Her favorite thing to do is go crawl into one of Ruby's many beds. We have a bassinet, cradle, and crib for Ruby right now, and Anabelle thinks they are all for her. She gets in them and hides. She barely answers when I call for her. Then, she will tell me that she wants to take a nap in Ruby's bed. Of course, she is about break the cradle and bassinet! Funny thing is that once she's in, she doesn't know how to get out. :)
Boy is she a climber, though. She can get herself onto/into anything she wants. I have found her standing on top of her high chair tray, on top of the bar, on her toy kitchen, and on top of the counters without me knowing it! She's fast! I'm not just ignoring her. I will turn around and two seconds later, she is on top of something. I can't keep up most of the time!! :)
One of her latest shinanigans (SP?) happened at my sister's house. We were there practicing some songs we were going to sing at my in-law's church. The kids were all happily playing in Hannah's room. I had one of my nephews check on her every so often to make sure that she wasn't into anything. We had just checked on them like 5-10 minutes before, when my youngest nephew walks into the room, SOAKED from head to toe. I'm not kidding. He was drenched. We ran through the house trying to figure out how it happened, when we finally got to the master bath. And there was Anabelle, standing completely naked in this huge bathtub FULL of freezing cold water. Did you hear me say that about 5-10 minutes before this, she was playing happily in Hannah's closet of toys? In that amount of time, she had undressed turned the water on, plugged the drain, and completely soak her cousin. It was crazy, and I was so thankful that she had only turned on the cold water.
Lately we have been going to playdates with friends and to Searcy every once in a while to see her cousins. Now, when we spend time at home, she comes running in to me from her room telling me that she hears her friends out on the playground, and she needs to go see them. We don't have a playground, and at the time she says it, all the kids that live near us are probably in school. :) But she is convinced her friends are right outside. She will start naming them, too. She's very big into friends right now. Every one is a friend. We had a couple of men from our church over last night and they left when she was in her room. She came out and asked where our friends went. We went to the library yesterday, and there was a line of kids downstairs in the library. She saw them and said, "Look mama! My friends are here!" We didn't know a single kid. :)
Speaking of friends/cousins. She has several cousins close to her age, but they seem to form little cliques. Well, Anabelle has two boy cousins close to her in age. Malachi is six weeks older than she is, and Gideon is about 9 months younger. But these two boys adore her, and she definitely knows it. These two would follow her anywhere. It cracks me up how much they follow her. They are always trying to find her, and looking for her when we are outside. She is definitely the ring leader, and it is so funny to watch. Malachi will tell her to come on, and she will go in the opposite direction. Of course, he follows right behind! They are so cute together.
One more funny. She isn't use to being out in the country all the time, but she loves going to see her cousins out on the farm. Of course, the boys are always shirtless. So the other day, they were playing in the water/mud, and her pants got wet. Well, everyone else was losing clothing (shirts) due to them being wet, so she decided that she didn't need pants. Not only did she not need pants, but she took her diaper off too! I look up and see a naked white booty running across the yard! I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "I don't want to get my diaper wet!" She had gotten her pants wet and didn't want to ruin her diaper. If only that was a concern when she was peeing in her diaper! :) I finally got her to understand that she had to have some sort of covering on her booty. She didn't have to wear her diaper, but she had to have pants on her. Poor girl was tugging at her pants the rest of the day, because she didn't have the bulk of the diaper keeping her pants up. :)
Well, that's it for now. As you can see, Anabelle is a sweet mess. She's such a blessing to us, and we are so grateful to have such a sweet little girl whose full of life. We love you Bellie Boo!
