anna louisa

it's dangerous having a digital slr camera with an awesome macro lens. when I had to use film I was a bit more judicious with the number of pictures taken. but then I may not have captured this sweet smile.

i love anna's profile.

don't mess with the fist of fury!

cute anna

we think anna is really starting to smile now...for real! :) it doesn't happen often, but we think there were a few genuine, real-live smiles this week. so cute.

who could have possibly given anna this t-shirt for christmas?

Who are these girls?

The situation: Nate watching a college football game. Cate walks in, looks at the TV and sees a shot of the cheerleaders on the sidelines. In a very cute, innocent, excited little voice she says...

"Look! It's Daddy's ballerinas!!"


That's right folks, these girls are Daddy's ballerinas. In-ter-es-ting...

(note - I am in no way pledging allegiance to USC...they simply have a monopoly on all decent football cheerleading pictures on Google images...seriously, I even tried searching specifically for UCSD, Stanford, UofU...USC kept popping up...what the?)

Milestones...

Anna Louisa turned 1 month old on Wednesday! That went so fast...just can't believe it. She's started the month out with a healthy report from the doctor (50th percentile for height and weight and all looks good!), a few smiles here and there, and lots of cute cooing noises. :) As you can see from the picture, her first month of growing really wore her out.

This past month has been a big month of changes for Cate. Thankfully she is adjusting to everything very well. I was a little anxious for her, but she really is doing so great. Okay, here are the changes: 1) Baby sister born 1 week before Christmas and the day before her 3rd birthday. 2) Cate starts going to Primary (for those of you who don't know what that is...Primary is where the 3-12 year olds go during Sunday School time at church). No more nursery for our big girl! 3) Cate gets potty trained. She's doing awesome at it, by the way! 4) Cate gets a big girl bed. 5) First haircut! Yup, she's NEVER had scissors touch her hair until yesterday...and the only reason it even happened now is because her ends were pretty dry. Just a trim and a little layering to keep those curls bouncing!

Seriously, that is a LOT for a little 3 year old to deal with...but like I said, she's been great. Here she is with our friend Brittany, who cut Cate's hair.


Cate with her new bed...she's saying "I'm a big girl" here. :)

Anna's political savvy has started young...

...but her taste in adventure flicks is a little scary. Conan the Barbarian? Really, Anna?

Cate's sense of style is very fine tuned...jeepers. When we took Anna to the doctor this week, I got Cate dressed, did her hair, she was looking pretty cute. We get out to the car and I look at her...she's moved her headband down so it goes across her forehead and she's wearing the craziest rainbow baseball cap ever. It was really funny. And I realized the other day the quantity of Cate laundry has decreased lately...only because she just wants to wear her nightgowns and summer dresses ALL THE TIME ("so I can spin, mommy"). Anyway, here's a sampling...

I've been meaning to compare baby pictures between Anna and Cate. With each day Anna looks less and less like Cate. She definitely has her own look about her. Here they both are on Christmas morning the year they were born...1 week old. First Cate...

Here's Anna. Funny to notice...Cate has a hat and is laying on a blanket, to protect her from that very dangerous floor. Poor second child...parents totally unconcerned for her health and safety ;)

And here they both are around 2 weeks old...Cate on left, Anna right.

Kind of hard to tell in these pictures...I'll try to get a good comparison shot in the next few weeks. :)

Fun with the girls...

Here's a happy shot of Anna. :)

The week Anna was born we had tickets to a local production of the Nutcracker...it was a morning showing for school groups, so they shortened the performance. It was perfect. We got front row seats and Cate was in HEAVEN. Every time new dancers came on the stage she'd say "More ballerinas!" She paid attention the entire show and applauded and everything. It was so stinkin' cute. My mom stayed with Anna so Nate and I were able to go with Cate - it was such a fun morning.

The day Nate's parents left, Cate was playing quietly in her room. She always does this, so I didn't think twice, but Herm thought she might be up to something so he went to check on her. The next thing we know Cate's crying. Sure enough, she had found Pat's makeup bag and was applying her "face" when Grandpa caught her red-handed. Cate isn't normally caught in such situations...guess nobody's perfect! She really does like wearing makeup, which I discovered at Halloween. Anyway, it was pretty dang funny, even though Cate was quite sad.

If Anna had a Native American name it would be "Crazy Hair." When this kid's hair is clean it seriously goes crazy - as you can see. It also looks much lighter when it's clean and all grease-free. This picture kind of makes it look red, but it's just the lighting...she definitely doesn't have any red in her hair. But just wanted to show off the porcupinish quality of her locks...

