nothing but Leotards

I have discovered that leotards are all Miss Annie will wear as of late. Which, granted is better than nude, but by how much? Skimpy little leotards are almost as bad in my opinion as being naked. Her tush is barely covered, the low cut top is a little too revealing and when she wears skirts over it she's always pulling it down so that her hip bones show. Not to mention the whole 80's flashback I get when she puts on her leg warmers, cut offs and black jewel studded leo (see previous post). These are photo's of her church outfit. I forced her to wear that sweater and skirt, but as soon as we got home they both go off and she runs to the tread mill to work on her gymnastic routine.
Notice Annie is wearing her dance slippers inside her regular shoes.
See how low cut these things are? Whoever designs Target Leotards is not my friend.
This is Annie's favorite gymnastic trick. She actually tried to imitate Nadia Comaneci on the uneven bars. Twisting in slow motion and jumping off to her grand finish. Who knew a tread mill could be used for gymnastics? Thanks Aunt Debbie.

Gourmet S'mores

Not sure how today went. I remember wanting to take a nap all day, and then finally getting to take one. I'm glad I took pictures of Annie or I might have forgotten her outfit. It was definitely one for the records. Black leotard, striped leg warmers, blue jean shorts and pig tails with white bows. The fact that I let her leave the house like that should tell you how tired I was. I blame last nights s'mores. We had some friends over for dinner last night (to eat the chicken I butchered) and had a fire outside. It was fun until Annie knocked over a wine glass with the marshmallow stick and then poked Tim in the eye. Tim is ok, but the wine glass is gone forever, and the shattered glass is still laying on the patio floor waiting for me to pick it up. It was so nice to be outside, and catch up with old friends. Tim works at Wholefoods and I had him bring marshmallows for the fire and I got Graham crackers from Trader Joe's. Here's the thing, gourmet marshmallow and graham cracker's make the worst s'more's. It's just wrong to upgrade when it comes to the classics. So I blame the samore's for being off and making me so tired today. Best not to blame myself for staying up to late, that would ruin the fun.
Annie on the swing at tower grove farmers market eating her zucchini muffin

The Call

While driving Annie and her cousin Ruby to school I received a call from my neighbor. The chickens and the turkeys had all gotten out. This is not a good thing. I drop off the girls, call my job to tell them I'd be late (and why) and drove back home to find 8 chickens wondering the yard and two turkeys looking at me like I was dinner (did I mention turkeys are mean yet?). Thankfully I had a bowl of Tomatoes from the yard sitting on the kitchen counter. And yes I made a trail of tomatoes leading back into the run and no it did not work. It only succeeded in tricking the evil turkeys which also happen to be dumb as rocks. That still left me with 8 chickens. Praying that no one is around to watch me. I walk around the yard bent over like a 90+year old woman making kissy sounds with my arms spread apart so they don't run right past me trying to entice chickens to come get a tomato from me. It probably looked more like the hunchback of Notre Dame trying to catch dinner. Thankfully it only took me 30 minutes to round everyone up. It definitely added a little excitement to my day.

a little like Trainspotting

Annie is still using a binky.  It's a problem, I know. This last few weeks she has been using her binky non-stop.  I've tried every method I can think of to gently ease her off.   The reality, you can't ease an addict off their addiction.  So I'm preparing myself.  As soon as I am not sick anymore (hopefully very soon) we are going to have to go cold turkey with the binky.  I'm imagining this looking a lot like the scene in the movie Trainspotting where the addict is going through detox.  Puking, sweating, chills, fevers, in-visioning the dead baby crawling on the ceiling only in Annie's case it will be a binky just out of reach no matter how hard she tries to grab it.   You may think I'm over imagining, but she's three and everything is a battle right now.  We don't just cry when things aren't what we want anymore.  We hiss, and kick and bite.   We scream and throw things at innocent bystanders (sorry again to the woman at Target who got clocked with the shoe).  We strip off our clothes and run outside screaming, "I not wearing that!"  We cover the kitchen in yogurt because it isn't the right color.  I love my three year old, but I won't be sad when she turns four.   Only 313 days to go.

My little Gymnast

Annie had her first Gymnastic class today, and to say she was excited would be a huge understatement. Not only did we sleep in a Leotard and legwarmers last night, but we had to bring every pair of tights with us just in case. She had to watch Nadia while eating breakfast and then we had to put Nadia bows in her hair. I was in shock when we got there. I don't think I've ever seen her listen so well in my life. She did exactly what her teachers told her, which after a week and a half of constant fits and fighting I could not believe my eyes. She can hear, she just doesn't like listening to mom. Did I mention Three is hard? She's become a terror, and the worst part is I never know when she's going to strike. At least class went well.
Annie doing the classic "butt shelf" (you will only understand this if you've seen the movie stick it, which I'm not sure I'll let her watch again. She was showing off her butt a little too much in class).


She may not know how to do a cart wheel yet, but her finish is spectacular.
Driving to class. I think the tongue sticking out is her new thing she does when she's nervous.
Walking into class (her pants are little long).

Meet Mr. Wormy (the snake)

Have I told you Annie's love of bugs and all things crittery? Today my little princess comes running in the house announcing, "Mamma, we found a snake! he died, but he's OK." I see what looks like a small twig in my daughters hand. Of course it's not a twig, upon closer inspection I see she is carrying a dried up dead worm. "Annie honey, I think that's a worm not a snake." "No it a snake, but his name is Mr. Wormy." You will have to double click on the photo to see, but in her hand that Banjo is eying so intently is the dried up worm who now lives on my kitchen counter (in a jar).

Tower Grove farmers market

Thanks to our early morning wake up call, Annie and I got our chores done early (AKA I took care of the work part, while Annie danced barefoot in the grass) and so we went to the Tower Grove Farmers Market. We do not go for the overpriced produce or the organic eggs (we have our own thank you), we go there for Honey sticks, music and the great playground. Annie loves to just walk around and do nothing. For a total of $6.50 we had breakfast, heard a great band, and drank insanely sour lemonade that we sweetened with out honey sticks.Here's Annie enjoying honey stick number one.
This would be Annie somewhere between honey stick number four and seven? listening to free music. (If you look closely she's hiding a small pumpkin under her foot. An adorable 15 month old kept picking it up and walking around with it. Annie didn't like this,we might have some sharing problems to deal with down the road.)Here's the band. Need to find out who they are, it was fun to listen, and yes they do play that mini piano during their songs.
Annie finally started to get worn out, and tried to take a nap on this very comfy concrete slab. I dragged her home after she closed her eyes.I think Banjo missed her.