Best Friends

Today we said goodbye to Elle, Lucy's best friend. She is my favorite-well behaved, fun and adorable. 

These two met at the park one day and really hit it off. As luck would have it, she was in Lucy's swimming class when she took lessons so we saw her each morning over the summer.

We love Elle!

Moving/December

I swear, if I wasn't so lazy I would count how many times that has been my post title.

The move has finally gotten going and we are packing and cleaning like crazy.  This time around has been a lot easier because Danny had a pretty easy finals schedule and has been able to help a lot. We try to do some things when the babies are awake, but typically just work as fast as we can during nap times.  The hardest part of this move is sorting everything. We are packing things to go to Grandma's, things to take to the Leiningers where we'll be until Jan. 1, and things to go into storage.  It feels like every box is marked MISC.  Amidst all the packing, we've managed to have a little fun this Dec.

One of our favorite things about living in UT has been seeing our friends. We have had monthly get-togethers and have loved having fun with these awesome people. This month we got to go out to dinner without the kiddos one evening and had a Christmas party at Oz and Lillians'.

 Lucy was the star student one week and I got to go to class with her and talk about her. We made this poster together and then went up and talked about all the specific things she loved to do. My favorite part was at the end every kid in the class asked her a question about herself. It was really fun and I think Lucy liked being the center of attention.

 We packed our kitchen pretty early so we've been forced to go out pretty often:) One night we went out to city creek to go to the Apple store and the kids loved playing at this indoor playplace in the food court.

 The girls have not minded all the boxes. Its like Christmas came early to them!

 Last week our stake hosted a nativity. There is a beautiful bird sanctuary and walking path by the stream a couple blocks north of our house and they take over the whole thing. Brother Asay from our bishopric was a centurion watching the gate into Bethlehem. The "actors" were in period costumes. Women walked around with pita bread and dates, there was hot chocolate and bagels. The path was lined with luminaries and tiki torches leading you to Bethlehem. There was a camel along the road that the kids thought was awesome. Once you reach there stable there were Wise Men, Shepherds with sheep up on the hill and a donkey in the baby Jesus' stall. The Leavitts played the Holy Family. Afterwards you walk up the hill and get to pet some cows and sheep if so desired. It was so well done. With no Christmas decorations up at our house-it really made us feel Christmasy.

We went down to Bajio one last time. Riverwoods is really pretty at Christmastime and we loved waling around. The best part is seeing Becca who is working in the North Pole wrapping presents this season. We went in to the Beach Resort to ride the carosel and only managed a pic on the wave.

 We sold our couch!!! Praise heaven the couch is finally gone. I don't know if I've mentioned here how much I HATED that couch. It was a great, comfy couch and didn't deserve my hatred, but I couldn't help it. I sold it for $100 and someone came to get it hours after it was posted. As a result we brought up the love sac to sit on for the week. It was not as easy to move up the stairs as we expected...but Lucy got a kick out of us pushing and pulling it.

 Lydia loves any attention she can get. Lately she gets positive attention when she kisses things-mostly me:) Yesterday she came up and kissed baby Jesus right in front of me and then beamed like she was the cleverest, most adorable girl in the world. She is.

 As I mentioned, we packed our kitchen on Saturday. Not a great idea when you have to stay home to eat on Sunday. Danny thought he could make crepes for us. With only a bit of left over wheat flour, no recipe, no mixing bowl and no measuring cups he made these delicious crepes. He is amazing.

We went to our ward for the last time. I was surprisingly emotional.  The positive part was that we got to bust out the Christmas dresses. I found Lucy's at DI for $4 and the babies are hand me downs. Sweet. Unfortunately it was seriously windy and cold out and I was the only one smiling.  (Danny was still sick so he stayed in jammies that day).

 And then when it was just about to get cute...

 Joyce lost it.

 Just after we washed all the windows inside and out-we hit a storm. It has been snowing for three days now. Fortuantely I think the winodws are salvagavble with needing to be compeltely re done. We decided to enjoy our last snow of the winter:)

Lydia learned how to make a snow ball.

 and eat one.

