper, the suspect managed to nose his way into the carpeted section of the house. Upon the return inside to remove the bone, the family quickly discovered this treachery and attempted to discern the hiding spot of the rib bone. Currently, the whereabouts of said bone are unknown.

Surveillance of suspect continues.

The "Other Fair"

Friday we made an attempt to enjoy the King County Fair. Sadly, it was raining the entire time we were there and a very VERY mean woman refused to sell Peter tickets and Anais didn't get to ride any rides. She did get to see some awesome animals. She waved and said "hi" to many of them and was quick to say "bye, bye" if she was getting bored.

Today's photos are not from the fair, but are quite special all the same. The first is Anais with a new teddy bear given to us by the very kind owners of 99 Bottles. If you want a nice specialty beer, they can get it for you. The other photo is shot of my supermodel baby. She has naturally tan skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and she knows how to dress. This is a flashy number she sported a couple of weeks ago. She loves to dress up.

Watering

Anais and her daddy have an evening ritual of watering the plants on the back porch. He fills her can (a gift from great-gran) and she wildly waters everything. Keep in mind, watering everything includes her feet, the cement, her clothes, her hair, and a few select plants. This has turned into one of her favorite activities and she gets quite irate if Peter goes outside without her.

Hot Hot Heat

It has been a bit warmer than usual up here and we have been doing all we can to keep the little one cool and comfortable. She has been enjoying the constantly running fans and earlier morning walks.

Tomorrow she has a special surprise...her favorite activity, library group, was canceled for most of the summer. Tomorrow we are going to a different library so she can sing and dance during story time. She LOVES books and music.

The photos are a variety today. Vampire baby is the result of baby tasting her first tomato sauce. The picture of a wet haired baby is the result of one her new games in which I sprnkle water on her head and she runs away, then returns for more.

The final, and some would say most important, is a picture of Peter's first all day smoked pork. It was quite tasty and tender. The smoke ring on this delicious cut was most impressive. He may not cook often, but when he does he is very good at it.

Zoo

Anais had her first visit to the zoo last Friday. She seemed more interested with other people than the animals. She enjoyed the goats and the fish and was thrilled to ride the carousel. She is increasing her use of the word "Weeeeeeee" to include any movement she finds acceptable.

In other news, Big Brother has started, this makes me quite happy. It is another guilty pleasure that I enjoy. Peter and I have also been watching the Copa America on Univision. The USA is out of the competition, but Argentina and Mexico look like they may make it to the finals.

Baby Stuntdevil

Well, our daughter has officially decided she wants to be on Jackass when she grows up. (That's a show on MTV ... trust me, there are people in my family who need to know). She has taken to eating anything that she can pick up. She climbs off the furniture and attempts to jump off with no warning, and she no longer waits for help when climbing up or down stairs. Alas, she did catch me off guard and she fell down a few of our concrete steps outside. She is fine, a few bumps and scratches. Thankfully, she seems to know how to fall quite gracefully.

Even though she is quite rough around the edges at the moment, she very sweetly now says please and thank you with regularity. She is quite fond of mylar balloons, or ba oons as she says, and likes to carry one around the house saying, "weeeeeeee."

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Happy birthday to my father! We all love you very much.

In other news, we all went to Tacoma to recreate Peter and my very first date. Granted it didn't all go exactly the same way, but Peter was very sweet remembering little details from a day very long ago. Yes mom, I know....he is a good man and I am lucky to have him.

Famous Brewers

Keep a look out for the highly popular Federal Way newspaper. Peter was interviewed and is to be quoted in an article soon.

First Anniversary

Well, we made it to a year! We are celebrating with a fondue dinner. Peter was very sweet and insisted it was the entire family's anniversary and the baby will be dining with us. This Friday we are going to Tacoma to recreate our first date. We have a very good life.

Here are a few pics of the little princess.

Dont want no more of the trading game

Lately the baby has been enchanted by the concept of trading. It all started when mom, no doubt tired of having different pieces of toys spread throughout the house, went through and put together various collections of toys. The bath toys were put into a mesh bag (bath toys including stacking cups, frog sponges, rubber duckies of multiple sizes, etc). The baby found the mesh bag irresistible as you can see and hold the items through the mesh, but they wouldn't come out of the zippered top. She'd bring the big bag over and throw it up into our lap. Then she'd be allowed to remove an item or two as long as she had something to trade back in.

She'd contemplate the open bag and reach in to grab as many things as she could with one hand (like one of the coin-operated crane games). Eventually, toys not belonging in the bath bag were brought over in an attempt to trade (including Tucker's toys). The trading cycle got shorter and shorter, until the purpose wasn't to find something to play with, but to trade over and over. While simple in concept, it thrilled her to no end.

