Our first year with Annaleise

Remember Annaleise's hair bows? She's still as particular about her hair, but doesn't insist on wearing these crazy ribbons.

Annaleise at the orphanage

For the first few months, she wore the fancy hair scrunchies on her wrists as bracelets. She is still very much a girly-girl. She loves necklaces, bracelets, and rings. She occasionally gets into my lip gloss, too!

Annaleise has grown 2 inches since being with us and has moved up 1 clothing size. She is just now starting to eat good portions of food. It's not that she isn't hungry, she just prefers items with sugar. At the top of the list is ice cream, candy, and cake.

She is a drama queen -- wanting to be in control and the boss of all things! Not only does she boss her brothers, but she and mom have small power struggles regularly! When she was told that she could eat 1 piece of candy after dinner, she got mad and said "If I have to wait until after dinner, I'm going to eat 2 pieces!" Although I'm sure this will not be so funny as she gets older, we get a good laugh at some of the things she comes up with.

Annaleise is doing great in school. She has a BFF and is really interested in doing well every day.

She loves our cat, Madison -- but blames Madison for all things that she does wrong. Annaleise has blamed Madison for chewing on her toes at night (Annaleise likes to pick at her toenails and would make them too short!). When Madison tries to escape Annaleise and scratches her to get away, Annaleise says that Madison jumped into bed with her and wrestled with her during the night! And it goes on and on... :)

Annaleise loves to cuddle with her mom and wrestle/tickle with her dad!

September 2009