Happy 1st Birthday Annie Jaye!

Our sweet baby Annie Jaye turned one this past week.  It is amazing how fast this last year has gone by, so much faster than with Jacob or Gwyn.  Annie has truly blessed our family and we love her so much!  She is so sweet, she smiles all the time, loves to laugh and play with Jacob and Gwyn, loves to run to the door when Daddy comes home, likes to be swung around and bounced up and down, wants to be right in the middle of everything that is going on, is very curious and gets into EVERYTHING.  Here she is in her favorite drawer full of ziploc bags and straws:

I think I pick up at least 50 ziploc bags and straws every single day.  I was fixing dinner the other night when I decided to take that picture of her in her drawer.  I then thought that it had been awfully quiet for awhile, and found Jacob and Gwyn in mine and Brian's closet with all of the clothes that were hung on the bottom rack pulled down off the hangers.  Jacob told me Gwyn did it and he was just playing with the hangers (oh, he is so innocent).  Oh the price of having 15 minutes to fix dinner...a house full of ziploc bags and straws on the floor and clothes all over the closet floor!  Annie really does have a radar for when the refrigerator door opens, if Jacob or Gwyn go to get their milk out and open the fridge, I have to say, "Hurry, shut the fridge, Annie is coming!"  We also have to keep all the bathroom doors shut, she makes a beeline right to the toilet at every opportunity.  One day, I was in the kitchen and she started heading that direction.  I walked over towards the door and said in my you-are-in-big-trouble voice, "Annie" and she came running from the bathroom with this little look like, "what, I'm not doing anything."

Annie's birthday was on Wednesday, so we had mini birthday cakes for breakfast before Brian left for work. The kids had so much fun and both went to preschool wired!

Cupcakes are no big deal to her, she has been hitting the birthday party circuit with Jacob and Gwyn and their friends for quite some time now, so "this ain't her first rodeo"...she knows exactly what to do!

  Here she is with her new car seat on her birthday...she likes finally being able to see everything.

Since I had a dentist appointment to get my first crown (Gwyn was pretty disappointed this wasn't the same type of crown as her princess crown), Brian had to take all three kids to the doctor by himself on Friday.  They were all getting their flu shots and Annie also got her 1 yr check up.  She is growing very well, she weighs 20 lbs 2 oz and is 29" long.  She is in the 40th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for height (we call her our little runt).  Annie had to get 4 immunization/flu shots, and Brian said she was so mad after the fourth one, that if she would have known any curse words she would have been saying them to that nurse.   Instead, she had to get her revenge by giving her a nasty look.  Gwyn, who had so much anxiety over her flu shot, told me when I got home that the doctor was mean, gave her 3 shots, and that she didn't cry.  Well, she only got one shot, and she did cry...alot.  Brian did pretty good with all 3 kids at the doctor, but I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they came in to start giving out the shots!  Here is poor little Annie sporting her battle scar bandaids:

The kids did cheer Annie up by giving her an Elmo chair for her birthday...Annie liked it, but not as much as Jacob and Gwyn:

My mom flew in for the weekend, and we celebrated Annie's birthday on Saturday.  Gwyn was in charge of the party planning committee and selecing party decorations, and we ended up with a hodge podge variety of Dora, Tinkerbell, Hello Kitty, Princesses, etc:

 Gwyn setting the table:

 Streamers and balloons were in some weird places, Gwyn and Jacob each got their own roll of streamers:

Brian made Annie's cakes...again, I made the cake and the icing and he decorated them, so I should get some credit, right?!?

The party hat was not a success:

Annie with her cake:

Digging in:

Jacob enjoying his chocolate ice cream:

Our attempt at a family picture:

The birthday girl:

Really, to get her to smile big Brian would run around the living room and I would get the camera ready for when he stopped.  Seriously, we did this at least five times until Brian was too tired!

Annie with her proud Daddy:

 Annie with Uncle Jason:

 Annie with her proud Mommy:

Annie with Nana (we got a good smile in these pictures by lifting her high in the air and then taking the picture when she came back down...the things we do to capture those two little front teeth!):

 A happy birthday girl!

What color are these eyes?  I thought for sure they would be dark brown, but they are kind of hazel, but seem to have turned a little more brown lately.  The doctor said they were a gray, and rarely turn colors after kids turn 1.

This past week was Storybook Land at Jacob and Gwyn's preschool.  The school transformed their fellowship hall into a little carnival of booths for the kids, each booth representing a fairy tale/storybook.  Gwyn's class went on Wednesday, and since her class is so young, they asked for some of the moms to help walk them around.  I got to go for awhile and Gwyn had so much fun.  Her hair was a little crazy, I couldn't do much with it since she put about 10 squirts of hand sanitizer in it before we left for school that morning...she has recently been putting hand soap and sanitizer in her hair trying to fix it herself:

 She is the cutest little girl around!

Gwyn was upset when I had to leave, but that quickly disappaited when her teacher announced they were going to their room to have cupcakes.  Her class uses this ring rope when they go place to place, the kids hang on to a ring and walk together, it was so cute!

Jacob's class went to Storybook Land on Thursday, and I signed up to work the Peter Pan booth...Jacob was so excited to see his Mommy dressed up as a pirate, and his little friends said, look at your Mommy!  You should have seen his little smile.  At my booth, the kids had to walk the plank:

Funny things the kids said this week:

Jacob (to Brian while he was decorating Annie's cake):  You sure are doing a great job on that cake, Daddy!

Gwyn (as we are decorating for the party): This is going to be the best birthday party ever!

Gwyn (as we are looking in Michaels waiting for Party City store to open next door):  Why aren't you buying anything??

Brian (as we are watching "How it is Made"):  Alright, they are showing us how we they make transformers next (the electricity kind).

Jacob:  TRANSFORMERS...COOL!  (He was thinking of the toy transformers, ha!)

Another funny conversation on the way to school last week:

Jacob:  Why did God make snunks where they squirt people and make them stink.

Me (trying hard to think of why God even made skunks):  Well, that way if another animal is trying to get the skunk, then the skunk can spray them and the other animal will run away.  God made it so that they can protect themselves.

Jacob:  What am I going to do when I get sprayed by a snunk with that stink?

Me:  You don't have to worry about that, skunks are afraid of people, they don't live around us, they live in the woods.

Jacob:  But what about if we go camping in the woods, then are they gonna spray us with that stink?

Me:  If we see a skunk in the woods, then we could call a forrest ranger to come get the skunk and take it back into the woods if we ever see one.

Jacob:  The police are going to come to take the snunk away...to snunk jail?

Me:  It is a skunk, not a snunk, and if you ever see one, then run the other direction and go tell mommy or daddy.

Brian (after reading a story before bedtime):  What do you guys want to be when you grow up?

Jacob:  A doctor, a real one with real doctor tools.

Gwyn:  A cowgirl (and later that night she prayed that God would help her be a cowgirl.)

Brian (after reading a preschool devotion to the kids):  Is there anything you are afraid of?

Jacob:  Bad guys

Gwyn: Dinosaurs, and if I see one, I'm going to tell my teacher.