Gifts & Spits

If you look really closely in the center of the picture, you'll see that Leia Rose has continued her sometime-tradition of carrying up the gifts by bringing the basket of offerings up to the front.
And as usual, she did it all on her own and was very proud to do so.
Annie, on the other hand, spent most of Mass using the pew as a table for her spitty beads. Oh, how I regretted not bringing the stroller (at least for some of the time).

Furman Friends

Today the family was blessed with a visit from Jenny Rose, a dear friend from Furman. My long-time roommate and friend, and Brian's friend as well. We spent much of the day together relaxing on the playground with the girls, but the evening held a big girls night out with three Furman cottage-mates: myself, Jenny Rose, and Karin Faulkner. And the chocolate from The Melting Pot was oh so good! ; )

Fridays on the Front Porch

Fridays on the Front Porch is a free music series that the Carolina Inn puts on that features an informal bluegrass concert every Friday during the spring and summer. This Friday was the first one, so off we went! We had lots of fun dancing together!
But Annie and Leia had the most fun peeking under the chair . . .
. . . and over the chair.
And for some reason Annie only wanted to drink out of her sippy cup this way *sigh* and, for some reason, wanted to carry around a floppy piece of pizza *double sigh.* [And I'll also go ahead and say that it was WAY too crowded. With the way people made their blankets/chairs their territory, it reminded me of July Fourth in Boston at the Palisade! For goodness sake! Originally I was hoping to do this with the family each Friday, but seeing the crowds, now I'm not so sure.]
And through it all, Leia wanted nothing more than to play at the base of this tree (which was far over on the other side). This is because she always gets to play around the roots of the tree at the Carr Mill music on Sundays. We let her take a picture over there at the end.

Jesse's Pond

Today Leia Rose had a nice playdate over at Jesse's house. Leia couldn't wait to show Annie the fish pond. When the girls were encouraged to dip their fingers in the water, the fish would come and nibble them as a bullfrog croaked right next to us! What a fun experience!

Nighttime, Nostalgia, & "Noh"

I can't begin this post without at least mentioning the nostalgia behind our nighttime prayers. They are the same ones Oma said with me when I was a child: "Good night, dear Jesus. Please bless Mamma, Daddy, Leia, Annie, and all our family and friends and teachers. Tonight we ask a special prayer" . . . and these days it's usually "That Oma and Papa sell their house." Then we say the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Guardian Angel Prayer, and then a short prayer at the end where we invoke all of Annie's patron saints: "Dear St. Anne, . . . pray for us. Dear St. Katharine Drexel, mother of minorities, pray for us. Dear St. George, grandpa of Oma, pray for us." (George Staggers, Annie's Great Great Grandfather, is her guardian angel, . . . which I have been convinced of ever since I found a lost painting of his tucked neatly inside my treasured vintage stuffed animals when I was pregnant with Annie. That painting now hangs right inside the door to Annie's room.) Anyway, yes, prayer time is a very nostalgic time for me. Annie hasn't come to appreciate that yet. ; )
After Annie shouts out her "Amen!" after prayers, it's time for "pull," which means "time to pull the knob on my book cabinet." Ironically, all her favorites right now aren't in there, there in the sling bookshelf.
Annie's books are always in the "flavor-of-the-week" variety. That is, her one-and-only-true-loves change every week. ; ) Last week it was back to "the buggy books" which are the stuffed animal books that most remind me of Leia when she was a newborn. This week, though, Annie runs right to the sling bookshelf and yells out, "song!" because most of the books she chose this week have a CD song that goes along with them. One of her absolute favorites is Sunshine on My Shoulders, which is one of this fabulous series based on four John Denver songs. They are all VERY special. She calls it "sigh," for "sunshine," I think. And during the book/song, she loves to point out the birds and frogs and mice and kitties and flowers and girls throughout. This song is also one of Annie's "Nighttime Songs" that play as she goes to sleep, and the very first one I used to play while I danced with her as a newborn.

Seeing Annie's love for "song!," I thought I would bring out one that has been lost with Leia, and was also mine when I was a child: Ten Little Indians. (Okay, here is proof that I'm not at all concerned with being politically correct in that the girls in this book are "grinding corn with glee" while the boys are "hunting deer alive," not to mention they are called "Indians." Ha!) This one is PERFECT for Annie in that it combines song & counting!!! Annie's two loves!!!

