Easter preview

Anneliese had an Easter egg hunt at school today. I'm glad she got to practice a round because her egg hunting skills leave a little to be desired. I think those boys on Henke Hill may run her over tomorrow!

Her class had a visit from the Easter bunny. And can I just say that my little girl was the only one in her class who wasn't afraid of the Easter bunny! She marched right up to him and crawled up on his lap for a picture.



Then it was on to hunt for the eggs the Easter bunny left for them. This is why she's not too fast at this game - she likes to stop and show me everyone that she picks up!



She did speed up a little and ended up with quite a load of eggs!



Hopefully she speeds up a lot tomorrow so she can keep up with all of those boys! Happy Easter, everyone! I'll try to add more pics soon. Love to all!

Spring Break

Let me just start this post off by saying that I had this entire thing typed and ready to be posted when I somehow deleted the whole thing! And of course, this darn thing is so good at saving every minute or so, the last draft was completely blank. UGGGGGHHHHH! Oh well, her we go again . . .

So, another spring break has come and gone. If anyone knows where the time goes, can you please try to get it back! It seems like I just went back to school and now I'm on the downhill slide towards summer. Not bad when it comes to having a couple of months off, but not so good when you're trying to savor every moment with a 2-year-old.

We decided to stay home and do a couple of things in Austin this year. Our fun started on Thursday afternoon. We took Anneliese to Zilker Park to ride the train. The park has a small train that takes you around the park and Town Lake. She loves trains and had a blast riding it. She still says daily, "I ride choo choo." I forgot to take a picture of her on the train. Oops. But I did get a couple of shots of her playing on the playground before the train took off.

We then took her to the rodeo so she could see some of the animals. That girl was in heaven!

First, she rode a pony. She thought it was really funny when the pony started talking to her. Ask her and she'll tell you what that pony said. ;)

Then it was on to the petting zoo. I thought she might be a little scared of the animals, but she grabbed the cup of feed and went up to every animal that would let her get close. She kept scooping up the mulch off the ground trying to get the animals to eat more. She had no fear . . .

. . . until this llama tried to eat her hair. That freaked her out a little, but it didn't last long.



After she survived all of the animals, she got her very own ice cream cone! She loved getting to carry it around and of course, made a complete mess of herself. But that was okay because she looked adorable and had a great time!



On Friday, we took her to see her first movie (well, technically, not her first movie because she went with us to see a movie when she was a little baby, but the first one for her to watch) - Horton Hears a Who. All week long, all we heard was "ephalant movie? yeah?" (she's working on her elephant pronunciation!). After she ate an entire hot dog and watched 15 minutes of previews she says, "Go bye bye now?" And I thought that this wasn't going to go well and I was getting a little bummed because I really wanted to be able to see the whole movie. Well, she composed herself and watched the first part of the movie, slept through the middle and woke up in time to see the end. I'd say it was a successful movie experience! I've got to be honest, I'm excited that she's getting to this age because now I have someone to go see the "kid" movies with me!

Then came the weekend and what a weekend it was! Jason, Missy, Corey and Constance along with Brett and Jason's friend Whitney came over for a little pre-Fiddlers' Frolics barbecue. Needless to say, the weather was BEAUTIFUL on Saturday. Anneliese and Constance practically played until they dropped. They were running in and out of the house all day, playing with every single toy Anneliese has.

Here's Anneliese having a little pre-party drink, preparing herself for the fun about to begin.



She decided to practice her frown for a minute.



We were practicing our washer throwing skills to prepare for the weekend. I guess Anneliese has one too many sips of juice (she must take after her Uncle Jason).



Unfortunately, I was too busy having a good time on Saturday, so I forgot to take pictures. I did get one picture during one of the more quiet times that Constance and Anneliese had.



And perhaps, some of us had more fun than the others. This was at about 9:30 Saturday night. It'd been a long day!



To his defense, he did get back up to play a couple more washer games. Of course it took a few yells, pushes and kicks to get him there. ;) Brandon and Jason C. did a great job on the brisket and Jason cooked some really good beans so I think we're ready for barbecue cook-off season to begin!

Check back soon for an Easter update!

New Toy!

