Anderson

Preschool

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:38:22 -0500

We are participating in a preschool coop and have preschool at our house every Wednesday. Today we made these little dinosaur headbands and I just couldn’t resist taking a picture of the kids. Olivia’s smile cracks me up. :)

Birthday Girl

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:06:36 -0500

Olivia turned 2! I can hardly believe it. She is our darling little girl and we have had a wonderful 2 years so far. We were at Cheryl’s house watching her kids and so we celebrated it there. Cheryl bought her this dress last year for her birthday and she wore it all around the house and loved it. She even kept her little crown on. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. :)
We made her norwegian pancakes for her birthday breakfast and that’s all she wanted to eat all day.
We made some cupcakes for her and sang happy birthday. When it was time for her to blow out the candle, she knew just what to do and wanted to do it again. After a few rounds of “Happy Birthday” singing, we dug into the cupcakes and ice cream. She opened her presents and was delighted. Aunt Sammy made her a doll! Look how cute this is. I am amazed by Sammy’s talents. It was a really fun day for our really fun and sweet girl. We just love our little girl and all the fun she adds to our family. Happy Birthday Olivia!

Puzeys

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:29:40 -0500

We had an adventure this month! Olivia and Owen and I packed up for almost a week and headed up to the Puzeys house to watch the kids while Cheryl and Doug took a trip to Washington. We had a blast. It was a LOT of work wrangling six kids on my own, but here are some of the trip highlights:
1. While doing homework, someone tooted and each kid blamed the kid younger than him. Ha ha. It was Owen.
2. Zac read Owen the funnies in the Sunday paper and then had to explain every part of the humor to him. Each time he would explain it and say, “get it?” Owen would say, “No.” So cute to hear Zac try to explain the jokes to Owen.
3. The kids played together REALLY well and got along wonderfully (tender mercy). :)
4. Olivia is not a champ at finishing her dinner, since it takes her a lot longer than anyone else. Kate fed Olivia after she was done and she used all the best tactics: airplane, choo-choo train and car. All at Olivia’s very specific requests.
5. We were able to play outside in the Puzey’s super fun backyard! When we got home Owen told me he wants a new house (not an old one), with stairs, and a playhouse in the back yard. Those are my marching orders from my 4 year old. :) Working on it.
6. Morgan and Carter were amazingly helpful and always pitched in to help me work.
7. Zac wanted to play tic-tac-toe with Olivia during church and drew the little board. Then he told Olivia that she is X and to put an X wherever she wanted. She stared. He then handed her the pen and she stared. Then he saw he needed to lay some groundwork for her and wrote out the entire alphabet (upper and lower case) and showed her each letter and stopped at O and X for emphasis. Then he drew some Xs and Os with dashed lines for her to trace the letters. He worked so hard on that game of tic-tac-toe. It was so cute.
8. Morgan and her friend doing their hair and make up Lady GaGa style.

Making Cookies

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:30:03 -0500

I have an endless amount of help in the kitchen at all times by my two kids. They love being in the kitchen with me and helping me, especially when I am making cookies. We decided to make some cookies the other day and before I can even pull out the chocolate chips, I had two kids pushing bar stools up to the counter and climbing on. I had to take a quick picture of them helping me out, and to boot, I needed to take a picture of them in their matching T shirts. I don’t dress them alike often, but Nate bought them these threadless T shirts and they both wanted to wear them today. Why not? It makes for a cute picture and a fun memory.
The cookies turned out great by the way. Here is what we made:

Chocolate Mint Cookies
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
sugar crystals for rolling the cookies
1 bag york pieces
1/2 bag ghirardelli dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375. Mix dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter, sugar, brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Add dry ingredients. Chill for about one hour (I often opt out of this step). Make into 1 inch balls, and roll in sugar crystals. Bake for 8 minutes.

Chicken.

Sat, 9 Jan 2010 01:28:40 -0500

While Christmas shopping this year Olivia disappeared down one of the bedding aisles and reappeared clutching this little stuffed penguin in her arms. She brought it to me exclaiming, “Chicken!” as she walked back towards me. I thought it was so cute that I bought it and then gave it to her for Christmas. She is still just as thrilled every time she sees “Chicken” and it is her new favorite thing to snuggle with when going to sleep. We have since discovered that anything with an orange beak is a “Chicken” in Olivia’s world. She has snuggled the orange beak right off his little face. :)
When we went shopping for Christmas ornaments with the kids at target, amazingly, they had a “Chicken” ornament, which you can check out here. For obvious reasons, she was drawn to the ornament and we bought it for her this year.
We love “Chicken”!

more snow...

