she's a lover

It often seems like Annika saves her crabbiest moods for mommy. She will be a little angel until I walk into the room and the minute she sees me its like she just falls apart. It sometimes makes me feel like I'm not doing something right. The other day however, my weekly "My toddler this week" update from BabyCenter brought me some reassurance. It read: "Is your child a ray of sunshine at daycare but a thundercloud when you show up on the scene? Try not to get upset by these end-of-day meltdowns. They're signs of true love. Your toddler knows that its safe to let out all of her pent-up feelings around you."

Oh baby girl, I love you in spite of, even because of, the fact that you let out your pent-up feelings on mommy. It just makes days like today when you couldn't stop telling mommy and daddy that you love us even more special...

Every day before her nap and every night before bed Annika tells me and her daddy that she loves us. She can't quite put her little pinkie up yet, but we know exactly what she is saying.

Big helper

Shaver Lake!

This last weekend we got to meet up with friends from Fresno and San Diego at Shaver Lake. After a week of all of us being sick, it was great to get in the fresh air and have time with friends.

Annika loves hanging out with her adopted aunts. There were three babies there (17 mo, 12 mo, and 3 mo) which made it eventful, but many hands made it fun.

The Lehman Crew

The King Crew

The Jung Crew

Annika spent after a day on the boat. One of the few times she actually slept in Kara's arms for more than a minute.
Ok, quick story... we were staying at Jill's parent's cabin. Jill's husband, Derek, had to work Friday. As he was leaving he looked at me and said, "Good luck driving the boat today." I didn't think too much of it.

Well, the boat is a "Party Barge" pontoon boat. Let's just say a lot bigger than what I am used to. To make matters worse, there was a huge wind that day that was blowing into the docks. When we went to pull out of the slip, the wind was so strong it wouldn't let me turn the boat. So we end up zig zagging our way down the docks for about 10 slips. It was an all hands on deck moment, everyone pushing off of boats that we were inches from hitting. Finally, Jon was able to grab on to one boat and it anchored us just enough to turn up wind and get out of dodge. How we didn't hit anything is a miracle. Nice work everyone, it was definitely a memory made together! Derek, thanks for the heads up, sort of!

With Aunt Michelle, which was a lifesaver here as AJ was being a little pill until Michelle volunteered to take her for a few minutes. Swing time makes the world a better place.

Some Randoms...

Some Summertime pics...

Annika loves shoes, hers or whoevers.

She also loves bags, especially putting things in and taking things out.

It is now easier to go to the grocery store and let her push the cart... even though she is realizing that she can pick things up from the shelves and put them in the cart herself. We have to be a little more careful when we check out to make sure mystery items haven't made it in.

Going to the park with Cousin Morgan.

Annika in the Pool!!!

Swimming has become our one escape from the heat (other than going to SF). Say the word "ready" with Annika in the pool and her head is underwater, she is becoming a little fish.

Annika Lately

The other night I was looking back through our blog and reading all of our posts up to Annika's birth. I loved reading about her milestones and seeing how much she has grown and how her little personality has developed. I realize that I am never going to be one of those moms that has a baby book put together for Annika....just not the scrapbooking type...but I would like Annika to be able to look back on this blog someday and read about what she was like when she was little. So, even though at times it feels kind of self indulgent to blog so much about my baby, I am going to try to be better about it so that we have these memories documented.

So here is Annika lately:

LOVES:

strawberries, blueberries, raspberries...any kind of berry

Dogs

Curious George

her mama and daddy (at least thats what her smile says when we get her up in the morning)

her cousins

the pool

going "bye bye"

golf balls

music

playing outside

her binkies (yes she still has them at bedtime)

her baby

her blankies

HATES:

garbage trucks and loud tractors

rinsing her hair out in the bath

going to bed...our little girl used to get so excited to "find her binkies and go nigh night"...not lately. We hope this is a very short phase.

Getting her diaper changed...maybe you should learn to use the big girl potty, ha little one?

Annika is trying to say more and more words every day, but isn't a huge talker yet...she just kinda jabbers in her own little language. Every once in a while she will say something like "yeah" or "all done" and it sounds plain as day, but then she won't repeat it. I do try to teach her most words in English and Spanish so I just tell myself that maybe she's just a little confused as to what exactly we want her to call certain objects:)

Our little girl loves to color...with crayons in her coloring books or with pens on her dry erase board...I think she may have a little artistic streak like her daddy. She loves to read and often sits in her little chair and reads to herself. She plays with her little golf set every day. She even holds the clubs with two hands now and makes contact with the balls. Then she has to drop the club and clap her hands and cheer. Pretty cute.

Ethan still gets the most laughs out of annika...those really good belly laughs that just make you happy. For now he seems to enjoy the attention of his younger cousin. We'll see how long that lasts.

Aj meets little Aj. Tate, Martha and Avery came out for a wedding and we finally got to meet precious little Avery Joy. Annika is a little more excited about it than Avery.

Chelsea was up for the wedding too, Annika let her share her favorite spot on the floor.

Annika discovered dirt...mmm, tasty. Don't worry baby, mommy ate it when she was little and turned out ok.

coloring on the white board while mommy paints.

Daddy's favorite time of the day.

Mommy's favorite time of the day. There's just nothing better.

weekend of fun!

Lately I have been feeling a huge itch to get out of town which worked out perfectly because E and I had planned to spend the weekend in San Francisco. Saturday we took Annika to her first Giants game. Eric's childhood friend Nate invited us to enjoy the game in his company's box and kids were invited so the three of us headed to the bay. Truth be told Eric and I were both raised going to A's games so Annika's first professional sporting event really should have been in Oakland. But lets be honest, the view from AT&T is much better than from the other side of the bay. Anyway, we had a great time, though most of it was spent pulling Annika back out of the box adjacent to ours. She thought our neighbors were a lot more fun than we were. I love that she is so friendly and curious, but sometimes it would be a lot easier if she just sat shyly on my lap, you know?

We spent the evening at Eric's parents house, the E and I woke up at the crack of dawn and headed back into the city for the Bay to Breakers. I have wanted to run in this race since I was in high school and I'm so glad we finally did it. The B to B is one of the largest foot races in the US. Runners start on the Bay side of SF and run 12 kilometers (7.45 miles) to the finish line at the beach. The race is also well known for its colorful participants. Many of them dress up in outrageous costumes, others forget the clothes altogether...yes, its very entertaining. Luckily E and I were far enough toward the front to avoid running alongside some of the less clothed participants.

My goal was to have a great run and to have fun. We had perfect running weather. Cool, cloud cover, misty...perfect. One of those days you could just run and run and run. E and I both finished in under 1 hour which also felt great. I had been feeling pretty out of shape lately so it felt nice to push myself. I think this may become an annual event for the Jungs...at least for a few years.

Today it was back to reality at work. Feels so much better to go back after a nice break though.

And I get to come home to this.