My Better Half

I'm just sitting here thinking how much I love that my husband single-handedly takes on all of Annie's bedtime routine . . . even though it is fraught with screaming and kicking and crying and sometimes requires that he put her in a humane headlock to brush her teeth. This 20-60 minutes of the evening is mine. Usually I have to feed, change and get Ellie down during this time too, but typically at least a chunk of that time is mine alone. I get to check email, or do a load of laundry (less fun, but nice to do without an infant underfoot, or a toddler 'helping') or even get another 20 pages into the book I've been making little progress on this week. Can't imagine what I'd do without him.

I also love that even though he had to wake up before sunrise on my birthday to get to work for a 12-13 hour day, he'd set his alarm extra early (like before 5AM), so he'd have time to write me a birthday letter letting me know how much he loves and appreciates me, and have it waiting on the nightstand for me when I woke up hours later.

I love that there's more nights than not where we get to bed ridiculously late because we just couldn't stop talking and laughing, even though we both know we are overly sleep deprived as of late, and could pretty desperately use a good 7 hour stretch of sleep.

I love that he's such an amazing cook and always wants to try and learn new things in the kitchen. I especially love that he gets a craving for Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies at 9PM and we get to go make them together and eat dough while we stay up late. (He forbid me from cooking any of them though, thus 'ruining his dough'. I cooked up a batch the next day though, on my birthday. They were SO good. I don't listen really well.)

I love that we get to celebrate his birthday this week. The fifth one we'll celebrate together. And then he'll finally be 30 years old too. And can stop cracking all of his 'older woman' jokes. It's tough being four days older. (And yes, for those keeping track, every one of our birthdays are within two and a half weeks of each other . . . it makes it awfully convenient though . . . we can have one big family barbeque a year and we're all covered! And we just have to save a lot of money for Christmas, then we have almost a half a year to save up for all the birthdays, then a good six months or more to save for Christmas again. At least with all of the birthdays all bunched together, they're spaced well from other costly holidays!)

Game Night

I've mentioned that my family loves to get together to play games. So, with it being my birthday and all, several members of my family showed up to play cards. Tonight it was 'Hand and Foot'. It was silly for the rest of us to even try to play the game with my sister Talina there, since it's long been established that she sold her soul to the Hand and Foot devil and hasn't lost a game in so long that none of us can remember such a thing happening.

Tonight it almost looked like her deal with the devil had lapsed though, with Greg and my Dad kicking some major butt for most of the game. In fact, they were within 25 points of winning after the fourth hand (you need 15,000 . . . it's the closest I've ever seen anyone get without winning the game), so we had to play another hand. Which is when Talina's card-foo was whipped out and the stars aligned and she was basically dealt a perfect hand and her and David managed to come back from a 3,000 deficit to win the game. She sucks. (I unfortunately seemed to have made my dark deal for the game "Settlers of Catan", which I have never lost. But, my family rarely plays it, so that amazing winning streak hasn't helped me show off my Settlers superiority with my own family. Talina has a much more useful winning streak in place, as "Hand and Foot" is a family favorite.)

My Mom and I were the third team playing. We lost. Big. A lot. Possibly as much as anyone we've ever seen lose this game . . . and we've been playing it for decades. After the first hand we were a MINUS 215 points. It's shocking how poorly we did. You think with it being my birthday and all, we'd have had some luck, or at least people would've been nicer to us, letting us play through our hand before 'going out' and ending the round before Mom & I had been able to accomplish anything. Every single time. I'm still reeling by the sheer suckyness of our hands, our luck, our play . . . all of it. For anyone who's ever played it . . . my Mom got caught with her foot Every. Single. Hand. That's amazing. I didn't even think it was possible to suck that much. And yet we did.

I think I'm suggesting "Settlers of Catan" for next week's family game night. :-)

Happy Birthday to Me

So, I'm thirty years old today.

(This picture is from two weeks ago at Sea World, but that seemed recent enough.)

I don't feel differently. I don't know what I expected, not that I thought there'd be any dramatic difference or anything, but today feels like any other day. Except that today I turn thirty. And that's pretty cool. I don't mind turning thirty (not that I had a choice or anything), in fact, thirty feels good. Really good. I look at thirty and quickly realize I am happier, healthier and better off than I was at twenty, and that's a pretty cool feeling. I have an amazing husband, two beautiful girls, a great life, a cute home, a lot of new and old friends, surrounded by supportive and loving family, have a community I love to live in, a great ward to be a part of, and I am really, really happy. Happier than I ever have been before. So what's so bad about time moving forward when things just keep getting better?

