Our little Esther Williams (video)

The other little girl in this video is Anne's friend Alessandra, whose nanny is good friends with Anne's nanny, Lucia. Anne's bathing beauty ensemble is from Gram Sheri.

Anne's playhouse

Anne's friends like playing house with her. (Unfortunately, Anne's best friend, Cora, who is pictured, just moved away to California. We're all sad, but so far, Skype has kept them connected.)

She screams for ice cream

Anne actually calls it "cold yogurt." Which is so cute, we don't really try to correct her. The sample size is just right for holding onto. While she finishes ours. (click to enlarge)

Good morning! (video)

Butterfly

Anne has just reached the stage where she is starting to do imaginative play, like pretending to be a fairly or pretending to be a butterfly. She likes to wear her fairy wings and tiara and read a book called, "Alice the Fairy" that her friend Alexa gave her for a birthday gift. (Anne says, "I'm a fee-wee!" just like Alice does.) She also likes to pretend to be a butterfly, or at least to insist that we pretend to be butterflies. Anne also likes to pretend to have dinner. When Mom asks what we should eat for dinner, Anne lists her favorites. "Cupcakes hotdogs!" she yells. She usually adds to the list corn, guacamole and mac and cheese.

A good time was had by all

We celebrated Anne's second birthday Saturday with a party at our house. One of Anne's favorite music performers, Mr. Skip, came to play. Anne couldn't believe he was in her house! She had 18 kids and their parents, and a few adult friends, over for the party. Everyone had a good time, and there were no meltdowns. Her nanny, Lucia, and Lucia's friend Elsa made the cake and some other goodies for the party. Anne is shown with Lucia holding her in the picture collage.

(click to enlarge)

Anne is two! (video and pictures)

Anne celebrated her second birthday on Thursday ... with cupcakes (3!). She knows birthdays involve cake. She was a bit surprised when her parents and grandparents all sang to her. But then she sang "Happy Birthday" to herself all evening.

Her favorite presents were a singing picnic basket full of pretend goodies and a new play house for the backyard. She called it "home."