FUNNY cate videos...and a few pics

While Pat & Herm were in town, Cate & I went with them one afternoon to see the seals in La Jolla. I had to find parking, so the three of them got a head start. When I got down there, Herm was far out on the sea wall that protects the seal beach...i.e. the spot where you get WET if a good wave comes through. I thought to myself, Herm's crazy to be out there. I started to head out on the wall, which was super crowded...as I got closer to the end (where the waves hit) I heard a little girl crying...I thought, that's gotta be cate and she probably just got nailed by a wave. Then I heard a guy saying to his girlfriend, "That little girl got soaked!" Uh-oh. This is how I found them...



On the way back to the car we came across some people feeding pigeons. Herm, who was carrying Cate, got a pretzel so he and Cate could feed the birds...thinking, most likely, this would cheer up wet and inconsolable Cate. Two pigeons jumped up on his arm, at which point Cate freaked out. It was so funny...What a trip to the beach! Fortunately it only took about 10 minutes before Cate could calm down enough to look back on the experience and laugh, or at least not sob.


We had a great time with Nate's parents. So sad to see them leave! Today was the first real day without help around, and it went well...but I didn't even try to get anything done. :)




I have tons of other pictures to post, but I'm going to do that later...I'm tired. :)

More Pictures!

Hey everyone, it's Jane again! I'm actually sitting down at the computer...haven't really felt like it much this week. :) Anyway, Nate and I wanted to post more pictures. Hopefully it's not too many for you! (make sure you keep scrolling down for Cate's birthday pictures, too)

Here we are right before we took off for the hospital...


I had to be in bed overnight for the medicine they gave me to dilate, so Nate was a super husband and spent the night with me. When we got there the chair on the left (it pulls out) was what he was supposed to sleep on. GROSS. Our nurse disappeared for a bit and came back with the one and only brand new sleeping chair in the wing. What a lucky guy!


I love love love love this picture.


Mom and Anna.


The new big sister! We had a baby doll waiting for her in the hospital the first time she came to meet Anna. She was a little interested in Anna when she first got there, but not at all once she discovered the doll. Surprise surprise. :)


Cate has been excited about her baby sister for some time now - she's done really well with her this week, although whenever you ask what her baby sister's name is she says "I don't know." It's funny.


Here's Anna the first night. As you've seen, she has a cute little round face...and as you can see here a super double chin...when you crease it with your finger it stays creased. Nate and I were laughing so hard when we discovered that trick. Gotta love baby fat.


Here's Cate holding Anna in the hospital - she does pretty well!


Just a sweet picture of Anna sunbathing at the hospital (she is on the verge of jaundice, so she gets to start out life as a true southern california girl...laying in the sun three times a day)


Anna has super long fingers and toes...in fact the longest infant toes any of us have ever seen! Her hands are so pretty, but I've yet to get a good shot of them.


You can see here that her big toe is very talented...she can stretch it so far from her other toes!!


Briniging the babies home!


Just a cute little series of Cate with Anna...so sweet.

Cate's 3rd Birthday!

Since Anna was born the day before Cate's birthday, we were still in the hospital. We wanted to make sure Cate had a special day (especially because she LOVES birthdays so much), so Nate took her out for smoothies that morning, she made cupcakes with Grandma (complete with all kinds of fingerprints and holes all over the cupcakes), and we had a little party in the hospital room. She finished the night off going for ice cream with Dad...needless to say Cate had a LOT of sugar that day.

So, of course we had to light and blow out candles, right? And of course when Cate wanted to do it again I said sure (b/c I felt guilty about being in the hospital as it was!). And of course we didn't stop to think we were in a HOSPITAL...5 minutes after the candles were blown out 4 nurses coming running in our room looking for fire. Come to find out the smoke detector in our room is connected directly to the fire department (DUH)...thank GOODNESS it didn't go off. So embarassing. But it was worth it - Cate was happy.


Present time!


What a beautiful setting for a birthday party, eh?


On Thursday night we threw Cate a "real" birthday party at home. We invited her friends Hannah and Amelia over...I'm sure she would have loved to have had more friends, but this was nice and small for us and as far as Cate knew it was a huge party. The girls were totally cute and danced like CRAZY people. My mom is the best at doing cool birthday cakes - Cate wanted a blue car birthday cake, so Grandma obliged. Cate sat there and watched her decorate - it was so cute.


Cate and Grandma.


Here's the cake!


The party animals.


Here's the real Party Anna-mal (ha ha). She slept through the entire party - don't know how she did it with those crazy girls running around, but she did. :)


Cate got all kinds of princessy-girly-dress-uppy stuff for her birthday, including this lovely pair of clip-on earrings. They must be really comfortable, huh?


Here she is all dressed up. Nate asked her if he could take a picture and she totally started striking tons of poses - it was so funny and kinda weird - we have NO IDEA where she picked up those moves. Nate and I could not stop laughing. When my sister Anne was in town we were watching Project Runway, at which point Cate told us she wanted to be a "perfect model"...again, have no idea where THAT came from. Apparently she's been practicing.