Baby Anna's Seventh Month

Our sweet little baby is becoming a little girl. Paul and I really noticed the change during this month. A few days after the last post, Anna mastered the art of crawling and nothing can stop her now. She is a very independent girl who is now trying to pull-up on furniture, walls, Mommy and Daddy.

This month we also started to eat real food. We started with a week of baby rice cereal, which quickly became obvious that this was not one of Anna's favorite foods. The following week we had carrots, then, sweet potato, broccoli, corn mash, peas, pumpkin, apple, zucchini with potato and broccoli, pears, papaya, pears with blueberries, and chicken with sweet potato and apples. Anna's favorites are sweet potato, broccoli, pumpkin, papaya, pears with blueberries, and chicken with sweet potato and apples. She really surprised us when she devoured her chicken dinner. So far so good...now we are trying to teach her how to drink out of her sippy cup which is proving to be more difficult than teaching her to eat her mashes.

Below are some photos highlighting the month . . .

Anna enjoys her first bowl of rice cereal . . .

Bored with just rice cereal, we move on to carrots. Anna polished her carrots off in a matter of seconds and we gave her some rice cereal to fill up her tummy . . .

"Look Mom, I can feed myself with my own spoon!"
Daddy and Anna read The Times of India one sunny morning over a cup of coffee . . .
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all our friends and family at home. Anna poses in her usual exuberant manner for our 2010 family photo. Many thanks to Shine and Janina for taking these great photos of us!
Girl meets Dog . . .
Aunt Betsy's Dr. Seuss brainwashing clothes are so cute! We all love Horton!

Look at me, no hands! Yes, she did this on her own to get her Old MacDonald Had a Farm book from the bookshelf. Paul and I did have a bit of a scare when she did this, but she seems pretty confident with her newly honed skills.

Where's Anna . . . Here I am!

Pauline and I are scheming to make Anna a traditional Maharastrian dress. Anna is modeling the sample. We have finalized the colors and we'll show you all the finished product when it is done. Enjoy the sneak peek below. . .

Soooo big! Here Anna is pulling up all by herself. Now why would we buy Anna teething toys, when you can use your crib rail for the same purpose? Anna loves to chew on wood right now.

So, after a month of crawling, pulling up, singing, reading books, playing with animals, experimenting with new tastes and textures, Anna is finally teething. She should have her two front teeth for Christmas and two to three more are on their way when we feel her teething on our hands.

Happy Holidays to all our friends and family at home!

Baby Anna's Sixth Month

A very happy half birthday, to you, and you, and you . . . and to our sweet little Anna who turns six months old today! Anna has been a busy little lady this month. She went swimming for the first time, actually turns her head when and looks at us when we call her by her name, sits up on her own, can go into downward-facing dog yoga pose, rocks on all fours in the crawling position, dances non-stop, went to Dubai, and had lots of fun with her favorite Pune people. Here are some photos to highlight the last month before we left for Dubai.

Anna's second time at the Pyramid kiddie pool. All gussied up in her pink ballerina swimsuit, Anna splashes in the water with me.


Bec and Jasmine came too . . .

Jasmine let Anna borrow one of her favorite maracas to play with at home. Anna is showing Daddy how to use the maraca with your foot.
Play date! Jan and Anna play on the floor while Baby Nora takes a nap.

Me, Anna, and Lily (the three Behrens women) all in a row . . .

Slumber Party! Jasmine comes over for a sleepover with Anna . . .

Coffee with Adrianna at the Westin one sunny afternoon . . .

Anna's boyfriends Ethan and Jan fight over her while she looks up at me and inquisitive asks "Why am I the only one strapped into the buggy right now?"

Anna, future yoga instructor, teaches me and Pooh-bear how to do downward facing dog . . .

Back on all fours . . . we can go backwards, but cannot quite move our hands forward . . . soon enough we will be chasing her all over the house. ;-) Now off to Dubai for our first family holiday!

Dubai

Happy Diwali! Paul and I decided to escape the loud hubbub of Diwali festivities and have a long weekend in Dubai. I was not crazy about the idea of having a trip to Dubai. Dubai always seemed to me to be a pretentious city lacking in culture and history. However, the Paul-the-Engineer found it necessary to check out the marvel of creating a modern city in the middle of the desert. I have to admit upon arriving in Dubai I immediately fell in love with the city. We found it to be very similar to taking a weekend trip to New York City. We had a great time and returned to India well rested.

We stayed at the Emirates Towers in the heart of the business district. Below you will see Anna and I unwinding on our lush bed before someone heads off to the land of nod. We learned on this trip that someone named Anna really enjoys fluffy beds with lots of pillows and duvets to roll around on.

The following morning we awoke with a Starbucks in hand and the Khaleej Times. Anna decided to read the paper and learned that Tom Cruise was in Dubai shooting his next Mission Impossible film. No Tom sitings . . . but yes, we did keep an eye out for him.

Reading the paper is hard work, so Anna took a nap before we headed to The Dubai Mall for a day of shopping.

At first glance, The Dubai Mall is a copy of Somerset at home in Detroit . . . but after wandering around for a few hours I finally had to ask Paul how many stores were inside this massive building. I learned The Dubai Mall is home to over 1200 stores and a ice rink. We walked around all day and hardly made a dent in covering the square footage. Crazy as it seems they even have a Garrett's Popcorn Shop from Chicago, baby stores with every baby product imaginable, and a book store that puts Borders to shame. Needless to say, we had fun Christmas shopping for Anna. Here Anna in her BabyHawk and I are at the entrance.

For lunch, we dined at Al Hallab for some lovely Lebanese food. We had the best hommous and baba ganoush experience. We finished our meal with some lovely baklava and decided the honey must be entirely different as we usually hate the super sweet dessert and loved it here in the UAE. Anna flirted with all the waiters that were quite taken with her captivating blue eyes.

