Hmmm... what else can I teach Anne to do?!

And she "washes the dishes" too,

(She is half-naked in those pictures because there is a bit of water going everywhere!)

Don't they say a good leader works him or herself out of a job?! 

The Holiday's at The Loony Bin

Christmas @ our house.

Christmas @ Nonnie & Grandaddy Sherwood's

And Christmas @ Nanna & Pop Stout's 

New Year's ended up being Date Night

AND

To wrap up the holiday season,

Natalie turned 1!

Halloween from the Porch

Anne and Natalie spent their Halloween on the front porch passing out candy. 

Anne could be heard around most of Knoxville screaming,

"MORE PEOPLE!  MORE PEOPLE!!  I HAVE CANDY!"   

She loved seeing the costumes on the kids that came by, but never cared to get into her own giraffe!! 

Anne opened and took 2 licks from a record number of dum-dums!

Natalie - You've been caught red-handed!

 

 

Just for fun, here are the girls in their costumes at our Sunday School Classes' 'Holy-ween Party'!

Natalie was an elephant, Anne was a giraffe, Steve was a gorilla, and I was the....

Zookeeper! :)

Anne takes good care of her newest Baby

Steve's Fantasy Football Trophy!

The Tiny One is crawling....

and has begun a quest to eat

every little thing she can find on the floor!

Which, at the loony bin, could be just about anything!

Can't look away for a minute...

Sherwood Loony Bin Rule #5: 

Gotta be a good sport with just about anything! 

It's Been a While!

So long in fact, there is another member of the Sherwood Loony Bin.

Introducing Natalie Grace Sherwood to the Loony Bin.  (Born January 6, 2009)

She is fitting right in!  And Anne loves her...

We'll try just keeping this simple and see what happens! 

The Loonies are at it again!

After a little delay from complete computer malfunction and quite a busy stretch of life, we are back and loonier than ever!

Let's review just a little bit...

Anne learned to play ping pong.

We enjoyed Anne's First Easter

And of course, Mother's Day!

Friday Favorites: 4th Edition

1. Beth Moore's 90 Days with David - And it only took this new momma 200-something days to do it! But seriously, for those of us who LOVE LOVE LOVE Beth Moore's regular studies (that can take around 45 minutes a day and one group meeting a week), this devotion style Bible Study is perfect when we are in a phase of life where 15 free minutes is a luxury. I received 90 Days with "Jesus, the One and Only" for Christmas and have already started it. I hope to finish it in less than 200 days!! :)




2. Tye Tribbet and Greater Anointing - Oh, how I love gospel music! And Tye Tribbett has a DVD of a concert called "Victory!" Anne and I dance to it on a weekly basis! Love it!








3. The laugh of this little girl! (not to mention her super cute Easter dress made by her Nanna!)

Friday Favorites: "All about Anne" 3rd edition

1. Anne's cutie Bitty Bow

2. Anne's new Bib

3. Anne's new trick

Friday Favorites: Phlegmatic 2nd Edition (aka posted on Saturday)

1. Dolly Parton and her Imagination Library - The more I hear about her, and see what she does particularly in my neck of the woods, I LOVE DOLLY PARTON. Her Imagination Library gives 1 book A MONTH for the first 5 YEARS of every childs life. So very cool!! And the first book for each child is The Little Engine That Could. Love that woman and one of more influential ideas for child literacy I've ever heard of! And Dollywood is super fun too!

2. Kiva.org - Ever heard of microloans?! This organization is the most organized wide-reaching micro-loan organzation I've seen. They were on Oprah already! I believe that micro-loans are the more effective way to change the lives of those in third world poverty. Micro Loans are small loans given to people to start or boost their small business. As their business grows, the recipient pays that loan back and is better able to provide for their family, with their dignity and motivation still in tact. Brilliant!

3. Masterpiece: The Complete Jane Austen - Love Love Love All Things Jane Austen. PBS has redone or is re-airing all of Jane Austens books as movies including one called Miss Austen Regrets that is sort of a biography of her life.

