Evie and Annalise Taller: November 2007

Happy Birthday Natalie!!!!

Happy birthday to our favorite 3 year old girl cousin from Archbold, Ohio!!!

She plays hard

And dessert is probably her favorite thing

But the best is that Natalie and Evie are BEST FRIENDS!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We started to decorate for Christmas! We've only just started because, as you can see, there is nothing on the tree. I was just happy that all the lights worked (after a little jiggling). Annalise thinks that the Christmas tree is the greatest ever

It's lucky that this fits so nicely in the window because now I don't have to buy a fiber optic tree (bummer--I really want one)

What we did on our Thanksgiving Vacation

Pull up a comfy chair because this is going to be a long entry. We spent our Thanksgiving weekend in the Wisconsin Dells. This is the log of our trip.

We all got up with Annalise (about 5:30 am) and were on the road at 6:30. Since we didn't eat at home, we stopped at Mc Donald's for breakfast.

Evie tried to order chicken nuggets, but got stuck with pancakes

Annalise has started to eat with a fork. She is so civilized.

Then it was back on the road and looking for ways to amuse ourselves. Annalise would hide until someone said"Where's Annalise?". Then she would pull the blanket off. Sometimes we just let her sit there with the blanket on her head to see how far we could go.

Evie worked on a puzzle to keep herself occupied in the car.

Then we finally got to Madison where we stopped at cousin Henry's house for Thanksgiving dinner. He is a wild man now that he is almost 2.

This pretty much sums up the rest of the weekend for Annalise and Mom. Annalise was clingy to say the least.

Evie on the other hand, was having tons of fun with her cousins!

Here is the oldest and youngest cousins, Oliver and Evie.

Thanks Grandma Taller for the Turkey shirts. They sopped up the gravy quite well.

Pretty soon everyone got tired of hanging around Aunt Becky's house and decided it was time to hit the Dells!

We stayed at a resort that had a bunch of water parks. Everyone had fun. Even the babies. We all got in the water and splashed around. Evie's favorite was the wave pool and Annalise's favorite was the little kid slides. We don't have any pictures because we had enough to keep track of while at the pool without worrying about the camera.

While we were at the Dells, we celebrated Oliver's First birthday, Henry's Second Birthday and Natalie's Third birthday.

Here's the before of Oliver. Keep in mind that prior to the cake, he ate about 17 plates of food and tried to eat Natalie's dinner too.

Here's Oliver mid cake. He ate the whole thing. They will probably take him to the Dr. next week to have his hollow leg examined.

Everyone helps Oliver open his presents.

Henry's birthday was great. Take our word for it. We forgot our camera. Check his blog for pictures.

Then on the last full day, the kids checked out the indoor playground.

Henry had a great time running around.

Evie and Natalie take a break. you can see that they were running around too. They were both very good girls all weekend. They played together and I'm not aware of anyone getting hit or pushed all weekend.

Then we had Natalie's birthday.

Evie eats some cupcake. Looking pretty worn out. Don't worry, vacation is almost over.

The worn out parents. Annalise couldn't break her early morning habit and the latest we slept was 5:15. Lucky us.

The Way home.

Annalise woke up this morning at 4:30 CST and wouldn't go back to sleep. So we loaded up the car and headed home. Here she is taking a 45 minute nap. She took one other nap that was also about 45 minutes, but then stayed awake until we got home. Here's hoping that she sleeps in tomorrow morning.

Annalise was tired of playing with books so she peeling the sunshade off the window. It doesn't work when you are holding it!!!

Evie's Thanksgiving Program

Evie had her first school program today. We went armed with our camera (like a good parent) and documented it for all eternity.

Evie marches onto the stage. Nothing but business

These are the girls in her class. She knows a few of their names. The one to the left of Evie with her hand in her mouth is the one that pushed her off the slide and stepped on her finger. (I guess her name is Emily)

Here they are singing If you are happy and you know it.

A Super Great Day

Wow, what a great day. First of all, we got up and went to Dunkin Donuts for Breakfast. The breakfast of champions!! Then we settled in to watch the greatest game of the entire college football season. That whole New Year's Day thing is such a let down after OSU vs Michigan.

Here we are all ready to watch the game. Notice that Evie has her best game face sneer on. It took a lot of explaining why we don't like Michigan. The explaination of "because we like Ohio State" wasn't enough for her. She was pretty excited about all the touchdowns and the fact that she got to eat lunch in the basement at the bar.

Post game we celebrated by jumping in the leaves.

Then we lost Evie for a while

Annalise decided to eat mulch to stay occupied.

Then we got all bundled up and headed to the Carmel Christmas Lighting.

Here's Jim and Evie with some of the lights. It's no downtown Bryan, but they did have a juggler and a guy making balloon animals and TWO live reindeer. We heard Santa was there but the line was a mile long and we have plenty of time to work on our Christmas lists before we see Santa.

Annalise was worn out by the time the lights turned on. She didn't move much until we saw a dog walk by.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Happy Birthday Grandpa! We hope you have a great day!

Goof Balls

We found the potato head accessories today and the goofiness set in.

Hey Evie, try these on.

You look good Stinks

You look good too, big sister.

Annalise is 14 months old

At some point, I suppose we can stop the month birthday thing. After all, Evie is something like 44 months old. I don't know, I've lost track.

Anyway, Annalise is 14 months old today. Veteran's Day (as they say in Hee Haw---SAL-UTE!!) and Clay and Erica's Anniversary. Interesting side note, Jim and I went downtown Indy yesterday for the day. The last time we were down there was for Clay and Erica's wedding--7 years ago!! Back to Annalise, she cut another tooth bringing the total up to 8. That's just a few teeth away from a steak!

We celebrated the rainy Sunday by lighting a fire in the fireplace for the first time. This is one of those old fashioned woodburning numbers. Here's everyone making sure that all flues and dampers are in their correct positions.

Evie and Jim watching our first fire. Yes, that's one of those duraflame logs. We didn't have the foresight to bring some wood in from the pile before the torrential rains.

Annalise kicks back and enjoys the fire with a nice book.

We also gave Annalise her first pedicure today. It's a little smudged because she had to try to touch the paint while it was wet. Mom wasn't fast enough.

We're Still Here!

We know it's been a while since we posted. A lot has happened in a week!

Evie grew so much this week that she can touch the ceiling!

We had a party for some of Dad's college friends from Purdue. Dad and the girls dressed appropriately--mom wore her Buckeyes shirt.

Then some lovely posies came to our door and we are enjoying them on the kitchen table.

Grandma Seibert came to visit and taught Annalise to play peekaboo.

Evie and Grandma played in Evie's special room. Grandma can touch the ceiling in there too!

Happy Birthday Aunt Elizabeth!

Happy birthday to our favorite Aunt Elizabeth!

We are so glad that Uncle Kevin married you and brought you and your monster cookies into our family!

Annalise's Antics

Hey Annalise, Where is your nose?

Gross.

In other interesting Annalise news, she got her first real shoes today. The kind you can wear outside! We decided that she has taken enough steps to warrant a pair of Stride Rites. Unfortunately, she didn't get the same wide foot gene as Evie so none of Evie's old shoes will fit properly.