Christmas Post

Once again, we kicked off the Christmas season right with the Carter Christmas party. 

Anda saw Santa no fewer than three times. Here she is giving him the picture she drew of the Merida doll she wanted. 

We got our first fake tree this year and I LOVE it. We even got Anda a tiny one to keep in her room for the season.  

My parents came out this year, which has been great. 

We all took the train up to Salt Lake the Saturday before Christmas to eat at the Red Iguana and see the lights. The Red Iguana was delicious, but outside it was freezing. We pulled Lilah backward to try to save her from the wind, and we all ended up purchasing warmer clothes by the end of the day. 

The lights at Temple Square were beautiful, of course, but everyone else in the state had the same idea, so we spent very little time looking at the lights and most of the time looking for each other. I still thought it was fun.

Getting back on the train was the scariest part. We got to the platform very early and froze our butts off because it was clearly going to be the train that everyone with little kids (ie, everyone in Utah) was going to try to catch, in order to get home before bed time. We were at the front of the line, and Dan, Amy, Hannah and I were relieved when we snagged the first group of seats we came to. However, when we turned around to usher Nana and Papa to the seats with the kids, they were nowhere to be seen. We had lost them in the stampede to get on the train, and I had some momentary panicked images flashing in my mind of the train taking off without them, or one of them having been injured in the rush. It turned out they had just run up the stairs as soon as they got on the train, and were safe and sound in some seats above us. We couldn't join them because of the crowd all the way back down the valley, but at least everyone was okay and in the same place.

The lights were pretty and all, but I think I might wait until after Christmas next year. 

Christmas Eve pajama time was all kinds of fun, of course. I especially liked Dan's addition of humming appropriate hymns during certain parts of the Christmas story in Luke. 

And Christmas morning was the gluttonous celebration of consumerism that every kid dreams of. 

It's always over too soon, but at least my parents will be here for a few more days, so we can squeeze out every last drop of family time they've got left in them before then. But who wouldn't want to spend as much time as possible with these adorable children? 

Merry Christmas to all. 

Anda Says

No introduction necessary anymore, I think. Here we go.

Anda: Mom, what does my belly say?

Me: I don't know. What does your belly say?

Anda: It says, "Oh, thank you for the treat."

Anda: Why we can't watch (here's the funny part) Lilah Paige NEMO! [parenthetical statement part of the original]

Anda: Is this the airplane port?

Me: Papa is going to put you to bed tonight.

Anda: I want you to!

Me: Papa is really good at putting people to bed.

Papa: I've been putting myself to bed for 54 years. Fifty-four years! Do you know how long that is?

Anda: Um...16?

Nana: How you doing over there Anda?

Anda: CHOCOLATE FROSTING!

Anda: Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven, twenty-twelve...

Anda: Mom, why's she a crying baby? 

Anda: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ASTRONAUT

Anda: Monday, Tuesday,  Threesday, Foursday, Fivesday...

Anda: Why do you have a skeleton on your shirt?

Dan: I like skeletons.

Anda: I don't like skeletons. I like princesses. 

Anda: She can't go in her bed because she still has her "pet the pooch" hat on!

Me: What?!

Anda: That's from Belle. 

Anda: Mommy, why Cinderella doesn't brush her teeth? 

Dan: Anda, Mama needs your help in the kitchen. She's making a treat.

Anda: What kind of treat?

Dan: I don't know--muffins, I think.

Anda: That's a lot of sugar

Anda: Remember the other night when I eat chicken?

Me: Yes. I LOVED when you ate chicken.

Anda: But you don't love me when I don't eat chicken? 

Me: No! I love YOU all the time. I just really liked when you ate your chicken. [Thanks for backfiring, positive reinforcement] 

Anda: [praying]...Bless us to eat good food, and our neighbors...

Me: Oh, what did you draw in this picture?

Anda: It's a person doesn't have no friend and the sun. 

Me: You should draw them a friend.

[later]

Me: Who did you draw in the picture?

Anda: [pointing to the new person] That's me, and [pointing to the friendless one] that's you

Anda: [pointing to unicorn] And that's a horsecorn. 

Anda: I drew a picture!

Me: That's beautiful.

Anda: Can you put it on the frigerator and not put it in the garbage while I'm sleeping?

Anda: Am I going to have bad dreams?

Me: No, you'll have good dreams. What do you want to dream about?

Anda: Why not Dooley Dog playing at the river at Seven Peaks?

Me: Anda, what's an Indian?

