"Let me tell you the words!"

So, Anna has this (self-proclaimed/invented) bedtime ritual where she insists on telling us "the words."  The words are really what she hopes for tomorrow.  Last night when she told her Daddy the words, they were to cuddle and watch movies with mommy (yes, that did melt my heart!) and go to play park.  I just put her down for her nap, and she insisted on sharing the words with me, even though it's not typically a nap time thing.  Today they were words about the specific play park she wanted to go to, so I heard "blue stairs, musical beeps (little buttons that you push that chime), teeter totters with red seats, and race cars.  She knows that if she doesn't take a nap, she doesn't get to go to play park, so let's all hope that she actually falls asleep for a bit so we can go to play park.

I figure that since this post was inspired by Anna, I'd share some more Annaisms.  Anna likes to invent words.  One of her favorites is "bigabit."  A bigabit is really just a bigger bit.  She likes to eat Froot ( I hate that they spell fruit that way!) Loops in the morning, and when I'm getting ready to give her the cereal she insists on a bigabit.  Daniel has picked up on this and regularly asks for a bigabit, also.

Anna has taken to saying owwie randomly and without any real need.  I mean, I understand saying it if something is actually bothering you or you're hurt, but she tells me that there's no good reason for her to say it, and I'm choosing to believe it ;)  The other day she kept saying it over and over again (it was like nails on a chalk board), so I told her that it was "slightly ridiculous to say owwie when there's nothing wrong with you."  Anna, being the super smart and silly girl that she is, decided that her plastic dog was ridiculous, "Bunito is SOO ridiculous!"  She then went through a few other items in the car and stated that they were also "slightly ridiculous."  I really do adore how goofy she is.  She loves to use big words and is interested in knowing what they all mean.  We really do talk to her like she's much older than she is, and I think it makes for some pretty fun conversations.

Daniel is pretty hilarious, too.  He's talking more now.  He typically uses normal words, but this morning he decided to revert to gibberish to tell me something very deep and meaningful.  He rattled off a good minute or so of nonsense and then said "Ummm" and took a nice, long pause for deep reflection.  After the cute pause (I'm telling you, it seriously looked like he was deep in thought, trying to figure out what he needed to say next) he continued to rattle on.  He says I love you too, but it sounds more like "Aiy you tiu!"  He says good morning in a way that would make anyone fond of southern accents swoon ;)  I'll have some more cute Daniel stories to share soon. 

Free At Last!

I am done with school until mid-July!  I don't know if you can tell, but I'm practically jumping up and down over here.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy my classes (especially the photography classes), but I am stressed to the max.  Between the move and everything else, the last thing I need is a ton of deadlines looming over my head.  I'll go back to class mid-July and take a couple new classes, then I'll take a break for our big move to Europe.  I'm also planning on taking a German class at the community college in CA.  I could certainly use a brush up on my German language skills before we head over there to live.  

I decided to get back to working-out.  I was going to Zumba super frequently for quite some time, but life got hectic and with Will's recurring ingrown toenail, he was unable to work-out for a while.  How did I jump back in to working-out?  Well, I thought that Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred dvd would be a great way to start.  That woman is a beast!  I wrote on facebook that I think she's an instrument of torture, and I have to say that I still believe it!  I don't remember the last time all of my muscles have hurt like this.  I'm just trusting that it will work and trying to smile through the ridiculous physical pain ;).

I had a chance to do a photo shoot with the Story family again.  I had such a blast.  If you want to check out the pictures, you can go here.  I have a new layout for my photography blog, and I'm loving it. 

Insanity

Today was interesting, to say the least!  We went out to lunch with some people who are going to be moving to CA and Germany at the same time as us.  I have to say, it is insanely nice to know people who will be with us the whole way through.  It is even better that they are really cool, nice people who I think we will have a great time with!

You're probably wondering why I titled this post "Insanity."  Well, while we were eating lunch at a lovely Indian buffet, we got to talking about Anna's little OCD-ish tendencies (she is definitely her mother's daughter!).  I mentioned that Anna freaks out to the point of almost crying if a door is left ajar and no one closes it the instant she notices.  It just so happens, that the couple sitting at a table across from us managed to hear that little tidbit.  Later, during lunch the woman comes over and informs us that she sees ghost/spirits (she used the word interchangeably), and has since she was five years old.  The first time she saw a spirit it was her recently departed grandmother, and she came out of her closet!  She then told her parents that her Grandma was not really dead just sleeping (anyone else ridiculously perplexed?!  I had to make a conscious effort to not make a lovely, "What the heck?!" face).  She shared this with us because she suspected that Anna shared her "gift."  I tried to explain that Anna is just extremely particular and I don't think she's seen any spirits yet.  In case you didn't know, I am a magnet for all weird/creepy people.  I was looking over my old blog from my internship in Germany, and man were there some funny stories about creepy people approaching me!  I'm sure this is simply the first of many creepy experiences to be shared on this blog ;). 

