Year in Pictures

Fat Cats

Yesterday, after Nate got home from work, we took the kids to Fat Cats. We had lunch at the Pizza Factory (another great deal thanks to Ben’s reading gift certificates and the Happenings book) and then headed over for a round of free bowling (more reading rewards, birthday passes and some left over gift certificates). It was loads of fun. Nate schooled us. Apparently his finger has healed up since our last bowling adventure. After bowling, we let the kids play at the arcade. We never (and I mean NEVER) spend money on things like arcade games, but we had some free tokens and we let the kids each spend a couple of dollars of their own money to get some more. Elise hit the jackpot and got 500 tickets on some Wheel of Fortune game. It took a few minutes for the machine to kick out all 500 tickets. The more tickets that came out, the more ecstatic she got. It was hysterical. She was nice and said that everyone could have a fourth of her tickets to spend at the prize counter. Four kids + 623 tickets + lots of cheap plastic toys = one huge time warp. It took for-e-ver for them to pick out their prizes. They thought it was the greatest thing ever, but I think we are moving back to our policy of skipping the arcade action.

Locks of Love: Take Two

Emily got her hair chopped off yesterday. She has been wanting to get her hair cut since August, but I convinced her to hold out a few extra months so it would be long enough to donate. I told her it would be long enough by Christmas and I was glad that it really was. She looks so cute with her new hairdo (it turned out lots better than last time) and she is so excited to go back to school and surprise her friends. We are both looking forward to a break from crying about tangles.

Christmas Traditions

We try to strike a balance in this house between making the holidays fun and memorable for the kids without creating a ton of extra work or busyness for ourselves. Last year we started a new tradition of singing a Christmas song around the tree every night before bed. This year we decided to add a Christmas story to the routine. I wrapped up 25 Christmas books and the kids got to take turns unwrapping one every night for us to read together. Just to keep everyone happy (4 kids, 4 tasks), we let two kids pick a song, one pick a book, and one put an ornament on our miniature Christmas tree. It was a perfect way to slow down and spend some quality time together every night before bed. The best part was hearing Abby sing “glo-o-o-o-oooooo-o-o-o-oooooooo-o-o-o-oria” whenever Ben picked “Angels We Have Heard On High” (his favorite).

We also made some quality paper trees this year instead of our usual countdown chains. They were cute and fun, and the kids loved them.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. My mom comes every other year to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us. This was our lucky year. We even convinced her to come a day early and stay two nights. The kids loved that. We had our traditional Christmas Eve junk food feast and movie marathon. This year’s lineup was The Nativity (aka Luke 2), Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Prep and Landing, Mr. Krueger’s Christmas, and Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version). We tracked Santa on NORAD, made him some cookies, and left nine carrots out in the snow for the reindeer. I love how excited the kids get about the whole Santa thing.

We managed to get a fairly late start on Christmas morning again this year. Ben was the first one up at about 7:30, then Elise, then Emily. We finally woke Abby up at 8:15 so we could start opening presents. The kids got just about everything on their lists and were all very happy with their gifts. Nate and I got exciting things like measuring cups and $3 DVDs.

We spent the day watching new movies, playing Wii, and being lazy. It was lovely. We were hoping to follow the lead of the family in A Christmas Story and go out for Chinese food on Christmas day, but all of the local Chinese places were closed. We decided to make homemade pizzas instead. They turned out super yummy. I think it may be the beginning of another Christmas tradition.

Gingerbread Houses

The kids had lots of chances to work on their gingerbread house decorating skills this year. We made two big gingerbread houses together for Family Home Evening (one for the boys and one for the girls), and Elise and Emily both got to make one in their school classes. I had four graham cracker houses leftover from the ones I made for Emily’s class party, so we let each of the kids decorate one more. It was fun to see how proficient Abby (and the rest of the kids) got with that bag of frosting.

Anderson Christmas Party

Last Sunday was our annual Anderson family Christmas party. We had a yummy turkey dinner followed by the traditional nativity play. Elise was very excited to be Mary this year. Nate had put together a quality audio file for our sharing time earlier in the day. He combined verses from “The Nativity Song” with scripture passages to tell the story. We decided to use that with my family too instead of our usual script. It worked out great (except for the part when the stable fell over and broke into three pieces).

Instead of the aunts and uncles drawing kids’ names this year, we each gave a small gift to all of the kids. Nate and I made pajama pants, Kevin and Jody provided matching shirts, Holly and Shane got each kid a new book, and Karl and Lesle made everyone marshmallow shooters (which were a big hit until someone got their eye shot out … we hope Ryan recovered.) The kids were all happy with their gifts and had a great time playing with their cousins. The only part that wasn’t fun was getting up for school the next day after a late night.

Temple Square

We hadn’t been down to Temple Square to see the lights since before Abby was born, so we felt we were due to take the kids again this year. We kept waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. It never did. So, we decided to brave the cold and the fog and took them down to Salt Lake last Saturday. 40,000 other people had the same idea. Finding a place to park was tricky, but we found a great spot a couple of blocks away that should come in handy in future years. Despite the cold and the crowds, we had a good time. The kids were sufficiently impressed with the lights and especially liked all of the different nativities.

Snowman

After the big Sunday snowfall a couple of weeks ago, the kids were excited to go outside and play. We were lazy and didn’t want to get them all dressed up after church, so we told them that we would take them sledding right after school on Monday. There was just one flaw in that plan. I completely forgot that I had scouts after school on Monday. So, instead of a family sledding party at the park, Nate let the kids invite Korbin and Maddie over for some snow play in the back yard. Unfortunately, overnight the snow turned from perfect snowball/snowman making snow into pain-in-the-bootie snow, so they had a hard time getting the snowman to stick together. Nate worked his magic to get the guy built and let the kids add the finishing touches. After they had finished the snowman, they built some mini-forts and had a snowball fight. I got home just in time to take a couple of pictures and make some hot chocolate for everyone.

Santa

We took the kids to see Santa a couple of weeks ago. We lucked out and got “the real Santa” again this year (the kids are convinced that if the beard is real, that Santa is real). Abby was surprisingly brave. She walked right over and climbed on his lap and told him what she wanted. The kids’ requests this year were a baby for Abby, a Barbie for Elise, Model Magic for Emily, and Super Smash Brothers Brawl for Ben. The best part was the kids’ honesty in answering Santa’s questions. When he asked Elise if she fights with her brother and sisters, she answered “not too much.” When he asked Ben if he keeps his room clean, Ben said “It’s not as messy as my sisters’ room, but I’m going to clean it today.” Emily just said “yes” and then on the way home said that she had better clean her room before Christmas Eve.

Elise and Abby got to see Santa again at Elise’s preschool party. I wish I would have had my camera out to capture the expression on Elise’s face when she saw him come through the door. It was priceless. She is a true believer. Abby got to take a turn sitting on Santa’s lap along with all of the preschoolers and talked to him like they were old friends. She was pretty darn cute.