Life...

Well, it's happened again...life. I can't believe how the time gets away from me sometimes. Sorry there haven't been any posts as of late, and I don't really have any substantial excuses. Here is the latest: Jared continues to work hard at becoming the best nurse possible through schooling and work. He starts a new program in the summer that should prove exciting. He still works at the Arizona Heart Hospital full time and is a tremendous father. I am keeping busy with Anna and caring for our home and family (along with constant research for and slow development of my book). I love being a mother, more than I would have ever imagined. I attribute so much of my joy to having such a wonderful and enjoyable daughter. Anna will be seven months in a week or so, and I can't believe how big she is getting! She finally got her cranial band to help shape her head. It was just a little wide and slightly flat on the back, despite only spending her sleeping hours on her back. She'll wear the band for a few months, and so far, she doesn't seem to even notice it's there! She spends a great deal of her time these days trying to get her body to move the way she wants, and is quite successful at it! She pretty much can get to wherever she wants now, even though she's not officially crawling. She scoots, rolls, and army crawls around to reach her destination, which is usually one of the dog's tail or paw. Mary and PJ are forever loving toward her, and often curl up into a ball against her back as she plays with her touch and feel puppy book. I don't think that Anna will crawl for very long once she figures it all out. She's already pulling herself up on things in order to stand, but she doesn't know how to fall yet. She has a tendency to just lock her knees and tip over. Luckily, we have always been there to help. She continually makes verbal noises, but they aren't cute little coo's and ah's. It sounds like she is trying to mimic a wookie, vibrating the back of her throat. It's funny. Anyway, that's all we've been up to lately. Here are a couple of pictures:

Expressions of Anna

This kid gets cuter and cuter every day. Of course that comes from a biased opinion; maybe in all reality she has a mug only a mother could love. Either way, this mother's lovin' it!

Vain Much?

This video cracks me up. This is Sueann playing with Anna (who is apparently quite pleased with herself):

Generations

During our Thanksgiving trip to Idaho, we were to be able to make the rounds to some of Anna's "great" relatives that she hadn't met yet! This was very special to me in particular because I only have one memory regarding any of my great grandparents (a funeral). I hope she is able to spend time getting to know them so she can have wonderful memories to cherish!

Here is Eldon Croft, Anna's father's, father's, mother's father - her great great grandfather! Our first son, whenever he comes along will be named after him. He was so cute feeding Anna while he told me faith promoting stories of his experience being called as Elder's Quorum President after years of inactivity.

There were a few times when the bottle would drift away from her mouth, and she would attempt to recover it with her lips, but she never fussed while "Grandpa Eddie" and I talked of the past. :) Grandpa Eddie and my great grandfather, Henry Hill used to work together in the sheep industry. Eddie had the sheep, and Henry sheared them. I think it's so special that Jared's and my history is intertwined with family that served one another.

This is Anna's father's father's mother and father; Grandpa Eddie's daughter and son-in-law, whom he converted to the Gospel. Anna was in love with a little African doll with beaver fur hair that Grandma Gardner played with.

This is Anna's father's mother's mother and father. Anna was greatly entertained by a pair of singing penguins that Grandpa Smith pulled out of his toy stash!

Anna comes from such a wonderful heritage, it was such a blast spending time with all of our family over Thanksgiving!

My Little Reader

About a month ago, when Anna was 4 months old, I thought, "Okay, it's time to start reading to her because she can now focus on the pages and touch/hold things pretty well." I already had a couple of books for her, but I decided to go to the library to find some of the "touch and feel" books. There wasn't any, but there were some books on baby faces and bodies. I sat with Anna and started to talk to her while holding the pages open. I was shocked at how attentive she was! She sat there helping me hold the pages as I talked about what was on them. I would point, and she would follow my hands with her hands. It was a really fun time with her. Well, since then, I have found that I like the cardboard books, especially the "touch and feel's", but I really love the plastic books! Anna can drool on them, drop them in the dirt, bend them backwards, crinkle the pages, and they are still in prime condition! We both love them! She likes to "read" on our walks in the morning after she's had a good look around.

Kids at Heart

Saturday we went to the Children's Museum in Phoenix with Grandma, Dallin, Lisa, Hayden, Cody, Christine and Evelyn. It was really fun, and here are some of the highlights: Firstly, Hayden became awestruck when he first walked into the large room full of brightly colored tunnels and domes, and needed some convincing by Lisa and Grandma to come and actually play with everything. Granted, he had just woken up from sleeping in the car...Evelyn needed little convincing as she dove right into playing and climbing all over everything.

Here's Evelyn finishing up at the "car wash"; surprisingly, both came out without a drop of water.

Anna had lots of fun just watching and listening to all the commotion, especially from her perch in Grandma's arms!

More trinkets everywhere we turned!

Then, best of all, we had a little hula hoop competition:

Grandma won, hands down!! It was tons of fun!!

Happy Halloween!

For Anna's first Halloween, she was a pink leopard. And, for anyone that knows me, that's only because it was given to us for our baby shower. I never would have spent money on such a thing, but, she makes it cute. Our ward has a yearly Fall Festival so we went to that. I was tempted to take her around Friday night just so Jared and I could get lots of free candy, but I decided that might not please our neighbors. Anyway, the little outfit was complete with ears, a face on the hood, and of course, a tail. Wee!

I Have Toes!

So, a few weeks ago, Anna started grasping her knees when she was on her back, and slowly, she worked her way up until she was able to find her toes. Now, it's her ultimate obsession. Any time she's on her back, particularly when she's naked, she plays with her toes. It's the cutest thing, and it's so helpful when I'm changing her diaper, but not so helpful when I'm trying to get her pants on! :)

Update

Well, Anna is almost four months old. She is now fairly stable with her sleep pattern: bed at 7, I wake her for a bottle around 10, and then she doesn't usually wake until 7. It's been VERY nice! She sits up on her own for maybe 2-5 seconds before falling over, but with support she does really well. She now giggles and shrieks when we play with her, and likes to talk when her hands are in her mouth (we'll have to fix that before she starts dating...). She rolls over still easily from belly to back and last week she did back to belly, but only once. She's such a big girl when we take her on walks; she doesn't even use the car seat in the stroller any more! Anyway, things are going very well!

Camping

The family went camping last weekend at Workman's Creek, just above Roosevelt Lake. It was really beautiful and the weather was perfect. It got a little cold the first night (into the 40's), but I couldn't believe how well Anna slept. The day was a little different; Jared wasn't able to go (clinicals and working), so I had my hands full most of the time. Anna didn't seem to feel the need to nap with so much excitement going on, so the day was a little rough. I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, but here are a few fun ones! Christine playing the perfect Aunt!
Mom playing the perfect chef!
Evelyn and Anna just playing!
The next pictures were taken before we left; Anna went shopping and bought some totally awesome new boots for the camping trip. I loved them, and they were a great price, so I didn't make her take them back... Plus, she just was so happy in them (especially in her ridiculous outfit...). I took them with my phone so the quality isn't as good. Sorry. I also think I was laughing too hard to get a steady picture for the last one. I love that we can do ridiculous things to our children and they have no idea.