*This will begin a series of picture inspired blogs. I'm too tired to be original this week. Hope you enjoy.*

It's like having my very own porcelin doll.

Music time in the studio. This week we are singing all of the songs off of The Sound Of Music. She loves "These are a Few of My Favorite Things." We add in The Dallas Cowboys, Mexican food, and cupcakes. And this week we will add in Troy, Jimmy, Howie and the other boys from Fox; Boston; Grandma Ila; and people from Maine who wait in the autograph line to give us Lobster rolls after we talk about wanting a lobster on stage. Maybe we will also work on learning the word "Lobster."

Look, I am trying not to be biased, but this kid is smart. She devours books.

A few weeks ago someone left a comment on the blog saying they were, "devouring old posts like Nancy Drew books." This AMAZING compliment has stayed with me. I fell in love with reading (and I am quite sure I also developed a severe anxiety disorder) by reading about Nancy, Bess, and George and their terrifying adventures in secret passageways, old houses, and hidden lakefront properties. I'm talking the good Nancy Drew books people, the classics, by Carolyn Keene.

I stumbled upon the original series of books in my grandparent's musky attic when I was in the fourth grade. Every month I would visit them in Mississippi and before going home to Texas I would go and pilfer as many books as I could fit in my backpack.

And then my alternate life began.

I read furiously on the Sunday afternoon drive back to Texas. I would read for so long that my eyes would burn and threaten mutiny. Still, I sat on the edge of my mental capacity, on the brink of near blindness, on the verge of shear panic, and I would devour the adventures of Nancy Drew from cover to cover. Sometimes I wouldn't even get out of the car at gas stations for snacks. And you know something has sucked me in and held me prisoner if I skip out on the food. Monday mornings I would go back to school all foggy and exhausted. The rest of these chumps went to Showbiz pizza or Six Flags over the weekend but I went to find a secret clock in a secret closet in a secret house and I was almost run off the road, kidnapped, and killed twice. My life was way more interesting than theirs.

Grandma rolled her over after nap time and she looked like this. Gosh I love this kid.

Each week we try and learn new things. Last week we started learning to eat grass. This is the mark of a true Southern woman. If we have to, we know how to properly eat grass.

No rest for the weary. Unless your husband builds you a really nice bed made out of metal chairs. Then, a nap is only a matter of tuning out the other band on stage, the people who are eating dinner at the table right behind you, and the hum of the coke machine at the foot of your greenroom-metal-chair-bed that your poor 5 month old baby has to nap on. Annie doesn't know any different. This kid would be happy living in a trash can.

Ryan snapped this while we were taking a walk by the cornfields in Indiana. I love this picture. It makes me happy.