This Child's Brain....

Anna Claire's brain is constantly in overdrive. I blame her father for this trait. Kidding. Seriously, though, she is always thinking and has an imagination that is beyond me. She's at such a fun age right now!

Sometimes I will sarcastically say, "That's lovely, child", usually when she has done something that she is proud of but makes this mom cringe (think boogers...I won't go into detail...you can thank me later). The other night, she burped (loud!), and I said, "Anna Claire!", to which she quickly responded, "I'm a lovely child, Mom!"

Last night, her little Wednesday night class took a tour of the church building. One stop was to Brad's office. Brad was there to answer any questions and talk to them about his role as pastor. Anna Claire's teacher pointed to his laptop and said, "What do you think he uses this for?" One boy answered, "To type". The teacher said, "Good. What else?" (I think she was hoping they would say, "Check e-mail", work on his sermon, etc.) Anna Claire quickly chimed in, "He checks Facebook!" The teacher quickly moved to the phone on his desk. "What is this?" "A phone", they all said. "Who does he call?" "People" was one girl's response. Then, Anna Claire said, "Yeah, he uses his phone to call people in our church that have ummmm problems!"
Great, Anna Claire. I can just see her at school talking to her friends, "My dad's a pastor. That means he checks Facebook and talks to people that have problems."

This morning, I took Anna Claire to school, and after dropping her off, the teacher asked to see me in the hallway. Her teacher is great, but she's not the warm fuzzy type, so I was a bit nervous. She came out in the hall smiling and talk about how smart Anna Claire is, what a vivid imagination she has, etc. I was a little shocked by the praise this teacher was giving b/c that's not usually how she operates. Then she said, 'But yesterday, Anna Claire did something I've never had another student do"......oh no. My mind started spinning! She started laughing which eased my fears a bit and said, "All the kids were playing at different centers in the classroom. I looked up and saw Anna Claire laying on her back up on the table. Her legs were up in the air. Hughes (classmate) was standing by her. I immediately said, "Anna Claire, what are you doing?" She confidently answered, "Oh, I'm having a baby!" to which Hughes quickly assured the teacher, "And I'm supposed to catch it!"
Mercy. Where did she come up with this???

Skittles Math

**This is the second post in one day....be impressed.**

Anna Claire loves numbers (read: not her mother's child!) and has recently shown interest in addition. When I found this downloadable game online, I knew she would really like it. The Skittles sealed the deal for her!You pick a flash card (ex: 7 + 4), place 7 Skittles in the top box, and 4 in the next box. Then you move all the Skittles to the last box and count them for the answer. Then you find your answer in the number set. This was good for Anna Claire to work on number recognition. We played this 'game' for a good 45 minutes tonight!!

"This is hard work, Mom!"

A friend gave Anna Claire a Halloween gingerbread house kit for her birthday. This is the first time Anna Claire has done something like this, so she was thrilled with the idea. She just couldn't believe how much candy was available to decorate the house! She was most proud of her 'pattern' on the roof tops - pumpkin, bat, pumpkin, bat. They are learning about patterns at school, so she's quick to make patterns out of anything.

And the glasses are back as a favorite accessory. She loves to wear them often.

Tonight, we took all the baby dolls for a walk. This is a major ordeal now with the addition of the twins.

This picture was taken at the beginning of the walk: (ignore the blue lips that she acquired from a ring pop)

As we were walking back up our driveway at the end of our walk, AC was pushing the stroller as if the twins each weighed 50lbs. and she was having to push them uphill. Poor Carly in the baby sling was about to fall out. At this point, Anna Claire declared, "This is hard work, Mom!" hahaha!

Silly girl with a ring pop still in her mouth.

 

Anna Claire is 4!

This year for Anna Claire's birthday, we decided to head to the Big D to celebrate at the American Girl store. AC is really into dolls now, so this seemed like just the birthday celebration for her! We were so excited to be able to share her special day with the entire family!

And then there was Trunk or Treat at our church.....AC inherited a ridiculous number of princess dresses from a friend, so she had a hard time deciding which princess she was going to be for Halloween. She finally picked Snow White and off we went....

Anna Claire, the ballerina

Our dear friend, Sheryl, is always so sweet to remember Anna Claire's birthday. This year was no exception. Today, a large box arrived on our front porch. When AC saw the box, she said, "I just know it has my name on it!", and she was correct! Super Sheryl pulled through with a very "Anna Claire" kind of gift - a dance mat and balancing bar. The set even included a tutu and some ballet slippers that you will see AC wearing in the picture. This ballet mat gives instructions, plays music, etc. Anna Claire was beyond thrilled with this new addition to our household.
Sheryl, please note the absence of a bow or any other hair accessory - you're welcome. :)

**I'll post birthday pictures and Halloween pictures in the next day or two....**

To a Corn Maze and Beyond....

Doing a little blog catch up.....
A couple of weeks ago, I headed to Dallas for a dear friend's wedding. It was also the weekend of the A&M/Arkansas game (which was in Dallas), so Elizabeth got us tickets for the All Aggie Hullabaloo. Friday night, we (Mom, Dad, Elizabeth, and I) headed over to the new Cowboys stadium for a fun time! There were two concerts, an Aggie Wranglers performance, and then Midnight Yell. They showed some A&M promo video, and I'm not gonna lie - I got a little teary eyed. I miss College Station.

Here we are outside the stadium - gotta love a family self-portrait....                                                             

And our cute parents....

Then, my mom was going to take a picture of Elizabeth and me. After she snapped the picture, we looked at it....and this is what we saw.....

My mom was so proud of herself - she had zoomed in on Elizabeth and cropped me out of the picture -feel the love!
Take two:

A beautiful sight - the Aggie bus and Cowboys stadium:

The ridiculously huge you can see from 10 miles away jumbotron

Being good Aggies....

And you know you're getting older when Rev's keeper looks 12 and addresses you as "ma'am"!

On Saturday night, we went to Randi's wedding. Everything was simply elegant. There was a display of place cards for the dinner reception. The fabric on your place card cooresponded with the cloth napkins at your table - so creative!

 

And at one point, our table tapped into our own creativity, and made a layout of all the different coordinating items. Look at that flower- it is made out of paper! They were everywhere and you didn't know they were paper unless you stood super close to them.


This past Saturday, Brad, AC, and I headed out to a corn maze. AC is at a fun age to enjoy something like this, so we had a grand 'ol time partaking in all the corn maze farm had to offer!
How Tall This Fall?

In the maze.....

Anna Claire was so happy when she saw a real ear of corn in the maze.

After succesffully completing both parts of the maze, we enjoyed the other activities on the farm.
Duck races:

 Our cute little scarecrow:

A big slide made out of PVC pipe:

Pony rides:

The petting zoo that had sheep, goats, and this guy...AC said, "Mom, you have to take my picture with this donkey!" Ha! So I obliged...

Face painting:
She asked for a pumpkin and I'm not gonna lie - that is an odd looking pumpkin. And you have to love the moon on her forehead.

And the corn barn:
This was a small barn/storage shed type building that was full of deer corn for the kids to play in! So fun!

Stay tuned - this is AC's birthday week - lots of celebrating to do this week!