Thank you for the pig, Aunt Dotsy!

My Aunt Dotsy sent Anna a really fun Christmas gift- a stuffed animal pig that had it's feet (hooves?) wrapped around a nice soft blanket. The pig has become one of Anna's favorite toys. She loves to give him piggy back rides. Thanks, Aunt Dotsy!

A Mommy confession

I'm a little bit embarassed to post this one... I had a weak Mommy moment a couple of days ago and purchased a Thomas the tank engine ride on toy from Craigslist. (Does anyone remember Silver Spoons?) Now, I did get a great deal on it, but it breaks just about every toy guideline I've created for myself. I prefer not to buy Anna toys too many toys that 1. have batteries 2. have syndicated characters on them 3. are huge pieces of molded plastic (due to the environmental impact). I can give myself a pass on rule #3 for this one because I purchased a used toy (yay for Craigslist!), but this toy blows rules number 1 and 2 right out of the water. In hindsight I'm not sure what came over me. My arguments to myself were that Anna would LOVE it and that it would keep her occupied while we moved and unpacked. She does really enjoy this toy, but in hindsight I can't believe that I bought it. Oh, well. At least we have more space to keep toys in now.

Helping Mommy pack

A swing for Anna

Mulch phones

Flowers from the market

This morning Anna and I went with some friends to the Farmer's Market to pick up some produce and some hanging baskets for our new deck. Anna looked very festive on the way h0me with the baskets hanging from her stroller.

I recently purchased an adorable little beach chair with an umbrella for Anna. This morning I put on a Baby Signing Time video for her and sat her in her little chair to watch while I did dishes. I peeked in a couple of minutes later to find Anna sitting not in her cute little chair, but on a... balloon. So much for fancy furniture.

Picnic time

Today Anna and I went to a garage sale and picked up a little plastic table and chair set for $5.00. It was a beautiful day so we decided to have a picnic dinner on the deck and let Anna try out her new table. She thought it was pretty neat. There are two chairs and every minute or two she'd get up and switch to the other chair. We remembered why we usually strap Anna in for meals- she had a great time walking around but ate very little dinner :).

Look, Mommy! A plane!

A living room snooze

Playgroup really wore her out...

Fancy dancing, part one and two

Dan, aren't you glad your piano is getting put to such good use?

Dermographism

I'm going through old photos tonight to try to get caught up on the blog and realized that I never posted about Anna's dermographism episodes. Anna was diagnosed with dermographism in March- a condition where the skin is abnormally sensitive to be scratched and rubbed. Dermographism can happen to someone once, can happen on and off throughout their lives, or it can be a permanent condition. Sometimes there can be a clear trigger at other times no one knows what started the problem. Anna's seems to be triggered by cats. Anna is allergic to cats- we knew this because of her skin testing in early March, but she displays none of the typical symptoms when in a household with cats- sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose, etc. So we figured she's mustn't be very allergic to them. We've discovered she is very allergic when her skin is pierced- as in a scratch or a bite. Twice this has happened and both times it has triggered a dermographism episode that lasted for a couple of weeks. When Anna is having an episode even a very gentle scratch leaves a mark. When she rubs her eyes the skin around them turns pink. She gets small hives for no particular reason.

Why is Anna hanging out with all these violent cats, you ask? There is a cat at both grandparent's homes. Junior, the cat belonging to the Van Hals is incredibly laid back and lets Anna do whatever her little heart desires. He does not seem to mind in the least when Anna pulls on him, lays on him, etc. He has all his claws, though, and accidentally scratched Anna's belly through her shirt- probably he was sitting on her lap and then used his claws when he stood up. Samson, my sister Kathryn's cat, does not enjoy Anna's attention nearly as much as Junior. While we were in St. Louis the week of Easter Anna was scratched once and bitten once, and trust me, she deserved it. We tried to keep her from provoking the cat but Anna absolutely adores cats and she is FAST.

Anna has been on Zyrtec to help manage her symptoms but we stopped giving it to her a couple of days ago as her pediatrician said to stop giving it to her when she's been free of symptoms for a week or two.

In the meantime we still haven't been trying peanut butter because her skin has already been so sensitive.

I took this photo the day Anna's pediatrician diagnosed her with dermographism. I (gently) drew a smiley face on Anna's back with my fingernail and this was the result a couple of minutes later. Bryan thinks this was a little cruel of me, but I swear it didn't bother her! Sorry, Anna, I couldn't resist.

Hanging out at the pond

Anna chatting on her "phone"- a piece of mulch.

Anna's dedication and the Grand Rapids Children's Museum

Today was a very special day- Anna was dedicated at church! We've been trying to have her dedicated for awhile but our church only has an infant dedication once or twice a year and the dates never worked out for us. We are so proud of our little girl! Later in the day we went to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum to play.

Jumping on the bed with Daddy before we left for church.

The Van Hals on stage during the dedication. (Thanks for taking photos, Laura!)

Anna's favorite part of the museum was the little shopping area where she could fill up a toddler-sized cart with groceries and bring them to the check out lane.


Bubbles!

McKeiley and Anna are buds

Painting woes, part II and house update

First, responses to your comments:

Yes, we completely agree that the arching wooden trim has to go- we’ve already removed that.

