Anna Grows

It was a whirlwind trip to New York over the weekend with something for everyone. The reason for the trip was for Joe and Theresa to attend a wedding; however, the bonus was the time Anna was able to spend with her Aunt Loren, Aunt Mary, Cousin James, and Uncle Joe. Aunt Mary, assisted by Aunt Loren, volunteered to watch Anna while Joe and Theresa went into the city. Thanks to the long ride up to New York on Friday night, in which Anna was too excited to sleep in the car, she took almost a 4 hour nap right after Joe and Theresa left. This also provided the opportunity for Aunt Mary to take a nap. This was followed by a trip to the playground, a stop at the store where her aunts purchased Anna princess ball, pizza, and a movie. Apparently Aunt Mary let Anna eat dinner on the couch while watching television with a "special tray" for her food. Theresa reminded Anna that the special tray only exists at Aunt Mary's. Anna was also treated to ice cream and a bubble bath. Anna le...

Anna has grown and changed quite a bit in recent weeks. One of the things that has changed is her name. She is now Emily-- as in Emily the bossy boiler engine. For those of you not familiar with the activities of the preschool crowd, Emily is one of the trains in the Thomas the Train series. Each train is a character. Mom is now Rosie and Dad is now Tobey. Anna....I mean Emily...is in character at all times and will correct you if you call her Anna (or refer to Joe as something other than Tobey). We are now in week four of living the lives of our alter train egos. This extends to Ms Be's daycare as well, where all of the kids are also a train as decreed by Anna/Emily and her friend Caitlyn/Emily. Apparently when Caitlyn is at Ms. Be's, she is Emily and Anna is Rosie. When Caitlyn is not there, Anna is Emily. You can see how the power structure works. This is particularly challenging for Ms. Be who now must remember two names for every kid. Anna/Emily's main activity at hom...

Anna began the Mother's Day celebration in good fashion: by sleeping in 1 hour later (that would be 7 AM instead of 6 AM) before waking up her Mom requesting a glass of milk. Mom really appreciated this, especially after staying up extra late to watch Betty White on Saturday Night Live. After some quality time watching Sesame Street with Mom (you've got to love the PBS Kids Network), Anna and Dad ensured that Mom had an enjoyable day. In addition to the card and painting Anna made for Mom, Dad let Anna pick out a special card at the store. Anna immediately gravitated to the musical card, where she picked out Snoopy with the corresponding Peanuts theme music playing. It is safe to say that Mom and Dad heard the Peanuts theme music roughly 173 times today (thanks goes to Joe for this). In addition, Anna and Joe picked out two rose bushes for Mom at Home Depot. (Note from Theresa: I am having flashbacks to my childhood when my father would take my brothers and I shopping at th...

Anna got to make a trip to New York to visit the Fagella family and celebrate her Cousin Joey's wedding. That's right....there is another Mrs. Joe Fagella (or Angela as we like to call her). There will also be a new baby Fagella this summer. We suggest "Isabella" if it is a girl since we did not use that one. Anna had a great time playing with her cousins, who raced her, taught her to play bocci, and took her to the playground among other things. Anna was particularly attached to her cousin Andrew, and followed him around for a large part of the event. All involved we re exhausted by the end of the evening (especially Andrew who ran roughly 50 sprints up a hilly driveway for Anna). In addition, everyone enjoyed delicious food along with wedding party music (courtesy of Aunt Mary) and good company. A big thanks to Aunt Yvonne and Uncle John for a great party! Congratulations Angela and Joey!

It was a spectacular Easter Sunday, complete with sunny skies and 80 degree temperatures. We enjoyed the holiday weekend with some family traditions, which mostly involved food. Saturday morning we decided to make Easter Bread. This is a Fagella family tradition and one that we had not embarked on before. This became an all day affair that began at 9:30 AM and involved lots of flour and several phone calls to Aunt Mary. Suddenly at the end of the process (around 9 PM), Joe seemed to recall several important tips for how to make the bread, which would have been useful around 10 AM. We m ade it through and thought we did pretty good until we saw pictures of Aunt Lucy's easter bread which looked professionally done (hmmm....). Our bread was edible, albeit a bit weak on the presentation piece. The Kohler family tradition is the lamb cake (that would be a cake in the shape of a lamb). Theresa's grandmother use to make this for Easter and her birthday. Since Theresa now has her grand...

Once again, Grandma made a special guest appearance to babysitt for Anna. Unfortunately, Ms. Be had to make an unplanned trip to Vietnam with the death of her father. Grandma happily made the trip for a few days of fun with her Granddaughter (as well as leaving behind the dust from the on-going kitchen renovation). As usual, Grandma came with a suitcase full of gifts and ideas for entertaining Anna. Anna had her own ideas for entertainment and quickly put together an agenda for Grandma. Much to everyone's suprise, the majority of the agenda revolved around playing with Mom's Fisher Price dollhouse (circa 1978). Apparently Grandma is quite good at doing the voices for all of the people, which meant Anna wanted to play with the dollhouse practically non-stop during Grandma's stay. ( Note to the reader: Grandma did not play with Theresa and the dollhouse in 1978. Theresa does have memories of her brothers showing up at the dollhouse with Dukes of Hazard action figures to kidna...

Anna got to enjoy not only her grandparents but her uncles and cousin Aidyn at the first Kohler family retreat in lovely, snow-covered Deep Creek Lake Maryland. This trip was the result of a Christmas gift from Theresa and her brothers to their parents (Grandma said all she wanted was for "everyone to be together." She got her wish). As with any Kohler gathering, there is a bit of unintended adventure along the way. First, it should be noted that Deep Creek Lake is in the mountains of Western Maryland which also experienced historic snowfall this year. Grandma and Grandpa are weather channel groupies (some might say obsessed) and were worried for the past two months about the weather. The rest of the family was planning to ski and hoping the snow would last. In the end, all sides had their hopes/fears realized when Grandma and Grandpa, along with Uncle Tim and Aidyn, showed up only to find the rental house inaccessible due to an unplowed, steep driveway. While Grandma became...