Easter Fun!

We had our first egg hunt last Wednesday evening at church (resurrection eggs, egg hunt, and hot dogs before Bible class). As I've said before, the girls and I have been having for-fun hunts in our yard for a few weeks, so even little Anna knew what to do.


Our next stop on the Easter fun train was the Thursday School Easter egg hunt (straight from Anna's dr. appt). Pictured above are Claire's cousin Katelyn and her friend (sometimes boyfriend), Zeek before the hunt. I also mentioned on fb that it POURED during the 10 minutes the kids were hunting. I had my camera and Anna, so I scurried under a tree while Claire kept on hunting.

Then Friday Claire got to go watch Hop with Grandmom and Tyler while I worked on a writing assignment. Got 'er done!

And Saturday was the big Pannell get-together at my mom's house. Almost all the kids, from Claire to Kyle, even went swimming, despite the 65-degree temps! We hid a ton of eggs, with an area for the six toddlers and preschoolers, and a huge area for the six big kids. It was perfect; everyone got a bunch of eggs. But that night storms started rolling in, so after we ate pizza, everyone gathered around the TV to watch the radar.

Yum! Anna opened this egg and handed the candy to daddy, so of course he had to give it to her! She had so much candy yesterday!

We ended up staying the night at Mom's to avoid driving in bad weather or worrying about tornados when we got home. But that meant that when we woke up Sunday we had to drive down to Durant, do baths and Easter finery, and even a visit from the Easter bunny, and then drive back to Coleman for church. Only 10 minutes late--that was doing pretty good I think! I'm glad we got to come; it was an excellent service and we got to see some great people we don't get to very often, and then enjoy some more family time at lunch at Nana's.

....and now it's back to the grind!

But first, a pic of Anna's funny face! She loves to entertain people with this...when she feels like it. We can rarely get her to do it on demand, and this is the first time I've captured it on camera. She was doing it over and over at Nana's during lunch today.

Anna at 15 months

Weight: 18.1 lbs
Height: 28 1/2 inches
Relative size: Fifth percentile (!)

Personality: Determined messmaker--not easily distracted, and loves to climb, crawl or squeeze into small and strange places, does not like to sit still, very affectionate, but usually not to sister.
Words: mama, dada, mmm for cow, da-da for dog, and bye! (not too verbal, but she definitely lets us know what she wants--has a very adamant head nod and a good pointer finger)
Favorite toys: cell phones (toy or real), lift-the-flap books, play computer. (Not too big on toys, really)
Favorite activities: pulling everything out of a toy box, bookshelf, Claire's play kitchen, or my cabinets (a few of the baby latches don't work too well, and/or I give up and open one for her), hauling items around the house. Also likes to pretend to cook in Claire's play kitchen (throws items in a bowl, stirs them), draw (prefers markers), and play outside
Favorite times of day: morning after breakfast, afternoon after naptime, when daddy gets home
Nicknames: Little Anne, Anne Banan. We call her Anna Jae a lot--but for me, it usually ends up being when I'm telling her no.
Little Sister personality: Claire loves to try to pick Anna up, hold her, and love on her, but Anna has very little patience for this. Although Anna loves to watch and play with Claire, the only times she really touches her are to do this soft head-bump Claire sometimes initiates, or to "get sister," when she kind of grins and smacks Claire repeatedly. They usually play really well together in Claire's room, although this pretty much consists of Anna making her favorite messes while Claire does other things.

Feeling like summer!

Yay for warm temps! All of my pics of the girls for the past couple months have been like, them in pajamas, making messes in the house--finally some sunny outdoor shots!

This past weekend, we played in the sprinkler and went to Fort Washita. Weekends are so sweet when you turn in a ton of work on Friday and then say forget it! for the weekend. That's what I did, and oh, did it feel good. I'm reading a really good Christian novel right now called The Shape of Mercy, so I got in a couple hours of paperback couch time after our exhausting morning at Fort Washita--delish!

I got a thrilling assignment from The Christian Chronicle a few weeks ago--a roundup feature on fiction authors in the Church of Christ. It has been so inspiring to talk with a bunch of authors of all different kinds of books about how they write and how their life experiences have shaped their fiction, and how God has guided their career and strengthened their faith through writing. Anyway, writing this article led me to some really good books, which naturally, led me to a few more (Thank you, Amazon recommendations!), so those book orders were part of my birthday gifts!

....and here's one of my aforementioned pajama shots, because Anna was not a huge fan of the sprinkler! This little girl, like my almost-four-year-old, loves to write! There's this basket of scrap paper, notebooks, and pens behind Claire's little armchair that Anna loves to dig in, find a pen and paper, and take some notes! It is so sweet for this writer-mama to see!



I did have an ultrasound today, but the results were not official, so I will not announce them yet. However, you can probably guess that there was lack of evidence for a boy, so the doc said it was probably a girl. But the official ultrasound is in a month, so I will not plan anything until then!