All good things, however, come to an end. In this case, the end has been reached as she can now open the mesh bag zipper on her own. We'll see if the notion of trading extends beyond the magical bag.

Happy Father's Day

I just wanted to take the time to say happy Father's Day to the dad's in our family.

Peter--I hope you know what a truly excellent daddy you are. Tucker and the baby are both very lucky to have you.

Dave--You have welcomed Anais and me to your family and we thank you.

Dad--I couldn't have asked for a better father. Sandra and I have often stated what a good job you and mom did and how very thankful we are to have you. My only regret is that you are so far away and we get to see you so little.

To all the father's out there--Thank you!!!

Beer Champions!!!!!!

Peter and I (Mostly Peter) have just won third place in a brewing competition. In addition, our beer has been selected by the Diamond Knot brewery to be brewed by their brewery and then be entered into the GABF national pro-am competition in Denver. The beer is called Come Hither Cream Ale and we are quite proud of it.

I guess this makes us a bit more legitimate in the home brew world. Wish us luck in the big competition!

Baby fun

We are enjoying the warm weather and taking full advantage. The baby had her very first popsicle and paired it with a nice dash of sand. It looked quite yummy.

We went on a 5K Volkswalk and enjoyed some Bonsai. We are thinking of going on another Volkswalk in June.

Peter has been taking excellent care of our garden. We took a walk to the local nursery and bought some basil, strawberries, and thyme. Daddy put baby on her tricycle and wheeled her all the way there. It was a lovely moment from a great dad. She made humming noises all the way there and back.

Hula Baby

Well, the summer weather has hit and the baby is feeling great! Here she is playing in her bathing suit in the sun. Today we hit the children's museum in Tacoma. Tomorrow we are off to Ollala to hand off the majority of her clothes to a family friend. (Sandra's best friend--Sandra gave us the majority of the outfits). It will be sad to see them go, but I know they will be loved again.

Finally, congrats to Molly who had a little boy yesterday. Anais is very happy to have a new friend.

Let's do lunch

Last Monday, baby and I had lunch with Angie and her roommate Casey. We went to Applebee's and the baby made lots of noise. One of her favorite parts of the day was this ride in a fancy car. She can now say bounce and tickle tickle. She tickles and kisses and gives hugs. She is a bit mean from 6:45-7:30 every night, but we are really trying to help her make that time more calming for mommy and daddy and baby.

Princess Ana

We attended a baby shower on Saturday and, can you believe it, Anais was the only baby to show up! Here are a few photos of her in a dress given to us by my Grandma.

MMMMM.....Cheese

Sunday we made an early trip to Seattle and attended the cheese festival. It was a bit of a battle with crowds of cheese hoarders blocking the various booths asking questions about cheeses they didn't really want answered. With a little fast bobbing and weaving I managed to snag a few tastes for the family. The baby was so very happy. She sure loves cheese. We then went to the Pike Brewery and had more cheese with lunch. It was a lovely cheese filled day.

Sand Table

Anais has started her warm weather play with her new sand and water table. (Thank you Opal and Arean). She especially loves pouring the sand into the water and vice versa.

Mother's Day

Today has been the perfect Mother's day. Peter has been working around the house (which he does everyday, but today he has tripled his efforts). Anais and Tucker have been very well behaved. We went on a geocaching and had a nice walk around the lake. I have also had the pleasure of watching Footballers Wives on DVD. Tonight I am going to make my favorite meal--Mac and Cheese. Now this is what Mother's day is all about.

Bar B Q

I'd like to give a shout out to Molly and Matt for an exquisite barbeque feast. The steak was perfectly cooked and the potatoes tender, yet not mushy.

Molly is close to having her only little terror and we wish her a fast and memorable delivery.

Anais is starting to say the long A and I sounds. This is very exciting for her due to the fact that BaBa has had to mean a plethora of words for so long. Unfortunately, she is breaking out all around her mouth and I don't know what to do. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

I'm off to watch a little Big Love.

Last Day at Library Group

Today was bittersweet as we said good to library group for the summer. Peter attended and sang along. He was one of only two fathers in the group of mostly women. (Not a bad deal for him).

After a nice nap, we headed off to a new off leash area and let Tucker run wild. After a little geocaching and watching dogs slobber and sniff, we headed for home. It was a good day.

Poor Tucker

Well, Tucker's old stomache problems made a fierce return on Sunday morning. We woke up to several piles of nasty bodily fluids and such on our carpets. We attempted a few times to direct him to the tile, but apparantly our dog is much too good to throw up on low brow tile. Peter was vigilant and spent a few hours outside with him while he got the bulk of the bad stuff out of his body. I am pleased to report the the piles have all been cleaned and Tucker seems much better. In fact, he is quite pleased to be on his doctor prescribed diet of chicken, cottage cheese, and rice.