Anda: They have food. We talked about that in my school. And he's very sad.

Me: Why is he very sad?

Anda: Because all his friends died. 

Anda: [pretending we are all dragons] Mom, if you are going to go outside to houses or church, you might want to fly your wings. 

[Anda is running laps around the kitchen, high-fiving Dan when she passes him]

Dan: Ok, this is the last one, so make it count.

Anda: [stops and points to each of his fingers] One, two, three, four, five, six...

Thanksgiving

We invited some friends over for Thanksgiving and had to make a last minute run to Walmart that morning. I decided to dress for the occasion.

I have only seen someone I know at Walmart literally  twice in the entire time I've lived here. Today, since I was looking awesome, we ran into someone we knew no fewer than four times. 

Anyway, we got home and began the preparations. Anda loved peeling the potatoes. After every single one she would ask, "Can I do another one?"

Everything was delicious and went off without a hitch. 

 Lilah particularly enjoyed the festivities.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Costumes and Parties

Anda wanted to be Hermione this year and consistently insisted that I be Bellatrix, which I was happy to do. There are 13 spooky differences between these two pictures. Can you spot them all?

Dan actually took treats to some people from church like that. 'Tis the season, I suppose.

Lilah wanted to be a banana (or GOB), and she looked great doing it.

I considered making her Dobby, but come on--that is one cute banana.

I was super excited when we got invited back to the Carter Family Halloween Party this year. They put on a seriously good family party, and we are the lucky intrusive cousins who get to drop in. 

Anda was really excited that Harry was there and wouldn't leave poor Carson alone all night. He was very sweet to her, though, which I appreciated immensely. They even tied for the Cutest Kid Costume.

And of course, at the end, we hit up that amazing spook house their neighbor down the street puts up in her yard.

Dan and I got invited to a grown up party at a neighbor's house, too. We got the invitation at the last minute, and costumes were required, so we racked our brains, made a trip to DI, and actually ended up winning the "Best Couple Costume" award. Go figure. It was a great party, complete with a driving-around-town-and-even-creeping-into-large-tombs scavenger hunt (which we also won, thanks to Dan's creative interpretation of some local traffic laws).

Anda and I hit up the Provo Community Center Carnival again which I can't say enough good things about. They have tons of activities that are perfect for kids and it's only $3 a person. It's adorable. I didn't have my camera, but my sister took this picture of the place to give you an idea.

Of course, Halloween night itself was fun, too. I didn't get pictures of them together because I'm the worst, but Anda and I met up with a couple of neighborhood friends to trick-or-treat for about an hour. It was really fun now that she's old enough to sort of grasp what was going on and really get into it. The girls were cute and I think we stayed out just long enough to have fun and get some candy without wearing out or bringing home nine pounds of the stuff. Perfect. I'd say it might even top the year I made at least two little kids cry with my scary porch decorations! Maybe.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch

Anda was sick the day her preschool class went to the pumpkin patch, so we took her later as a family. They had fun stuff there, just like last year, but it was cold enough that even Anda didn't want to hang around and play. I was okay with that--let's get a few pictures, grab some pumpkins, and head to the real party: 7-11's hot chocolate bar.

We carved them up later, but I didn't get around to taking pictures before they were all sunken in and gross-scary instead of fun-scary. I carved mine and Lilah's, and had Anda draw a face on hers for me to cut out, but I left Dan's scooped out and waiting for him to carve later. This is what "later" looks like in terms of a pumpkin.

That is straight up full of mold. Spooooky!

Halloween Crafts

I love Halloween! I was sick last year, so we didn't do much, but I feel like we had just the right amount of fun this time around.

Anda got really excited when I put out our little Halloween display on the entry table, and the spooky stuff outside, but she was disappointed that she "didn't have no Halloween in [her] room," so I tried a few crafts with her this year.

We made some of those cheesecloth ghosts my family used to make when I was a kid. They are really cute but they turned out so big I didn't really have anywhere to put them, so they ended up kind of awkwardly haunting the piano all month.

We also made some monsters (educational bonus points--she learned about mixing colors).

Protip--although it works on clothes, do not try to clean acrylic paint off of your kitchen table with rubbing alcohol. Dan had to come to the rescue with the furniture restoring magic on that one. I am why we can't have nice things.

I had my sister cut out some black shapes and everyone made pumpkins on paper plates to string up in Anda's room.

And, of course, we made cookies.

I was just going to make one big Halloween post, but now that I realize how many pictures I actually have, I have decided to break it up into several different posts so...stay tuned.