Anna-7months

Anna is just reaching these month birthdays so quickly....7 months already.  Some memories from the 7th month:

This month was a crazy month for Anna as Uncle Dan and Auntie Karis and family were in Kansas for about 3 weeks.  Prior to this time, she was on a great schedule sleeping 10-11 hours a night and taking good naps.  But during the time they were here, we spent as much time with them as we could.  A couple of nights, the girls went shopping and I took her with us.  We had other late nights.  I stayed the night at my mom's quite a bit with Tim working 3rd shift (and I had seen a mouse at our house which I hate!) and sleeping in another bed was hard to get used to.  Anyhow, it was worth her to get off schedule so we could be with my sister and her family!  I do not regret it one bit.  We had so much fun making memories and spending time with them. Her Uncle Dan, Auntie, Karis, and her cousins gave her lots of love! 

Such a cute picture of Elliot and Anna!

Krista and Anna. 

Love the smiles here of Kayla and Anna. Both Krista and Kayla loved holding Anna and were so good with her!

Auntie Karis LOVED Anna so much and loved getting her cuddles!

Kayla is playing with Anna here! Love it!

Anna celebrated her first Christmas.  She got some fun presents from grandparents and aunts and uncles. 

A family picture the Sunday of the Children's Christmas program

Opening presents...well, I should say Tim opening her presents!

Auntie Karis got a cute picture of Anna under the Christmas tree.

The picture that went on our Christmas cards

She now has 2 teeth.  They came within 2 days of each other. 

She weighed in at 16 lbs. 8 ounces and was 27 1/2 inches tall.

She got her 1st pictures done at JC Penneys.  She did SO well.  I think they took pictures of her like 5 minutes and were done.  She smiled so big for all of her pictures.  

She smiles so easy!

She had the privilege of seeing both sets of my grandparents this month.  The grandparents enjoyed holding her!

Great Grandma Varner and Anna

Great Grandma Riffel and Anna

Great Grandpa Riffel and Anna

Anna was able to go to Florida for the 1st time to see her grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.  She stayed in her first hotel on the trip and took her first flight on a plane.  She did very well with traveling overall.  (The trip home was a little hard as she had to be in her car-seat
 for so long.)

Anna enjoying her stay at the hotel

Anna in the midst of lots of family...just eating her toy not phased by all the people.

Aunt Dianne playing with Anna.  She had lots of attention this week!

Love the smiles of Aubrey and Anna

Aunt Talitha getting ready to feed Anna her first bite of ice cream cake!

Anna was all about the cake!

"It was so yummy, Grandma!"

Uncle Dave just loved Anna.  He played with her a lot!

She is starting to get up on all fours.  Not crawling yet, but she does manage to move all around the room!  I am going to have to vacuum more now that she is all over! 
She is such a fun sweet little girl! 

Anna-6 months

I can't believe Anna is already 1/2 a year old!  So much fun to see her do new things and become more interactive active even though she is the 3rd child!

It has been a fun month of her learning to sit up! 

Hi everyone...I am sitting up!

She definitely enjoys playing with her toys sitting up.  

Of course, with learning to sit up comes toppling over!

So precious

This picture captures her best sitting up...holding her arms up to help her balance!

What is this?

Love this smile while she is trying to chew on her toy

Such a happy baby!

I finally started her on rice cereal this month, but I was very very inconsistent with it.  There was a small attempt at it though!

Anna sitting in her high chair at the dinner table...what a big girl!

A close up picture...look at all of her hair

Tim's parents sent Anna a bath ring for her Christmas gift.  Since she was outgrowing the baby bathtub, I decided to  open it early so that she could enjoy taking baths with her sisters.  This is the first time I have had the ring, and I really like it!

Megan and Emily excited to have Anna in the tub with them.

Anna enjoyed it as well!

She got lots of attention from her sisters!

Anna also celebrated her first Thanksgiving!!

A cute little turkey!

Her first little ponytail!

She has more hair than her sisters combined at this age I believe.

