Happy Halloween!

We started out our Halloween festivities with the trunk or treat at church. Rachel was a princess (again) and Annie used Rachel's costume from when she was almost one and was a tiger.

Saturday we decided we'd better carve the pumpkin that's been sitting in our kitchen since August when we picked it from our garden. I'm surprised it lasted this long without rotting. Rachel helped out with the de-seeding with a lollipop from the trunk or treat as her energy source.

Rachel decided she wanted a spider pumpkin with 8 or 10 eyes. I'm not sure how many eyes it ended up having, but it was pretty close.

After Rachel went to sleep I carved the smaller one, just so it wouldn't go to waste (and we had to get the seeds out of it anyway to roast them-yum!).

Last week we made some ogre toes and gave some away and got a sugar rush from the rest of them. They didn't turn out quite as good as the original where I got the idea, but they were still pretty decent, I thought.

We enjoyed some mummies for our Halloween dinner. Or maybe they look more like pod-people.

Rachel had a fun time trick or treating tonight, and Annie, in her post-shot stupor after her one-year doctor visit today, was happy to be pushed around in the stroller looking at the crazy people and decorations. I caught this picture of Rachel honoring the true meaning of Halloween: CANDY!

Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!!

Happy Birthday, Annie!!!

Annie had her birthday yesterday and is officially 1 year old now. We went to Lakeside Park so she could do a couple of her favorite things: look at some animals (ducks) and climb and slide. Afterwards we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house for cake and presents. Here's her bear cake. I thought about making it into a dog, but a bear's ears are much easier. And what does she care? She's one. :)

Obviously, she's not quite up to speed on the candle ettiquite yet. She thought it would be cool to touch the flame, rather than blow it out.

She got one of the bear's ears, but, having just finished lunch she was not hungry at all. She poked it a little and licked the frosting, but wasn't interested in making any famous messy face 1-year-old pictures.

She did enjoy the presents, mostly because a couple of them played music when you pushed the buttons, which Rachel was more than happy to show her.

She loved her little animal shaped cars (she sometimes will do a vroom vroom sound when playing with cars: "vvvvv... vvvvv"--it's so cute!).

She didn't really care much for her bear camp chair, but I think it's because all the toys were on the ground, and not in her hands. Later she sat happily in her new chair.

And the fun, fun surprise from Grandma and Grandpa: the ride on car, which Rachel promptly appropriated as her own. "Annie is letting me borrow it." Right. Like she has a choice. :)

After a nap Annie came back for more cake and actually ate some. Very daintily. She was as interested in her new water bottle as in the cake.

This is about as messy as her face got:

But she did show off her yummy cake for all to see:

Today Annie actually got to play on her own toy a couple of times when Rachel was busy with something else. Annie managed to move the car backwards all the way across the kitchen which she thought was pretty cool. Laughing all the way.

I know it's been picture overload the last few posts, but it's not over. Here's a quick review of Annie's first year of life in pictures. We're so happy to have her in our family. She is a happy baby, though she is beginning to throw tantrums when we don't let her have her way. She's walking like a champ and climbing like a monkey. She only says "Dada" consistently, but sometimes says "fffff" for food or "vvvvv" for vroom vroom when she's playing with cars. She is also starting to pick up sign language and will sign more, food, water, milk, tickle, and bath. She loves her big sister like crazy and always wants to be where Rachel is. She loves the outdoors and Rachel's room. She's got 9 teeth now and is quite the carnivore, but will eat most anything if she sees someone else eating it. She's real good at making known what she wants by pointing and laughing. We all love our little Annie. Happy birthday!

Photoshoot

For Annie's birthday we decided not to go in to get professional photos done because we're cheapskates, and we have a decent camera, so we figured we might as well put it to good use and do our own photo shoot. 400+ pictures later we have lots to choose from. Here are some of our favorites. (Yes, I am not good at narrowing things down--there are 46 pictures here, but hey, at least I'm not wasting film. :)
Some of my favorites I made a little bigger. (Remember, clicking on any picture will blow it up bigger.)