Repeat

We were just upstairs and Annika wanted me to get a game down off the closet shelf for her. All of the games that are up there are not really games that she can play. I said to her lets go down stairs and we will play blocks or candy land. She looks at me and uses her serious voice. (she uses it when she is trying to parent) and she said "Repeat after me" I want to play with that game up there that you used to play when I was a baby. I think she was trying to say listen to me. But it made me laugh that she said repeat after me. So then I asked her if she knew what that meant. she said no, and then preceded to tell me why she needed the game. In the end she got a game and I am still laughing...."REPEAT AFTER ME!"

8 Months

Ady is now 8 months old! Really.... where did the time go? It is just crazy to me.
*She is mobile. Crawling all over
*She picks up cheerios and puffs, and eats them.
*She has started eating more food. Her favorite so far, is Apples & Cinnamon with Oatmeal.
*She signs milk
*She wants to be playing with whatever Annika is playing with.
*She wants to be right by other people.
*Lately Annika will crawl underneath Ady's chair and Ady watches Annika go from side to side and just laughs every time Annika peaks out on the other side.
*She pulls herself up to stand next to anything she can. The other day she was standing up holding on to my legs, while I was sitting on the ground, and she let go of my legs and stood up for a couple seconds.
*She doesn't like falling over even if she does land right on her bum.
*She is such a cute kid and I am so glad she is mine!

Sunbeams

I just have to post this because it is crazy to me. But Annika is now in Sunbeams. I no longer have a baby in Nursery, she is a big girl and goes to sunbeams. She has done such a good job being reverent in Primary, and has transitioned really well. It is just so weird that I have a kid that goes to Primary.
This last week I did Sharing time, and I was really afraid that she would want to come stand by me or something while I was trying to teach. But she stayed in her seat and participated really well in the lesson. I just hope she is good for her teachers when we aren't around. But she is growing up so fast!

New Year

On New Years Eve we went to Brian's parents house and enjoyed the wonderful fondue night. It is a wonderful tradition, and what better meal to kick off the new year of eating healthy than making yourself sick on fried food. Mmmmm.... it was so good. I had seen some sparklers in walmart when I was there, and thought Annika would love them. So at 9:30 we went outside and played with the sparklers and said Happy New Year. It was lots of fun. Gavin was holding his between his toes. It was lots of fun! Not to long after we went out and did sparklers Annika fell asleep on the couch. It was great! Happy New Year!

Santa Clause

All Season Annika has been telling me how she is a big girl now, and she can sit on Santa's lap all by herself. She would say "I can help Ady because I am bigger!"

Well... It was Thursday December 23rd and we still had not been to see Santa yet. Brian's vacation started and I told him that we really needed to take Annika to see Santa. So we headed out. First we stopped at Costco. I think everyone in Utah Valley was at Costco. We made it out of there, and we were going to go down to University Mall to see Santa. I knew that there would probably be alot of people there (because it was 2 days until Christmas.) but we still went. We headed out of the Costco parking lot, and the roads were packed, so we went a different way. We were driving and ended up in highland. we keep driving on the road and there is the mouth of American fork canyon. I think that I am very good at directions, but I still can not figure out how we ended up so far north. So we start heading south, we get on state street and it is stop and go traffic. They were fixing pot holes on the freeway stopping traffic, so there was tons of people on state street, and then there was a fed ex truck stuck in one of the lanes. So it was down to one lane traffic.

Ok, we get past all that, we get to the mall, and Santa's line is all the way around his little north pole area. Ok. Ady was sleeping, so Brian and Annika went to do a little shopping and I waited in line. So a while later Brian and Annika come back. They stand in line with me for a minute, and we are like 10 feet away from the entrance into the north pole, and Annika starts crying. I ask her what's wrong and she says I want to go home. Seriously? Well she kept crying, so I took her out of the line, got her a better look at other kids sitting on santa's lap, and she kept crying. She didn't want to sit on his lap. I wasn't going to make her So... I told her to stand by the presents in his North pole, and I took her picture. I think it is a hilarious picture because she is totally crying, but trying to smile for the picture.



So we left the line, and came home. 3 hours later, we had gone on our own little Christmas Adventure! The sad thing is that I didn't even take a picture of sleeping Ady or give her the chance to sit on his lap! Sorry Ady. I will make sure you get the chance next year!

Christmas

On Christmas Eve we went up to Brian's parents house for the evening. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner, decorated some cookies for Santa. We sang some hymns, played some chimes, and watched a church movie on the birth of Christ. It was a wonderful laid back evening. We came home and headed to bed. Adalyn and I got up around 7:30, and Annika and Brian slept until about 8:30. When Annika finally woke up she said "we gotta go see if Santa came" she started heading down the stairs and saw her big barbie house and said " I got what I wanted!"



I think she was still trying to wake up because she just stood on the stairs for a while. We walked down stairs and she looked in her stocking, she got a Pez, which she was very happy about and just wanted me to put some candy in it. After she got her Pez figured out, she walked around the living room examining everyone's presents. I really think she just didn't know what to do. So we told her she could open the first present.

After that she caught on really fast, and she was getting presents for everyone else to open. Ady was fun to watch, and it was cute to watch Annika help Ady open her presents. Ady loves the leap frog table that she got. She thinks that she needs to be standing all of the time. And Annika took her unicorn pillow pet with her everywhere. We opened up all of our presents and then we had time to hang out and play.



Brian's family came down to see what the girls got, and then we left and headed up to my grandma's Christmas party. All of the great grand-kids did a nativity. It was fun to watch. After the party there, we headed back to my parents house.

We didn't get back there until about 10pm but we still exchanged family gifts. It was a lot of fun! Christmas was a long day. On Sunday we stayed at my parents house, and made a quick trip in to Logan to visit Brian's grandparents. Then headed back to my parents house to play games, eat lunch, and watch some movies. On Monday we went bowling and gathered everything up and headed home. It was a great Christmas!