Sweet Kellan's Birthday!

Little man, Kellan Pinkel had his 1st birthday party last weekend at the Discovery Playhouse and all the kids had a blast!  This was our 2nd trip to the Playhouse and I've learned that Ansley enjoys it even more with little friends present.  This time she was ALL about the dentist office area.  She was even willing to be the patient and allowed Isabel to work on her!  It was hilarious.  It is seriously so cute to see how the kiddos interact with each other. 

    

Here's little Brynn sitting like a big girl with Whitney.  

These pictures don't quite describe her love for this place.  I promise...she did have fun! And I cannot get over this girl in her skinny jeans...it's just TOO MUCH. 

The chalkboard was a big hit too...she loves to draw straight lines and sometimes she throws a few circles in also. 

Here's the birthday boy getting after his adorable cake!  Face first. 

This is Ansley's dentist office visit.  Isabel is trying to get an impression of Ansley 's teeth apparently.  I'm pretty sure Ansley would have let Isabel do just about anything! 

The firetruck made lots of stops...these girls have BIG imaginations!

Baby Brynn was loving the water table.

And Ansley found some furry friends.

My sweet friend, Jen and Ansley

Oh my....I mean really?  This face and those minature pigtails are just precious.

They could not be any cuter! As Whitney said...this will one day be on the wedding slideshow for sure. :)

  Happy Birthday Kellan!

Ansley Harper: 26 Months

Ok, so we have a real big girl on our hands.  She's always been Miss Independent (we like to attribute that to her 4th of July birthday), but it seems like these days she wants to do EVERYTHING on her own!
Here are a few updates on Miss Priss:

*She still refuses to go on the potty.  Not that she can't, but she doesn't want to.  She says, "No....no thank you."  (And I haven't pushed the issue just yet).  It seemed like for awhile before she was even 1 that she could be an early potty-trainer, but these days I'm wondering if we'll be sending pull-ups to kindergarten. :)  

*She has just started making her way through the whole alphabet (with a few missed letters here and there), but for the most part she's getting it!  Her favorite part recently has been "W, X, Y, and Z".  I absolutely love to hear her sing this!

*A little over a month ago she started counting to 10 too.  The first time we heard her do this was during a Sunday lunch at O'Charley's and she started in...1, 2, 3.  We sat there listening, assuming she would MAYBE get to 5 and she went all the way to 10!  It was so neat to see her hit this milestone with other witnesses :)! She's now dropping the 4 (I guess she's not fond of this number) and adding 11-15. Whoa.

*Ansley and Alleigh (our lab) have become pretty tight in the last few months...primarily because Ansley has learned she can kind of "mother" Alleigh.  She has learned that she can get Alleigh's food out for her and pour her some fresh water, so she's always asking to see Alleigh.  I can hear her now..."Come ere Ayeigh dink your wadder and eat... come ere an eat."  She is just too funny.

*She also loves to play on her new playscape that she got for her birthday.  She's a slide ADDICT and depending on the day will swing for what seems like 30 minutes at a time!  She loves climbing the rock wall (too fast) and making food for mommy or Mimi at her little lemonade stand.

*She started Mother's Day Out in August for the first time on Thursdays and she's loving it!  It melts my heart to see our little curly-headed girl bopping into school with her lunchbox in tow.  Sigh.

* She loves to watch "T.D." and right now, Sharktales and Charlotte's Web are some of Ansley's favorite movies to watch at Pamaw and Pappaw's house.  She loves Wilbur and has been asking her daddy for a pig at the house.  Great!

*Swimming at Aunt Debbie's pool with Mimi and BB has also been a must recently!  She swims from one end to the other by herself (with her water wings of course) and has no fear.  We have to keep a good eye on her for sure!

*We've taken 2 trips with Ansley lately...Pennsylvania (17 hours-to see family) and Iowa (8 hours-for Jason's big triathlon).  She does great as long as Monster's Inc. or another movie is on, but her common outburst in the car is "Mommy, I wanna hold you."  It's so hard to not yank her right out of that seat and snuggle! :(

*Since Ansley's 2nd birthday party, she's been obsessed with Strawberry Shortcake.  She calls her "Strawberry Cake", which happens to pretty adorable.  She loves to get our "special" Strawberry bandaids out when she has a boo boo, but then refuses to put them on.  Sometimes putting the bandaid on can be more of a traumatic event than the boo boo itself!

*She's started to cross her arms in front of her when she walks anywhere.  I want to never forget this phase (hence why I'm mentioning it and you can kind of tell from the pic above) it is absolutely hysterical to see her be-bop around like this!    

We love our sweet and sassy girl!  Ansley, you are the love of our lives!!

 

4th place BABY!!

So this weekend was Jason's big Hyvee Triathlon U.S. Championships-woot woot!!  I was definitely not looking forward to this trip when he qualified  

for it several months back...I mean...Iowa?!  They could have picked California or maybe even the Carolina's.  Now, either one of those would have been nice, but Des Moines?

Ok, so maybe I was a little rough on the old state of Iowa.  Des Moines had it's perks.  The shopping centers were all brand new (notice how I judge by the shopping?) and the restaurant selection was fabulous!  We had a really fun time AND Jason did great!  It was nice to have Ryan and Whit, my mom and dad, Pam and Rick, Matt, Mark and Lora, and Alex, Meredith, and the kiddos along for the ride too.  Ryan, Mark, Matt, and Alex entered the open race and joined in on all the grueling fun.  They all did fantastic.  Seriously, they all tore it up in Iowa!