The one slightly sour note on the day, is that Greg has to work. From like 5:30AM to 6:30PM, so I won't see him much today. As the single most important person in my life, it'd be nice to have him here on my birthday, but it's not a huge deal. I have recently discovered that I'm not really the most sentimental person when it comes to 'days'. Do I want to celebrate my birthday with my husband. Of course. But I don't care if we do that today, next week, next weekend. Whenever. Same with our Anniversary. I'm not someone who really cares about Valentines Day at all; I wouldn't mind going out to celebrate it with my husband, but no way will I go out on the actual 14th, since everything's so crowded. We just celebrated Ellie's first birthday, a pretty big milestone in life, and yet we didn't open presents on her actual birthday, or even the next . . . we just waited 'til she was in a relatively good mood and then did it then. I'm just realizing recently that although it is important to me to celebrate life's events and markers, I just don't really care when I do it. Kinda makes me think back to my Memorial Day post, making me better understand my thoughts on the cemetery thing. I think it comes down to I feel it is vitally important to remember those who aren't with us anymore. To pay homage to those who sacrificed or went on before us. I think cemeteries are sacred ground (probably part of the reason that lawn chairs and picnics there kinda weird me out -- not that I think that's wrong, it's just odd to me), that are due proper respect and even a little reverence. I think our children are better people if they have at least some understanding of where we come from, what makes our family what it is. I think it's important to remember my little sister, the role and standing she has in our family, even if she's not here with us. I think going to her graveside and helping to cut back any over growth, going and getting water and washing off her headstone and placing beautiful new flowers in her vase was an important part of my upbringing. But to me, there's something about an arbitrary day picked when everyone shows up and overcrowds a place I usually find peaceful and private. I think that's just another reason why I'm not a big 'spend the day at the cemetery on Memorial Day' type of person. I do, however, feel that any excuse to get together with family is worthwhile, especially if it so happens to be a three day weekend. Anyway, back to the original point . . . yeah, today is my birthday. It's a relatively big deal, a celebration or marking of the day I was born. But when I celebrate it doesn't so much matter to me. Just that there's a little celebration on my behalf. :-)

Princess Lessons with Annie

Annie's become obsessed with all things Princesses. I don't know why it happens around this age, seemingly without any real effort or influence on the part of anyone else. (She was talking about Cinderella months before she ever saw a single Princess movie). It's almost like sometime during this last year all the girls her age became obsessed with Disney Princesses and all the boys became "Cars" fanatics.

Despite our buying her a beautiful new Princess bed (complete with canopy and new Princess bedding), she used the following excuse for not wanting to go to sleep the other night:
"I can't sleep in there! I don't have a Princess-y enough room!"

So, we did buy some wall vinyl things that have princess-type-stuff on them at the Dollar Store the other day, not that she won't just use a new non-sleeping excuse, but at least her room is a tad more 'princess-y'. Which is apparently vitally important when you're three.

Also, while on our Dollar Store run, we also bought this two pack of tiaras . . . one 'big girl' one, and one baby headband one. Annie loves them . . . I still can't believe it was a dollar for both of these. Here her and Annie are wearing them today:

Annie telling me about how princesses act:

(And she's harder to understand here that normal . . . she's been on a weird 'baby talk' kick. It's mildly obnoxious.)

I think this coming year is the Strawberry Shortcake and High School Musical year. We're looking, um, forward to it, I guess.

Two Little Monkeys . . .

Annie heard Ellie wake up from her nap before I did. By the time I made it to Ellie's room (approximately 30 seconds after Annie), Annie had already climbed up and into Ellie's crib with her. And they were having the time of their lives.

(Annie answers, "I turned on Ellie's thermopeter," in response to my asking what she was doing. A minute later, she looked at it again and laughed and laughed and said, "I meant monitor!")

Annie spent a big chunk of the morning taking pictures while she played. She has pictures of her cleaning her room, playing computer games and of her books she was reading. This was my favorite of her 'self portraits' though.

Unrelated, Annie is now referring to her little sister primarily as, "Ella my Bella." She's said it all day long. It's very cute.

Early to Bed . . .