Fri, 8 Jan 2010 01:28:59 -0500

I bet you didn’t know that you can make a snow angel in 1 inch of snow...
Well there are a lot of things you apparently MUST do if you are four years old and it snows:
Make a snow angel
have a snowball fight with your dad
taste snow
catch snowflakes on your tongue
write your name with your foot steps
build a snowman (this one did not come to fruition...)

Amazingly he accomplished all of those things (except building a snowman) in 1 inch of snow. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. :)

Let it Snow

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 01:39:33 -0500

This Christmas one of the things I was grateful for was Utah. Not just because we got to go and visit our family there, but also because Owen has been asking me every day in December when it is going to snow. In every Christmas book and movie there is snow, and he was just waiting for it to appear here, in Atlanta. Poor kid. So if it doesn’t snow at your house, going to Nana and Papa’s house where it DOES snow is great!
We headed to Utah on the 26th and celebrated Christmas with the Andersons. We had great fun and were able to spend time with Nate’s parents, all of his siblings, and Sarah and Andrew. :) We had a great time and loved seeing everyone.

Owen and Olivia were THRILLED that there were more gifts to be opened and Owen had a great time playing in Nana and Papa’s back yard in the snow with his cousins Emma and Gavin. I honestly didn’t know if he would last 10 minutes out there in the cold, but he played for about an hour each time! I had to buy hats and gloves for the kids for Christmas (since we don’t use them a whole lot here in Georgia) and they only had rain boots or running shoes to wear. I didn’t have any snow pants. Honestly I am amazed he lasted to long out there! But he had a great time and there was always a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows to be had once inside from the cold. :)

We were also lucky enough to celebrate Elanore’s birthday while were were visiting Utah. She turned 2 years old on the 30th! Happy Birthday Ella! :)

We went to visit Temple Square and see all the lights. I am amazed at how wimpy I have become in the cold, but we were out there for about 45 minutes in the snow. Not bad. :)
Thanks Andersons for your generosity and for all the good memories!

Christmas

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 01:21:23 -0500

This Christmas was a LOT of fun. We had a fun December with our daily advent activities, and on Christmas Eve we headed up to the Puzeys to celebrate! We had our traditional dinner of Autumn Chowder and Spinach Salad with our favorite treats for dessert. The kids performed the Nativity for us again, under Morgan’s direction. Great job Morgan! :)

Doug read the kids some Christmas Stories before bed.

We got our kids bundled up in matching Christmas PJs and in bed and then finished some last minute wrapping.

We woke up on Christmas morning and had a lot of fun opening presents! Santa brought Owen an “awesome marble track” per his specific request, and Olivia got a baby doll. It was so much fun to see everyone enjoy their gifts and play with them all day on Christmas. Everyone wore their new clothes and we made Ebelskivers and Norweigan pancakes for breakfast. I love Christmas day!

December Advent

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:46:54 -0500

So tearing a page out of my friend Laura’s playbook again, I took on the December advent calendar of activities this year. It has been a fun thing for us and we look forward to our activity everyday. It is really fun watching Owen be so excited about Christmas this year. Each day we write what we did on a card, and put it in the advent calendar pocket.
Here are a few highlights of our advent this year...

Decorating the House:

Buying Gifts for Friends/Family and then Wrapping Presents:

Making Ornaments (various days):

Christmas Party:
We love having our little friends over for a cookie and ornament decorating party. Sadly, this year there were no pictures... sigh.

Owen’s Tree: the second photo was taken by Owen.

Nativity: we have a tiny nativity for the kids and we let them arrange and rearrange it to their hearts content.

Christmas Puppets: there were lots of crafts this year, which we love. I even have a dedicated Christmas craft bucket. :)

Making Snowflakes: he did the folding, I did the cutting.

Picking out New Ornaments:

Live Nativity: our annual Christmas Eve tradition at the Puzeys.

Reading Christmas Stories:

Matching PJs:

Pictures with Santa: Owen told Santa he wanted an “awesome marble track” for Christmas, and Olivia just stared.

Owen’s Christmas List:
next year I am going to send it to Santa. This year he didn’t want to, but I found Santa’s address: 1 Santa Claus Lane North Pole, AK 99750

How to keep kids in the cart at Costco...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:17:53 -0500

The two straws were absolutely essential...

