My Second Christmas

No, we didn't go warp speed through the year, but I did have two Christmas's. My Nonni and PaPa arrived with Aunt Trish a few days after Christmas and we started the celebration all over again. PaPa brought a sled (well SUV) full of goodies (all which make noise) for me and we got started early on Friday morning.

Can you believe it, all these presents for me? I am truly a blessed little girl to have such a loving family.



I'm definitley getting into this present thing. It's a good thing to because my birthday is just around the corner. Here I am inspecting the latest toy that makes noise.



With the onslaught of gifts and mom knowing PaPa and Noni so well, I only got a few toys from mom and dad. A set of blocks, some books, and the biggest surprise of them all...a wagon! (Notice how none of these toys make noise.) The wagin has become my favorite indoor toy. It has cup holders, which I use for both juice and my snacks. I never travel empty. And, I always have a friend with me. Whether it's Ted E. Bear or my cousin Chanie, I hardly ever ride alone.

My First Christmas

 

Wake up! Wake up! It's Christmas morn. Actually, how is this different from any other morning in my life, I'm always up early. We celebrated my first Christmas at Granddad's and Nana's and had a wonderful day. It was filled with lots of lovely presents for everyone and I even learned how to open those pretty packages with a little assistance (someone has to get a corner started for me).

But I think the things I liked best were the new foods that I got to try out. My first sip of orange juice (clearly my favorite), rice chex, christmas cookies, and more. Despite the cookies, milk is still a no go for me. We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.



I also gave my mom the biggest Christmas present of all. I took my first steps on Christmas morning. Three in all from the ottoman to the big stuffed doggy on the floor. Mom got so excited and yelled to everyone that I freaked right out and sat down. Hopefully, more steps will follow later.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

The title of this post is fitting in more ways than one....

Yes, I love our Christmas tree, the lights, the presents that are now under it with their glittery bows, but most of all I love the low hanging, non-breakable, ornaments and the Christmas music. Mom plays Christmas music all day long and I sit by the tree and rock back and forth while humming and admiring the pretty things in front of me.





Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree also happens to be my favorite song. If any of you have been to Hallmark, you'll know the tree, jingle-bell penguins, and snowmen plush, singing, lightup toy that they have this year. Well, mom (in one of her weaker, non-thinking moments) bought this for me. It sits on the floor and I dance with the penguins while they sing, about 50 times a day. Mom should know the words to this Hallmark version of the song, but surprisingly or not so surprisingly to some, she still doesn't sing it right.

My favorite decoration of all though is snowmen. I have a fascination with them. I love the snowman that is on my Hallmark toy, Dad in one of his weaker moments bought me the Starbuck's snowman, and I love the snowman on our kitchen table. I enjoy eating with him every day. And yes, Jimmy Durante's version of Frosty gets me laughing when I hear it in the car. I can't wait till we get another real snow and mom and dad can build me a real snowman all my own.

Is it Cramped in There?

Today was a big day for me. I went to the Dr. with my mom and dad and saw my new baby brother or sister on the monitor. I tried to reach out and touch him/her but dad held me back. It looked like it would be awfully cramped in there, I honestly can't remember myself. So, when we got home, I thought I would try out some tight quarters of my own. I lasted only about 10 minutes before I got tired of running out of space to move. My poor baby brother/sister has another 6 months of this!


But in the end, he/she will be free and ready to explore the world with me! (I got out of the cabinet all on my own, a new accomplishment and a welcome one for mom. Though she still watches me like a hawk when I'm in there.) Mom keeps telling me it will be awhile before we can truly explore together, but I just can't wait!


A note from my mom:
Yes, this is no joke. We will be increasing our family by one in June/July. From the sonogram, it appears as if the next baby Rankin will arrive on 7/4, but we're placing the big event anytime between 6/20 and 7/4. Ainsley loves children so this is very exciting for her, and of course us as well. Apologies for the lack of sonogram pictures, the printer was broken and besides we have no scanner. And yes, in any future post the baby will be baby Rankin. We're going to be surprised again. Sorry for the suspense.

As a family we continue to pray that this baby would be as healthy and happy as Ainsley and that my pregnancy and delivery would go just as smoothly as the last one. We would appreciate any prayers you could offer up along those lines. God has blessed us greatly!

