Our Big Girl

There has been a lot going on in Anna Kate's little life lately!  I feel like she is getting more and more grown up each and every day! 

Anna Kate has just recently started participating in the children's choir at church.  Last week was Children's Sunday and she performed three songs with the choir!  She had been working so hard in choir as well as at home (and in the car listening to the CD) learning all of the songs and motions.  Her favorite one is "Roar Like a Lion"...which talks about how God is surely alive and active and roaring like a lion!  The other two which are so sweet to hear her sing are "10,000 Reasons" and "Where I Belong".  So, back to Sunday morning.  She did great lining up and filing on stage with the group and got through the first song perfectly.  Here's a little video for you to see!  She's on the far right of the front row.

And then...she decided that she'd had enough of the standing in rows thing.  She wanted to be front and center.  So she just walked right out to the center of the stage and continued singing from there!  At one point she turned around to "direct" the choir herself.  And then apparently she got tired because she sat right down and kept on singing!  So, we have some work to do, but for her first public performance, she did pretty well!  Here she is sitting down in front of the choir...

Another big change for Anna Kate is that she no longer uses her beloved "Paci" and "Unga" (extra paci) anymore!  Truly, the way she was attached to them, I was a little worried she might still sleep with them when she was sixteen years old.  But no!  One morning last week we were preparing to have some friends over who just recently had a baby and Anna Kate looked at me and said, "Mommy, I think I want to give my pacis to Baby Ava!"  So we put them in a pretty gift bag and she handed them right over when our friends arrived!  I actually waited a whole week to post about this because I was pretty sure she would have a fit and we would end up giving them back to her...I know, I know, I'm a wimp...but she has done great!  She hasn't asked for them once!  The only downside is that it now takes her 15-20 minutes to fall asleep instead of the 2-3 minutes it used to take.  But that's fine with me!

So as a little reward for being such a big girl, we told her she could go to the store and pick out some new jammies - any kind she wanted!  She took quite a while to decide, but finally settled on some hot pink ones with stars and ballet slippers.  Here she is her first morning after a paci-free night!

I also just have to share this picture of my sweet kitchen helper.  We LOVE fall around here and can't get enough of all things pumpkin, so when we woke up last Saturday to a crisp 65 degree morning, Ithought we should make our first pumpkin bread of the season.  Anna Kate wanted to help and was so proud of our accomplishment.  She especially liked my pan that makes the pumpkin bread look like a pumpkin patch!

And last, Anna Kate has become extremely sweet and loving lately.  She has started telling Luke and me (and Caroline too!) how much she loves us at just random times throughout the day.  She will also just come up to you and give big hugs and kisses!  Yesterday afternoon we needed to leave to go somewhere and Luke and I were fighting over who could be the one to go wake her up from her nap (she's super snuggly when she first wakes up).  So we compromised and both went and crawled in bed on either side of her.  She opened her drowsy little eyes, saw that we were both there, immediately put one arm around me and the other around Luke, and said, "I just love you forever."  Melted our hearts...