Sleepless in Rochester

It's official, I am the worst sleeper in the history of the world. Mommy hasn't had more than 4 hours straight of sleep (and that is on a VERY RARE good night) since I was born 8 and a half months ago. I have had Mommy wrapped around my cute little pudgy finger. I wake up and holler and she comes running to soothe me back to slumber with cozy cuddles and yummy warm milk. I have been getting her to come visit at least 3 or 4 times every night, sometimes every hour! Now Mommy is so tired that she finally got desperate enough to try a horrible evil trick on me. This trick is called LETTING ME CRY IT OUT and it is the meanest thing I have ever heard of in my short little life. She let me cry for 5 whole minutes tonight before I finally gave up and fell asleep. Whoever thought of this crying it out business is a sick meany. Don't worry, I'll be up again in a couple hours, and I'll get her to come visit, just you wait and see!

PS - Note from Mommy - Annabelle's horrible sleep habits are all my fault! I have committed the cardinal sin of new mommyhood - soothing my baby back to sleep with cuddles and milk! UGH! Now I must pay for my crime! Listening to her cry for even one minute feels like someone is gouging out my heart with rusty spoons! I HATE THIS!!!! Last night I told Joel I would rather give birth again than have to let Annabelle cry herself to sleep. HELP!!!!

I am SUCH a Rock Star!

During Christmas # 2 Grandpa Larry and Grandma Marie (that's Daddy's mom and dad) gave me another exciting musical gift...a Fisher Price Little Superstar Stage! I really love playing with this toy, and it's even more fun when I put my new Cat keyboard (see my last post) right beside it so I can make music with BOTH of them at the SAME TIME!

Here I am with Mommy, about to open the exciting gift:

Whoa! Check this out!

Oh boy, this is going to be COOL!

It's barely 5:30 in the morning, but I am ready to ROCK!

Check me out on stage!
Looking good!
I better ditch this Nuk so I can sing!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for this super fun toy, and for all of the other awesome gifts!

My First Christmas (Part 1)

I'll call this Part 1 because tomorrow we are leaving for Theresa NY to spend Christmas with Daddy's family, and that will be a big gift-giving extravaganza! But today Mommy and Daddy wanted to give me a few gifts just from them. Since I will be getting so many cool new things from everybody else, Mommy and Daddy decided to only give me 4 presents right now, and save the rest for me to open over the next few months.

One second I was eating, the next I was face down on Mommy's leg, fast asleep. This is before we even started opening presents!

My very first baby doll, from Uncle Ross. I like her eyes the best!
Katigram (aka Gramma Katie) also sent me some awesome books - I loved ripping the paper off of all of them, and I didn't even try to eat it! My favorite book so far is a board book called Mama's Home. (It tastes really good too!) Mommy's favorite was Who's That Baby? New Baby Songs. She will help me post more on this book later...

And now onto presents from Daddy and Mommy...

I am a musical genius and here I am opening my first musical instrument - a keyboard in the shape of a cat's head (they didn't have any shaped like dogs).

I ROCK!!

Reading my new book, Squishy Turtle and Friends

Mommy and Daddy gave me a dolly too!

First Doll # 1, meet First Doll # 2!

I was having so much fun playing my keyboard that I didn't really want to open anything else for awhile!

My new cow blankie - with special chewy parts in each corner, in case I ever get any teeth!

Our Christmas Tree

The Story of My First Visit with Santa Claus

December 15, 2007 ~ Annabelle's 8-month Birthday

Annabelle babbled and smiled as she waited in the long line to meet Santa Claus. The line weaved around through a fairy tale ice castle and Annabelle enjoyed looking at all of the giant presents, candy canes, snow-covered trees and elf figurines. She looked around happily at all of the other children waiting to see Santa Claus.

Finally it was Annabelle’s turn to meet Santa! Mommy put Annabelle on Santa’s lap while Daddy got ready to take some pictures. Annabelle wasn’t quite as smiley as before, but she wasn’t unhappy either. She looked with interest at Santa’s face and beard. She noticed his red cap. She seemed to be content enough to sit on his knee, but then Mommy walked a few steps away so Daddy and Santa’s elf could take pictures. Annabelle BURST into tears and screamed “Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma!” Santa and Mommy did their best to soothe her and get her happy for the pictures. Although Annabelle did stop crying, her smile did not return until Santa gave her back to Mommy.

The photo taken by Santa’s elf shows an unusually un-smiley Annabelle. And for a “right jolly old elf,” Santa looks none too thrilled himself. But hey, it’s only Baby’s First Christmas once, so we bought the photos anyways!

Here are some of the photos taken by Daddy:

If Only Mommy and Daddy had a good camera...

Last week a really nice lady (who is a REAL photographer) let my Mommy borrow her camera for a school project. So Mommy took these pictures of me with the fancy camera during our weekly lunch date on Wednesday. Just LOOK at how cute I am! I'm this cute in real life all the time, you just can't tell from the pictures Mommy takes with our (crummy) camera. :-)

PS - Don't ask me how that second picture got to be so cool - that's just how it looked when the nice lady sent it to my mommy!

Just Showing off my Hoodie

The only reason for this post is to show you how cute I look in my new hoodie, which was a gift from Aunt Jerri and Uncle Mark at Thanksgiving. So without further ado, here I am looking cute in my new hoodie!

My Holiday Photo Shoots

Mommy and Daddy always take lots of pictures of me, but they really outdid themselves trying to snap the perfect shot to send out in our holiday cards. We had three different photo shoots! So instead of having a hard time because they didn't have enough good photos to choose from, they had a hard time choosing because I looked so cute in so many of the photos! Here are just a few highlights: