Random Thoughts and Pictures

Am I the only one out there who cannot believe that it's already the end of September?  Where has this year gone?  I feel like I blinked and all of a sudden the year is already more than 3/4 of the way over.

I'm looking forward to the General Relief Society Broadcast tonight, as well as General Conference next weekend (for those who aren't LDS - this is a semi-annual conference with talks from our Prophet, apostles and other church authorities from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...check it out on lds.org, it would definitely be time well spent).

Ann and I went to story-time at the Rochester Library for the first time this week.  We went with one of the girls I visit teach and her daughter who's a couple months older than Ann.  Technically the story-time was for kids 18 months to 3 years old, so Ann wasn't quite old enough.  As we've never done anything like that before, Ann spent the whole time being like "what the heck is going on here?" and "no mom, I don't want to do any sort of actions with my hands."

And now for pictures...

This is a common sight around here now-a-days.  This was actually what Ann was doing as I was making my previous post about her being able to climb.  (Right above the light switch is where Tom and I normally hang our keys...we might not do that much for a while as Ann will reach up to grab the keys, and has actually pulled the key holder off the wall)

Ann has rediscovered the joys of her little rocker chair (it's made for both babies and toddlers).  She wanted to get strapped in and have the little toy bar put on

She now occasionally goes and sits in her chair and pulls on the bug in the middle of the bar (it plays "If you're happy and you know clap your hands")

Still really cute when she feeds herself with a spoon...

...and still gets upset when mommy won't give her the camera

So when you live in a little apartment that has the kitchen right next to the baby's room, you have to get a little creative when you want to make cookies during said baby's nap time (and  you don't want to wake the baby up).  So yes, this is my mixer sitting on the floor of my bedroom next to my bed.  I've done this a number of times, usually either just bringing the ingredients into the room (pre-measured) or taking the bowl back and forth between my room and the kitchen.  I close my bedroom door whenever I turn the mixer on so I don't risk waking Ann up.

A couple weeks ago I *finally* bought a spring-release cookie scoop, and I used it for the first time yesterday (I would have sooner had I not had a sick baby, a sick self and a dirty kitchen).  Wow, I've been living in the stone-age of cookie baking!  I love this thing...how did I let myself go so long without one??

Banana chocolate chip cookies...don't they look delicious?