Ornery Annah

Sylvia went to the doctor for her 4-month well-baby visit on Wednesday. She weighed 14 pounds, 13 ounces, and was 26 inches long. She had 4 more vaccinations, but did only cried for a few seconds. She slept a lot the rest of the day and the following day.

 The thing that has probably bothered her the most this week is her sister... Annah has been quite the character this week. On Tuesday night, I was giving Sylvia a bath and noticed some strange little marks on her knees. Upon closer inspection and interrogation of her big sister, we discovered they were bite marks! The next day, I caught Annah biting Sylvia's knees again, and also her toes and wrist. We're not sure if she was trying to hurt her, or if she just thought it was a fun thing to do, but we're definitely trying to nip that problem in the bud right away! Yikes!

 One night this week, I was up late, and heard a thud upstairs. I thought it sounded like Annah might have fallen out of bed. After about a minute, Annah started sobbing, so I sprinted upstairs and found her and her bed gate on the floor. Apparently, it took her a bit to wake up enough to figure out what had happened. She likes to sleep smushed up against the mesh gate, and must have wedged herself between it and the bed far enough to scoot it out and herself onto the ground.

The next day, Annah was playing with her doll baby, whom she sometimes calls Sylvia. She was pretending to change her diaper, and didn't realize I was watching her as she pretended to feed her baby the way Mommy feeds Sylvia. She even burped her too.

 Yesterday morning, I was in the shower, and Annah came into the bathroom carrying the cell phone telling me it was ringing. Then I heard our home phone ring. After four rings, our answering machine will pick up, but this time it only rang twice. So, I called Annah into the bathroom. She came carrying the phone and said, "Mommy, it's Gram!" I was pretty sure it wasn't Gram, and got the phone from Annah and apologized to the [chuckling] nurse from her obstetrician's office who was returning her call. That was the first time Annah had answered the phone on her own, and I didn't expect her to!

Daddy hanging out with his girls

 We are relieved to know that Snickers has a new home with a very nice couple who live near our parents. Even I admit to missing him a tiny bit, but we are sure he'll get more attention and care with "Big Bob" and his wife. A big thank you to my parents for taking care of him for the past few weeks and finding him a good home!!

Goodbyes

Monday, July 7 - We're back home now. Our vacation was so nice, but seemed so much shorter than we thought it would. It's always so nice to get away, but always so nice to come back home too.

Yesterday morning, we packed up all our stuff (which was all over Gram's and Krampa's house!), 

and we said goodbye to Snickers. 

   

He is staying there until he finds a new home. 

We finally decided he would be better taken care of with another family. 

So, we said goodbye to him and Gram and Krampa and made the trek back home...

We've had a lot of rain this week, but fortunately no flooding in our basement yet! (Knock on wood!)

 Annah doesn't mind the thunder and lightning much. Although, last Sunday night, she and Taryn were sitting in the living room eating popcorn and reading a book, when a big bolt of lightning flashed right outside the window, followed immediately by a huge clap of thunder! Annah whimpered a few times and looked at Mommy, who reassured her that it was okay. Then Taryn hollered for Jeremy to see where he was. He didn't answer, and Taryn realized he was outside! She started worrying and picturing him lying in the yard, having been directly "zapped" by the lightning. A few seconds later, she found Jeremy standing on the (enclosed) back porch with quite a "freaked out" look on his face. He had been standing in the back yard with the dog on a metal chain leash, and said that he thought the lightning had probably struck just a few houses away from ours. Yipes!

A few days ago, Jeremy put Annah to bed at night and let her brush her teeth with the "minty kind" of toothpaste. (She thinks that's a real treat.) The next morning when Taryn gave her a kiss, Annah said, "Mommy, there's no minty fresh in my mouth anymore!"

quite a chain of events

Last week was a bit of a challenge to our nerves. When we turned on our computer Sunday night, it crashed. We couldn't salvage anything, and after trying too long, we could no longer even turn it on. So, we replaced it on Monday. 

 Tuesday, a big plastic sink in our basement broke as water from our washer was draining into and the drain became blocked. There was water all over that room of the basement. 

 Wednesday, we were all outside getting ready to go to town to buy a new sink, when Snickers decided to meet the neighbor across the street who was mowing her lawn. Just as he was running across the road and Jeremy was running after him, a huge delivery truck sped through and hit the dog. He yelped and ran around behind the neighbor's house. When Jeremy got there, they were both freaked out, and Snickers was limping and bleeding underneath. Jeremy took him to the emergency vet clinic in Normal. He is a very lucky dog.--no broken bones or internal injuries. He just had a bruised back leg and scraped underside. 

 Annah is trying to say more things now. She can say, "sock," which actually sounds more like, "sah," but it's cute anyway. She tries to say, "shoe," but only mommy and daddy would be able to identify that. She has SIX teeth now, and eats lots of big people foods. 

Grandma Lopshire got her a Halloween costume, so she is getting ready for her birthday!

Lots of Charlies!

Our weekend was again fun-filled, and eventful.

 Snickers was beginning to look like a big hairy muppet, and we wanted his hair to be short for the (hopefully) upcoming warmer weather. So we told the groomer to cut his hair short, and she said she'd do the "sports trim." We didn't know that "sports trim" meant practically hairless! Snickers no longer looks like a cocker spaniel...We're not sure what he looks like right now!

 Saturday Jeremy's brother Eric and his family came to visit us! He and his wife, Marti, just had baby Charlie two weeks ago, and we got to meet him! He sure is a good little guy--so quiet and content. We all went to Chuck E. Cheese's, and Wilson got to go through the big overhead maze, play basketball, and ride the train. He is the opposite of Charlie right now--full of energy!! We also introduced Eric and Marti to Graeter's Ice Cream--the best in the world!! We like to go there every chance we get. ;)

 Yesterday, we had a very nice lunch at Matt and Suzanne Smith's house and got to spend some time with them, their cat Charlie, and Cora and Josh Willett. Annah really wanted to give Charlie a nice squeeze, but he wasn't too sure what she was, and didn't get close enough to give her the opportunity. It's always so nice to get to spend time with our friends from college!

Annah really wishes she could crawl, and seems to be getting closer by the day. Guess we better get some baby gates soon! She is also almost strong enough to sit up on her own. We're afraid that one of these days she's going to crawl across the room, sit up, and pop through her first tooth all in the same day!

Snickers

Snickers!

A puppy!

I'm getting a puppy!  He is a teeny little purebred chocolate cocker spaniel.  

These are pictures the lady I'm buying him from has sent me.