For Anneliese's 2nd birthday, we decided it was time for her to have a swingset. After much searching, we finally bought one! Of course, then we had to wait for a weekend with nice weather for the boys to get to work. Well, a few weekends ago was the perfect weekend! Anneliese and I went in to Hallettsville so that I could help dad with the Jr. High Track Meet (an annual tradition). While we were there, my fabulous husband and excellent brother got to work on the swingset. It took them most of the day on Saturday and a couple of hours on Sunday, but the outcome was well worth all of the work because Anneliese was SOOOOOO excited to see her very own swing and slide in her very own backyard. I think we're in for a lot of fun this spring and summer!

And I'll leave you with a few of her "2 Year Old" pictures. Once again, JC Penney's did a great job!

Happy Easter, everyone! I'll try to update the blog with an Easter post before the summer! ;)

p.s. If there are any bloggers reading this who can tell me how to get spaces between my pictures, I would appreciate your help.

Birthday month, continued

January was a super busy month! Besides Anneliese's birthday, Mandy and Shawn welcomed Lila into the world and I celebrated my 30th birthday!

First of all, Lila Greer Echols was born on January 7. Anneliese and I went to see baby Lila and new mommy Mandy in the hospital, but I did not get one single picture. :( We went to see them again this past week and I finally got a couple of great pictures.

Anneliese was so excited to get to hold Lila. She decided to give her a kiss!

Then she crawled up on Mandy's lap and sang her ABC's to Lila. It was so cute!

We are so happy for Mandy and Shawn and can't wait for Anneliese and Lila to play together!

After Anneliese's birthday, it was time for me to celebrate the Big 3-0! I was totally excited about it because I just love birthdays! The night before my actual birthday, I had a moment of thinking "Oh Lord, I'm 30. I don't feel old but it sure does sound old. Does this mean I need to start acting older?" Luckily, I got over the moment pretty quickly and decided 30 doesn't sound so bad. On Friday, a bunch of us went out to eat and then to Midnight Rodeo to celebrate my birthday and Jeff's birthday. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of Jeff and I on our birthday night (I'm really not good at this picture thing!), but I did get a few great pictures.

Here's the gang at Chili's:

I love this picture because it's with my 2 favorite guys!

And I love these pictures because I'm with a few of my favorite people in this whole world!

And finally, I'll leave you with a few pictures of our very fun 2-year-old!

And a picture of Anneliese with Constance and their Granddaddy!

I'll try to be better about updating more often, but I can't make any promises! ;)

Happy Birthday, finally!

Well, it's February 8 and I'm finally getting around to putting birthday pics on the computer! Ugh, I've been a little behind lately. And then this week I've seen that all of the other bloggers have very recent updates and I figured I better get to it! A little warning - this blog will probably be quite long with tons of pictures so feel free to jump around or come back later. I guess a super long post is the effect of waiting too long to make one. Sorry about that. Here we go . . .

Our sweet baby girl turned 2 on January 17. I have no idea where the last 2 years have gone. All I know is that it is really a stretch (or wishful thinking) to think of Anneliese as a baby anymore. She is turning into such a big girl. Here we go on the tons of pictures . . .

We made cupcakes the night before her birthday so that she could take them to school on her birthday to share with her teachers and friends. Anneliese enjoyed licking the spoon!


Here's what we found when we went into her room on the morning of her birthday to wake her up. I don't know if there's many things in this world sweeter than a baby sleeping with butt up in the air. (I know Mel agrees with me.)


We woke her up early so she'd have time to open a present before she left to for school. Here are the first pictures of Anneliese turning 2. Note, these pics were taken at 6:10 a.m. ;)



On the night of her birthday, we had this great plan to just pick up some chicken nuggets and stay home so she'd have time to play with her new toys and enjoy a cupcake. But then I smoked us out of the house because Jason and I started a fire and forgot to open flue - it's an amusing story if you haven't heard it. Anyway, we had to leave the house to air it out, but we still had time to enjoy a birthday cupcake.


Then on Saturday, the real partying began. We had a little party for Anneliese at Gattitown and she had a great time (and I think the other kids did too)! We all enjoyed the buffet, cupcakes and then of course, all of the games. Of course, it was next to impossible to get pictures of the kids playing games and the ones that I did take were all blurry because none of them stayed still for long in the game room. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with her!










