Birthday Girl

Today is Anastasia's fourth birthday. We'll be celebrating for quite some time, since her party isn't scheduled for another 10 days, but we couldn't let the day pass without presents. This morning, Anastasia woke up Orlando and me asking if we thought Santa had brought her presents. After a little giggle, we sent her downstairs to see. She came tearing back up the stairs to tell us all about what she'd found.



Needless to say, the present opening commenced right away. She dove into the smaller presents first, starting with a DVD and a book, before moving on to the big presents: Buzz Lightyear and Woody!



Finally, after playing with Buzz and Woody for a while, her backpack got a new friend and it was time to head back upstairs for some quality time with daddy.



School is out today and tomorrow (they're transitioning them in 1/2 a class at a time this week), so we'll be taking cupcakes to school on Friday. Today, she hung out with Daddy at his work. It was a very exciting day, and she crashed hard midday.



I picked her up from there when I finished work. When we got home, Anastasia saw that she'd gotten some mail, too. Happy birthday cards, one from Grandma and Grandpa Allen and one from her cousins Andrew, Ashley and Quinn.



It was a very good day, and she's got more in front of her. Friday, cupcakes at school, and next weekend, a full fledged birthday party, followed by the first football game of the season. Man time flies.

Back to School

Today was the first day of school, a day Anastasia had been anticipating for well over a week. She laid out her uniform last night and packed her backpack before going to bed. This morning, when it was time to go, she was all smiles.



She added a little lamb to her backpack, saying that he fit perfectly into the pocket on the side. As we left, we stopped at the front gate for one more picture before heading off.



Anastasia remembers the way to school very well. She led the way, giving Orlando directions on which way we needed to walk.



At school, we marched to her new classroom and Anastasia put her things into her new cubby. I added the two flowers she'd picked along the way.



Showing she was not going to have any qualms about her first day of school, she dove into the first activity with her buddy Carter, ignoring Orlando and me as we walked out of the room.

El Destructo

Murphy is cutting another tooth. We hope this is the last one. His list of casualties this week includes:

2 pairs of flip flops
1 book (taken off of the bookshelf)
2 dvds
1 pair sunglasses

To say he's in the dog house would be an understatement...

Walking Roxy and Boston

Last week, Orlando and Anastasia took the dogs for a short walk around the block. Daddy taught her to hold the leash so that she had control of Chase, and he was very impressed with how she did. I didn't manage to get any pictures of that walk, though. Bad blogger mommy.

The other night, while visiting at Miss Nathalie, Anastasia asked if we could take her dogs (actually Miss Abby's dogs, but Anastasia doesn't care about that kind of distinction) for a walk. Since they hadn't been out yet that evening, Nathalie said sure, and off we went. Roxy and Boston are pretty good on a leash, better than our three anyway, so Anastasia was capable of handling Roxy with ease.



She had a ball, and I think she helped Nathalie by tiring out the pups a little.



Between the walk with the dogs and presents Nathalie gave her (thanks for the nail polish, lip gloss and silly bands, Nathalie), little girl is very eager to visit again very soon.

Headless?

We've been letting Murphy sleep in our room for a couple weeks now. He doesn't seem to get into mischief during the night, so mostly it's been good for him. He's settled into his own spot, too: in the narrow space between my side of the bed and the windows. Last night, he found a new position and when I looked down, I had to laugh.

So smart

Our little girl continues to shock us with her smarts. She's been practicing writing using a white board we bought when mom and dad were here in June. Today, Orlando decided to give her a quiz, and she did great. We were really impressed.



Hope that her new teacher is as impressed by her smarts as we are.