Bananas & Lillies

Annica Patrick

2009-03-20T16:54:00.001-07:00

Anna's class has been doing as project on race cars. Her teacher has been trying to get a real car in for the kids to see. Last week NASCAR backed out, citing financial reasons. On Friday, IRL came through, saying that they would be able to get a car to the school today, Friday, March 20. It wasn't until the car was pulled up to the parking lot of the school that they found out it was Danika Patrick's car. Wow!

All the kids got to get in the car, play with the steering wheel, press the pedals, etc. Other classes even got in on the fun as the car was made available to the school from 9:00 until noon. And, now we have this great picture of Anna in a very famous car. What a ride!

Personality

2008-04-03T04:39:00.001-07:00

"She looks like a teenager!"

2008-04-03T04:31:00.003-07:00

(She wanted to make a "mad" face but couldn't keep a straight face. Ha!)

With our sincerest apologies...A new post..."Hair Style"

2008-04-02T09:59:00.004-07:00

Hi, all. If you're still checking this, thanks.

With Miss Banana's absolute refusal to wear hair-bobs I have been looking towards the summer with some dismay. She gets a lot of pressure from some people, who shall remain nameless (you know who you are), to either wear something in her hair or get a haircut. And, to no avail. All this pressure does is prompt her to stand strong, proudly sweep her hair off of her face, stick her chin in the air and smile, meaning, "It ain't happenin' people, I'm not going to get a haircut, don't try to get me to wear a ponytail. I can't want to!" Well, we've come to a crossroad.

My friend Heidi's daughter Lucy has a thick head of hair and a stylish haircut that she's had for at least two years. Last week Heidi wisely suggested that I bring Anna with them to watch Lucy get her hair cut. They even postponed their Friday plans that we may go with them. The place where Lucy gets her hair cut has a play area, the kids can choose a movie to watch while getting the cut, afterwards they get a balloon and a sucker (though they were out of suckers on our visit). They get to choose in what chair they want to sit, each one is shaped like a different car, one is a horse. Well, suffice it to say, it worked.

Anna became so interested in the whole process that she eventually declared "I want a haircut too!" Of course, I should mention that this was followed, unprompted only moments later by, "I'm not going to get my hair cut." And then again, "Mommy, I want a haircut." And so on. After a short while of watching Lucy and talking with Heidi, etc. Anna's name was called and she seemed excited, she picked the red car and a CandyLand movie. Her haircut took about two seconds, just long enough for the movie to start playing and me to start crying. And, it was over.

We didn't choose anything drastic, no bangs, and it's a little long than her shoulders. She loves it and proudly asserts, "I got a haircut," to anyone that will listen. I am excited for her for the summer because this will be much easier for her to manage and great for the weather and her refusal to wear hair-bobs. And finally, I am sorry to all of you because this post does not include a picture. But, I promise I will post one as soon as I get one, maybe tonight. Anyone that has seen the haircut and reads this can post their comments about how beautiful it is. (You may think I'm biased.) Anyway, congrats to Anna and I'll post a pic soon!

First Day of School

2008-01-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

The teacher of my History of Television class asked the class if we were glad to be back from break, and if it had been long enough for us.

Uh...yeah, I'd say so.

**Sorry, no picture to go along with this thought :)**

Thank You

2007-12-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Thank you so very much for everything!!!
We had a GREAT family vacation!

Bath Time!

2007-11-11T23:18:00.001-07:00

Heads Up

2007-11-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Lily's doctor's appointment earlier this month went very well.
She is in the 65% for her length
90% for her weight
and her head circumference is off the charts. Just to give you an idea, here are some photos of Lily wearing a size 6-9 month hat. She is 8 months old.

Bouncin'

2007-10-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Modeling is Tough Work

2007-10-15T18:42:00.001-07:00

Genius

2007-10-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when you first learned how to take pictures of yourself...?

Were you TWO?

Notorious B.A.B.Y.

2007-10-10T14:15:00.001-07:00

Are you still out there?

2007-10-02T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hey, all! Here are some photos, not extremely recent but I'll work on some really new ones here within the next week or so. I think that we had a virus or "bug" of some sort that was preventing us from posting and/or preventing you all from viewing our pictures. Mike seems to have fixed that though so we're back on track. Hope you can see these cuties on this post, though. Let us know if you have any problems!

Enjoy!

2007-06-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day, Daddy, Grandpa, and Papa!

Indy 500

2007-06-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Long Awaited Post...LIFE IS GOOD

2007-05-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Funny how things can just come together and work out so well when you don't even try. We have had long time plans to go to Kings Island for Mike's company picnic this past Sunday. We both had to work on Saturday so we had planned to drive up on Sunday in the early morning.

