Plano, Texas!

We are in Plano, Texas visiting Auntie Kari and Uncle Brian. We left last Thursday at about 6:30pm and planned to drive through the night unless Anya just couldn't sleep then we would stop at a hotel. The drive was a total of about 18 hours with all the stops (preggers had to go potty a lot) and we made it in one fell swoop. Anya did great. She was able to fall asleep in her carseat and only woke up when the car stopped (just like her daddy). She pretty much slept through the night-and at about 4am we were hungry and went through McDonald's drive through. I ordered Anya pancakes (3 huge ones) and she ate 2 and a half of them! We had also bought a portable dvd player and strapped it to the back of the passenger seat for Anya to watch movies when she was awake. She also played with sticker books and read some of her favorite books. We were all amazed that she made an 18 hour car ride with no problems at all! Then since then she has taken her regular naps and has gone to bed at her regular time. I packed a variety of toys for her, but so far all she has been interested in is pushing her baby around in a little umbrella stroller and playing soccer and basketball. Grandma and Grandpa Seppala bought her one of those nerf basketball hoops that hang over a door and she has been having fun with that. The thing that she really has gotten good at is kicking a soccer ball around. She actually dribbles it back and forth between her feet and then will wind up and kick it hard. I think we might have a soccer player on our hands..I wonder when we could start practice?
She also has a video called "The Letter Factory" (I recommend it) and it goes through all the letters of the alphabet and talks about the sounds they make and all that and it's pretty cute. Between that video and what we work on with her, she now can identify the letters A, H, I, K, M, O, Q, R, S, T, and W. I can write those and ask her what they are and she knows or I can ask her on her puzzle where the T is and then make the T sound and she points to it on her puzzle.
She is really talking a lot now. It's really crazy that we can have coherent conversations and then things she randomly says is so funny. The other day while I was driving, I had to brake fast because a car cut me off, and in the back seat I heard her say "Excuse me mommy" like she did something wrong!
I don't have pictures to put up yet, because we forgot to bring the cord to connect the camera to the computer, but we have some good ones of her at a farm we visited yesterday. Maybe I'll try to take some videos and put those up. I'll update again soon.