When we got home, Granny and Grandpa had another surprise waiting for Anneliese. They gave her this really great playhouse to put out in the yard. She and Constance had quite a time playing in it!


Anneliese had a great birthday and Saturday was tons of fun. By the end of the day, we were all pooped! Here's how our Saturday night ended (by 10:00):


I've got a ton of more things to share but this is probably enough for one post. Check back very soon because I'll finish the birthday month soon.

Love to all!

Zachary

On Saturday morning, Zach lost his battle with leukemia. Please pray for his family because they are going to need a lot of strength to get through this time.
Take a minute to tell everyone around you how much you love them and appreciate every second that you have with them because we never know when God is going to call us home to Him.

Merry Christmas!

Before I start my Christmas blog, I have a big favor to ask everyone out there who's reading this. As I type this blog, my 33 year old cousin, Zach, is in intensive care in MD Anderson fighting for his life. Some of you know, he has had several battles with Leukeumia and it's back and right now it's not looking good. Zach, his wife Jill and their 3 young children, Riley, Regan and baby Zach need your prayers. If you can, please take just a moment and pray for them to have strength and healing. Thank you.

I hope everyone out there had a very Merry Christmas! I know that we had a very busy couple of days but they were so much fun and it was great getting to spend so much time with our families!

Our Christmas started off on Christmas Eve morning. Santa made an early delivery to our house and Anneliese was really ready to see what he was going to bring her. When she saw what he had left for her, her first words were "Oh! Oh!"

She's so happy with what Santa brought her (for those of you who heard the story - notice the bear that Santa thought she wanted!)


Tearing in to her first gift (which we let her open the night before).


She loves the Elmo flashlight!




We spent the morning opening presents at our house before heading down to Hallettsville. We made a quick stop at mom and dad's house so that Anneliese could see Mom-boo and open more presents. She got a doll that talks and moves and it sort of freaks us out a little but Anneliese loves it! She has even figured out how to turn it on by herself which is not necessarily a good thing. ;)



Then it was on to Sublime for the Noska family Christmas. We opened more presents and Anneliese had a GREAT time playing with her cousin Constance. Constance was being so sweet and sharing everything she had with Anneliese, even her brand new high heels that Santa brought her!



I think they had the most fun playing "Ring Around the Rosey." Anneliese loves that game and is quite good at singing the song all by herself. I bet they spun around in circles for a good 15 minutes. I don't know how they kept spinning because the rest of us were dizzy just watching them! It was so great seeing the two of them playing together and it kind of gave us a glimpse of what lies ahead with those two! Constance actually said "Hers is going to be my best friend!" I hope they continue to be friends as they grow up. I was so fortunate growing up with so many cousins my age and I love that they are now my best friends. I hope Anneliese will have similar experiences with her cousins as she grows up. Of course, it was also great to see the rest of Brandon's family.



It was then on to my mom and dad's house for Midnight Mass. Anneliese actually went all day Christmas Even without a nap and continued to go strong until the homily during Midnight Mass. She was quite the handful because she never stopped moving for fear that if she stopped she would fall asleep. I think we were all very thankful when she finally did fall asleep!

We woke up Christmas morning and of couse, opened more presents.







Then it was on to Eagle Lake to see the rest of the Noska family and Anneliese had more good times playing with Constance and opening more presents.

This picture was just so cute, I had to share. It was "monkey see, monkey do" with these two. I made Anneliese put her hood on because it was so windy, so of course Constance had to put hers on too.


Finally, we ended our Christmas rounds at Aunt Barbsie and Uncle Roberts' house for another awesome Henke Christmas! I think they get better and better every year and with each year that passes, I am more and more grateful for our great family! Of course, we opened more presents and Anneliese got to play with her cousins. I somehow managed to never take the camera out of the car so a big thanks to Aunt Barbsie for sharing her pics!







Thanks to everyone for all of your love and gifts! We are so blessed to have so many people to spend the holidays with.

2008 already looks like it's going to be a great year. I know there will be a big
2nd birthday around here, a couple of sure-to-be-fun weddings and some new additions to the Henke family! We can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings. Here's to hoping that everyone has a GREAT 2008! Happy New Year!

Love, Brandon, Jennifer & Anneliese