And MORE Pictures!

We took a poop sample in to the vet this morning. I suppose we'll hear back tomorrow or the next day about the results, but tonight (as far as I could tell in the dark, pouring rain) her poops seemed to have firmed up a bit. It's interesting having a dog who is afraid of thunder (thanks to the fireworks) and afraid of the dark (also thanks to the fireworks) and doesn't particularly like rain. At least tonight I finally got her to go out and do both #1 and #2 in the yard. Yay, Karenin! And now, on to more interesting topics.

In this picture to the left you can see my beautiful new wrap! Isn't it perfect?! Anja seems to love it too. Last night we took a walk over to Panera where we got coffee (okay, I'll admit that I got and Iced Mocha with lots of whipped cream and chocolate drizzle...) and read the magazines for free. Thanks to my sister-in-law AnnLaura, I recieve "Parenting" magazine in the mail each month. I like it--it's not my bible or anything, but it has interesting things in it and it's where I discovered the Barenaked Ladies CD "Snacktime." I pick up a few interesting tidbits from it each month and I enjoy getting it in the mail because I don't get many mailings that are addressed to "Annie Schap." Aaanyway... there is another magazine called "Parents" and it is entirely different. And to be frank, I really hate it. It basically makes to terrified to be a parent at all!! They tell you the dangers of EVERYTHING, and the articles are incredibly one-sided... which I guess is usually the way in magazines, but it really bothers me in this one. I shouldn't be bothered by it. I picked it up to read the cover article "The Worried Parent's Guide to Vaccines" and it turned out to just be the regular chart of when your child recieves vaccines and why vaccines are good and why more vaccines are better. Well I get that monthly when I visit my pediatrician and they give you those timelines to take home with you every month too, so I don't think it would be useful to many people who are subscribing to Parents Magazine. Of course, it might be useful to people who, like me, just go to the bookstore and read the magazines for free, so maybe I should stop being such a judger. But.... meeh. I can't help it sometimes.

This picture of Martin was taken at the Fiddler's Gathering. On his head is a headlight. He got it out at home because we wanted a flashlight in case a tornado really came ripping through our neighborhood and we had to go to our creepy basement. He packed it along in the backpack we took to Fiddler's and I made so much fun of him the whole time. Well, wasn't I glad he had it when we had to go sloshing through the mud to get back to our car at the end of the night! I never should've doubted him and all his weirdness.

And here we have Anja in a very goofy hat! Doesn't she look lovely? This was taken on Sunday while we were enjoying our porch. People say she looks like she's beginning to slim down, but as you can see, she still has plenty of rolls and is in no danger of being considered "skinny" anytime soon.

I am making an apron!! I am so incredibly proud of it... it's made from a single curtain. When converting the storage room into a weight room, Martin brought me this one red and white checked curtain and I immediately decided that it would make a perfect apron. So I took it over to my mom's house today and got to work on it. I designed it, but it took my mom, dad and myself to actually create it. It will hopefully be finished tomorrow. Stupidly, I forgot to take a picture of it while it was still the curtain! But maybe it'll be obvious when you see the apron how it looked before its conversion.

And now some more pictures, starting with this one of Anja playing with kitchen things on the foor. It looks like she's got pudding or some kind of food substance on her face, but really it's just a light reflection from the spoon. Also, the basket of cherries we picked from Mrs. Presti's cherry tree. I made a total of four pies from them, and two of them are small Martin and Annie-sized pies. I froze them because we had too many baked goods to eat at one time, and I'm hoping they will make a nice treat some night when we're craving dessert.

Trading Babies

My really, really attractive husband and his precious goddaughter

Gracie Girl, starring as the DishSoap Monster

Because we're all CRAZY!Theodore, taking up the majority of our dining room table.

Anja and her Mommy enjoying our new porch swing!

The other side of the family: kisses from Cousin Aurelio

Fresh out of the tub and so happy! And finally, a family portrait.

I know this is kind of picture overload... No more for awhile, I promise!