Uncle Christopher Rocks

It looks like Peter's brother just increased his coolness points by having a few videos of his band, No One Has to Know (N1H2K), on YouTube. He is the drummer and the baby has decided to start a fan club in Washington. According to her father, she is going to wear her new favorite t-shirt to library group to increase the fan base in the under 3 years of age category.

Sad Tucker

Well, it has finally happened. The baby has spread too many toys around the house and Tucker has resorted to finding laying space above ground level. He also used the upstairs carpet as his own toilet twice when Peter was in the room. We are giving him the benefit of the doubt, but it is very possible he is protesting Ana's house takeover. Poor Tucker. Life as a big brother does have its challenges.

Pacific Science Center

Today was quite exciting. We made the trek to Seattle and had a visit to the Pacific Science Center. Even though there were a couple thousand hyper elementary school kids trying to butt in on little one enjoying the displays, we prevailed and managed to explore more than a few things. Highlights: bubble and water tables, dinosaur touchables, butterfly garden, grossology exhibit, and the ramp going upstairs.

Trip to Reedsport

We survived our first long roadtrip with Anais!!! Here are a few of the highlights:

We begin with a pre-trip baby (photo 1). As you can see, she is sporting the newest milk-mouth fashion. Tucker waited to spend the weekend with his grandparents and Peter packed the car full of the many bags I felt we needed to survive the weekend.

First stop--Tillamook cheese factory (photo 2). It was much smaller than expected. Peter informed me it is actually a co-operative owned by several dairy owners in the area. If you are willing to drive for four hours for free and tasty cheese samples, this is the place to go.

Next we arrived at Pelican Bay Brewery and Pub (photo 3). They have won several awards, including one for the best brewpub in the country. The food was superb and the beer plentiful. We bought a case of beer and a T-shirt. The sun was bright and the pub is on a lovely sandy beach. Time, however, was not on our side and we had to skip an ocean front frolic to make it to the Rogue brewery for more fun.

We took a long walk down the boardwalk at Rouge in Newport. Many families were crabbing and fishing along the breezy walkway. After the leg stretch we ventured into the brewery (photo 4) and had a snack. After picking up another case of beer we make the two hour journey into Reedsport (photo 5).

Anais had lots of fun with her great-grandma (photo 6). She especially liked throwing all of her papers on the ground and then picking them up. Ana felt very comfortable with her great-grandma. After a night of sleep we ventured to the Umpqua discovery center, which is quite fun and worth a visit. We also saw the lighthouse in Winchester bay. After a nap, the baby visited with her cousin (photo 7) and our Reedsport family (photos 8 and 9). Anais and her cousin played a rousing game of give and take with a table number marker. Thank you to everyone for being so welcoming. It was a delightful trip.

On the way home we tried to stop at the Wankersville pub in Oregon for a bit of lunch. It was 21 and over so we ventured to the Boston grill for bite. The baby took a nice nap afterwards (photo 10).

Tucker is home and we feel like a family ready for a rest. (Thanks to Peter's parents for the babysitting). Let us know if you have any questions!

Beer at its best

Today Peter and his dad spent time brewing outside while the baby and I enjoyed some toy playing. They are working on perfecting an IPA recipe that, I hope, will be entered into the Puyallup fair. They toiled away all afternoon and seem satisfied with their efforts.

I spoke to my sister. Her myspace page is the coolest site out there. Check it out if you haven't viewed it lately. We wish her luck in selling her house.

If you haven't, check out Little Miss Sunshine and The Tudors. Both viewing pleasures.

It is done

Today Peter gave his notice. He will continue on as a contractor until the end of June. Let us know if you are hiring!!!

How to say her name

There has been much controversy on how to say our little one's name so I found this site which should help clear things up. Simply go to the link on this page, scroll down, and click on the name Nin,Anais and hear a clip of her name being spoken.

http://www.sos.mo.gov/wolfner/SayHow/?id=n

Hope this helps!

Wild Weekend

Well, the long awaited birthday party took place last Saturday. Thanks to everyone who came. The highlight of the afternoon was Anais' first encounter with a messy cake. It is now Tuesday and I continue to finds bits of icing hidden in the high chair's nooks and crannys.

On Sunday we had a visit from the Easter bunny. The baby carefully divided all the candy between herself and her parents. (Alas...no candy for poor Tucker). This was followed by a buffet at the Village Green. Princess Ana finished the meal by walking and waving to her adoring subjects as she exited the room.

We now look forward to a quiet few weeks before heading off on our great Oregon adventure.

Happy Birthday!!!

Anais has made it to one year of age. Daddy and I took her to Chuck E Cheese for pizza and rides. (Daddy insists we went for me...OK, maybe so...but she enjoyed it). After the festivities, she opened a few presents and passed out from the busy day.