More from May

Anna is still in love with the doll wagon she got for her birthday. She is now a pro at climbing in and out of it but she definitely doesn't look like she belongs in it anymore.

Just sitting in my wagon brushing my teeth....

We did finally get around to putting together the real wagon we got Anna for Christmas and somebody is in love with it. We've been on several strolls around the block and Kevin likes to take Anna off-roading in the back yard. NOTE: the second seat must be left up

 For Mother's Day we headed to Topeka to spend a little time with both of our Mom's. First stop was the Kent's for lunch. The girls were so excited to see each other and immediately started playing in the kitchen. 

 The girls also enjoyed playing dress up for a bit but then Anna got tired and zoned out with Uncle Scott for a bit. 

Anna and Adell love sitting at the kids table and enjoyed it when Gama sat down to get in on the fun. 

 A little later we headed over to the Copp household for dinner. Amy was in town that week so we invited her over to hang out for a bit. 

 It's been so nice that I've had the chance to share my pregnancy with my Mom this time. I really only saw her a couple times last time and that was in the first half of the pregnancy. We like being close to both families much better :)

 Kevin and I found this car at a garage sale for super cheap. It's a little beat up but if it lasts us the summer it is totally worth the $3 we paid. Anna thinks it's pretty awesome.

 We've been working away trying to get the new baby's room ready to go. At the same time I've been trying to finish decorating Anna's room as well. We bought Anna a new nightstand and Kevin and Anna repaired her old one to use in the other room. Anna loves getting to help Daddy fix things. 

I plan to get a pregnancy update in over the next couple days and then I really am almost caught up!

Beginning of May

May started out with Daddy's Birthday! This called for some cake baking of course. Anna enjoyed getting to lick the spatula for the first time. 

 That weekend we headed to Topeka to celebrate Kevin's birthday with his family. The Watkins/Keling bunch were able to make it and it was fun getting to hang out with all of them.

Theresa with Julia and Anna

 After eating we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful evening. Adell and Anna were getting a lot of use out of the playhouse. 

Anna serving Daddy

We were attempting to get a picture of all three little ladies but it proved to be quite difficult. Anna wanted nothing to do with sitting on the bench and Adell was constantly doting on Julia. Julia was the only one that was ever looking at the camera. 

Anna (17 months), Julia (7 months), Adell (2 1/2 years)

 I thought I'd include a few in our series of attempts...

 I still love the pictures though! 

Service Please!!!!

Anna enjoying some rock collecting with Aunt Serena.

Kevin spent that evening with his brothers to finish celebrating his birthday and I headed over to my parents house to stay the night and get a little quality time in with the family.  

I eventually met back up with Kevin and we decided that since we were still in town we'd hit up the Furniture Mall to scope out dining tables (we've still been using our island and a card table at our house for meals). It wasn't quite open yet so we took a detour and found the play area inside of Westridge Mall. 

Anna was definitely into climbing at this place. She'd go up the slide and then slide down. There were other things she was able to climb on too and it made we a little nervous at times but she's pretty good at judging where she's at. It's fun to see how fierce our little lady is! At least this playground was good for kids her age. Most of those that we go to at parks are a little advanced for her and those are really stressful for this pregnant Mama.

April Activities

April was a busy month for us. We didn't have to travel like we did in March so we had a little time to work on house projects. I promise I will eventually get pictures of the house up but it is low on the list of things to do right now. 

Here is Kevin digging around the deck to add rock (it was suggested we do this in our inspection to help prevent termites). Anna was very curious about this. 

 We had to get her her own shovel so she could help out a little bit.

 Anna and I started going to playgroups held by Parents as Teachers (through the school district). It's been great for Anna because she gets to interact with lots of other kids her age and it's great for me because I get to talk to other parents. Other Mom's are a great resource for activities in the area and I feel like I'm getting inside information on the good parks and such.

Here we are checking out one of the parks close to us on a nice afternoon.

Anna absolutely loves reading. I love it when I find her flipping through a book on her own. I hope she continues to love to read once she gets older. 

Bedtime story time.

 Anna also enjoys coloring! She actually prefers watching you color and dumping all the crayons out of the box and then putting them back in.

 Kevin's work is involved in the Kansas City Corporate Challenge and we attended the kickoff out at Kaufman Stadium. (There are activities all summer like volleyball, softball, etc to get people active). Anna found a chair just her size!

 We managed to get back to Topeka a little bit back in April for some family time.

cousins!

 My little cutie bug after eating some Oreos. 

Kevin did have to be out of town for work for one night so I spent that time in Topeka. It worked out great because I was able to attend Seth's piano recital. He did such a good job!

Okay....I'm slowly getting caught up on these posts! At least I'm through April before May has ended! My plan is to be totally caught up before Baby K #2 arrives but I'm quickly running out of time. Only 3 weeks until my due date but I suppose it could be any time. I better getting blogging!

Easter

This year for Easter I had a lot of fun getting Anna a basket together. Some of the items included a copy of Frozen ,crayons, a coloring book, plastic cookie cutters for play dough, and a lift-the-flap book which Anna enjoys in the car. 

We headed out to Auburn for lunch and it was great catching up with family. Eventually it was time for the big Easter Egg Hunt. Anna ended up being the only hunter so all eyes were on her! It was so fun watching her expressions when she saw all the eggs. She was so excited to run around and pick them up to put in her basket. First Egg Hunt = Success!