Anna weighed in at 16 lbs. 8 ounces and was 27 1/2 inches tall.  We are thankful for a healthy happy baby. 

Anna- 5 months

(Once again trying to catch up in the blogging world!)  Not too much new happening in her life, but I wanted to post a few pictures from her 5th month!

Getting good at tummy time and enjoys playing with her toys on her tummy now!  I was not very good at giving her consistent tummy time early on, but she does fine with it now so I am thankful!

I had not sat her in the chair for a while, and when I did it on this particular day she started sitting right up.

Look at me Mom! I am sitting up!

Looking cute in her little hat!

Starting to work on sitting up with help!

Getting close to half a year! Can't believe it!

A Few Facts of 4 year old Megan!

Just a little update on Megan as she just turned 4:

She LOVES stuffed animals!  She always has a favorite one which changes from day to day (Blue Bella, Sealy, Squeaky, Pinky to name a few).  She always wants to take them in the van when we go places and makes sure they are buckled in securely.  She begs to take them in to church, library, you name it.  I never thought someone would love stuffed animals so much but she does!

She also LOVES being a dog and calls herself Alicia (who is Diego's sister!).  She barks in high pitched voice (which Tim tries very hard to get her to lower her pitch!).  She wants me to watch her do tricks and pet her and such.  

Her favorite activity outside has to be playing in the dirt, building nests with leaves, rocks, sticks, etc., planting and watering "seeds", making bird food out of dirt to feed to the birds, etc. (Who needs toys when you have dirts, rocks, leaves, sticks, etc!) (I call this her favorite activity b/c she spends most of her time outside doing this.)

Megan's daily sidekick is Emily!  They do everything together.  They LOVE each other and of course, have their fights/arguments.  They would be lost without each other.

Megan is a wonderful big sister to little Anna.  Anna just smiles at Megan as she plays with her and talks to her.

Megan's best friend is Katy hands down.  Megan talks about Katy so much and wants to mails letters to her (although I tell her she has to put the letters in the church mailbox...not sure how many actually end of there though!)  They play so well together!

She is a very caring little girl. She often asks how people are doing that are sick or have an injury or whatever.  (Example, she will asked how Grandpa Riffel is doing as she knows he has had problems with his back.)  She prays for them and will color pictures for them.  I love it that she thinks of others and is concerned for them.  I hope she will continue to develop a love for others.

Megan loves going to church.  She LOVES her teachers and classes.  (I am very thankful to those who teach Megan and love her so much.)  She is enjoying cubbies as well.

She loves wearing dresses.  (She definitely doesn't get that from me.) I think she would wear a dress every day if I would let her. 

She is learning to write her letters (upper case and lower case). We do school about 3 days a week with her, and she enjoys that. 

A couple more favorites...

Favorite Color- purple

Favorite TV show/movie-Diego

Favorite Song-If You're Happy and You know it

Favorite place to eat-Old McDonalds as she calls it  (McDonalds)

Megan, you are growing up so quickly.    We pray that as you get older that you will understand your need of a Savior and that Jesus is the only way to heaven and trust Him as Savior.  We are so thankful for you and love you so much!

Megan's birthday party

Megan finally got to have a birthday party with her friends. We had planned it the Saturday after her birthday, but Friday night, she got sick to her stomach so we had to cancel it.  So we planned it the following Saturday.  Ironically, Anna got pink eye over the weekend, but my mom agreed to keep Anna at her house so we could still have the party!  Megan wanted to invited some friends from church over so we had their families over for the party.  We started off with pizza (Megan's choice!), we made her an ice cream cake for dessert. 

The kids' table.  Megan picked out plates and cups for her birthday.

Our princess!

Tim put up some decorations for her party and made it very special for her!

 After eating, Megan got to open her presents from her friends.  She enjoyed doing that an as you can tell by pictures below, she had plenty of help with it!

Megan's friends (minus 2 little girls) who came to her party

After she opened gifts, they played with each other as we adults watched the K-state football game!  It was a fun evening for all of us!