Here’s a video of Anna “calling” her best bud Olivia on the phone.  She’ll just randomly pick up her toy cell phone and “call” people and have full conversations with them.  It’s hilarious.  I wish I could get her on video more often doing this but the second I start videoing she shuts up….of course.  We happened to catch this while her back was turned and it’s just too funny.

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Anna did pretty good at the church’s Christmas pageant.  She was at the front of the pack of angels as she ran down the aisle and had a big smile on her face.  She spotted me at the front and waved as she went by.  However, once she got to the front she thought better of it and walked down the aisle to sit with me.  She couldn’t decide if she wanted to go up with the rest of the kids or not and ended up sitting in the middle of the aisle at the front of the church for most of it, but that’s ok.  I was just so thrilled that she ran up to the front with the other little girls.  Here’s a little video I put together.

Since moving to Chattanooga, Anna and I have started going to church with my parents each Sunday.  Anna loves going to play with the kids in Sunday School and I actually enjoy the traditional Episcopalian service in the big, old medieval like church in downtown Chattanooga.

Anyway, Anna got a letter in the mail inviting her to be in their Christmas Pageant (traditional play about the birth of Jesus).  The play itself is tomorrow after the church service and they had one practice this morning and will have another one tomorrow before church starts.  The letter we received said that typically all little girls under 6 are angels, which is perfect for Anna since angels have wings, just like her current obsession, Tinkerbell (not to compare Tinkerbell to angels or anything… ;)  ).

So we went this morning to the practice and they got all the kids organized in the back of the Nave (sanctuary) while the parents sat up front.  There were about 10 little girls, mostly ages 3 and 4, who were angels.  They started going through the run through and when they had all the little angels run up the aisle to the front of the church, Anna was nowhere to be seen.  I went to the back and apparently she and another little girl had decided they didn’t want to participate, according to the parent watching them…  Great….

So I took her back up to sit with me so she could watch what was going on.  Luckily the little angels are pretty much the last ones up so they don’t have to stand up there as long as the rest of the kids, so it was over pretty quickly.  They decided to do another run through, so I told Anna that if she wanted to wear the angel costume with WINGS and a halo that she had to run up to the front with the other little girls.  Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to participate tomorrow.  She started sulking a bit, as 3 years olds do, so I left her with the teacher and went back up front to wait.

Well, lo and behold, I guess she wanted to wear the angel wings.  She came running up the aisle with a huge smile on her face and her hands up above her head ballerina style (as instructed by the teacher).  She got up to the front and I thought all was well.  After about 3 minutes she looked around and I knew she was looking for me.  It took her a minute to find me but when she did she weaved her way through all the kids and walked down the aisle to sit with me.  Sigh…

I was, however, able to get her to go back up to stand with the other little angels.  At one point she decided to yell out “MOMMY!  WHAT’S THE LITTLE BABY’S NAME?” when she saw the baby who would be playing baby Jesus.  It was pretty funny and cute but I told her that she probably shouldn’t do that tomorrow.

So we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.  The play is supposed to be cute and not-so-serious and I’m told that the angels and any other little kids under 5 usually get pretty good laughs.  She’ll probably end up coming to me in the middle of it, but as long as she runs down the aisle with the rest of the little girls, that’ll make it worth it to me.  She was so cute!

Our new puppy Rosie likes to jump with Anna.  We had an air mattress on the floor in our living room that we were laying on earlier in the day when Anna wasn’t feeling well.  Well, once her stomach bug disappeared she decided that the air mattress made a pretty good trampoline and Rosie joined in.  I managed to snap this picture and thought it was pretty cute.  That’s pretty impressive air for a dog that size, right??

You know you’re a mom when you go climb up in a small twin sized bed with your 3 year old knowing that you will more than likely be puked on in the near future.

Anna came into our room around 5am this morning and tossed and turned for a bit before throwing up all over the place.  After getting her cleaned up, I went back and got in bed with her in case it happened again.  It did.  Several times.  Luckily, after the first two times, we got a pretty good system going and no more messes were made.  She threw up about 7-8 times over the course of the morning but now it’s been a couple of hours with no getting sick, and that’s even after having a few bites of a waffle.  So hopefully it was just a quick bug.  She was so pitiful looking there for awhile.

I’m sure she got it from us, as Dan and I were both feeling pretty queasy a couple of days ago.  We were fortunate not to get sick ourselves, but Anna was not so lucky.  Hopefully it has passed for all three of us though.

Ok, not really.  Yesterday we went to the Dickens on the Strand street festival in Galveston.  They had a parade as part of it and a photographer for the Houston Chronicle snapped a pic of Anna watching the parade.  Here’s the link to the photos on the Chronicle’s website: http://www.chron.com/news/photogallery/Dickens_on_the_Strand.html.  Anna’s in the last photo (#8).  She might have made it in the paper too…I’ll know soon.

If that link stops working, here’s the picture that was in the paper and the caption:

Anna Bogh, 3, of Chattanooga, Tenn., watches a troop of military rein-actors march in the parade during the Dickens on the Strand in Galveston.

I’m watching Anna play some games with her 5 year old cousin, Alex, and it’s just cracking me up.  First they were playing “obstacle course”.   They were running laps around the furniture in the living room jumping over strategically placed toys on the floor.  I’m not sure how they determined who was winning since it seemed to be a never ending circle, but Anna kept declaring that Alex was winning and she needed to catch up…even if it appeared that she was in front of him.

Now they’re playing Hide & Seek, or as Anna says “you seek and I’ll hide!”.  Alex just counted while Anna dove onto the couch and covered her head with a small couch pillow.  It didn’t take long for Alex to find the giggling little girl under the pillow.

It’s so fun watching the two of them interact together.  They get along so well.  It’ll be sad leaving tomorrow but I know we’ll be back here at some point soon.

My daughter is stubborn, just like her parents.  If you ask her to say something, more than likely she won’t.  The stars and planets have to be in perfect alignment for her to do something you tell her to…well, something that would show off how smart she can be.  She just doesn’t want to show off like I’d like her to.  LOL..

So anyway, in the car today she told us her street address, the house number and street (See?  I told you she’s smart.) and we were trying to teach her the city and state.  We live in a town outside of Chattanooga called Ooltewah.  So this is how the conversation went.

Me: Anna we live in the city of Ooltewah.  Can you say OOLTEWAH?
< Silence as she ignores me. >
Me: Anna, say OOLTEWAH.  We live in Ooltewah, Tennessee.
Anna: No.  I don’t want to say OOLTEWAH.

Hah.  And she thinks she’s so smart.  ;-)

I haven’t taken many pictures this month because I left my camera in Houston with Dan and he has yet to arrive here in Chattanooga.  However, I took this with my mom’s camera and thought it was super cute so I had to share.  I mean, seriously, how can you refuse a face like this?  :-D