Hugs...Yes...and Shower...

(Sleepy baby with her binki and "dolly" which are used for napping and bedtime, she loves rubbing the silk tag on the "dolly's" butt)

Annabell has really been expressing her own personality lately through her expressions, laughter, and actions. She walks around the house always happy and I am truly amazed that she can ALWAYS find something to get into. It's worse when I have the house clean and all of her toys put up, because then she starts looking for new and interesting things, which she usually finds, and are typically off limits. Her listening and obeying has really developed, I was going to say improved but she is just learning how to do it, so I guess I have nothing to compare it to. Today I had a baby shower given by G-ma and Deena. It was wonderful! There was a beautiful blue diaper cake there with lots of little goodies likes spoons, powder, etc. Annabell thought it was so neat to pull the goodies off. So I would say, Annabell don't touch and then put it back. She would proceed to listen and put the spoon back...everyone was so impressed and then she would go to the next item. So she is listening, but she thinks that once she has obeyed she can proceed to touch it again since she already obeyed. It's pretty funny, but I'm trying hard not to let her see me laugh. That is a huge task for me, because she is just like her daddy, she LOVES to be silly and make people laugh. So she will put a sock in her mouth and run around like a doggy and stick her jaw out to show me she picked up the sock like a doggy. It is so incredibly cute and funny, but I don't want her putting those things in her mouth so I will try hard to tell her not to do it while keeping my composure. She looked adorable today. She received some wonderful hand-me-downs from our neighbor's little girl Rebekkah. I put her in a "frilly" dress for the first time since she was a baby and absolutely adored it. She would sway and rub her hands over the frill. She seemed to feel extra special in her dress. When we arrived to the shower she climbed up on a chair and sat for about 20 minutes all on her own. Everyone wanted to know how I got a 1 year old to behave like that, but their guess was as good as mine! ha. She didn't get much of a nap so when we got home she took a two hour nap and then we went to the park. I should have known better then to let her play in the dress. She couldn't climb a thing because the dress was so long. So I ended up tucking it in the back of her diaper. Her favorite past time at the park lately has been the slide. She had NEVER gone down the slide willingly until last week. I really believe it was because the video she watched of her cousin sliding down the slide. She watched that with me in aw, and then the next day we went to the park, and while climbing on the jungle gym she came across the slide and sat down in front of it and looked at me (this was a big slide too, taller than i am), I ran down the stares and stood at the bottom, and she pushed herself down! It was adorable! She was laughing and so happy. She then tried to climb up the slide and do it again. We played on it for several minutes until I got tired of putting her back at the top. So now it's one of her fav. past times when we go.
She had a playdate with her friend Mason the other day. They were so funny together. Annabell now LOVES to give hugs and kisses. The hugs are her putting her head down on the person and saying "awwww" and then the kisses are all open mouth and sloppy. She even stuck her tongue out and licked brad the other day, it was funny. Well when Mason came over he ran over and hugged her and it knocked her down, so she began to cry, but got over it quickly. So later she got excited and ran over and began to hug Mason and knocked him over and he began to cry. She also had a great pony tail in that day that almost lasted 20 minutes, I was so excited that her hair is almost long enough to stay. It actually is long enough but since she throws her head on the couch to pull her self up it falls quickly. Here are some pictures of my hard work..ha..


And last but not least she is officially nodding her head yes. She did it the other day when I asked her if she wanted something but I was convinced it was probably a fluke accident. But today she clearly told me yes when she wanted to do a few things. I love that she understands so much now! She is also becoming really good at pointing out people in pictures and things in books...elmo and birds are favorites of hers! Well I think that is all for now even though I'm sure I have forgotten plenty! Love y'all!