Merry Christmas from the Anderson Family

These are pictures resulting from our day at the Washington State Arboretum.  Several of these are on our Christmas card this year which everyone will be getting soon if not already.

I was really happy with how the pictures turned out.  David always does such a good job with photography.  In other news, we've moved Johnny to a toddler bed this weekend.  He loves it.  We already got rid of the mini-crib along with the matching mattress and bedding.  That stuff was hard to find so I felt it was best to keep it together.  Now Johnny's excited about nap time.  The baby gate is down too.  Depending on how Johnny does we could very well be done with that too.  It's certainly nice not to trip on that anymore.  Vader seems to be staying out of there which helps.  We still have the baby gate up in the kitchen which only keeps Johnny out.  We might need that a little while longer because he doesn't quite understand the dangers of kitchens yet.  Perhaps after he's used to the new bed we can start him on the next challenge...potty training...(dramatic music).

Busy Christmas Season Weekend

We're all pretty tired this morning but a lot was going on this weekend.  Friday night the dance studio was part of the first year the Rainier Beach Merchants Association did a storefront holiday display contest.  It seemed like a pretty good showing.  Most places had free cookies, cider, hot chocolate.  The dance studio had performances by the dance team every 15 minutes.  I made cookies for them to supplement their hospitality stash.  There's a new place called St. Jude's that's still in remodeling mode but it looks like it will be a nice cafe.  Wings and Waffles had one of their owners doing some spinning/DJ stuff so it was jumping there.  Stopped by the magic/juggling store where David gets his yo-yo's and they had a kids art project going on.  Can't wait to see who won the contest.  Saturday Grandma Claudia came over to babysit while David and I did some Christmas shopping.  We also picked up the new bed for Johnny.  It hasn't been put together yet, we've been that slammed.  We did manage to squeeze in a bit of a date while out shopping by going out for sushi.  It was funny by the time we were done we both were incredibly thirsty.  Yesterday Holiday and I went with Grandma Claudia to the Victorian Country Christmas Fair in Puyallup.  She did really well and we walked down every single aisle.  We picked up a couple things.  The new addition this year was the North Pole with a chance to see Santa.  I'll have to get those pictures posted.  But the North Pole included several arts and crafts areas, several lounging areas (great if the little ones you brought to the fair need a break), bakery for treats, etc.  Everything was thought out well so there was no lines.  Holiday, Grandma and I rode on the carousel.  Holiday came back for a second ride, which was also the last ride of the night.  My right knee aches today and I'm pretty wiped out.  The good news was I burned off all the sushi from the day before. We walked for about 4 hours at the fair so Holiday did great.

Another one bites the dust

So...Holiday lost another tooth last night.  It was kind of funny.  She had been softly calling for her daddy right after he put her to bed.  So I checked on her instead because I was in the kitchen doing dishes anyway.  She said she pulled out her tooth.  It's been wiggly for a while and been bothering her.  I turned on the lights for a closer look and sure enough it was out.  She also had blood streaks all over her face and hands.  So I told her she should get up and tell her daddy (while I got some wipes to clean her up).  I had her wash her hands because she was so coated.  It wasn't like she was massively bleeding.  It's just when she gets ANYTHING on herself her reaction is to use her hands to try to wipe it off or wipe her hands together to try to get it off.  It usually makes whatever it is way worse.  Oddly enough she didn't get anything on her bedding, so she promptly went back to bed and fell asleep quickly so the tooth fairy would come.  And the tooth fairy did leave her a couple of dollar coins.

Happy Thanksgiving

Last week was pretty busy for several reasons.  David and I had our first parent/teacher conference for Holiday.  Mrs. Carr said Holiday was pretty solid academically coming in.  She knew all her upper case letters and most of the lower case letters, knew all the sounds and her numbers.  The biggest challenge with Holiday is keeping her interested.  She'll get bored with what's going on so she'll just start doing her own thing.  That's something we already knew.  So it's about getting her in the swing of forming good habits and knowing when it's time to focus on the task at hand.  She's outgrowing her 5T stuff so now I need to figure out her size in regular 'girls' clothing because that's the last of the 'T' sizes.  Her clothes still fit it's just the dresses are more like long shirts. Johnny's taller too but I had to hem all his clothes initially so they still fit, I can drop the hem if I need to.

David made most of Thanksgiving dinner.  I made a pumpkin pie from scratch, including crust.  It's been years since I've done that.  I had forgotten how long it takes to bake.  Usually people always have a pumpkin pie whomever hosts which is probably why I haven't done it in a while.  It's not my strong suit either so I still need to make some tweaks.  Like the directions said to "lightly flour and roll out dough" which I did.  Next time I'll make more dough and flour the heck out of it.  I had to use a spatula to get it off the board and onto the pie plate.  It looked better than it normally does and was pretty tasty.  David, of course, did a phenomenal job on everything else.  I helped with stuff like gathering dishes and all the stuff we needed to take everything, transport it to Grandma Linda's house and have dinner there.  Then we got everything back and cleaned up.  LOL I had to approach the dishes like I do laundry...by loads.  While I did that David cleaned the gutters and put up the Christmas lights.  We had put up the tree and everything else the weekend before so we are in full on Christmas mode now.