After a terribly grumpy day (for all involved) that dissolved into a giant pile of tears and screaming Annie was firmly placed in bed around 6:30PM and told we were done for the day. She fell asleep around 7:00PM. Ellie, who'd napped earlier than normal, also was asleep for the night right around 7:00 too. This was all great from the stand point of me being tired, kinda sick and achy, and so very, very done for the day. I was able to get a few things done, spend some time with Greg, veg out a little watching craptacular TV 'cause nothing good is on, and Greg even got to sleep around 10:30. I am far less intelligent though, and stayed up until midnight. Which is right about the time the girls took turns waking up almost every hour on the hour. Good times. Poor Ellie is coughing so hard now, and both have really runny noses. I hate when the girls are sick, especially little Ellie, 'cause I just imagine the soreness and achiness and sore throat and I just feel so bad for them. At least Annie understands that it'll be over in a few days. I always wonder if babies have this feeling of, "Holy crap! What happened to my life!? It's so painful and horrible now . . . I'm so stuffed up I can barely breathe and my chest hurts when I cough, and I feel awful . . . why did life take this dramatic turn for the worse?!" Anyway, they were up a lot last night . . . but I think all in all, with the early bedtime, and sleeping in 'til about 7:30, they both caught up on some sleep. Which was sorely needed. Hopefully today'll go a lot better than yesterday. I need it. Plus, Greg is now working 12 hour days through Saturday (which is my birthday), so he gets home about an hour before they go to sleep. Meaning that I don't get that nice little break around 4:30 that I've gotten so used to. (As my law-school-widow-sister-in-law is probably thinking, "Yeah, that'd be tough, ya whiner." :-) She'd have a point.)

Oh, unrelated, but Annie has come up with her own nickname for Ellie. She calls her "Ella" now. When she's talking to her, it's all, "Hey Ella, let's go play in my room," or "Ella!! ELLA!!! Stop looking at me!" I just think it's cute she's come up with her very own name for her sister. Even if she is yelling it at her half the time.

Oh, and Annie was having a conversation with her My Little Pony Baby this morning at breakfast that went something like this . . . "Yeah, my Mom is amazing. A-mazing. Well, kinda. Well, not really. Maybe she's a little amazing. I don't know if she's amazing or not."