At the end of the day, we stopped by Madeleine's for a coffee on the outdoor terrace. We enjoyed a lovely cool breeze and admired the Burj Khalifa as it sparkled in the distance. Here is Anna near the world's tallest building. We attempted to go to the observation deck, but the tickets kept selling out. However, we did admire it in the distance.

The following day we went to Jumeirah to go to the Emirates pool as well as the beach. Enjoying a nice lunch in the desert sun, Anna decided she wanted to try a little taste of my lunch. Here she is enjoying some mashed peas. She was surprisingly a big fan of the green vegetable.

Now, off to the pool. Here we are swimming in the afternoon sun.

It's a bird, no, it's a plane, no, it's Anna!

Back to our hotel at after our beach sunset, Anna even got a chocolate on her pillow. ;-)

After a bath in the big bathtub, and a long day in the sun, this little bird is ready for bed . . .

The next day we went shopping some more and had a lovely dinner at another Lebanese restaurant called Al Noorfah. Paul decided to tempt fate and try kibbeh again. For those of you who do not know, kibbeh is a raw lamb mince with pine nuts and other spices. One of my favorites, I convinced him to try it about six years ago in Dearborn and he got sick from it. Since we were in the Middle East, we decided what better place to try it than here. We had it and it was lovely. Most importantly, both of us survived the night...I suppose India has strengthened our stomachs a bit.

Our last day in Dubai, we decided to wander around a bit more and found a Magnolia Bakery. I found it hilarious that though I have not been to this famous and celebrated bakery in New York, I actually got to visit it in Dubai. Attired in my Indian dress, mid-length kurta and harem pants, I ordered a very American slice of pumpkin spice cake and Paul had a pumpkin cheesecake. Just as good as home and some of the best cake we have ever had! As you can see from my giant piece below, I could not even begin to finish it though the coffee from Caribou helped wash it down. ;-)
The three Behrens' had a great holiday in Dubai! Paul is quite lucky he did not take me there 2.5 years ago when we arrived in Pune or he would have had to take me there several more times during our tenure in India. Complete relaxation we experienced while in a very modern city that felt like home. Paul and I had not realized how much we missed walking around in a heterogeneous environment until we arrived in Dubai. People of all sorts of color coming from all sorts of countries compose the landscape of this thriving desert city.

Baby Anna's Fifth Month

Baby Anna is 5 months old! Anna celebrated by going to the pool with her little boyfriend Jan. This month Anna has mastered the art of rolling over . . . and over . . . and over again. Anna has begun to pull up onto all fours, but then falls flat on her tummy. She was a brilliant traveller on the 24 hour leg home from the States to India. She is beginning to become curious about food and drink, but we have decided to keep her on the 100% breastmilk diet until her sixth month birthday. Anna also graduated to sleeping in her own room all by herself this month. She seems to enjoy it, and mom and dad are sleeping better as well. Here are a few snapshots from our fifth month . . .

Two giraffes in bed . . .

Anna loves reading her preferred book, Anna-A Photo Book of Myself and My Favorite People.

Anna - the - Pollywog after bath time!

Anna and her friend Jan (7 months) take a moment's rest from rolling around to pose for a quick shot . . .

Good morning sunshine!

Anna follows in her father's footsteps and enjoys an afternoon out at the Pune Horse Races . . . she was leaning toward number 7 . . . but alas did not take home any winnings. This morning is brought to you by the letter Z. Z is Anna's favorite letter in the alphabet.
All in all it's been a month of adjusting back to life in India after our trip home. We finally feel all rested and we are looking forward to some new adventures the next few months.

Baby Anna's Fourth Month

Baby Anna celebrates her fourth month birthday today! She's grown up a lot this month in the States. Here are some photos to illustrate her adventures. . .

Bright and early Monday morning after Anna's baptism party, Paul, Anna and I drove South to Central Illinois to visit my grandparents. Here is Anna for the first time with her great-grandmother. . .
Over to Aunt Betsy's later that night, Leslie and Anna contemplate life over a bowl of spumoni ice cream . . .

Anna is determined to beat Greg at Scrabble . . . Yes, she challenged all his words by using the Scrabble Dictionary.

Anna snuggles with her great-grandfather . . .After we leave grandma and grandpa's, we head North to Chicago for a quick 24 hour trip in the city. Leslie and Greg were in Schaumberg for the weekend, so we met up with our cousins for a yummy dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.
Anna sporting her new Coach sunglasses as we walk down the Magnificent Mile . . .

After Chicago, Alina and I took Anna to get some baby photos. We used Noel Kelley and she took amazing photos to capture our little Anna. Here is a link to some of the photos on her blog. http://noelkelley.blogspot.com/2010/09/northville-michigan-baby-photographer.html

Time for Paul to return to India and work. The following weekend Anna's Oma held a Welcome Home party for Baby Anna . . .

Anna decided to sleep most of the time in her buggy snuggling with Sofie. . .

Sleeping Beauty awakes! Here are Anna and I with her new favorite toy Ellie.

Anna meets Josh one day for lunch . . .

Anna studies her books intently in her red highchair . . . with Sofie of course!

Anna meets Kate, now age 2, who graciously allows Anna to sit in her Bumbo.

Mommy, Anna, Alina and Molly stop for a quick coffee before heading out to the Arts, Beats & Eats Festival in Royal Oak over Labor Day weekend.

The heat wave is over! Anna is all bundled up for a crisp Fall morning walk . . .

Anna and Uncle Rob at her first Michigan football game . . . and yes, she's wearing her school colors underneath her pink sweater.

Anna had a wonderful time in the States for her first time home in America. She's grown so much and tomorrow we embark again on a journey back to our tropical home in India.