Bean Anderson: 11/01/2006

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Kennedy is showing a lot interest in her musical instruments. Last week instead of banging around on the piano she explored one key at a time and had her own little melody going. She's also picked up the ukulele again and plucks around the strings with a lot of curiosity. Here she is with one of her drums.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Megan came for Sunday breakfast this past weekend. Kennedy and Megan were sharing music and Kennedy decided to put the ear buds up to Elle the cat's ears. Elle wasn't at all interested.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

This weekend Sheryl and I spent countless hours wrapping up our kitchen remodel tasks as well as repairs from a water leak. On one hand, it feels so good to have gotten so much accomplished. But on the other hand, it feels like we still have so much more to do. Sheryl tells me this is the essence of home ownership and to just get used to it, ha ha.

On Sunday we put up a few finishing touches and Kennedy was able to help Sheryl screw in the handles of the cabinet doors. She was really into helping and got to use her new favorite phrase these days which is: "I did it!"

Monday, November 27, 2006

At Thanksgiving, Kennedy found the dog bed in Grandma and Grandpa Anderson's spare room and had a blast playing in it.

She also had a lot of fun with Uncle C.K. as this picture clearly shows.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Granny Kay brought some birthday gifts for Kennedy to our Thanksgiving gathering. One of the gifts was an etch-a-sketch. Sometimes when we pick Kennedy up from day care she is playing with the etch-a-sketch and doesn't wan't to leave! It's a great gift for her.

Another gift was a car and tow truck set which Lucky the dog thought was his. Here's a picture of Grandpa Joe trying to get some of the pieces of Lucky's mouth.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

On Thanksgiving we called Aunt Shelly and wished her a Happy Day. Kennedy wanted to tell her she has a Winnie-the-Pooh hoodie.

We picked up our dear friend C.K. and headed to Grandma and Grandpa Anderson's home for the thanksgiving meal. It was good to see and visit with Granny Kay too.

Kennedy is staying at her Anderson Grandparents while Susan and I work on finishing kitchen and ceiling repair projects. It's really nice to have the block of time to work but we miss our daughter!

She smiles now when she sees the camera pointed at her.

But when you ask her to smile for the camera she gives you one of these cool smiles.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Happy day after Thanksgiving everyone! Here are some more photos from our coast trip last weekend.

Kennedy has been practing the yoga poses she knows. She can do Downward dog, Tree, and Cobra. Here she is with Laural in the Cobra pose. Laural also taught her the Warrior and Triangle poses. Triangle is a bit of a stretch for Kennedy but I'm sure she'll get there. She's a limber one.

Kennedy had plenty of books to read and nearly everyone read books with her at one time or another.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Beach house activities are always fun. Kennedy played house of cards with Andrea.

Of course the fun part was knocking it down.

Kennedy enjoyed Max and Andrea. She would crawl right up in the middle of them on the couch and just look at them as if to say "Okay what are we going to do next?"

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Our trip to the Oregon coast was fun for Kennedy. She kept saying "Hi Ocean". You can see her excitement in this picture. She kept stopping along the way to pick up rocks and seaweed and sticks.

Once on the beach she ran and ran and ran in the sand.

It was a good weekend. It gave us all time to relax and play and snuggle. Here are Susan and Kennedy.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Kennedy received a gift box full of cool clothes from Mimi and Papa. This morning on the way to day care we were practicing our geograhpy. When we ask who lives in Kansas? Kennedy replies "Mimi, Papa!"

Kennedy promptly climbed in the box after emptying the contents.

Monday, November 20, 2006

One quick comment to report the following huge milestone...

Today, at school, Kennedy used the potty for more solid business for the first time, if you know what I mean! Yay!! Sheryl and I agree it's time to start taking this training thing pretty seriously. Sigh - little baby is yielding to such a big girl!

Sorry for the absence; we've been on a mini retreat to the beautiful Oregon coast.

Kennedy got a box of books from Aunt Shelly. These are ABC books and they're just the right size. When she was younger she had some similar shape books (a gift from Aunt Debbie) and she nearly chewed the spines off of every one of them!

At least now she's reading them.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

I suppose it’s a good thing that we *still* haven’t painted the walls in the kitchen. Kennedy found an errant crayon (I swear – we try so hard to keep track of them and keep them out of reach unless it’s supervised coloring). When it got real quite on Sunday afternoon, I went to investigate and this is the image that greeted me. Kennedy was such a good sport, though. She actually tried to clean the walls herself.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Another birthday package arrived today for little Miss 2 year old. This one was from Aunt Shelly. Kennedy said her favorite gift was the Baby Gund Comfy Coze Lamb.