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was always one of my very, very favorite holidays as a kid. For a few reasons. It was a big family reunion, camping out over the weekend, and we got an extra day off school, and it was always right around my birthday. Each year we went up above Coalville, Utah to a place we called "Flat Rock". Thus named 'cause one whole side of the mountain was solid rock. And, um, flat. The whole area had long ago been our family's property. Now, generations later, we came up every Memorial Day weekend and we'd hike up and down that mountain all day. We'd sit on that giant slab of rock and find the fossils and shells preserved in stone, high up in the mountains . . . marveling that at one point it had all been underwater. We'd climb in and out of the 'cougar caves' along the side of it. We played in the creek, each year trying to damn it off with our own little mix of sticks and mud. We, over the years, watched a giant dead cow go from a pile of gross skin and a full skelton, to the year we finally couldn't find a single bone anymore in it's spot. Hey, we were kids, that was cool. We explored the family cemetery that dated back to the early Utah pioneers. We watched Great Aunt Nancy proudly plop herself down on the ground of that cemetery, exclaiming she would be the last person buried there. The only unused plot being hers, next to her first husband who had died decades and decades ago. (This always freaked out her grandchildren, "Grandma, stand up! Stand up!" as she laid there with her eyes closed and her arms crossed across her chest. We just thought she was the coolest old lady we knew.) We trespassed into the field full of someone else's sheep to explore the small dilapidated one room shack that my ancestors had built when first settling the area. We played a big family reunion sized game of softball each year . . . with stuff like, "That big rock over there," or "The dried out cow pie," as bases. All of my Mom's cousins and family came up there. I only saw most of these people once a year. I didn't even remember all their names (and wouldn't recognize most of them if I saw them on the street now,) but I loved playing in that creek with them. Or having our side of the family beat theirs in cow pie softball.
One of my favorite parts growing up, was that I was the 'Memorial Day baby.' The only year my Mom could remember not going there during her lifetime was the year she had me. On May 30th, Memorial Day. From then on, my birthday was celebrated up in those mountains. Cousins removed and seconded and all that knew who I was. I was the birthday girl. My Mom would bring up a giant sheet cake, and everyone would sing to me. I got gifts from people who's names I didn't know. It all added to my already over inflated sense of birthday importance. :-)
It was all very, very cool.
A decade or so ago though, the property was sold, and the new owners would 'prefer' that our family no longer came up to visit. And by prefer, I think they promised that trespassers would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And they wanted to put in a helicopter pad. Weanies.
Anyway, that ended our family tradition. And nothing has stepped in to fill it's place. Making Memorial Day a bit sad for me.
Fortunately, Greg's family does have a tradition or two in place. The last few years we've gone down to Spring Lake, in Payson to celebrate the holiday with Greg's maternal grandmother's side of the family. There's fried chicken to eat, green hills to roll down, and ducks to feed in a small lake/big pond. And all of this follows heading out to a couple different cemeteries to place flowers on the graves of the dearly departed. I like that my kids will have some sense of 'tradition' on this holiday. It's good too that they get that whole 'cemetery' thing with the family, 'cause I know I wouldn't be good at that on my own. I have no problem going to the cemetery, taking flowers on birthdays or days with special meaning. Trips to my little sisters grave on her birthday or Christmas were important to me growing up. Even more so were the times we went randomly, to cut away any overgrowth, and wash off the stone. But I have to admit though, I'm not a 'Memorial Day' cemetery person. The cemeteries are ridiculously crowded . . . and the crazy traffic trying to weave in and out on small, old roads in small town cemeteries kinda stresses me out. I'm also, admittedly, a little weirded out by the lawn chairs and picnic lunches I see around. I see that and I think, "Um, they're not there anymore. I'm sure they rather you go somewhere in the shade or something to remember them." I have a theory that if I was dead, I wouldn't want my family to come hang out at my grave side to remember me. There's other places I believe should mean more to them, more to me. If I was dead, and got to come 'hang out' around my family for the day (assuming 'Memorial Day' is some kinda 'free pass' day for the dead to come back and visit . . . I'm making this all up in my head as I go), I would rather they go to the zoo, or to Lake Powell or something. Who wants to hang out at their own graveside all day? That'd be kinda depressing, like, "Yeah, there's my body . . . right under there . . . seriously, can't we head out to Chuck E Cheese's or something and go have fun . . . " Of course, it's people like me who necessitate lectures like my sister Talina's ward got about "Young people these days not showing the proper respect for the holiday." So, what about you guys . . . what do you do on Memorial Day? Are cemeteries a big part of that? And if yes, what exactly do you do?
Anyway, Monday was a lot of fun, although Annie was crazily grumpy and Ellie (who usually takes a nap around 9:30 in the morning did not fall asleep until THREE FORTY FIVE in the AFTERNOON!) was tired, but surprisingly well behaved. Annie though . . . her grandpa made the observation, "I'm thinking that if I was to give Annie a brand new real live pony right now, she still wouldn't be happy." So true. She was pissy. We had her friend Kian with us too, and fortunately, he was a super happy the whole time (which was amazing if you consider he's under three years old, and was away from his parents the entire day, in weird places with random people he didn't really know, with a LOT of time spent in a car). When Annie wasn't being difficult though, she did have fun playing outside with Kian and the other kids there. The highlights were feeding the ducks (who were so overfed that they did not care about the bread . . . that did kinda annoy Annie and Kian), rolling in the grass, and playing with the dogs that were there.

Here's Greg and Annie watching the ducks on Spring Lake.

Annie and Kian sharing bread for the ducks.

Annie giving Kian a big ol' hug . . . he looks so resistant here, which is funny, 'cause usually both of them are quite cuddly with one another!

Greg & Ellie (who didn't get to spend too much time out in the sun, 'cause she refused to keep her hat on.)

Aunt Andrea, Annie, Greg and Ellie. Annie was having fun playing with the bell on Andrea's bike, and I liked her little 'shy' pose here . . .

Annie & Kian watching the ducks.

Kian rolling down the hill.

Annie rolling. She was doing pretty good with it, but both her and Kian would start rolling 'across' the hill, instead of down . . . which is significantly more work and funnier to watch!
Annie and Kian loved playing with the dogs there. They're pretty happy to have little Jill here with them.

More posing with Jill.

Ellie was a really big fan of the dogs too . . . she just kept reaching out for them and yelling in their general direction!

