Trolley of the Dolls

Now that Janice has been put on bed rest (formerly strict, now reduced to modified), we've had to adjust our schedules and the workings of the household. I've been pleased to discover that I can still do a reasonable job cooking, but humbled by trips to the supermarket. I'd swear that I used to do all of my own shopping. I don't seem to remember how to do it, but surely I would have starved otherwise (and I'm clearly not, nor have ever been starving). Now each trip seems like an adventure into another world, one where I don't speak the language or understand how anything works.

To counteract my ineptitude, Janice (bless her heart) has taken to re-writing the grocery list by location so that I can use it like a map:


This makes the entire trip much simpler and less likely for me to screw up. Unfortunately it doesn't prevent minutes being wasted while trying to select the appropriate item. This morning, I stood in front the array of sizes, flavors and types of jam while my internal monologue ran:

Let's see, I think it's usually Jam. No, maybe preserves. Or at least not jelly. And she mentioned once that she tried to get jam without high fructose corn syrup. Or was it with the corn syrup and no preservatives. I probably should have been paying more attention. Ok, we'll go non-HFCS. Now, what type of fruit does Anaïs prefer. We've got strawberry now, but I should change it up. Boysenberry... I can't remember if she likes fruit with 'y' in the middle and not on the end. Of course I could just stick with strawberry. I wonder if Apple Butter counts as jam...

Just repeat this while randomly picking up the various jars. I finally settled on Blackberry jam, sweetened with fruit juice and no preservatives. But I hedged my bet by getting the smallest possible jar.

Oh, and hello blog, long time no see.

Self-Portrait

 

Anais loves to take photos with the camera her Grandpa C. got her for Christmas. This is my new favorite. She took it of herself a few weeks ago.

Friend

 

 

Ana is starting to enjoying playing with other kids. These photos show her with Wilder, a boy about a year younger than she is. They have quite a lot of fun shrieking and running around. They also hold hands quite a bit, which is very cute.

First Play

 

 

These are a few shots of Anais at her very first play. It was based on the book "Where is the Green Sheep." We had quite a lot of fun.

Last October

 

 

 

As we are quite behind on blog posts, I now present you with Pumpkin Patch '08. Anais took a brave trip through the corn maze, then went to chose her favorite pumpkins. We were a bit surprised to see she chose two green and yellow gourds that she named "the ice cream cones." And yes, she did lick them and say how tasty they were when we got home.

Visiting Cousins

 

 

 

We had a nice visit with Owen and Hailey last November. Here are a few of our favorite pictures of the happy kids.

Redeye Horribilis

So it turns out we still have Halloween pictures on our camera, which means probably that much time has elapsed since anything was posted. We'll have to rectify that in the near future...

But first a random vignette. The back story is that my mother put together a wonderful scrapbook/album of me growing up for Christmas (back when I was cute). Anaïs has been fascinated to see daddy as a little boy and this led to her albums being brought out. The above picture shows her with her cousin Hailey. The picture is nice, but Anaïs is quite alarmed by Hailey's red eyes. We tried to explain that sometimes a camera makes that happen, but she is not satisfied. She comes up to us now for reassurance that her eyes are not red (not that there would be anything wrong with that).