Today is my sweet little girl’s 1st birthday! One year ago right now
(4pm), I was dozing in a drug-enduced stupor, while Brian wondered if we were ever going
to have this baby. I’d been in labor for 24 hours already, and Analise would finally
burst into the world at 10pm. I can’t believe how much she’s changed! Above is a
picture of Analise when she was born, and below is one of her now, one year later.

We just arrived home after 2 weeks of traveling and visiting.
I’ll chronicle it in another blog soon. Many blessings, y’all!

Unless you consider Iowa and Wisconsin the end of the earth:) (which we don’t!) We left Thursday for a family vacation, spent the weekend in Iowa with my sister and brother-in-law and arrived in my hometown of Shell Lake yesterday. We’ve got lots of funny anecdotes, pictures and some video, so I hope to pull together a blog in the next day or so. Check back soon!

I’ve spent the weekend trying to get a few projects finished. First off, I wanted to have the invitations for Analise’s birthday party printed at one of the photo kiosks around at any number of places. Attempt #1: At Walgreen’s, I realized that I’d created the invitation as 4.5″x6″ (instead of 4″x6″ for a normal photo size), thus the writing was being cut off. Attempt #2: Brian couldn’t find the image on the smartmedia card when using the kiosk at Sam’s Club. Attempt #3: After Brian places the order on the machine, the clerk tells him that the printer isn’t working, and MAYBE it’ll be fixed tomorrow. GRR. We had hoped to have these done to put in the mail early this wee. We’ll see if we can get them done tomorrow. *SIGH* Here’s a peek for y’all… not sure if you’re close enough to come, but you’re definitely invited!

I’ve also been working on a handmade dress for Analise’s 1st birthday. Down here in the South, smocked dresses are quite a fashion statement. They’re very beautiful and very expensive. A friend of mine taught a few of us how to make a smocked dress, so now that all the hand embroidery is done, I’m in the process of sewing mine together. (Let me just say: I don’t mind hand sewing at all. In fact, I enjoy cross-stitch, embroidery, crocheting, etc. But using a sewing machine stresses me out.) Anyway, I sewed one seam (2x to reinforce it), found the tension on my silly machine was off, and spent an hour ripping it out (without a seam ripper). I’m going to be so glad to finish this dress. It is a labor of love, and you’d better believe you’re going to see a picture of it on my beautiful girl when it’s done!

Hope your weekend was more productive than ours! By the way, Tropical Storm Arlene blew through last night with some rain and gusting. Check out the bit of damage it left in our neighborhood here at Weather Underground (picture by Brian).

Here’s a video Kristine took of Analise toddlin’ the other day. She’s seems to prefer walking to crawling now! I can’t believe how quickly she went from crawling to walking. She sure is growing up fast… Comment and tell me what you think of the little toddler!

Watch the Toddlin’ Analise video you may also download an mpg copy of the video (2 MB)

Now that Analise is walking, we figured it was time to find some good shoes for her (and she’s outgrown all the hand-me-downs I’d been given). Earlier this week we visited a kid’s shoe store found a cute pair of sandals we were debating about. But yesterday we thought we’d check out Stride Rite in the mall.

It all started when I got detoured by Bath & Body Works’ Clearance sale (going on through Sunday!). I sent Brian and Analise on to look at shoes briefly while I shopped a bit. When I joined them, Analise was toddling around the store in these shoes:

Cute… but not what I was imagining as the all-purpose shoe. I know it’s a woman thing, and men don’t quite understand it, but this hot pink shoe wasn’t going to match all her outfits. I had envisioned a nice, simple white sandal, maybe with a tiny bit of pink, like this:

Brian was pretty convinced that Analise was walking better in the pink shoes than she was in the sandals. After a lot of waffling, I gave in. I’ll just chalk it up to the first Daddy/Analise shopping trip. It is kind of sweet:) If anyone mentions her pink shoes when she’s wearing a red outfit, I’ll smile and tell them her daddy picked them out… I think they’ll understand!

The baby steps of the weekend are multiplying. Analise is taking tiny steps all over the den, on her own and when we’re encouraging her. Does this mean she’s a toddler? Is this the end of my baby girl? It’s kind of a sad feeling… it just hit me how fast she’s growing up into a sweet little girl. Just yesterday, she was a snuggly little baby, content to lay on her back under her gym, immobile. Today, she’s taking tiny steps all over the room, playing with everything she can find (though she’d most prefer to find the remote control, the cordless phone or the cell phone).