My First Snow

Winter is finally here. It began yesterday with an ice storm! We got about a 1/4 of an inch of ice and were bundled up inside all afternoon watching the trees begin to glisten.

Then today around 12:30, the real white stuff began to fall. By the time mom decided to bundle me up, around 4:30, we had over 2 and a 1/2 inches of snow on the ground. And, the snow is still falling. The weatherman said we could get close to 14 inches!

Here's a few pictures of my first encounter with snow. I wasn't quite sure about the whole process of getting the snow suit on. But man, I sure would have gotten wet if I wasn't in it! I have lots of room to grow in the snow suit, so plan to see repeat pictures of this outfit! Oh yeah, and snow tastes pretty good to. The cold sure did feel good on those top teeth I have coming in.

Dad is Number 1

Yes, I have learned so many things in regards to my dad. As my shirt depicts, I love him very much. You can also see that I think he's number one as a point with my finger (a new trick of mine). What you can't see though in this picture is that I'm chanting "da da". Yes, I've managed my first word and although everything may have started as "da da" I have now made it very clear that I know who da da is.



As I'm sure everyone expects, I make my dad very proud every day when he hears this.

He's been trying very hard to get me to say "ma ma". But, I only seem to say this when times are very desperate. I've also been working on "dog" and "duck". Ducks are my favorite animal, especially when they say "quack quack".

Look...No Hands!

Check this out, I can stand completely on my own now. This started happening on Thursday, November 2nd. But it took mom quite awhile to actually catch me with the camera. I'm up to a minute or so on my own and I can even fall down gracefully when I get tired of balancing. This is a really exciting thing for mom and dad as they know it's getting closer to when I'll be walking on my own.

Here I am outside:


And here I am by my toys. A little wobbly at first, but I got it.


Though I'm still not quite sure sometimes of this new found skill.


It's great that I can do this because it has helped me in getting all of my toys out of my toy basket and I can get a louder noise when I toss them to the floor now since they have further to drop. (I'm learning about gravity all of the time now.)

Oh, and although there is no picture of this, I'm successfully crawling all the way to the top of the stairs now. And I'm fast too!

Kentucky Blue

Ahh, the feeling of real grass between your toes and fingers. Today was the last above 70 degree day we'll have for quite awhile. Mom took me outside on our lawn to explore the world of grass and leaves. We had St. Augutsine grass in Texas and it was awfully picky, but here we have Kentucky Blue. Soft fine blades of green grass that tickled my feet and hands. I loved crawling around and finding the leaves that made crinkle noises. Fortunately, mom always got to them right before I got them in my mouth. It was great to explore the outdoors. I'm looking forward to running through the sprinklers this summer on this soft lawn. Oh yeah, and no fire ants!

My First Haircut

Could you really call it that? It was more like a trim. I think the longest lock of hair mom got was 1/4 of an inch. But man it sure was fun. The water for my hair tasted great, yes, I got a few drinks from the spray bottle. And the comb was a great distraction from the haircut itself and from my teeth that are making there appearance ever so slowly.



So whose cutting my hair you may ask. Well, it's Mrs. Scarlett Kuhn. She's a friend of the family and has been cutting dad's hair since he was in highschool, or even earlier! She couldn't believe that she was cutting my hair now! She told mom that my hair would grow faster, thicker, and healthier now that the "baby mush" was off. What more could a girl ask for!



Now, I'm not quite sure what all has happened. My hair is short again, but it feels fluffier, could that be because there is product in it? I've been going to the salon with mom since I was 3 weeks old and I just got my first experience with hair product! Scarlett told mom not to kid herself, that they put product in babies hair to make it look cute. Mom just laughed and then gave me a big hug for being so good.

Trip to the Zoo

One of the things that mom was excited about when we moved here to Kansas City was having a big zoo to go to. So, today was a beautiful day and dad packed us up to go to the zoo. We saw all sorts of animals in there natural habitats.



My favorites were:
1. The tropical birds. They were bright, colorful, noisy, and got close to me in their cage. I could see them really well and was in awe.



