Christmas Kids

This December, one of my big goals was to get a picture of all three of my sweet children dressed up in their Christmas duds! I do realize that I have pictures of them from all over the world this year, but oddly enough, traveling doesn't make for children who are feeling photogenic. I hardly have any of all three of them together, let alone all three looking at the camera or dare we suggest?...smiling! So, this month, I was a woman on a mission. I'll spare you all the attempts and get straight to my top three picks:

Here they are the Sunday before Christmas:
This one meets two of my criteria:
All three children? check.
All three children looking at the camera? check.
But alas, we didn't quite make it on the smiling front.

And the Sunday After Christmas, we hit the jackpot!

All three children? check.

All three children looking at the camera? Check

All three children smiling? Yay!!

(I do love how Daphne looks like she's freezing her little tail off and Tori looks ready to run at any moment.)

This was our first attempt at pig tails (or dog ears- whatever your preferred coloquialism) in Tori's hair. And I must say, I know I am incredibly biased, but it was one of the. cutest. things. ever. (I'm just a teeny bit proud to be their mom, can you tell?)

Snow Fun!

So I am ridiculously late in posting this, but back in December, back when we were getting snow, Matt built this awesome snow fort for the kids! They loved it and played in it for almost two months until it melted... If you know me, you know that I suffer through February. I barely make it out of this month each year and usually it is not done gracefully or without at least one tearful break-down where I accuse Matt of ruining my life for making me live in this snowy prison! ( To be fair, ask me any other time of year and I love Utah. The seasons are beautiful and I am thankful to live here most of the time!) I, for one, don't miss the snow... but I do miss the snow fun for the kiddos. They love to play in it and now it's just mostly cold, damp and muddy outside. I am, however, thankful for the fresh, inversion-free and pseudo-warm air!

Christmas Lights 2009

We didn't make it down to Temple Square for Christmas Lights this year, so we just headed over to the see the City Lights:

We had a fun time at dinner with the Abercrombies even though the freezing temperatures kept our trip short!

Anderson Family Christmas Party

So, the first Saturday in December, we went to the Anderson Family Christmas Party!
This year, we held it in the Care Center where Matt's grandmother, aka: Granny Great, is staying. It is a wonderful opportunity to see all of Marsha's extended family and to see Granny Great.
Victoria spent much of the night trying to avoid eating actual food so that she could move straight to the dessert table. Here she is enjoying a bread bowl:
I couldn't fix the red eye in this pic and it's making me nuts! Matt and Raegan were trying hard to avoid being photographed- they would NOT look at the camera, so I suck a pic while they were smiling at each other. Hee Hee... they think they are sooo clever!

Victoria was completely enamoured with Will and Whitney's brand new baby, Oliver.

Here she is eating a cookie after a very pathetic version of eating her dinner:

Tori's Big Sister

Daphne and Victoria haven't always been the best of friends. Daphne has wanted to help from the moment she was born, but, like any 4 or 5 year old big sister... she sometimes wants to help a little too much. Daphne has a very strong personality- she's a leader by nature and sometimes... Tori doesn't want to be led. But, She is imaginative to the extreme, which keeps her (and us) busy for hours on end! And over the past few months, she has become: genuinely and magnificently nurturing to her baby sister. This has been pure joy for my mother's heart. I have seen Daphne grow and mature in her relationship with Victoria. I have watched her protect her, defend her, comfort her and tend her. One of the most satisfying things to watch is when Daphne observes Tori learn a new skill. Daphne's face is overwhelmed with genuine delight and pride for her sister. I love, LOVE seeing the light of Christ shine in her beautiful face and actions. I am so honored and proud to be a mother to all three of my miracles. Forgive me for gushing today about this one.

In these photos, Daphne is tending Tori and taking her for a little walk in front of our house while I help ( and I use that term loosely) Matt put up the Christmas lights on the house. It was pretty chilly outisde and Daphne worked hard to keep Tori covered and happy while Mommy and Daddy worked. We are so thankful that Victoria has such a great big sister to play with and learn from!