It was a long day, and all three kids did finally crash on the drive home.

And then I dominated the entire drive home at the 'Alphabet Game'. (Greg will argue this, claiming he won all three times we played . . . but I say he cheated . . . I was handing Annie a drink of water when he saw that Suzuki sign and claimed his 'Z'; and overall I just felt I played better. Sure he was the driver, putting him at a slight disadvantage, and he finished first all three games . . . but it's not so much in the destination as in the journey, and I felt my overall play and technique were superior. Or something. I'm just better at it!!)

Birthday Girls -- Two Years Apart

Annie & Ellie both wore the same outfit on their first birthdays (good thing I had another teeny tiny girl who could wear 6 month clothing at a year, or we would've missed the photo op!) :-)

So, I thought I'd show some pictures of each girl in the birthday outfit (not to be confused with the birthday suit . . . I'd be more worried about putting those pics on the web!) :-)

Naps. Lots of naps.

Amazingly, my children are little sleeping machines today. This is so unlike normal that it is shocking. Ellie took almost an hour long nap earlier today, and is down for another one already. Annie, the real surprise, put herself down for a nap (mostly naked, on the hall floor with a pillow and a blanket) that lasted almost THREE hours! Of course, to assure that their sleep wasn't overly helpful to me, they did space it out as follows: Ellie sleeps for one hour, wakes up just as Annie is falling asleep. After several hours, Ellie (who'd been pretty clingy and grumpy . . . I think she's getting sick), was eye rubbing and I put her down in bed. Approximately TWO MINUTES after I heard her last cry, Annie woke up the nap-of-amazing-length. Good timing you guys! Basically means that I have had one kid or another asleep since 10AM this morning, but not a minute to myself. So everyone is getting enough sleep but me!!

Last of the Birthday Parties ('til this weekend)

I guess my girls' birthdays are officially over. We had our last, and most important party, with all the family. The girls had fun, although both were fairly tired after a fairly jam packed week (last couple weeks, actually). Of course, tired didn't stop Annie from staying up 'til almost 10 that night, playing cards and Apples to Apples with the rest of us.

On Monday Annie opened one last gift, from Great Grandma Verla at the Memorial Day family reunion (I took pictures of Annie and her friend Kian, who we had with us for the day, so that'll be another post), which I think pretty much wrapped up our girls' birthday celebrations. Just short of a week long, so not bad. My birthday is this week, then Greg's is four days later, so we still have some celebrating to come, but I think we're done with the girls' for this year.
Below are some pictures from Sunday night, while we celebrated with a lot of our family. We missed having the girls cousins here this year, since Annie would've loved to have had another her sized person there to play with and maybe then we would've blown up the bouncy house again like at her second birthday party for her and Connor, but we felt lucky to have had as much family show up as we did.

Ellie took advantage of a distracted Mom, and grabbed her own spaghetti bowl and went to town. So, I just let her feed herself the whole meal. It was adorably messy.Here's Ellie with Aunt Andrea. Ellie's in outfit #2 here (there were three altogether.)I think Ellie loved this birthday card more than just about any other present, at least for awhile we couldn't get her interested in opening other gifts.

Annie's ever present tongue, and Ellie practically making out with the baby doll Grandma Ruth gave her.Annie hugging her new dress that Grandma Ruth made her, Ellie back to her beloved card.

Ellie with her new baby doll.Ellie using her new baby doll as a teething toy.

Annie with her new Madame Alexander doll that Grandma Ruth gave her. Grandma even made her a beautiful little dress, to match the amazing dress she'd made for Annie. Annie's pretty excited that they can be twins.

Ellie was so tired by this point . . . and since she's not typically a 'cuddly' baby, I enjoyed the snuggly time.

Annie happy about another pretty dress!

Ellie staring at her cake with awe . . . right before she tried to grab it and Uncle David blew it out from across the table just in time.

Ellie enjoying her cake.

Yum.

Annie was also a fan of cake (her sheer joy probably comes from it being real cake with chocolate frosting . . . Ellie had a carrot/fruit sweetened cake with no added sugar and almost no added fat.)

Annie got almost as messy as Ellie though.

Although, only Ellie got frosting up on her eyebrows.Ellie and Uncle Cody eating bread together.

This is one tired little birthday girl with her Uncle Cody.

