Anna's First

Annalyse is one now, crazy!!! We had her birthday party the Saturday after her birthday. Grandma and Grandpa Patterson, Joey and Grandma Great came home for the weekend. All of Sam's family came and even Amy and George made the trek to our house from Indy.

Anna got some great gifts. She had so much fun with the bows too.

Yes, it was a costume party. Thanks to everyone who dressed up.

And Rich dressed up like a goofball.

So cute.

Love you, Nana.

These cake pictures are a little backwards, but here is me trying to figure out where to begin to clean her up.

Annalyse loved her cake. I must say it was pretty delectable.

She was hesitant at first, she didn't quite know what to do with it, but she soon figured it out.

Happy Birthday!

So serious.

Oh yes, the elders made the long trek from upstairs to come enjoy the party.

We had chocolate covered marshmallows, candy corn mixture and mummy hot dogs.

Anna's costume was a spider one, so it seemed only fitting that the cake match.

Love this picture of the ladies, but if you look to the left it gets a little scary. What is Joey doing? Don't worry, he wasn't trying to kiss him. He was just talking to him or something.

There's my little spider. And Joey came as a basketball player.
Happy Birthday, Annalyse Margarite. Love you.

Halloween at the YMCA

We invited the Olsens to the Y for a Halloween party. There were bouncy houses in the gyms, candy in the hallway, pumpkins and caramel apples in the basement, and boat rides in the pool area. They even turned the diving area into a pirate ship and the diving board into a plank.

There were gold coins, bones and bodies floating in the water. Ruby never acted scared at all. It was just a lot of fun.

Trunk Or Treat

We has our annual Trunk Or Treat at church. Each auxiliary decorated a pumpkin and we all voted for our favorite one. I thought this one was hilarious and very reminiscent of Kung Fu Panda.

This was the winner. Of course, it sparkles.

My girls were so cute.

Our little spider.

Annalyse insisted on doing everything the big kids were doing, whether I was ready for her to or not is another story.

Ruby was so interested in all the costumes.

Forget the brush, that's what I have fingers for.

Kendallville Branch Halloween crew.

Love the hat!

Ruby voting for her favorite pumpkin.

The Relief Society had cookies for decorating.

The Primary room was a pumpkin patch. Each kid was given a clue at the door and they had to match the pumpkin to the clue.

Ruby was such a big helper. She helped set everything up and she helped tare down as well.

Anna was ready to go home and get out of that costume.

Our Baby

Our baby girl turned one on October 26. She is so sweet and it has been a wonderful year because of her. She makes us laugh so much. It's crazy how fast they learn things and it's even crazier how quickly the year went.

All day long, I just kept thinking about what I was doing exactly at that time last year. For instance, when Annalyse woke me up at five thirty that morning I sat there thinking how I was in the shower having contractions with her at home at five thirty the previous year.

Then I remembered how we took the back roads to the hospital and I would make Sam come to a complete stop when I was having contractions because the bumps in the road only added to the pain.

Once we got to the hospital the weather turned scary. They closed all the windows and curtains because debris was flying around outside. There was even talk of a tornado so they put all of us in the nursery because it had no windows to the outside. There was one lady still in her bed because she was just out of a c-section, one woman cramping and in obvious pain from giving birth the day before, one couple ready to leave, one woman rocking back and forth in pain because she was ripped off of her pitocin so she could be in there and then there was me. My contractions were not close together yet so i just dealt with it. It was interesting.

My little tornado.

For Anna's birthday we treated her to lots of pizza at Pizza Hut. She loves pizza!! Then all came home and played on the floor as a family.

Annalyse took some time to fix her piano.

As soon as she turned one it seemed like she started saying a bunch of new things. The very next day she surprised us with words like "Mimi", "Bebe", and "Bopa."

Just one more tweak.

Aha! It's fixed.

We love our little tornado. It's been a great year.