Let me also say here that Annie is my real song-lover of my two children. (Please, God, let her love musicals!!!) Annie has already been trying to sing (most notably today when I was singing "Oh dear! What can the matter be? Dear, dear! What can the matter be?" because I saw deer footprints on the playground). I remember always being surprised that Leia wasn't more into songs like this, and she never asked to see a musical more than once (which always cut me to the quick). . . but Leia has her own special loves of orchestral music, actually. The music of John Williams is played daily in the car going to school, . . . and Leia requests it by name! Anyway back to our nostalgic books . . .
Another one of her favorites these days (also from my youth), Annie calls "Ah, me!" or translated Come Walk with Me!
But her most requested book, and the ONLY book that either of my children have EVER asked to read five times a row is I Can Fly or "Fly! FLY!!!"
Pat the Bunny excites her too (yet another fun story from my youth). However, this is a new copy & version given originally to Leia from Grandma. (Thanks so much, Grandma!) It is my very favorite version of the book (that I didn't even know existed) that has two extra activities in it, most notably "shaking Mamma's button box" which is the easiest activity for a very small child. Even easier than "patting the bunny" because it has a reward of the sound. I'm a big fan of this book because it has activities in it that even an eight-month-old can do, . . . and obviously it's still good for an eighteen-month-old. Not much longer though, probably. : (
Anyway, sometime after lots of books and songs, Annie looks at me longingly, gives me a hug, and says, "Noh," which means milk. Then she has taken to going over to the boppy pillow (which she still lays on while she nurses) and hugs the boppy, too. Just so sweet!




And even though this isn't a nighttime picture, this is the last basic thing that I see before I leave Annie at night. I hand her Cherry Chat Chat, and Annie looks intently into the cat's face. I'm not sure what she's looking for, but sometimes she'll say "No" and gently push him away. Other times, she'll say "huuuuug" and love him up. Perhaps this is a factor of having so many different Cherries? I suppose they each have a little bit different personality?

And now that I've included a video of Annie requesting books that are songs, I thought I would record what Annie calls her different favorites these days: Nursery Rhymes is "Rhy!" Come Walk with Me is "Ah-Me!" What Makes a Rainbow is "Bow!" Quick as a Cricket is "Kick." What Am I is "My!" Barnyard Pals is "Bawn!" Excuse Me is "See!" 1 2 3 is "two, five." Parading with Piglets is either "Pee" or "Paying Pic." If You're Happy and You Know It is "Hah." Smile Please is "Peas." Old Macdonald Had a Farm is "EIEIEI" which sounds just like "Yah Yah Yah." Ten Little Ladybugs is "Baa." One Yellow Lion is "La" or "La La." Anything with Elmo in it was "Moe!" until recently when it has morphed to "Eh Moe!" Squiggly Wiggly's Surprise is "See!" or "Wee-Lee!" A B C is "uh-see." The Wheels on the Bus is "Buh." Snappy Little Babies is "Bee Bee Bee." Tails is "Tay-oo." Dolphin Lullaby is "fish." (Ha!) I Can Fly is "Fly!" Sunshine on my Shoulder is "sigh" or sometimes "fly" (if she's remembering the picture of the butterfly in it). And finally, when she wants a book again she'll say "guy!" and when I read "The End" she says "eh." [And the sad thing is, just in the week or so that I have been recording these, a few of the terms have changed already! They just grow up so fast, don't they?!?]

"AMEN!!!"

Annie is finally participating a bit in our nighttime prayers! (You'll notice, however, that she is still confined to the crib while we do so, though.) She'll also attempt to say "Pray for us" when we say "Saint Anne, pray for us," but it sounds a bit more like "praise." ; ) Most notably, at the end of the Sign of the Cross, Annie will vehemently say "AMEN!!!" and then immediately "Book!" Hmmm, not sure if she's happy to say the prayer, . . . or happy to begin reading books afterwards. Ha!

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It's pictures like this that make me wish I had a public blog that I got paid for. ; )