Hailie was a huge help in keeping Anna from wandering too far off and guiding her back to eggs were aplenty. 

It was such a pretty day and Anna loved being able to wander around such a big area. Like most kids...she LOVES outside!

On a little stroll with Daddy.

Getting family pictures with Anna looking at the camera has become a challenge these days so we settled for one where we were looking and smiling at the camera. 

Such a perfect day out at the Farm! Later we headed back to my parents house and got to watch Frozen. Anna watched some of it but then lost interest. I'll admit I bought it as much for me as for Anna but we really enjoyed the movie. Anna is scared of the friendly rolling trolls though so we have to fast forward through those scenes (and the scene with the giant scary snowman). She does, however, love Olaf and his Snowman song!

San Diego! Part 2

The week before leaving for San Diego we found out that Moria was going to be overlapping with us since she had a conference of her own to attend. We picked her up from the airport and we ate dinner back at our hotel. We had time to hang out and play for a bit before I drove her to her hotel. 

Hi Moria!

Moria didn't have anything going on the next morning so Anna and I ventured over to where she was staying for breakfast and some girl time. It was nice outside so we enjoyed wandering around outside and watching Anna explore. With Kevin busy at his conference it was no nice that we had Moria to hang out with.

Anna and I had the rest of the day to ourselves and enjoyed a sunset dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. 

Cheese!

The next day was our last day and luckily for us Moria didn't have a ton of stuff until later on in the day. Kevin was able to sneak away from his conference for lunch so we got checked out of our hotel and headed over for lunch. It was perfect too because our friend Ethan from Stanford was attending the same conference as Moria. Mini Reunion!

The boys went their own way and Anna and I dropped some stuff off at Moria's room and went back outside to enjoy the weather. 

We got to harass some more ducks which was fun and explore all kinds of plants. 

Eventually we made our may by the pool and what started out as just feeling the water lead to Anna standing in the water. 

Then Moria got changed and they were both IN the water! Anna loved it and I'm pretty sure Moria did too. We only had a little bit of swim time (it was a little chilly anyway) because Moria needed to get to a poster session. Anna and I just hung out in her room until she returned and Kevin got back. 

We had a little bit more time together as a group but eventually we needed to get to the airport and Moria had some talks to attend. It was awesome that we got to overlap and it made our little getaway so much more rewarding. 

Now that I've wrapped up happenings from March I'm going to try and hustle and get some posts to recap April! Getting caught up on blog posts is on my "to do" list before baby arrives and I'm quickly running out of time.....

San Diego! Part 1

At the end of March Kevin had to go to a work conference in San Diego. Rather than me staying back with Anna in a house with no furniture and in boxes we decided to tag along! We left a day early to give us a little family time.

Our little traveler

We arrived at our hotel early afternoon and after getting settled and rested up we decided to do some exploring. Anna enjoyed looking at the fish in the koi pond.

The next day was ours to fully enjoy together. After grabbing breakfast down in the lobby we had to fit in some swimming to try out one of Anna's new swimsuits. She was a little hesitant about the big pool at first so we let her sit on the step of the jacuzzi pool (it was open to the outdoors so it wasn't hot). After some time she started seeing other kids playing and eventually wanted to play in the big pool 

Of course this made Kevin very happy because he could throw Anna up in the air and put her head under water a few times. Anna and I swam a few more times later in the week while Kevin was at the conference and each time she took to the big pool a little quicker. We have her signed up for swim lessons at the beginning of June and we're pretty excited about it. The lessons end two days before my due date so hopefully we can get through lessons before this little girl decides she wants to come!

Playing with Daddy!

After a nice nap and a Stanford victory over KU in basketball we were ready to go and check out San Diego. Our hotel was right by the pier and downtown so we didn't have to go far to find stuff to do. There were all kinds of things going on since it was the weekend and we had so much fun. 

The weather was absolutely perfect as well. Such a nice break from all the cold and snow in Kansas. We felt so relaxed and it was nice having some quality family time. There had been so much stress between moving, unpacking, work, and traveling that it was nice to have no plans for once and nowhere in particular to be. 

I think Anna enjoyed it too!

Back at the hotel a new skill Anna mastered was getting off of the bed on her own. It was so cute to watch. She'd be an inch or less from touching the ground with her feet and then get scared. We'd encourage her and then when her feet hit the ground she was so happy and proud of herself. 

We don't trust her to sit near the edge of the bed yet or anything but it's nice that she knows how to get down on her own. 

Our little cutie. 

Sunday ended too quickly for us and then it was just me and Anna. You had to be careful about saying the word "go". If she heard it then she was immediately at the door. Here she is wondering why we haven't left yet. She loved exploring so much that coming back to our room turned into a bit of an ordeal. Let's just say she didn't really care for it. 

Hurry up Mom!

It's hard to get pictures of Anna looking at the camera because she sees it and wants it...especially if it's the phone but I managed to get one that I thought turned out pretty well. 

After our nap we headed back outside to enjoy the weather. It was a little windy but still a pretty big improvement over Kansas. We had to come back in so that Mommy could use the bathroom but she still managed to enjoy things indoors....like stairs. 

We missed Daddy that day (it was a long first day at the conference for him) but luckily we got to have breakfast with him the next morning before heading back outside. Anna's favorite thing was chasing these ducks around. 

When she got tired of that she just watched other kid's playing. It was so awesome seeing her enjoy herself so much. 

Well this is just the first part of our trip. The second post will feature a visit with a very good friend! Stay tuned!