This is Ryan and Jason before heading to the start.            

Jason's clydesdale heat

All of the boys waiting for their turn 

Ansley cheering on her daddy :) 

Transition from swim to bike.  Arrrr... 

Now on to the run.   

This is how princess Ansley got around most of the day (the stroller would not work on the sandy beach). 

It was time to load up in the vehicle to go to the finish, but we were out of seats.  Rick volunteered to sit in the trunk with the baby Brynn replica. Ha!

My dad and Ansley waiting to see Jason!

He made it!  Yay!  And he had an awesome time! 

Icing the old legs. 

His tatted arm

So proud of my hunk!! 

Ryan came in next, then Alex, Mark, and then Matt.  Nice work boys!  Here's Mark coming in to the finish. 

Unfortunately, Mark had a little wreck on his bike and had some road rash.  It looked so painful, but he finished strong! 

The capitol building was the finish and it was beautiful. 

Jason checking his placement 

He got 4th!!!  Woo hoo!!  He was so happy, but of course, wished he could have made the podium (he missed 3rd by 40 secs).  We were so proud of him! 

Some of the boys after the race.  They were all really happy with how they did and excited that the months and months of training had paid off.  Good job!!  

Oh, and one of our very own Cape Girardeau girls, Kim Pancoast won the women's race and won a CAR!  How exciting is that?!  She's a stud too!  It's hilarious though....they weren't quite sure how they were going to get that Mini Cooper back to Seattle with a bike!  Ha!  I wish I had that problem to worry about :) 

First Day of MDO!

For weeks we've been telling Ansley she was headed to school soon... and the bittersweet day finally arrived.  Yesterday was Ansley's first day of Mother's Day Out!  I say bittersweet because I know SHE needs the interaction and learning AND I'm also excited about an afternoon to run errands and such, BUT....I almost backed out (thankfully Jason surprised us by being in the parking lot when we arrived...him being there definitely helped!).  If she would have cried for me like some of the other kiddos did, I'm not sure I could have left yesterday.  Instead, her little hand raised to give us a sweet wave as we walked out of sight.  Uh...I missed her so BADLY.  It took me most of the day to realize....she was not with me AND I didn't have to go to work.  I had a few good cries during the afternoon, got in some much needed retail therapy, and then got myself back together for her pickup.  She was excited to get to school and excited to come home, so all around...it was a great day for her! 

 This is Ansley at the house before we left.  That lunchbag was her favorite accessory.  When we arrived at church she wanted to let Jason know EVERYTHING that could be found in there.  "I have meelk, wadder, cheese, fuit naks...." ;)

Here she is marching in like a big girl! 

This is the look of excitement in case you were wondering. 

There was a little bit of time for a quick pic of our family of 3. 

Here she is romping around with her buddy, Ellie. 

This was taken as we were walking out.  I asked her how her day went, what she did, of course I wanted ALL the details!  

"Um...I payed babies with Ellie and....payed babies"

This was just about more than my heart could handle! 

Big milestones are happening here at the BANDERMANN'S!

Chiara's Birthday Party!

My cousin, Laura and her daughter, Chiara is in from France for a month to visit.  While they are here we decided to surprise Chiara for her birthday, luau style.  We obviously don't get to see her much because they live so far away (I only wish I could jet on over to Paris every so often), so the last memory of talking with her she was just a little thing spitting out English, French, and Spanish (the vision of a girl so young speaking all kinds of different languages is mind-blowing!).  Now, she's 10 and has turned out to be such a sweet girl. Happy Birthday, Chiara!

I was so sad when I realized Chiara's eyes were closed.  Bummer!

Here's Jansen taking a shot at the pinata. 

Jansen and Ansley loving on each other. 

Laura got this skirt just for Ansley.  She loved it! 

      

Lynwood at Cape Splash!

Our church had a picnic at the Cape County Park Sunday and then rented out Cape Splash for the 2nd year in a row.  Woo Hoo!  Ansley had such a great time at that place.  I should definitely take her there more often!  I got a few pics of her before the lightning scare, but not as many as I would have liked:(.  She was NOT going to leave willingly, so we had to bribe her with a little bit of ice cream from Dairy Queen with the Mayhew and Greene clans.  It was such a fun night with our Lynwood family! 

Here are a few pics from the evening

Ansley was SO excited to get there!

We ran into our little friends on the way in 

Can you see the excitement 

She was a wild woman! 

A quick pic before heading back out 

She was loving the fountains 

This little guy was having so much fun too! 

Fun with her buddies 

Because she loved Cape Splash so much with our Lynwood family, I decided to take her back before they closed.  My mom came over and we picked up Jansen from daycare so he could enjoy the waterpark too.  Kristi, Matt, and Alex met us there and Chad, Kristal, and Isaac were already there.  It was so fun to have other friends for Ansley to play with!  The day was gorgeous and we enjoyed splashing around!

She was stopping in the fountains, like she was going to take a drink

Getting showered!

They were totally hugging on each other and I just happened to get a picture.  So sweet!

Jansen was a little cold, so we bundled up and snuggled.  Love the little comb over.

Getting some smooches from Mimi.

Something was hilarious!

I love that Ansley loves the water...she's definitely a fish like her daddy.