Annie making sure Grandpa K.C. had his chance to talk with Aurora and Belle on her new princess phone.

Annie's new princess book came with the above phone, plus some cute little cardboard makeup compacts. So she promptly ran upstairs and grabbed some of my brushes so she could apply the fake makeup. To Uncle Cody.

Touching up her own makeup.

Uncle Cody was subjected to a lot of fake makeup.

Oh, and one story from the party I wanted to add . . . before it started, Annie had been playing around in the backyard and riding her tricycle. So she had her helmet on. Then she went to play tether ball with Uncle Cody (have I mentioned we have a tether ball pole in our back yard . . . the girls LOVE it! Annie likes to hit the ball around, and Ellie thinks it's hilarious to watch it swing around. Annie is notoriously bad at tether ball :-) . . . it knocks her around quite a bit.) Cody asked if she wanted him to take her helmet off while the played, to which responded, "No Cody, that's OK. You'll just hit me in the head with the ball soon anyway."

Ellie Boo

Ellie Belly. Jelly Belly. Ellie Boo. Ellie Belly Boo. Ells Bells. Belly. Bells.

My little girl is one. I mean, yeah, I posted that days ago. But it's sinking in now.

We didn't actually open any presents on Ellie's actual birthday. By the time Greg got home from work, she was napping. Then we got doing something. Then she was just freakishly grumpy, and it didn't seem worth it. So, we'd just do it the next day. Except, the next day we only got around to opening one of her three gifts, the one from Annie. The one Annie had no more patience but to give her it right now, even though Greg wasn't home. Ellie didn't open the two other gifts (the two from her parents) until a few days after her birthday. But, it's not like she cared one way or another. She didn't even turn out to be much of a ripping-the-paper-apart fan anyway. She did have some fun playing with her new toys, but even more fun with birthday cards she got in the mail. Currently though, she's really best entertained by any clapping song . . . (start singing the words, "If you're happy and you know it . . . " and she's already enthusiastically clapping her hands together) and peek a boo. The only toys she has a real interest in right now are big push-along kinda things, so she can haul butt from one side of the kitchen to the other without having to clutch one chair after another to slowly cruise across the room. Well, those and any toy Annie's playing with.

Here Ellie is with her wrapping paper. It's apparently fascinating.

So happy! Apparently her new toy has a tag!!

Just a goofy face that made me smile, so it's being immortalized here on the blog.

Later that day, my friend Rachel and her son Jovanny (who's four days younger than Ellie), came over to visit. Ellie and Jovanny had the best time crawling across a big sheet that Rachel and Greg would lift up and get filled with air, then the babies would quickly crawl across it, 'deflating' the sheet. I don't know if the description there makes sense. But it was hilarious, and you've never seen two one-year olds so entertained.

Jovanny.Ellie having a great time . . . although looking slightly drugged, 'cause it was past bedtime.

I mentioned Ellie's favorite game being peek-a-boo. Here's her playing her game with a blanket this morning. Then later that morning she kept pulling her shirt out real far in front, then sticking her head into it to hide, then pulling her head out and laughing hysterically.


Jovanny and Ellie were just squealing and laughing playing in the sheet . . . but by the time I got my camera turned on to record it, Ellie was more interested in coming to see me and the camera (you can see Jovanny in the backgroud, trying his best to single-handedly flatten the sheet.)

The next two are a bit longer, but I was too lazy to open any kinda editing software. Ellie's enjoying her new present from her big sister, singing along, but Annie was more interested in being the camera hog and showing off her dancing skills. Earlier Annie had said, "Why is he singing to Shorty? Who is Shorty? It's mine and Ellie's birthday!"
In the first video, Annie keeps referring to Annie's present as a "Bad to the Bone". This is 'cause she too has a singing dog, it just happens to sing "Bad to the Bone" instead of "In Da Club." Then Annie breaks into spontaneous dancing and while watching this video Greg laughed so hard he could barely choke out the words, "She dances just like you!" (Not the flapping, but the wickedly-cool-feet-up-in-the-air-break-dance . . . unfortunately for me, such a video exists of me doing some very similar (eerily similar) dance moves. Sadly, the video was taken when I was 11 or 12, not three. And it was to Paula Abdul's "Straight Up." Don't mock me. Oh, and I should point out that my father got great joy in showing said video to Greg. While we dating.)



More of Annie's amazing (apparently inherited) dance moves.