Studious Meg

The Dump Truck

We have a great yellow dump truck in our yard. Meggy and I use it a lot to make muck -- that's dirt mixed with water. But now Anna Kate is big enough to ride in it! And she loves it!

Anna's New Kicks

Anna is sporting some new trainers -- she really loves them.

Anna the Walker

Here she goes!

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Here's me:



And Meg:



And me again, but this time singing:

Knitting

This is a little video of me knitting -- neat, huh!? Thanks for teaching me, Grandma Mary!

Jumping Jacks

What a Good Sport

Is Mister a good sport, or what? Anna Kate *loves* pushing him in her wagon, and he's good for several trips across the living room, even with intermittent petting.

Underwater Pictures

Look at these cool underwater pictures! Meggy and I learned to surface dive this weekend -- that's where you swim along and then go way deep underwater. We can bring up stuff from the bottom. In these pictures, I'm the one with the pink and yellow goggs and Meg's are blue and white.

First Day of School! Ever!

Today was the first day of school! I liked it. My teacher is super nice and there are lots of nice kids in my class. The best part was reading a book. And the part I didn't like was getting in line each time because some of the other kids weren't careful and stepped on my toes.

The school I go to is called Veritas Academy.

3 in a row

I can knit!

Y'all! My gram came to visit and she taught me to knit! With needles! Look! I made this!

It's a scarf! Meg's cat Charlie is wearing it right now, but my cat can wear it, too.

Lego Lego Lego Lego

Anna

Peach Picking!

We went peach picking!















Mmmmm... peaches.



































It was a beautiful spot!















A little on the warm side...












What a bunch of peaches!

Meggy and Mimi

Anna Kate Is No Longer A Baby

Anna Kate had her birthday. Mama told her not to, and she did it anyway.

A couple of days ago she went to the doc, and Anna is 29 1/2 inches long (very average), weighs 21 1/2 lbs. (very average) and has a head circumference of 49 (very huge). The doc said that Anna's head is so big that ordinarily they would do a CAT scan to make sure she doesn't have hydrocephalus or something equally awful, but since Meggy and I also have huge noggins she's not worried about Anna growing into hers. Also it was determined that Anna is in the 100th percentile for cuteness.

For grins, here's Meg's one year picture. And from waaay back in the archives, here's mine.

Grace

Piano Baby

Mama just wants everyone to know that she's not MAKING Anna Kate play the piano,
and Anna Kate doesn't actually play songs or anything, she just likes to play the piano. Okay?

Sweet Sisters

Here's me and Meggy, fresh outta the bathtub.

We really like wearing matching jams.

This hug got a little kooky, though...

...and we wound up like this!

Anna Kate Is Fixin' To Go

Mr. Herstad

This is our dog! His name is Mister.

Going up!

Happy 12th of July!

Oh, right... these pictures are from the 4th.

Lego Mania

Daddy got some Legos for Father's Day, and then we got some other Legos, and then Grace bought some Legos with her birthday money, and then Daddy brought home a few other Legos -- we have some Legos. And they're FUN.

To Daddy, From Grace

To Daddy, From Meg

Go, Baby, Go!

Anna Kate can really go! When we left to go camping, she couldn't quite crawl yet, but since then she's really taken off.




It's a bit more difficult for Anna to crawl while she's carrying her elephant, but she manages...

Oh, the places we've been!

We were in the car a lot while we were on holiday.

We were in a bunch of states:

Texas
Arkansas
Tennessee
Illinois
Missouri
Indiana
Wisconsin
Iowa


And we saw a ton of critters (this list doesn't even count the zoo):

raccoon
snake
deer
squirrels
cows
horses
butterflies
wasps
bees
flies
mosquitoes
beetles
wild cat
loads of birds
wild turkeys
geese
ducks
bunny
inchworm
june beetle
lightning bugs
turtle
goats
llamas
armadillos

AK

The Zoo

St. Louis has a fantastic zoo! We saw loads and loads of animals and birds and reptiles and everything. We also sweated buckets. It was hot, hot, hot.









Here's sweaty Meg, watching the sea lion show.

Near Disaster

Remember this pachyderm? The one Anna loves? And sleeps with? And carries around?






She almost lost it!

Walking around downtown St. Louis, Anna Kate and Mama were bringing up the rear. Anna was riding on Mama's back, snoogling her elephant. And then she dropped it! And Mama had no idea! And neither did I! Nor Meg! Nor Daddy! The elephant was on the street we were crossing! And some kind St. Louis driver honked and said, "Hey! The baby dropped something!" Whew! Crisis averted.

St. Louis Arch

St. Louis was our next stop. We stayed in a super-mosquitoey KOA, but didn't hang out there very much. Instead we went to the arch, the zoo, the kids' museum and a car repair shop (actually only Daddy did that last one). Here's the Arch:










Here's me and my sister on the steps.















Now we're inside, learning something about the construction of the arch maybe. Or possibly just playing with the phones.


















Here's the outside again.