Family Photos (an attempt)

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:13:07 -0500

Here is one of our two attempts at Christmas card photos this year. I am beginning the realize the miracle of a family photo where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera. :)

Christmas Advent

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:51:51 -0500

A few years ago my friend, Laura, shared a really cute Christmas advent idea with me and we've been doing it for the past few years as well. It is really fun and I wanted to share and ask some ideas. For every day, instead of a chocolate or a little gift, we do an advent of activities, so that we are doing something to celebrate Christmas each day.

Some ideas are:
Decorating the tree
Making a gingerbread house
Making Christmas decorations for the tree
Watching a favorite Christmas movie with hot cocoa
Delivering gifts to our neighbors
Getting pictures with Santa Claus
The Nativity (reading, acting out, setting up, etc.)
Ward Christmas party
Going to look at Christmas lights
Riding the pink pig

So I wanted to share the idea, as well as see what other ideas people have of fun activities to do. Any ideas?

Happy Halloween

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:17:30 -0400

This year for halloween we decided to go traditional with our costumes: Owen was a Skeleton and Olivia was a witch. I, of course, did not take one picture of the two of them together. Brilliant Mother than I am. :) We did have a fabulous time, however and thoroughly enjoyed watching our kids have fun. Nate and I sort-of dressed up. I wore a witches hat and he wore his operation T shirt:

with a red clown nose. Sorry, no pictures of us either.
We carved pumpkins and spent a solid hour carving that skeleton (Owen’s pick). After that, we let him draw on the pumpkins and then cut out his drawings to make 2 more jack-o-lanterns. I think they turned out pretty good.
We had a great time at the ward trunk-or-treat and then we headed up to the Puzeys for some old school door to door trick-or-treating fun. Owen and Kate and the other little neighbor kids went running from door to door. They are all about the same age, and it was cute to watch the little pack of them go. Olivia wanted to walk the entire way as well, which left her and I (or her and Nate...as we took turns) lagging behind the group. She did get to toddle her way up to a few doors and say trick-or-treat, which she really loved. She wants to do everything Owen is doing these days.
We went back to Puzey’s for a movie and some serious candy counting. It was really cute.
We had a Happy Halloween and hope yours was too! :)

PS: I posted a new essay.

Octoberfest

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:36:26 -0400

We also like to take a few days to stay at Slesk Orchard and Gardens. This year Jamie hosted Octoberfest again and much fun was had. We started the kids off with some sugar cookie decorating. Then they each got to make a ghost costume before heading out on a “ghosts and goblin’s scavenger hunt” that ended with a pinata! They LOVED it. Then we took them to the pumpkin patch where they rode in the tractor cars and this year the owner had a trebuchet. I hadn’t ever heard of one before, but it is somewhat like a catapult. He launched pumpkins into the sky and over the patch into the next field where they exploded. It was a big hit! Nate took some video, but I don’t know how to put video on my site yet, so you can look up pumpkin trebuchet on youtube and find some videos of just what it looked like. It was a lot of fun.
We made some apple cider, and it is oh so delicious when it is that fresh. YUMMM!
They guys built a lean-to on Jamie’s garden shed and also had a hatchet throwing contest. You know... man stuff. A good time was had by all.

The Storehouse

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:36:15 -0400

We also stopped by to visit Grandma and Grandpa at the Bishop’s storehouse. They serve there during the week and we took the kids by to say hello. They got to ride on carts and Owen and Grandpa even got a ride on the forklift! We love to visit Grandma and Grandpa. :)
Sorry...all I had was a phone picture...

Christensen’s Nursery

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:35:55 -0400

Another favorite stop is Christensen’s Nursery. They have beautiful plants and a really cute home boutique to boot! This year we went out back and found an old school house and some farm animals too. It was a fun place to wander around with the kids.

Apple Orchard

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:35:38 -0400

Gordon’s also has an apple orchard, so we (after Karen pointed it out to us) took a few more pictures...

Gordon’s

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:35:27 -0400

We took our annual fall pilgrimage to the northwest again this year, visiting my family. We always make sure to go to Gordon’s pumpkin patch and we always have a great time. Here are some of this year’s pics. To see last year’s pics look here.

the best laid plans...

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:34:38 -0400

We set out for a really cute pumpkin patch, and ended up in the wrong place. Luckily we found a cute church with a lawn full of pumpkins where we could snap a few fall pictures of the kids and buy our pumpkins too.

Botanical Garden

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:03:45 -0400

We had a fun day at the Botanical Garden a few weeks ago with Lori and Reagan. We had never been before but the kids and I loved it! The flowers were beautiful and it is fun to let the kids run around and play outside. They also had hundreds of scarecrows up for the holiday season, which was fun to see. We had a great time. Thanks for letting us tag along, Lori! :)