Friday was spent doing errands.  Holiday and I made cupcakes for Grandma Claudia's surprise birthday party.  The party was on Saturday.  We almost got everyone to make it.  It was a big success in spite of that, everyone had a good time.  Mom figured it out on the way in.  One of her friends has a distinctive bumper sticker so that gave it away.  Everyone had pitched in and brought food, everything was delicious.  My cupcakes turned out pretty and delicious.  I know that because not only did Holiday eat the frosting first (like she always does) she ate the cupcake itself as well.  LOL  After most of the guests left David broke out the party games.  We played two rounds of Animal upon Animal with all the kids. One round of Dixit which we hadn't played before and we really liked a lot.  Then two rounds of Wits and Wagers which is always a raging good time.

Now it's December and there's lots of stuff going on.  Busy, busy.

Pre Holiday Lull

There hasn't been much to report lately.  We got all our flu shots last Tuesday.  Actually Holiday opted for the nasal spray variety but the rest of us got injections.  It was on Veteran's Day so we had a family day and after flu shots we went to the Arboretum.  It was a beautiful, cold day so we took a lot of pictures.  Then on Thursday Johnny had a fever so I stayed home with him.  Nothing serious but he obviously wasn't 100%.  Then later on in the day I realized I wasn't feeling so good and I had a low grade fever myself.  So I guess it was good that I stayed home.  Johnny and I went back to daycare/work the next day.  It was a cold so I'm past most of the snottiness but Johnny is especially snotty right now.  We went to a birthday party for my nephew Ayden and niece Sammie on Saturday.  The kids always have fun playing at their house.  So mostly we're doing day to day kinds of things, but the holidays are around the corner and I know things will get busy again soon so I'll enjoy the lull while we have it.

Halloween and Holiday has lost her first tooth and Daddy's Birthday

Yes people...Holiday has indeed lost her first tooth.  It's the front, left, bottom one.  Holiday told us on Thursday that it was loose and she even let us wiggle it.  Then it fell out on Friday and she's way excited about it.  I'm thinking that it probably didn't hurt and not much bleeding so that's probably why this experience has been positive for her.  But she keeps forgetting it at school so we haven't had a visit from the tooth fairy yet.  Friday was also Halloween so we took the kids trick-or-treating in the Ballard area near the home of one of Holiday's friends from school, Theo.  Theo has a little sister Molly so the girls and boys kind of divided up and played together.  During trick-or-treat time Johnny kept screaming, "THEO, THEO, WAIT, WAIT!"  It was pretty funny since Theo was only inches in front of us.  But Johnny really liked Theo.  Johnny just had a red cape on for his costume but it pretty much covered all of himself up.  Holiday was Elsa from Frozen, very popular this year.  Johnny pretty much yelled the whole time either calling for Theo or Holiday or yelling TRICK-OR-TREAT! or THANK YOU!  It was pretty hilarious.  We were out for about an hour and then went back to the house so the kids could play some more and dig in on some of the candy.  Every time we got trick-or-treaters all four of the kids would come busting out of the bedrooms to see who was at the door.  Saturday was Daddy's 43rd birthday.  I think this one was slightly bittersweet for him since the kids have been hitting a lot of milestones lately which obviously means that they are growing up.  But he still had a good birthday.  I made him a pumpkin/chocolate cake (which was really good) and I gave him a couple of boardgames and a pair of fancy unicorn socks.  I had missed the part where the unicorns fart out rainbows.  Even better.

Beach and Pumpkin Patch Pictures

  

At the beach. 

Johnny digging in the hole

Come on in Holiday. 

There we go.

Time for beverages. 

At Maris Farms this month.

There goes Johnny. 

Next comes Mommy.

In the corn room.

Those pants are black.  Apparently dried corn is extremely dusty.  I beat her socks against a fence for a few minutes when she was done in there.  Gotta love the 'corn angel' though.

Johnny wasn't too sure about this at first and then warmed up to it once Holiday started playing.

She liked jumping off the side and landing in it with maximum dress flaring.

Grandma and Johnny with a big bag of kettle corn.

Johnny rode the ride which was great

Kids doing the fishing thing.  Adyen caught his but Holiday had no such luck with about 6 close calls.

Johnny riding a pony.

And doing it well.

That jump pillow was scary.

All the kids liked it though.

I just let Johnny jump his hardest. 

Johnny just lied down and rode the wave.  I wasn't jumping at all and I caught a lot of air from all the kids jumping around me.

The fish thing was pretty cool.

It's a new feature they have this year.

Johnny really liked that bag of kettle corn.

The kids at the restaurant for dinner afterwards.

Continuing on our photo journey

 

Us at Woodland Park Zoo.

Johnny's not down there by himself.  You can see Holiday's knees.

Extremely photogenic kids. 

This was during the thunderstorm and the animals just went buck wild.

The zebras were especially frisky.

Holiday was fascinated by the kimono dragons.

Johnny was initially interested then he ran away screaming from this statue. 

Tell us all about it Holiday.

Holiday getting a hug from the baby elephant statue.

Awwww....

By the otter exhibit. 

At Bumbershoot.  David and Johnny inching closer to the water.  Holiday in the foreground hanging out with Anna and Anna's friend.

Same shot but including my feet.

Right before the Kindergarten potluck.

Vogue.

Dressed up for school.

BBQ at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

He's just a little too short for the tricycle but he sure had fun trying.

Holiday and her cousin Ayden playing with the little tire swing.

Grandma thought the kids would like to play with the empty boxes.  I suppose if you're going to toss them anyway it makes sense to get full use out of them. Right?