Last night Annika and I went to the playground across the street from our house. Did you hear that? Across the street! As in they finished the "tot lot" they promised would be put in and now we only have to walk across the street to go play on the playground! It's pretty small with only 1 slide, a couple climbing walls and some monkey bars. There are no swings or anything. However, Annika had a good time. She went down the slide a couple times on her but and then she went down on her belly, feet first. the slide is pretty fast (it's a nice smooth plastic) and I thought she was going to get hurt when she went sailing off the end of the slide. I thought she was either going to hit her head on the slide or hurt her stomach by landing on it. Well, she didn't hit her head and she bounced right back up after landing on her stomach so I guess she was okay. The last time she went down, she did so without shoes on. Before, her shoes were slowing her down but this time, without shoes, she went flying right off the bottom again. She landed on her feet, amazingly but then stumbled forward and eventually fell to her knees. It was a pretty wild ride for such a little girl!

Annika knows our workday routine pretty well. (She is after all THE SMARTEST GIRL ALIVE!) Each afternoon as Kris is getting ready to leave for work, Annika starts repeatedly saying "Bye Daddy, Bye Daddy!" over and over again - as he's changing clothes, putting on his shoes, gathering food for dinner, etc. Kris always jokes that she's trying to kick him out but I don't think that's it at all. She repeatedly asks for him throughout the evening. Last night she said "Daddy?" I asked her where Daddy was and she said "Work" with a hint of sadness to her voice. Wouldn't it be awesome if we won the lottery (somebody said you have to play it though to win - how rude!) so we could both stay home with our precious all the time!?!

Annika has a new favorite song. Each night during her bath we sing almost every song she knows (ABCs, hippo song, turtle song, Twinkle Twinkle). Last week I introduced her to Itsy Bitsy Spider, complete with hand motions. She asks me to sing that one minimum three times in a row during each bath now. And she's started doing the hand motions for it too. She's still so small that she can barely reach her fingers over her head and touch them together to do the sun motion. I think she likes it when I sing (poor girl - Mama can't sing at all!) because Sunday during church whenever we sang a song, Annika had to be held by me and she would lay her head down on my chest, snuggle in and listen to Mama sing. During bathtime though it's all smiles and giggles.

Annika is turning into quite the little manipulator. Last night she wanted to go out on the deck and was standing at the patio doors repeatedly asking. I told her she couldn't - the deck doesn't have railings yet and it isn't safe for her to be out there. I told her we could go out the front door and jump in her bounce house instead if she wanted. The bounce house was on the front lawn. She decided that was good enough and we headed out the front door. I turned the compressor on for the bounce house, she crawled inside, jumped three times and then scampered back out. And then she made a beeline for the back yard, where I followed her directly to the deck steps. I stopped her from going up and she was none too pleased with me. Yikes. I think we're in for it now.

She is still such a sweetie though. Last night as I put her to bed I told her I loved her and walked out of her room. As I was closing her door I heard her still saying "I love you puppy (her stuffed animal - my pound puppy from 20 years ago!), I love you bear, I love you mommy" etc.

You may have noticed that I'm venturing out of the house a bit more these days (the park yesterday, the mall on Sunday, Target last week). That means only 1 thing - I am on the upward swing of morning sickness. Today I didn't even have to have a snack between breakfast and lunch to keep the nausea at bay! Of course, I was hungry for lunch at 11am when I usually eat at 11:30 or noon but I can deal with that. It is very nice to feel like part of the world again instead of some sort of shut in. Of course with the amount of money I spent at Target last week and the mall this weekend (at least most of my purchases were gifts!) my checkbook is taking a beating.

Today for lunch I was walking across the street to the grocery store (I was craving a big salad from their salad bar) and passed the party supply store right before it. I stopped in quickly and guess what I found? Sesame Street themed birthday decorations! I was hoping to have Sesame Street be the theme for Annika's birthday this year (seeing as how she loves Elmo and Ernie and Big Bird and Cookie Monster and Grover and Zoe and and and...). I didn't buy the plates and cups and napkins, etc. today so I'll have to go back some time in the next few weeks. But still - Yay!