Fish out of water.

We took a trip up to Willard, OH to visit family.  I really can't explain just how wonderful the trip was.  We had a blast, and Anna can't stop talking about all of her newly discovered relatives (and their respective animal friends).  She was only a year old when we saw most of them last, so it was brand new to her.  She couldn't get enough of their animals (this is the point where you take pity on the poor defenseless animals ;)).  Daniel worked his charm on everyone.  He gave out BaoBaos (hugs) freely and open mouth kissed anyone who dared make the request.

Now for the fish out of water...yep, that's me!  This was my third trip to Willard.  The first couple of trips were even more whirlwind than this trip, so forgive my short memory.  Anyway, I hadn't been in nearly four years, so I forgot some of the aspects of small-town living.  As we were making the trip up to OH I started feeling a sinus infection coming on, so I suggested we stop in at Walmart when we got to Willard to pick up some Mucinex.  Will laughed hysterically and informed me that we wouldn't be able to make such a trip because Willard, OH has zero Walmarts.  I responded with "They don't have a Walmart?!  WHERE do they BUY things?!"  Looking back, it was a totally ridiculous thing to say, but at that moment, it was all I could think ;).  In my defense, I had never been to a small town before I started dating Will.  No one in my family lives in a town with fewer than a hundred thousand people.  I love Willard though.  Mostly because of all the people there, but it is a really nice place.  One thing I'm not so fond of...country roads.  I was on the verge of losing my lunch on a number of drives ;)

Preschool Fun!

I can't believe that I forgot to post about Anna's first day at preschool/daycare.  As far as we know, it went really well.  None of the teachers made it a point to tell us otherwise, so let's all hope that it was just a great day ;)  Anna came home excited to tell us all about her new found friends and the joys of "school."  Her only complaint was that the teachers said mean things to her like "Lay down and go to sleep!" and "Please be quiet and take a nap!"  Oh the horrors!  ;)  We did explain to her that they weren't being mean, they were just trying to get everyone to take a nap.  Kiddos have to nap at school just like they do at home.

Today I did a photoshoot of a baby girl named Mana (it means love in Japanese).  She was SO sweet!  It was nice to take pictures of a newborn again.  I'm SOO anxious to take pictures of my new niece Mia next month!  I ordered a pink backdrop that should look really cute in pictures.  It's going to be a blast!

That's pretty much it for now.  Wow...I'm super boring.  Life is good and hectic, which I'm learning to appreciate more ;)

Thoughts on Negativity

I tire pretty quickly of negative people.  I understand to an extent, because I'm bent a little toward cynicism, but all out negativity is so counter-productive.  It doesn't help you, it just makes you feel worse.  It also doesn't help those around you.  It makes them (if they're like me) want to get as far away from you as possible.  When I'm confronted with a rude, negative person I typically want to make some snarky comment.  At that point, I have to remind myself that I'm a 27 year old woman and not a 12 year old.  I'm constantly trying to be a better me.  I refrained from making such a comment when confronted with a rude and negative person recently, and I'm proud of myself.  It takes a lot of effort sometimes, but I really want to strive to take the high road and not get into petty, silly arguments.  I'm going to try to keep negative posts on here to a minimum. Not that I don't have bad days, but I don't think I want this to be my main vent area.  I'll probably stick to doing Things I Love/Like posts on crummy days.  Focusing on the good things in life helps make bad days livable :)

Alight, on to life!   I have my new computer!  This thing is amazing.  I REALLY like it.  The screen is massive (27"), so it's amazing for editing pictures! 

I'm in a new photography class at school, and it's with a teacher who wasn't super positive about my work the last time I had a class with her.  This time, she's loving the pictures I'm submitting, and that is such a good feeling!  I definitely feel like I'm making a lot of progress when it comes to my work.  I don't feel like the clueless newbie in my classes anymore. 

Anna is starting daycare tomorrow!  She'll be going once or twice a week to try to get used to a school-like setting and learn how to interact with other children.  She'll be starting preschool pretty soon, so we feel like this will be helpful.  When we get to Germany (Next winter!) we will probably put her in German schools, so we want her to be used to school before we throw in the language barrier.

Daniel is cracking me up lately.  He's talking more.  Yesterday he started saying "And BEYOND!"  His favorite movie is Toy Story, so it makes sense ;)  He is such a sweet kid. 

We're trying to figure out our move now.  We'll be leaving Augusta in just over a month!  It's so hard to believe.  I was looking over pictures of Monterey and Anna when she was a newborn (she was born there) and I couldn't be more excited about living there for six months.  I love so much about that place.  It will be great to live near the ocean for a little bit again.  I'm sure I'll take a ton of pictures because the scenery is simply breath-taking. 

I'll probably post a new Things I Love/Like post in the next few days.  Not because I'm planning a bad day, I just think those posts are fun :)