A little something for Grandpa...

This video was prompted by a tshirt that Annabeth got from our neighbors..

...and Dance

Here is some video footage of Annabeth dancing and just being generally silly. We found a clip on YouTube called "Peanut butter jelly time," so that's what she's dancing to in the clips in Pat's office, and the other is from the music on the credits at the end of Chicken Little.

Breakfast

Here is some video I took of Annabeth at breakfast one morning a couple of weeks ago. She loves to eat at her little table when I let her. (which is usually when she is having something that is not too messy for breakfast)

Song...

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I posted here, but between getting ready for our trip to Branson, and not having Internet access while we were gone, that's how long it's been. I'll share more about our trip soon (we had a great time) but for now I wanted to share some video clips I put together before we left. Annabeth loves to sing, and she is learning new songs all the time. She has also started to create her own in the last couple of weeks, either completely new or with tunes she already knows and different words, or putting songs together. It is fun to see her begin to create. Anyway, this video is different clips of her singing from about mid May to the beginning of June.

Playdate with Rachel

My new computer is here! How exciting.. I've been playing with the Windows Movie Maker that came with the computer, and put together a video clip of a playdate Annabeth had with her friend Rachel a couple of weeks ago. It was one of the first times she's had a friend over to play, and it was fun to see Annabeth and Rachel interact as they played on the neighbors' swing set, in the sandbox, and with the dollhouse. They also had fun chasing each other around the house pushing Annabeth's strollers. The only part that I had on video was playing on the swing set. It was so cute to hear them both singing while they were swinging. Annabeth was singing "Lullaby, and goodnight, go to sleep little lady". I started to sing "little lady" to her instead of "little baby" because I decided I didn't want to call her "baby" anymore (although she will always be my baby) and she has picked that up when she sings it. There's some wind noise in the second part of the clip... it's perpetually windy in Edgewood. Rachel says "Ready, set, go!" as she slides down the slide, and Annabeth says, "I'm driving!" The other thing I think is cute is that the slide is pretty fast - Annabeth always lands on her bottom. Such sweet girls - they had a lot of fun together.

Desert Beauty

The Albuquerque area is quite a bit drier than any place I've ever lived before. There is not a lot of really green grass and vegetation like you see other places that get more rain. It has a beauty all its own, though, part of which is in the blue skies and weather that is sunny 95% of the time. There is also beauty in the vegetation, too, especially when the desert blooms. It has been especially dry around here this year, but when we finally got a little rain the week before last, the flowers started making their appearance. These are some pictures that Pat took at our house a few days ago:

Tea Party

Annabeth is really enjoying pretend play at this stage, and one of the things she loves to do is have a tea party with either her Grandma or me. She got a tea set for her birthday, complete with a tea pot that sings "I'm a little teapot" and she just loves it. Here are some pictures of her and Maria having a tea party. I think in the first picture she's helping herself to some sugar. Whenever we sit down to have a tea party, she says, "I want water." It's just not the same without something IN the cups. We usually keep a dish towel handy at this point, as she is still learning how to pour and handle the little cups. At the end of the tea party, she was being silly and trying to drink out of the spout of the tea pot.

Pancake Breakfast

Well, it's been a few days since I posted anything here.. we've had a busy week, trying to finalize our reservations and plans for our trip to Branson in a week and a half. We are all really excited for our trip - Grandma Maria and her best friend Glenna are coming with us. Maria says "Glenna is MY friend" and Annabeth says "No, Glenna is MY friend." I think she can be friends to both of them, but you wouldn't know it by the way they carry on sometimes. :) Anyway, we are all looking forward to her joining us on vacation. Glenna came over yesterday to talk over travel plans with us. We were playing with Annabeth at the neighbors' swing set, and I told Annabeth, "Glenna is a fun friend." She turned to Glenna and said, "Glenna, you're a fun friend."

I am excited because my new laptop (my birthday present from Pat) is arriving tomorrow or Friday. I am hoping to do some serious video editing once I get it, something that I have not even attempted with this computer because it is so slow. (it's amazing how fast a 5 year old computer can be out of date!) Anyway, I'll probably have a number of short clips to post from the past couple of months when I have some time to sit down and work with it.. though with our vacation coming, that will probably be at least a couple more weeks.

Anyway, these pictures are from Saturday morning when we woke up and I decided to cook with Annabeth for the first time. We decided to make blueberry pancakes. She hasn't done too much assisting while I cook yet.. usually she's playing with her toys or with her Grandma Maria while I'm cooking dinner. I think we'll do this more often, though, it was a lot of fun. Other than having a hard time keeping her hands out of the flour and dry ingredients, she did really well. I usually mix the blueberries into the batter before I cook them, but this recipe recommended putting them on after the batter was already poured on the griddle, which worked really well and also helped keep the mess down for the part Annabeth could help with. She helped me dump the flour and dry ingredients, pour in the milk, and stir. I did the cooking, but she helped with everything else. (including the eating - she had 3 4-inch blueberry pancakes for breakfast!) In this picture where she is stirring by the stove, she is standing on a little stool that we keep in the kitchen. She moves the stool around wherever she wants to now when she wants to get something or see what's going on. She will pull the stool over often while I am making dinner ("I want to see!") to see what's cooking.

I think our next cooking adventure together will be to bake cookies one of these days...