Many moons ago when Mike first started his job and I was still on my beloved maternity leave, I asked him if he would ever, in life, be getting off work early. He said that this never happens and that the Managers always had to be there at open and at close. He'd be working these 10 and 11 hour days whenever he was working. Flash forward to the Saturday before the company picnic when Mike's boss came out to the front of the shop to say one Manager could go home, Mike and his compadre could flip a coin. Awesome! So, they flipped and Mike won. Mike called me at work on his way home to give me the good news. I also left work about an hour early and so we decided to get on our way that night.

After looking on line that night to see about hotel prices we decided to head up and see what we could find because everything was pretty pricey. We knew that this was really a risk but, by now we could see that things were really going our way and decided to roll with it. Mike's cousin and friends were going to be staying at Great Wolf Lodge, not to be confused with Wolf Creek Lodge, (pay up, Mike!) But it was way too expensive. So, we headed on our way.

Beautiful weather and two lovely ladies in the backseat, one in the front! On our way up Mike got a call from his cousin whom we had told we could meet for dinner but would be leaving to find a hotel. He told us not to worry that he and Mike's GM would be paying for half of our room if we wanted to stay there. WOW! We agreed and what follows are posts with pictures of our awesome adventure!

What a cool hotel!

2007-05-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

The place had a built in Water Park which we never even used but..

...check out the amenities!

When we arrived that night we checked in, relaxed, danced, had a couple of beers and danced danced danced. There was a DJ in the lobby until like 11pm. Anna loved it.

I even called J to brag!

Lily Had Fun too!

2007-05-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

A little hesitant...

2007-05-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

So, once we arrived at the park first thing on Sunday, we met up with Mike's cousin and his family. We quickly realized that B was going to have some trouble with her height. She is not quite 36". She's pretty close, especially with that cute ponytail, but not quite. So, this first ride we tried to put her on was Plankton's Plunge, a super kiddie version of Drop Zone. The kid who was checking heights said he would go ahead and let her ride. As I went over to set her on the ride, she said "No, no, no." She didn't want to ride. I thought this would be how the rest of the day would go for sure. I figured she wouldn't want to do anything, even if I could go with her, which I was going to do on this one.

Here's the picture of Scott and his family next to an empty seat where Miss Anna was going to be.

So, when we got over to this awesome little kids' ride, I was not surprised that she seemed a little hesitant to ride.

But, Dylan, himself an old pro, said he would help Anna by riding with her and WOW did she ever love it!

2007-05-25T09:01:00.001-07:00

As you can see it didn't take long for Anna to become an old pro.

She even rode with her Dad on this big green bus that took them up into the sky, round and round. But it was too boring for our brave little girl so...

...we drove the bumper cars!

2007-05-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

I just can't believe how brave she was! Every time she bumped into someone she'd yell "Bop!" and crack up laughing. And she's so smart too! If she would ever get stuck I would just remind her to keep turning the steering wheel in one direction and she could "unstuck" herself every time!

Here's Anna chasing after Dylan. She means business!

More fun to come!

2007-05-25T08:35:00.001-07:00

After the bumper cars it was time to meet Scooby Doo and go to lunch.

When we went to lunch, which was provided by Mike's company there was a raffle set up in the shelter. Since, everything that we had done so far was free, including lunch, and provided to us by the company, we really felt almost obligated to by raffle tickets. But, with over 750 people in attendance and most of them buying the 5 for $20 ticket bundle, we didn't anticipate getting much from it. They were raffling off backpacks, cash prizes, hotel stays and...tickets to the 500. After so many numbers had been called, and many quite close to our numbers, 9258-9262, we finally just let B play with the tickets.

Then when the 500 tickets were being raffled off, we heard it 9...2...6...0! "That's us!" I calmly said to Mike who jumped up.
"Where are the tickets?" he exclaimed.
"Over there underneath that picnic table." I said trying to point but couldn't because I was feeding the baby. (Anna had long ago lost interest in playing with them.) Once he located them he took them up to claim our prize! I'm able to get out of work and we're going to the 500this weekend. I've never even been!

After this excitement we walked around the park where Mike and I rode a couple of rides alone while the other watched the babies. Anna and I rode on the log ride that does a big drop and Anna really enjoyed it.

2007-05-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

And finally, the last time I went to put B in the bumper cars to show her dad what an awesome driver she is, she just looked up at me as I was setting her inside the car and said so sweetly, "I wanna go home." So, I took her off the track and this was the scene about 3 minutes later.

All in all I'd say we had about as much fun as we could've had.

Happiness is...

2007-05-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

A Garden...

Lunch with Tia at the Market downtown...

(No picture of us with Tia because, even though I took
my camera, I forgot to take any pictures. So,
here's a courtesy picture of Tia. Sorry)

A clean house...

(No pictures of that either but, you know...)

Naptime...

2007-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00