Megan was visiting when Kennedy opened the gifts. She asked Kennedy if she could hold the lamb and Kennedy said "No!" and ran and hid the lamb in the box.

Of course she got it right back out and later she and lamby cozied up in a box of their own.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Happy Birthday to Sheryl!!

CK came over on Saturday night to help celebrate Sheryl’s birthday. We went a local Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. We had pho (noodle soup), marinated beef and yummy honey chicken for Kennedy. Before dinner, Kennedy and CK had a good time playing together.

A common scene when these two get together – they’re a riot…

Monday, November 13, 2006

Kennedy helped me decorate Sheryl’s birthday cake. We had a great time squeezing the icing all over. Cherry Chip cake – my personal favorite. Of course, the cake was more for Kennedy than for Sheryl or me (right…).

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Today we celebrated Sheryl’s birthday with presents and cake. Kenney was very helpful in delivering the cards to Sheryl. What was particularly funny was the way she literally threw the cards at Sheryl before running off to get the next round…

Sheryl got the fantastic hand-embroidered tee-towels from her parents. Sheryl commented that the towels smelled like Mema’s house; here are Sheryl and Kennedy checking out the familiar smell of starch. (Sidenote: It’s amazing to me how much smell can emote memories of childhood and the past... Even now, I occassionally smell perfume or some other odor that can blast me back to my childhood. In a way, it’s a bit disarming that something so innocuous can have such a powerful result...) Anyhow – here’s the smelling of the starch:

I got Sheryl a portable XM Radio player that can go from car, to home radio to portable walkman. It’s so cool (and you better believe I bought two!); here’s Kennedy checking out the XM Kids station.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Kennedy got this great butterfly flashlight from Sheryl's sister - Patty and family. Kennedy took to it right away and hardly lets it out of her sight - which is problematic at nap time when we have to take it from her.

Kennedy enjoys shining the light on the walls and particularly likes tormenting Elle the cat with it too. We've had to chat about how we don't shine the light in Elle's eyes and to be gentle. Elle is such a great sport - nothing bothers that cat!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Kennedy's class has spanish instruction each week and her teacher said she is good at rolling rrrrrrs. They were practicing "rana" -- frog. They were also learning about "big" and "small" this week.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Kennedy's gifts just keep on coming. Aunt Patty, Uncle Darrin, cousins Amber and John sent her some really fun photographs of her birthday celebration. Here she is inspecting the photograph sheets.

Kennedy is fitting in very well in the twos room at daycare/school. This month they are working on family topics. We're sending pictures of Kennedy's immediate familywith her so and she can put them in a house that she has made. The house hangs on the wall. She's also been practicing greetings and goodbyes. She says "Hello Mommy" and "Goodbye Mommy". Very cute.

It's been raining quite a bit here. Kennedy's hair curls right up when there's moisture in the air.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

I think orange juice makes Kennedy super hyper. She had some with dinner tonight and she is bouncing off the walls, literally.

Kennedy helped me complete my ballot last night. We carefully went through all of our election literature (AFSCME, ACLU, Basic Rights Oregon) before we filled in the appropriate oval. This morning we made our way to the drop off site and it was crazy--so many people dropping off their ballots. Awesome.

Here's a picture of Kennedy and Elle from this past Sunday.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Sarah and Thomas (neighbors) don't know what they started getting Kennedy hooked on mini-cupcakes! She had this one at Sydney's (a new coffee shop at NW 15th and Thurman). We went there Sunday to see our friend Pamela perform with her guitar.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson visited yesterday and brought Kennedy her birthday gifts. Her favorite was this chalk/sketch board. She put it to use right away.

Today I heard Kennedy struggling with something in the closet. When I went to check it out, she had pulled her sidewalk chalk out. Smart girl. Why use the little pieces of chalk when you have sidewalk chalk available? Ha.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Our little artist at work… Kennedy is still too little to carve the pumpkins but luckily the party we went to last weekend had hair-spray covered pumpkins (all the better to hold the paint with… who would've thought?!?) Kennedy did a good job decorating the pumpkin – then we went for some coloring and book reading before heading home.

It’s election time – please make sure to vote!

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Ever since the remodel, Kennedy has been having fun pushing her rollercoaster across the wood floors. It's quite cute. It keeps her mind off of all that halloween candy we won't let her have! Ha.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

It took a lot of effort to get Kennedy dressed today. She threw a bit of a tantrum because we wouldn't let her dress in her bumble bee costume again. We finally negotiated with her that she could wear the bumble bee hat.

Bean Anderson