Run, Run, Run as Fast As You Can!

I have been teaching the concept of retelling stories in my class. This is an incredibly important early literacy task, and I like to use traditional stories and nursery rhymes. We taught the Three Little Pigs and The Gingerbread Man. As I was preparing my lessons for the Gingerbread Man, I was debating about whether or not to tell the story with the title character being, ahem, *eaten* at the end! The children I teach are pretty young, so I was going back and forth on the issue.

Then, I remembered that Daphne had a unit on the Gingerbread Man in her kindergarten class, so I asked Daphne what happened to him at the end of the story.

Daphne said, "Well. I don't remember what happened to the Gingerbread Man, but I do know what happened to the Gingerbread Girl!"

Alright- she aroused my curiosty. I bit. "What?"


Daphne: "Well, when the Fox tells her to jump onto his nose, she grabs a licorice stick from her hair and ties his mouth shut, and jumps off to the other side of the river!"


This sounds cute, I think. But, I ask, "What does the Gingerbread girl say when she's running? You know, the Gingerbread Man says 'Run, run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!'?"

Daphne: "Oh! She says, 'Run, Run Run, with a leap and a twirl! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Girl!'"

It's a really cute variation on the story, if you are ever interested, you can find it here.

So, of course, during thecourse of all this, I had to make Gingerbread Men! Isaac and Daphne were totally excited to make them and had a great time decorating theirs:
(with gobs of icing!)

Food. Family. Fun.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I have been so perpetually behind on blogging that I thought I would jump right in and post my Thanksgiving pics!

Isaac and Daphne both had fun studying the history of Thanksgiving in school this year. Isaac had a Pilgrim Day, where he got to try all types of new foods that were enjoyed by the pilgrims. He was the first in his class to taste most of the foods and got to rank them on a scale of 1-10. Although he was adventurous, he added in a ranking of zero for a few items like oysters. I think he gave goat's milk a 2 and Beef jerky a 10. He is Matt's child, you know. I avoid beef jerky at all costs.

Miss Daphne had a Pilgrim Thanksgiving Feast and a Native American Pow-Wow. She had fun telling all her classmates that two of her great grandfathers were chiefs of the Catawba Indian Nation. Yes, my blondies are all part Native-American.

On the day of Daphne's Thanksgiving Feast, she really wanted one of us to come to the party. Unfortunately it was in the morning at 10:45, which is right in the middle of my class. My sweet Matthew, who is the most wonderful dad, left work about 90 minutes after he got in so that he could make it to the Feast. Daphne's face was all the reward he needed. She was ecstatic, and so proud to have her dad with her!
Here they are in some of their party garb:

And today, for Thanksgiving, we headed over to The Hunter House for lots of delicious food and fun with the family!

Daphne and all her boys:

Matt, Isaac and Austin had a different type of entertainment in mind. They headed out into the freezing night to experiment with their newly acquired AirSoft guns. My mom gave one to ISaac as an early Christmas gift and Austin got one for his 13th birthday. Sigh.

Matt's sister, Paige, made some adorable little Turkey Cupcakes and the Tori had a lot of fun eating hers!

On this wonderful day of Thanks, I just want to express my gratitude for the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has afforded me with all that is good in my life. I am so humbled to know that He Lives, that He loves us and wants us to return to Him. I pray on this day that any who read this may know of His peace as well. Happy Thanksgiving!!

THE Cutest Cowgirl on earth....

Recently, Victoria had a fantastic time playing dress-up in Daphne's cowgirl costume from Halloween... Just brace yourself for the cuteness:
This next one wasn't actually broadcasted to the world on the blog... I added it later before printing.
But I think it's the shot that seals the title of CUTEST cowgirl!

Junior Jazz!