2. The elephants. They were bathing each other with mud when we saw them (yuck!). They were so big I couldn't even miss them.



3. The giraffes. One walked right at me!
4. The lion. He was laying down right at the edge of the cage. We had a standoff since we were both at eye level.

Mom who is in charge of the photography for our family let us all down when promptly, 10 minutes after arrival, and our picture of the elephants she realized that the camera batteries were both dead. Guess we will be making another trip to the zoo. We also have been told that Penguins at the Omaha zoo are spectacular. I'm seeing a road trip in my future.

Halloween - 2006

Here I am in my pre-Halloween outfit. It's very cold here today, so it's a good thing I got this sweater and hat. Mom is bundling me up to take me over to see Aunt Markie, Uncle David, Will, and Chanie. I'm going to play with Chanie until it's time to go trick or treating.
















We know you're waiting with baited breath on what I was for halloween and to see what I looked like. Well, I was a duck (or a chick), whichever you prefer. Mom loved me in the costume so much that she took over 80 pictures today! (Obviuosly, we can't put them all on the blog.) So here are a few of her favorites.





Man was it cold outside. Mom put mittens on me and everything. I wasn't quite sure of what to make of a walk in the dark either. Good thing my costume was so full of stuffing, it helped to keep me extra warm since the weatherman said it was 29 degrees!



And Nana, I know you're waiting to see Chanie as well. Here's a picture of us together. Will was too fast for us on his candy hunt so there aren't any of us out together.





That's all folks! Hope you enjoyed our Halloween in review! Looks like mom will have her work cut out for her next year outdoing this costume!

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight, we carved my pumpkin. Mom and dad weren't sure if I would get into it or not, but I loved it! I loved touching the bristley stem of the pumpkin as dad got ready to cut the top. (And I loved standing on the table, this is obviously a special occasion.)



Then, it was so interesting to see inside. I am such an inquisitive little girl. I looked right down into that big orange pumpkin and saw a whole bunch of slimy orange stuff.



You would have thought the sliminess would have deterred me from sticking my hands in the pumpkin, but it did not. Nor did it stop me from trying to get a taste of this new object in my surroundings.



I loved trying to reach to the bottom and scraping what I could find. Luckily, dad had already cleaned most of the inside of the pumpkin out so I just had fun coming up empty.









































Next came a very serious thing. At first, I wasn't to sure about dad sticking the carver into my pumpkin.



Fascination followed as my pumpkin took shape and actually started to have a face. Mom drew it out for dad and he carved most of it. Mom did get to carve out the mouth though which she fashioned after me. Well, I was actually her inspiration. Big eyes, a huge smile, and one tooth. (Mine has broken through but is not actually visible at this point. Sometime soon though, we hope.)



Here's our finished product. Mom lit the candle while I was out of the room. When I came back the lights were off and I wasn't quite sure what to do. Reaching out to touch my pumpkin was definitely not the answer at this point! So, once I saw my first jack-o-latern, mom turned the lights on and blew out the candle. Inspection of the pumpkin was now a possibility again.

Faulkner Pumpkin Farm

Today, we went to Faulkner Pumpkin Farm to pick out my very first pumpkin. What a great farm to do this at! They had hay rides, a petting zoo, and all sorts of other things for the bigger kids. They also had a wagon I could ride in while I picked out my pumpkin.

The hay ride took us on a tour all around the farm. They had scarecrows and animals made out of the hay they had harvested. We saw a spider, a frog, and a turkey! I loved standing and watching everything go by and it ended just in time, I discovered the straw at the end and was very intrigued!



Here I am at the petting zoo. I looked at a miniature bull, a llama, a sheep, a pig, and all sorts of different goats. Aunt Ruth would have loved this part! We took a picture of the goats special for her. I was very interested in the sheep and pig. Mom and dad bought some hand puppets last weekend and have been impersonating the animals on the farm. What a difference between playtime and the real thing!





Here's my pumpkin. I picked out a pretty big one. Well, at least in relation to my own size. It's a little green because the farmer said it would keep better. But it sits pretty good and has a bright orange side we could carve.





And, here I am with mom and dad. We don't get opportunities to have a family picture often, so these are a special treat.