Odds and Ends of Holiday Fun

These pictures are some odds and ends from Thanksgiving and the few weeks after.

1- TRAINS: Andersen loves trains. So he decided to make a train using my cake pans. He's so creative. Notice how the nut chopper is the "smokestack."

2- Granny Louw bought gingerbread kits for the kids to do after Thanksgiving dinner, but we never got around to doing them. So she gave our family one of the kits to do. We attempted to build our train last Friday night. Andersen soooooo loved the candy and frosting.






3 - Decorating the house and tree. This year I kept most of my decorations in the boxes. This is all I have decorated on the main level. We put our tree in the basement, so that it would remove some of the temptation. It's not a very sturdy tree and we were worried that it would fall over when little hands got a hold of it. We hope to buy a bigger, more sturdy tree for next year for our main family room. I miss looking at the tree and the lights, since we spend more time upstairs than down.


4- Thanksgiving Day. I really didn't take many pictures on this day, but I did get some "dessert" pictures. Gwen got to lick the beaters from the whipped cream and she was sharing with Holly. I got Andersen eating his pie which. by the way, was the only thing he ate that day. I also had to document Granny eating her "killer" pie. It had caramel, macadamia nuts, pumpkin, cream cheese and who know what else. The caramel set up too much and it was too hard to cut or put a fork through it, so you just had to pick it up and eat it.

Granny's "KILLER" pie.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY!

Today was Holly's special day...she turned 1. Too bad we all have head colds that have been lingering for over a week. Charl and I went to the doctor to get antibiotics in hopes of speeding up the recovery. Granny Louw came over to sit with the kids while they were napping, but they were mostly awake during the hour that we were gone. Holly and Andersen can't really take any medicine so they just have to deal with me and the tissues! We got Chinese takeout, since I didn't feel up to cooking dinner. We had Crispy Beef and Sesame Chicken. Holly ate some of the rice and maybe a bite of chicken...but preferred her jar of sweet potatoes. Andersen, like usual, didn't eat any dinner. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Holly eating some Chinese food.

Holly posing with her first birthday cake. She could not wait to get her hands on that butterfly. The cake turned out cuter than I thought it would...I'm glad someone told me how make butterflies out of pretzels...they were the most sought after part.

Mommy and Holly.

Blowing out the candles. Anders was a big help with this.

Here we go...DIG IN! (Notice Holly's clothes have been removed.)

That was a YUMMY cake!

Mommy and Daddy gave Holly some jeans and beads. Andersen gave Holly a push toy that plays music, but Andersen thought all the toys were for him.

These are the 2 books that Granny Ann sent. The Gallop book is really cute. The animals "move" when you turn the page. Anders really liked this book. He pretended to be the animals.

Holly sporting her new bead necklace.

I can't believe that a year has passed since you were born. It's been fun reflecting on all the joy you bring us. You are such a sweet little girl. We love you a ton!

Baby steps for Holly, Leaps for "Momkind"

About a week and a half ago, Holly started taking baby steps, but she would always fall by third step. In that week's time, she has upped the number of steps. This first video is when we were excited about the first little 3 steps and we tried to video her. As you can see, she was not in the walking mood.



I tried again the following day and the result was much better. I think her motive was to get the toys that Andersen was playing with.



Because I am a persistent mom... I filmed her again the next day and this time she made it across the whole room (OK, only 2/3's of it, but that was her best stretch yet.)



CONGRATULATIONS HOLLY!

HELP! HELP!

So this morning I took Holly upstairs with me while I got dressed. I left Andersen downstairs watching TV. I barely make it into my closet and I hear Andersen's cute little voice saying, "Help, mommy, Help!" He didn't sound too distressed, so I casually walked out of my room and headed for downstairs to see what he needed. This is what he needed help with:


Why is it that they can figure out how to get up, but they can't figure out how to get down. I'm just glad that he called for help before he got any higher.

I Won!