Free Extra: Becoming Jane is a really beautiful sweet movie for Jane Austen lovers

"Sharpies are non-toxic"

Sometimes I go to the restroom and get my face up really close to the mirror and just pick at my face for a few minutes. Well, apparently that is no longer safe at the Loony Bin, because last Thursday night, this is what I found when I returned to the living room.



A friend saw Anne the next day (even after as much face washing as I could do in good conscience) and said, "Well, Sharpies are non-toxic".



Needless to say, a new Sherwood Loony Bin rule was put into effect.

No more drawing on the face of the baby.



Please note: No babies were that harmed this day.

Friday Favorites: 1st Edition

1. Bloglines - One of the many new discoveries I've made in the past few weeks of "lurking" on some of the popular Mommy Blogs. It keeps a list of ones I read, and highlights them when they have been updated!

2. CNN International - I asked a good friend from South Africa were she liked to get her international news and she said CNN International. Go through the normal cnn.com site and change to international edition at the top right. A little world perspective never hurt a God-lovin' girl!

3. These 2 people - Irresistible!

Must See TV...

Anne: "Momma, what channel is America's Best Dance Crew on?"
Momma: "MTV"
Anne: "I can't wait to see Kaba Modern!"

steve's qualifications for the loony bin

To be clear, this is a picture of Anne standing (which she doesn't do on her own yet) on the couch cushions (which are no longer very firm) hanging on to a wall painting (as if that is even possible) "stabilized" only by Steve holding a wad of her britches in his fist while laying down as if nothing even mildly dangerous is going on.

'nuff said.

Everybody's doing it...

I am not usually one to cave to peer pressure, but consider me caved in!! I have enjoyed posting pictures of Anne over at www.ourbabynews.com/annesherwood, but have been quietly envying all the cute mom/family blogs of friends and random strangers. Then today, I found a website that will take your blog and turn it into a book. That was THE final straw! Anne is taking her nap, and here I am! I don't know if Sherwood Loony Bin is going to be Steve's favorite name, but he's not home right now and I am feeling impulsive! (We have rules about not calling each other for things such as the name of our blog, so don't think I am being a sneaky wife!)

To state a small portion of my case for "Sherwood Loony Bin", I will share something that happened literally 2 hours ago.

It was raining all morning. Weather.com even said 90% chance of rain. I think that is as high as their little precipitation percentage goes. After I fed Anne her lunch, I saw that it was no longer raining, and there was even some blue sky to be seen! Since Miss Anne is cutting her 3rd tooth (as of today), I decided that the blue sky I am seeing must be the extra 10% chance that weather.com mentioned and we needed to hit the neighborhood for a little exercise and teething distraction. It really did look very nice and clear outside... maybe a few gray clouds to the south, but whatever. Anne enjoyed her stroll for a good 15 minutes or so. We were maybe 1/2 mile from home and I feel the first drop... look up, still blue... no worries. I picked up the pace and began to feel a few more drops. Soon, it was pretty much really raining. And I am pretty much really 1/4 mile from the house.

Now, running used to be a thing of mine. Running fast, in fact! Like 1/4 mile in close to 1 minute fast (60.9 seconds to be exact... I know, that surprises even me these days) Too bad, my days of running glory are almost 11 years behind me. I am a walker now... I can walk really fast too!! haha!! Anyway, I ran, pushing Anne, in the rain, in front of all my work-at-home neighbors, ALL THE WAY HOME!!

Anne enjoyed it (thanks to her kick-butt stroller with a visor thingie keeping her dry). I loved it, thanks to it lasting no longer than 1/4 mile. And I didn't time myself exactly, but the run felt like about a 67 if my memory serves me correctly!! Haha!! Not bad for a momma!


Also, yesterday, Anne ate her first piece of tree bark. No kidding. So, if somehow participating in your 10 month old eating tree bark and running in the rain doesn't qualify at least me for the loony bin, then I don't know what does! (We'll get to Steve's qualifications later!)

Now I'm off to find a cute yellow FREE blogger template, because yellow is my favorite color and free is my favorite cost!

Later,
Penny :)

UPDATE: Couldn't find a yellow one that was as fitting as this one!! :)