Walk With Me ...

I have this OCD *thing* about not blogging till I'm caught up. With that OCD come SSS (Severe Slacker Syndrome) so this is why I've fallen so far behind. Looks like it's time for another photographic journey of the past few months. I think we left off around Halloween. Lots of fun stuff has happened since then. Christmas, for one. Then Easter. Now Anna's fourth birthday is approaching as is summer, so I need to kick it in high gear.

You think this display of SSS is bad - you should see my laundry ;-)

We spent Thanksgiving in D-town w/ the family. Here's Anna w/ her two favorite people on earth. In fact, I'm convinced she believes they are on the *only* people on earth.


After Turkey Day, PaPa decided Anna needed to go to the local western store because she. doesn't. have. enough. cowboy. crap.



I don't think Anna'd be happier at Disney World ;-)

She and ole Brown Eyes became fast friends:


And no trip to the western store is complete w/out a lasso:


As is tradition, we ended the Thanksgiving weekend in downtown Decatur. It wouldn't be Christmas w/out another shot of Anna on the random chicken bench. One day she might actually look at the camera ;-)


Then on to Santa's house. Now my girl is not a fan of Santa. And that's putting it lightly. BUT my gal wanted the jolly ole elf to bring her Butterscotch for Christmas, so she made a concerted effort to cast aside her fear and confront the old dude.

She looked in the window and said, "But there is no Butterscotch in there!"


A child of the 21st Century, Anna was fully anticipating receiving Butterscotch the instant she sat on Santa's lap. No instant gratification here ;-)


Whew - it's OVER:


We walked outside to this mess in Central Park - WTF?


Moving on to Del's Popcorn Shop for some yummies:


And the ride home:


Anna loves making random crafts and sharing them w/ her loved ones. If you didn't receive one of these lovelies this year, please accept my sincerest apologies:


In early December, Anna visited the dentist at SIU. She gave Anna the what-for about using the paci. And because the person was not me, Anna listened! So, we tied all the pacis to the tree out front and called up to the paci fairy to come get them and leave two stuffed horsies in place of them. If my nabes didn't think I had a drug problem before, they did then ;-)

Retrieving the gift from the Paci Fairy:



The Paci Fairy's only shopping option was the ghetto cesspool Walmart - and wouldn't you know they didn't have a single stuffed horsey??? WTF? So I had to improvise w/ stuffed reindeer and hope she didn't notice the difference. Of course she did, so it was fitting that I tossed in some High Fructose Corn Syrup & Red #40 laden candies so as to convince her there's no way it came from me ;-) It worked!


Anna worked really hard drawing this picture of me. I'm hot, aren't I?



We baked out hearts out during the holidays. Is there anything cozier than the scent of baked goods during the month of December?



We think not :)


Speaking of baked goods, I found an Easy Bake Oven and decided to flirt w/ nostalgia. Anna was THRILLED:




The product, however, left PLENTY to be desired:


Anna's preschool had a Christmas program that was silly and cute. I got most of it on video and very little pics. This sweater set just seems to keep popping up ;-)






We're getting good at this:




'Twas the night before Christmas ... Anna's now fully DESPERATE for Santa to bring Butterscotch and is worried the he'll be too big to fit on the sleigh ... so we whip up a batch of reindeer food to sweeten the deal:



Santa came through!