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Not much to add in this post, text wise. Still the 12th of March 2010, in Evesham, around the river feeding ducks.
This isn’t combined with the previous video post as it makes running Anna’s site a little easier that way. I’ll get round to fixing that potential duplicate post importing issue another day.

The next day from the previous post was the 12th of March, and we took a few shots of Anna at my Dad’s house during breakfast time. The highchair with no legs reference is to the portable seat you secure to a normal seat, and actually worked really well! Not much else to say for these photos, other than it they include a rare shot of Anna with a bib on without food being splattered everywhere. She is, of course, a lot less messy now. Usually

On the same day that we saw some friends in Cheltenham (11th of March), we had also set up camp in Evesham, over at my Dad’s house. He seemed very happy to see Anna, and she seemed totally content with the new surroundings to investigate. The year before when Anna had been there, she obviously hadn’t been able to move around really. In case you’re wondering, that is Anna’s little suitcase you can see in the bottom left hand corner there. Always have a good supply of toys with you at all times We were all waiting anxiously to discover whether we would soon have a new niece/nephew / grandson/granddaughter, as my younger brother (Nick) and Roz hadn’t discovered whether they were to be having a boy or a girl, and Nick came down that weekend as he had an interview in the area, and we didn’t know for sure whether we’d be able to cross paths again before our return to Kazakhstan, as for some reason babies don’t always arrive exactly when the doctors guess
Anyway, enough for now, I think there are some photos or videos of Nick still to come.

(My) Dad With Anna At Home

One of the few advantages with living in a flat when you have a baby is that you don’t need to worry about stair gates. I don’t know if you can get them easily here in Kazakhstan, but as soon as Anna was mobile and willing and able to start clambering up a step or two back in Britain, Mum got one. This turned into a great attraction for Anna who wanted to know how to open it. Despite a lot of vigorous shaking, pulling and drafting in Gwen for her expertise, Anna didn’t manage to make it up the stairs. So, here with the final shots taken on the 5th of March, Irina had noticed that Anna was looking quite cute up the stairs at her, so she grabbed the camera. I think it was Irina on the stairs, it might have been me?

Earlier on in the day (5th of March still) from Anna’s box diving exercise, she had all her soft toys/teddies laid out around the flattened sheep that she loved to roll around on. Whether planning world domination, the intricacies of a double twist with three loops and a pike into the toy box later, or just have a general natter, I wasn’t privy to, but Anna seemed to enjoy having everything laid out in front of her, a theme which continues to this day most mornings; after breakfast she normally extracts most of the toys from her toy box in our flat, just ready for a barely awake Daddy to stumble over. Perhaps world domination starts with small steps?

Anna Has An Audience

Moving onto the 5th of March, Anna had day filled with playing with her toys, getting some fresh air in the back yard by the utility room, and after another long walk all the way to the top of the back garden, a little chill out time on a bench. In the evening, her energy not yet drained, she decided to pull all the toys out of the toy box, and have a good look at the bottom of it. Unfortunately she was a little too eager and ended up flipping over and into the box. She recovered very quickly and after a little cry at the shock of finding her world temporarily upside-down, she stayed in the box for a few minutes. Finally deciding it was OK to take a quick snap shot of her, she decided to be upset again, so we put the camera down and gave her a hand out of her impromptu little castle setup.

Just a little more than a fortnight since the last post with photos of Anna. Which reminds me, I need to check if AnnaMerriman.com is still picking these up automatically, and whether the plugin used will work when I upgrade her blog to WordPress 3.0. Anyway, this photo was taken in the same place and at the same time as the last video published on this blog – the 4th of March 2010. You’ll have to forgive me if I maybe skip putting 2010 for the rest of the posts today, and if you are new to this blog, and wonder why the date is included, I want Anna’s site to eventually be something we can show to her and say, look, five years ago today, this is how you looked, and what you were doing
So, over by the lake that was in the camp site Mum and John were previously at, here we have John and Anna looking at the birds. Anna seems to be momentarily distracted by something land based, but in general she does seem to like watching animals in the wild

Anna And John By A Lake With Some Birds

Once more from the 21st of February, here we have John’s son and daughter-in-law’s children, Dylan And Amelia. They came to help celebrate Anna’s first birthday, and it was nice for her to have some company a little closer to her own age…

Anna, Amelia And Dylan

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Another of Anna’s birthday shots, here we have Gwen being told that not being a homo sapien was no excuse for skipping out on wearing a party hat. She allowed a few snaps to be taken, then removed it. Much like some of the humans in the house!

Gwen Hopes Biscuit Treats Are The Reward...

When Can I Chew It Off?

By this time during our stay, Gwen had learned that Anna didn’t always know how strong she was, or that pulling fur hurt, so Gwen often backed off a little if Anna seemed very energetic. I think our cats should be very grateful to Gwen, as Anna did seem to start to comprehend that little animals should be approached with a bit more care and attention (& less shouting) than previously!

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Yes, still on the 21st of February, which was Anna’s first birthday. Unless you include the day she was born. Which would make this year her second birthday. Which would most likely cause confusion. when Anna became one year old, we tried to grab a few photos, as well as videos, of Anna opening her presents.

OK, so the next few posts will be of photos (and once YouTube behaves, videos) taken on the 21st February 2010, which was Anna’s 1st birthday. Unless you count the day she was born on. Which would be her birth day.
Anyway, As there are a lot of photos, and I wanted to publish them all, they have been split across posts.

Party Hats And Pears

Only One Of Us Kept The Hat On All Day!

Smoking Smiling Seb (Check Out The Smiley Socks)

Irina And Anna In The Kitchen

Mum And Anna

Dad And Anna

Anna's Birthday Presents Before...

That is it for now, as we have guests arriving soon.

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