This year, we decided to let Isaac try his hand at basketball. He absolutely love playing on his Itty-Bitty Junior Jazz team. He played on a team of 7-9 year olds, and although he is 7, was within 1/4 of an inch of being the tallest one on the team. He's got the height, so we figure we'll help him with the skills! He's number 17:

As part of their registration fee, each team member receives a ticket to a Utah Jazz game, and the team gets to go together. One of Isaac's friends wasn't able to go and donated his ticket so that Matt could go with him! Yay!- 'cause I was so not going to let him go with a bunch of strangers!

The seats they gave them were in the nose-bleed section , of course, but Isaac was totally enthralled nonetheless.

He and Matt definitely had their fill of junk food: hot dogs, soda, popcorn, candy, and more, I think!

Look at my cute boys!

Happy Halloween 2009!

Daphne's best friend, Lauren was going to be a cowgirl for Halloween. Daphne thought it would be "such fun!" if she was a cowgirl too and they went trick-or-treating together! Fortunately, Matt's extremely creative sister, Paige, made a cowgirl costume for her daughter, Sydney, a few years back. So we ended up with a super cute costume and $0 spent!

I think they are pretty cute!


Earlier in the week, we headed out to the Trunk or Treat at our church, which ended up being moved indoors due to an early snow fall!

Isaac was Anakin Skwalker the podracer from Episode I last year. This year he decided to be Anakin Skywalker, padawon from Episode II. Very versatile, I know. But, I do think he looks spectacular with his braid! Matt engineered the attachment of this lovely hair piece. It looked awesome.

My Mom, GiGi, flew in for the weekend. Somehow I managed to not get a picture of her with my children- I know we took some with her camera, though- so hopefully she'll post some soon!

My awesome mom made Halloween sugar cookies with the kids and she made some really cute ones.

We were a little late ( I know you are all shocked) with our Jack 'O'Lanterns this year- Matt helped them carve their pumpkins and Daphne, of course, wanted hers to look like a princess. Hers had a big vine hanging down from the stem, so she decided to call her Rapunzel. No sharp, scary teeth for Daphne- just a tiara and kissy lips!

Isaac, on the other hand, wanted his pumpkin to have horns! Matt is always so creative and patient with their artistic direction. They had so much fun:

My happy trick or treaters. Victoria was not interested in posing and I'm afraid this is the best shot you are going to get! I love those faces!

And finally it was time for trick-or-treating! Tori started out all gung-ho and ended up in the stroller with a Dum-Dum....

Victoria wanted to eat every piece of candy as she received it, which slowed down my other happy little Halloweeners. We quickly switched her to the stroller and picked up the pace!

It started cooling down pretty quickly and we headed indoors to show off our costumes to Nanny and Papa. Tori was pretty spooked by their fun flying bat decoration! And then we headed back home, where Tori found herself in Halloween heaven after pulling the bowl of candy down onto the floor! It was not a pretty picture trying to pull her away from this to get in the tub....

We had such a great time- thanks to my awesome mom for doing so much fun stuff with my kiddos- they loved having her visit! Hope y'all had a Happy Halloween as well!

Pumpkin Patch!

As per usual, I am late getting these pics up... but I figure getting my pumpkin pics up before Thanksgiving is relatively prompt. Or at least not tardy.

The Monday before Halloween, we decided to head to the Pumpkin Patch for our Family Night. The plan was to pick out some pumpkins for Jack-O-Lanterns and let the kids run around and have fun.

So, pretty much as soon as we got there, the kids made a mad dash for the hay maze:

We met our friends, Steve & Liz, there and (as usual) Daphne and Zack were pretty much inseperable. Most of their play consists of Daphne sort of smothering Zack with unwanted motherly advice and affection and Zack screaming and laughing as he runs away. But they seem to love eachother anyway...

Victoria was not so much interested in the hay at first. Mostly, she wanted to go up the stairs and back down the stairs over and over and over again. Oh, and then a few more times.

Once she did discover the maze, she was off to the races:

After all the running and racing, we did find some pretty fantabulous pumpkins for our porch!