I haven't "won" very many contests in my lifetime (excluding basketball games). My sister, Layne, e-mailed me a drawing for the Utah Chocolate Show. Layne has been to the show before and said it is awesome and her friend Colleen has won tickets a few times, but not this year, so she was really bummed. All I had to do to enter the drawing was forward the e-mail to 5 people. I LIKE chocolate. So I did it. Low and behold, a few days later I got an e-mail back saying that I had won 2 tickets. (I think you the tickets are only $7 to get in so it's not like I couldn't go otherwise, but now I'll go instead of just thinking it would be fun to go to.) I figured most people win tickets, but Layne told me they just select 15 winners each week for 2 weeks. I guess that makes me one of the lucky few. Since Layne is the one that allowed me this opportunity...we'll have a sisters day out and enjoy chocolate.

Earlier I mentioned that I haven't won tickets to many things, but I did win tickets to something else before. Back in 1995 I wanted to go to the AT&T Challenge tennis tournament in Atlanta. Andre Agassi was playing in it and for all who know me, know that I love Andre Agassi. My dad was working for AT&T and said I could get discounted tickets if I called a certain number. I waited too late and it was either sold out, or they no longer had the "discounted" tickets available. I was explaining to the guy on the phone how badly I wanted to see Agassi. With his help, we analyzed the draw and figured that Agassi would most likely play Thursday night in the quarterfinals. I really wanted to go to that match. After quite the long discussion, he finally says, "I'll tell you what. I don't have any tickets I can sell you, but I do have 2 box seat tickets in the 7th row that I can give you...what is your name and address?" My heart was beating I was so excited. Luckily, I did get to watch Agassi play in that quarterfinal and he went on to win the tournament. So fun. So lucky.

I Finally have Christmas Stockings

I really wanted to buy Christmas stockings last year, and the year before, and the year before, but the only ones I really liked were from Pottery Barn and they were between $26 - $36 EACH. That adds up, so I kept thinking how hard can it be to make them. I figured I could buy material for $50 or so and make quite a few. The problem with my plan is - I DON'T SEW. I have my mom's old sewing maching that sits in a closet...I don't even remember how to thread the bobbin. We'll I never got around to doing anything last year, or the year before, etc, and now that it is the holiday season again, I began searching for stockings again. So I bit the bullet and went a fabric store and walked out with $65 of cute fabric. Thanks to Layne I now have 2 christmas stockings with 4 more on their way.

These are mine and Charl's. Layne is still working on the kids'. When she's done, I'll add a picture of them. We may try to monogram them somehow, too.

Tonight's Drive Home

Today we spent the day at Layne's house. Charl helped Rich hang their Christmas lights and Layne and I sewed (I cut, she sewed) my Christmas stockings (we finished 2 of of 6). Anyway, we headed for home at 8 pm and the radio station was on KSL (we listened to the BYU game on the drive to Layne's house so it was still on that station). Playing on that station was the Doug Wright show. We tuned in during the middle of his rant about playing Christmas songs before Thanksgiving. He would play snippets of songs and say, "I definitely can wait until Thanksgiving before hearing that song. The first song we heard him rip on was, "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". As soon as the song began to play, Andersen pipes up in the back, "Hippo, Mommy" and procedes to sing the song. Sad for Andersen because he only played a few lines, but he sang right along with it. Then Doug Wright comes back and starts in on his lead for the next song that should not be played until after Thanksgiving. I say to Charl, wouldn't it be funny if he does the "donkey" song next? Ten seconds later we are busting up laughing because sure enough, Dominick the Donkey plays next.

The reason this was so humorous to us is because last year at Christmas Teresa discovered the "donkey" song and intoduced it to us at her birthday party. Nearly every Sunday after that, we have watch the You Tube video of Dominick the Donkey and when you go to that video the "Hippo" video is the next one in line. Now, whenever Andersen sees a computer, he shouts "donkey, Mommy" or "hippo Mommy", and continues to shout until he is singing along with the video. HE'S HOOKED...thanks, Teresa!!