Funny conversation from this evening at our old church Lakeside, as I was attending a Women’s Missions meeting. One of the older ladies said, “I hear you’re expecting!” “Expecting? Expecting what? OH! EXPECTING! No, no, no… you must’ve heard wrong. Not expecting anything here.” *SIGH* My little leftover baby belly may lead one to believe that we’re expecting, but it didn’t do much for my self-esteem to hear that. And the only thing we’re expecting is a full night’s sleep one of these days…

So Analise has taken a few very tentative steps, with someone very near her encouraging and convincineg her she could do it. Just a minute ago, she was standing next to the laundry basket, and without any coaxing, took 3 tiny steps to her rocking chair. She’s mentally crossed over to believing that she can do it – and wants to do it! – and now I’m sure there’s going to be no stopping her!
Hehe… as Brian was looking over my shoulder and I was writing this, he gasped and looked over to her. She had walked along the edge of the laundry basket – holding on – and he thought she’d walked over to us.

Last night we watched the DVD documentary “Spellbound”, in honor of the National Spelling Bee completing this week. (Could you have spelled the winning word “appoggitura”?) Anyway, it was a fun movie, very suspenseful as it followed 8 contestants from their hometowns to Washington D.C. for the Bee. You wouldn’t think a spelling bee could be so captivating, but we had both picked our “favorite” to win. It was fun to root for them… and see if we could spell the words too:) Yes, we’re geeks.

Anyway, when it was down to the final two spellers, the announcer said, “And now it’s time to move onto the championship word subsection.” Brian very quickly says, “S-U-B-S-E-C-T-I-O-N… that was so easy!” Of course, the announcer had meant there would be subsection of championship words… not that that was the championship word. It was quite comical:) We give four thumbs up – two from each of us – to Spellbound!

Analise is right on the edge of being able to walk. One of things she loves to do right now is grab onto either her rocking chair or the laundry basket and push whatever she is holding onto around the house with her. This can sometimes look a lot like Analise is bulldozin’ a trail through the toys. Analise bulldozes the house with the laundry basket, while giving her friend the cow a lift in the cute video below:

Watch Analise bulldoze our living room and hallway in this cute video.
Watch Analise crawl over and say “HI” to mommy in this cute video.
Watch Analise bulldoze with her rocking chair in this cute video.

Steve says “Go Analise” in the comments of the last blog, and so she goes!! She took her first baby steps tonight, in front of Grandma and Grandpa Toone, Uncle Matthew and both Brian and I. Our little girl prefers to perform in front of a crowd:) It was exciting, and of course, we’re so proud. No camera or video on hand, but I’m sure it will happen again soon. We’re heading to Iowa and Wisconsin later this month, and I’m sure she’ll be toddling all over just in time to celebrate her birthday with her northern family. I can’t believe how big my little girl is getting!!

I’m sorry I’ve not been around much! No excuses… I’ve had a cold and I’ve just been too lazy to sit down and organize a blog.

Differences Between Men and Women – #1 (this could be a long, ongoing list!)
Last night as we were lying in bed, Brian and I had a discussion about neatness. As usual, I felt the need to pick things up to leaving the family room in order before we came to bed. So as Brian and I supposedly headed for bed at the same time, I was slowed by picking things up to return them to their respective rooms. I came to the bedroom with 5 things in my arms. I asked Brian if maybe he could help me by trying to take something back where it belongs when he leaves the room. He pointed out that he would try, but in doing so, he loses focus on what he was leaving the room to do. Prime example: As we were leaving for dinner with friends that evening, I had sent him back upstairs from the garage to get the booster chair and my waterbottle. We realized when we got to our friend’s house that the booster chair never made… but the waterbottle did! So in essence, in asking him to do more than one thing, I’m compromising both things, and I risk neither thing being done right.
Ah, the amazing multi-tasking brain of a woman. Got any examples to share?

Our new Home Church and Analise
Our new church, Clearwater Community, is well underway, and we’re really enjoying getting to know our new “family”. We’ve even begun to meet with our new home church group on Wednesday nights for a potluck dinner and fellowship. Analise is the youngest of the 5 kids in our group, and she has been working her charm on all the young married couples. Last night, as we were gathering to begin our discussion time, she was standing in the middle of the room trying to walk. The whole room was begging her to take a step, Brian was keeping his pinky in her hand, and people were trying to entice her to come to them. It was very fun – a real bonding experience. She is SO CLOSE! Any day now, though it would be fun if she walked next Wednesday at our next gathering…