I just love this picture of Anna. She loves her food, especially chocolate. We were at McDonalds the other day, courtesy of Grandma Donna, and Doug set some fries out for Anna. He leaned over to give her more, thus blocking her view of the fries. She proceeded to pinch Doug's ear and force his head out of the way so she could reach her fries again. Did her daddy proud.



Ah, sisterly love. Charlotte loves to help out with Anna in whatever way she can. She is always willing to lend a hand and be the second mommy. This second mommy syndrome is what makes me having three kids possible.



This little guy is now potty trained and it was a lot easier than I was expecting. My favorite part is that he does not pee every twenty minutes. When Charlotte was first potty trained she peed all the time, especially any time we went anywhere. Each new bathroom was an adventure. Ben, meanwhile, can go hours. I took him to his 3 year checkup and my doctor insisted he was ready to be potty trained. Sure enough, she was right.

Anna crawls around now and cruises on the furniture. She thinks she is hot stuff. Charlotte is almost done with the early reading at the literacy center. One of the things I love most about our town is all the things they have geared toward young people. The ladies who run the literacy center are some of the sweetest people I know. We are going to miss them when she advances.


Ben is three now and I did not even throw him a friend party. I took advantage of the fact that he didn't really seem to mind and just took him and his sister to the bounce house. His favorite part of the day was going to the store and picking out his ten things. Every time we go to the grocery store the kids will walk by and say, " I want this " to anything yummy. To keep them from begging we started the ten things thing. For their birthday they get to go to the store and pick out ten things. The treats lasted all of a day, but he was very proud walking through the store and telling the ladies what he was doing. We tried, unsuccessfully, to make a train cake. Let's just say you need a lot more Crisco than we used. I don't have the pictures from his birthday, but when I get them I will post them.



Anna is a total thumb sucker and I don't stop her. Mostly cuz it really is the cutest thing. Someday I may live to regret it, but really, I'm not gonna pull it out of her mouth all the time.




My brother and sister in law recently had a baby, and it made me realize how much I appreciate that Anna is past the being awake for three hours in the middle of the night phase.