Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year in our little house with our little family :) We were hoping for a little more snow, but other than that it was just about perfect :) Here are some pictures and lots of videos to show our Christmas happenings.





Anne and I made Christmas sugar cookies for our friends and neighbors. She liked helping with the sprinkles and taste testing :)











She was also my little wrapping helper. She liked to pull the bows out of the bag, unravel the ribbon, crinkle the wrapping paper and scatter the presents. What a good little helper.





This picture kind of makes it look like she's in awe of the presents but she's actually focused on the tree (one of her favorite things in the world right now). Whenever we go into the room she points to the tree and says "tr! tr!" and "ohhhh".

Anne and Daddy enjoying outside (this is as close as we get to outside these days because it is so dang cold!)


I've been on a crocheting kick this Christmas season so for presents for our downstairs buddies I made this sweater for baby Evie:


scarf for Molly


and hat for Michael


Mama making some rolls for Christmas Eve dinner.


We were blessed to spend Christmas Eve dinner with our friends downstairs the Ross's and their family. I think we actually liked this food better than Thanksgiving! And the company wasn't bad either ;)


We decided to continue Zac's family tradition of passing around chocolates on Christmas Eve (I exnayed the ludafisk (jello fish) tradition, but we kept this one). As soon as Zac opened the chocolate box the kids came flocking.


Christmas morning!





Anne was full of lots of hugs and kisses Christmas morning. We didn't mind. She knows what Christmas is really all about. We love our little angel. :)


Dad actually got his Christmas present a couple weeks ago because we found it on sale but either way he was excited for his new toy. It's a Winchester model 70 stealth 2 rebarrelled to a 260 Remington. Whew!


Anne loved her Christmas presents! She wasn't that interested in opening them, she mostly wanted to give them hugs and kisses instead. But once they were opened she loved to play with them. Here she is in her cute new coat that Grandma Russell made her.


And of course reading her stories.


Grandpa Thatcher sent Anne a rocking horse for Christmas! She's had a lot of fun rocking away and petting and kissing the horsie.


One of her presents from Santa was this keyboard that plugs into the laptops so she can play her games without accidently clicking the mouse. I still don't know why they had to put the ctrl, alt, esc and those kind of keys on it, but maybe Daddy can pop those off.

Because Anne got so many cool presents on Christmas we decided to save her last one from Santa until the next day. Here she is giving it love...


...and helping Daddy assemble it..

...and testing it out before he was done...



...and taking it for a ride! She loves her new car though she's not quite big enough to make it move herself, she loves when we push it around and make car noises.

Aunt Jennifer sent Anne a strawberry shortcake doll that Anne and Mama love. She's going to have so much fun dressing it up with all the doll clothes Grandma Russell made her. For now she likes to of course give it hugs and kisses and rock it.



Dad doing what Dads do on Christmas morning :)







Gabbie sent Anne a cool musical giraffe that Anne studied and then gave lots of love once she approved of it. I liked that it played lots of different songs!




Anne playing with her dolls.




The Russell grandparents sent Anne a drum of musical instruments which she loved to play with us. We hope that she likes to play on it when we play Rock Band.




Anne received her first cabbage patch doll from Gabbie! It's so cute and actually smells really good...like baby powder or something. She liked playing with her hair.




Our little almost walker. It's cute to see how much she learns and improves everyday.




Anne showin' Mama love.


Anne's first Christmas stocking hanging. These were another project of mine during this Christmas season. I ran out of time to make Dad's...next year.

Anne showing her cute little organized personality.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Thanksgiving and Pre-Christmas

Just a cute new hairstyle.
A video below will help explain this.
Sorry these pictures are slightly out of order...but here we are Christmas decorating the day after Thanksgiving. Anne liked playing with the boxes :)
Anne is learning to play with other kids, especially her buddies downstairs.
Chili night.

Anne's ornament this year was given to her at story time. She gave it lots of love :)
So it has officially turned winter here in Utah. We got a couple inches of snow and 20 degree days and 5 degree nights. So Anne and I have mostly been indoors doing Christmas projects. But when I did take her out I put her in this cute sack thing that has a hole for the car seat buckle. She looked like a cute little blue caterpillar.
One of my crafty projects I've been working on was this purse for my neice Lucy for her 5th birthday. I can't believe she's already 5!

I just love pictures of her eating.
She likes to dip her crackers in her leftover yogurt.
So Anne and I have been working on an art project and I let her use markers. Only afterwards did I bother to look on the label to see that they were NOT washable. :) I thought all crayola markers were washable...oh well! Our little studier enjoyed taking the caps on and off.

Anne looks stylin' in her new outfits from Aunt Dawn. Thank you!


This is kinda blurry, but it's the only picture we took of our short but fun visit with Gabe and Jennifer. We were so proud of our little Anne that she is breaking out of her little shy bubble and let Aunt Jennifer hold her. You can't see it but she's waving her new puppy hat.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends. Great food and great company.

I started making pies at 5 in the morning because I couldn't sleep. Then I decided to go running and ran 6 miles (which I haven't done since high school) and killed my feet. I haven't been able to run in two weeks :( But boy did those pies taste good :)

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we got to go see the BYU vs Utah football game. It turned out to be a great game and a fun but chilly family outing.

Anne was a little angel and slept throught the 1st and 3rd quarters.
It turned out to be a really close, hard fought game that came down to the last play, so everyone rushed the field at the end when we won. We thought about doing it again, but decided it wouldn't be the best idea with Anne this year. But we had fun watching the craziness.

Fun eating.

Balloon wind.
So the night of Thanksgiving we go into the kitchen and Anne is sitting holding her shirt that used to be on her five seconds ago. Needless to say, she learned by herself how to take off her shirt.
So other exciting news in our house is that our friends and neighbors downstairs had their new baby Evelyn! We are very excited and had a fun time watching the kids while Mom and baby were in the hospital. I love watching their little social interactions even at this age.
Christmas Lights
Anne absolutely loved Gabe and Jennifer's puppy Copper.

During our vast inside time Anne and I have had to be creative with finding activities, so we decided to turn one of her diaper boxes into a car. She loves to be pulled around and make vrooming noises while she colors the inside. In this video she is also giving the crayon nose kisses and hugs which she does with most everything these days including her food. During lunch today she gave her graham cracker and kiss and hug and then ate it. Our little girl's just got lots of love.

And of course it wouldn't be a BYU football game without...