I am definitely not completely sold on the idea of not painting our wooden trim- but those of you who are aghast at the idea will be relieved to know that we probably won’t have time to paint it for awhile. They are generally in good condition, but wood trim just isn’t my favorite. Also, it bugs me that the previous owners did not use tape when they last painted- so there are paint marks along the window frames and trim that I couldn’t remove without damaging the finish. And I’m a perfectionist :).

We have already been working with the decorator type person at our local paint store- and she’s doing our best to help us without actually seeing the room. I brought her the same photos I posted here. And Spools, we’re using Sevens on 29^th and we LOVE them! They also offer a six month discount to new home owners :).

We've gone through a few color samples for an accent wall and have found two favorites: a deep slate blue and a deep red. Although Bryan and I both love the idea of having red in our kitchen we have decided to opt for the blue for two reasons. The first is that we think the blue will match nicely with the gray carpet and will do a lot to tie the room together. The second is just a time constraint- red paint is notoriously difficult and generally requires extra coats. We just don't have the time for that right now, so we're going to use the red in our dining room instead- beneath the chair rail. The other three walls in the kitchen are probably going to just be a boring white as I've not had any luck finding anything else that works in the room and I'm not willing to spend any more on those cute little paint jars.



In the meantime we have pulled up the carpet in two bedrooms and a hallway on the main floor and have gotten to work refinishing the hardwood underneath. This has turned out to be a huge undertaking but I think we'll really love the final results. Good news- our bedroom is no longer neon blue! Once we removed the deep blue carpeting our walls settled down and are now a nice soft blue :). We've also spent a considerable amount of time on wall repair in the dining room and kitchen area. (Thank you, Bryan! You're my wall scraping hero!) The dining room is now all patched, primed and ready for paint. The kitchen area is getting there. Our biggest struggle in there is figuring out how to get off the old wallpaper glue without completely destroying the walls. We've tried a friend's wallwik product, fabric softener and TSP. Trying to sand off the glue only gums up our sandpaper. Today I'll be trying warm water and vinegar and I'm really crossing my fingers it will work!

(p.s. sorry about the font issues in this post, I will try to come back and fix it later!)

Happy Mother's Day!

We celebrated by taking a walk to the park and taking some pictures.

Checking out a new toy

Anna's first tulip time

Today Anna and I headed out to Holland (Michigan, that is) for Anna's very first tulip time! We watched the dancers, did some shopping and had lunch with our friends Karissa, Lillian, Lindsey and Gabe. The kids were mesmerized by the dancing and just stared the entire time. It was such a beautiful day and we had a great time!

New pajamas!

I love this photo. It's just Anna all over. Our perpetual motion baby.

Painting woes- suggestions welcomed!

Over the last couple of weeks we've been removing wallpaper, prepping walls, choosing paint colors, painting, etc. I have come to strongly dislike painter's tape. As far as color choices go I'm having a hard time striking a balance between A. chickening out and just painting the entire house white and B. WAY overdoing it on the color. We've chosen (or is it chose? I'm tired today) 3 paint colors so far- a nice soft buttery yellow for the guest room (which will be Anna's temporary bedroom), a blue for our bedroom that looks nice 80% of the time but looks VERY blue at around dinner time when the light comes in the strongest, and a soft taupey-brown that we love for a hallway and part of the living room (Benjamin Moore 1004 if anyone cares to know). This nice brown was intended to also be the color for what we've come to call "the great room," but when we painted swatches of it on the wall our nice brown color suddenly became a hideous institutional gray. The lighting, I guess? Here's the difficulty- this room has grey carpeting, salmon countertops, an ugly black woodstove on an ugly gray stone setting and wooden cabinitry. What on earth works with all of those colors? The carpeting and countertops will go someday, but it's not financially feasible to replace them right now so we're just going to have to live with them. I'd like to paint the kitchen cupboards, too, but that's not going to happen anytime soon either because we won't have time before move in day. We are going to paint the woodwork (baseboards and windows) white before we move in if we have time.

Color suggestions, anyone? Please leave a comment!



P.S. Thank you, Laura, for all of your help and for the loan of your color wheel!

Kids & Media

I have never been a huge fan of young children knowing every TV show on PBS and amassing a huge collection of character toys, clothing, dishes, etc. For some reason seeing one year olds that can already name syndicated characters just rubs me the wrong way. I'm not really sure why. I guess I don't really approve of kids watching a whole lot of television and I hate the idea of consumerism getting to my toddler at such a young age. For the most part we've steered clear of the character stuff, but two have slipped through my radar- Elmo and Thomas. Now, I have absolutely nothing against Elmo. In fact, I am a fan of the Sesame Street program and all things Jim Henson. Elmo slipped in with a couple of toys and a whole bunch of You Tube clips that we used to entertain Anna. Thomas began when Anna found a Thomas DVD at the library and wanted to take it home and I thought, sure, Anna's really into trains and I don't mind encouraging that. Since then she has had an amazing eye for spotting anything Thomas at the library. For some reason, I find myself very irritated whenever the narrator in those videos describes Thomas as "a cheeky little engine." I think Anna is thrilled with anything to do with trains, though, not just Thomas.

Oh, well. I can live with Elmo and Thomas, but please, let's steer clear of Barney and that Yo-Gabba-Gabba stuff, okay?

Here are some photos we took today at the bookstore. We were killing time there while our car was being serviced a few doors down the road.

Nope, Mommy is definitely not ready for Disney princesses, either.

Anna signing "please" while we had a snack in the cafe.