 My favorite smile in the world.  I love her little toothy grin. She doesn't often smile much around other people, but I hope she starts showing this grin off more.

 Lucy LOVES the snow and had a great time throwing it and rolling in it.

While I was packing the babies found their Halloween costumes waiting for storage. They don't want to take them off! They finally learned there respective animal sounds and they walk around mooing and quacking.

 I wish I got a better picture of this. For some reason this is always how it is. Lyd hops on/in something and Joyce pulls/ pushes her around. I just love what a kick Joyce was getting out of it.

Rollacopia 2012

I have been looking forward to Thanksgiving (or more accurately, Mom and Katy coming to UT for a week) for months.  Imagine my disappointment when the night before they arrive Lucy starts the croup cough. SO Disappointed!! We were lucky because Lucy saw the Dr. the next day and got the steroid to take down the inflammation.  The Dr even prescribed us the steroid for the babies so when they got it (only Joyce did) we would have the medicine in hand.  Danny, the babies and I quickly got a horrible cold as well. It ruined our week because we didn't want to infect Ruby with croup. Mom was nice and drove an hour to visit us every day. Lucy fell asleep on her every time. 

Fortunately we still got to hang out a little. On Tuesday Danny watched all the sick kids (while feeling pretty awful himself) and let me go to the outlets for some Christmas shopping with the girls. We had so much fun and Ruby was an angel after for shopping for 4 hours.

On Wednesday Mom came up to stay with us and get ready for Thanksgiving. We all met up for dinner in Lehi at Texas Roadhouse and just kept the kids far apart.  Mom was super nice and took the kids home and sent Danny and I out to see Skyfall. I popped cough drops the whole time but we still had a wonderful little date. My dad was able to fly in late that night for the holiday.

On Thursday Mom put the turkey in and we spent a lazy morning watching the parade and playing around the house. Early that afternoon we were joined by Oz, Lillian and Kiara as well as the rest of our fam.  Katy gave us our theme for the year (although no, we don't usually ave a theme, this year was special) Rollacopia.  Traditionally Thanksgiving is a let down for the Anderson girls. We usually just eat the rolls and a little turkey.  So why not have a wide variety of rolls and celebrate our appreciation for them?! Katy made us all shirts and Becca literally made a Rollacopia as our centerpiece. Our table was overflowing with delicious rolls this year. We also had a variety of delicious butters to go with them.

 Kid table!!

 It was a delicious meal. Mom outdid herself. I wish we had put the babies to bed and fed them earlier because that was the only downside-they were sick and cranky and didn't have a great meal. As soon as they were in bed, however, Danny and I could actually eat and enjoy ourselves.

The next day we spent doing whatever Dad wanted to do-which included a trip to Scheels AND Cabelas.  Danny and I sent Lucy off shopping withe everyone and we went home with the babies tor est after Scheels. We all met up that night at Riverwoods for some delicious Bajio (obvs), to visit Becca and work and to meet Santa. It was a beautiful night and we had so much fun feeling Christmasy.

On Saturday we had a mini-Birthday party for Dad. Ruby and Lucy had a lot of fun helping Baba unwrap his presents.

 from Katy

Grandma surprised all the girls with some presents too. Each household got a Little People Nativity. The girls love it and it is currently the only Christmas decoration up in our house (moving at Christmas is so depressing).

Then we headed over to Pat's BBQ. We were right by the stage and got to hear the best blue grass player. We were dancing and bobbin all over the place! Ruby also enjoyed her first rib.

 On the way over to our Jacobs Family Reunion we stopped at Nielsen's Frozen Custard-our favorite place. As we went through the drive through I heard someone calling my name-Grandma, Grandpa, Mark and Kevin were all inside eating before the reunion too! We had an impromptu mini-reunion before the real reunion:)

 Reunion!

 This was during the devotional. We had a lot more fun than we look here.

Things

I hear Lydia starting to wake up, but until she is truly awake I will blog some of what is happening around here.
* We had some gorgeous warm weather at the beginning of the month. It was the perfect "fall". Our trees started dropping their leaves and the kids LOVED jumping in our leaf piles.

*All at once it got freezing and we had a storm that lasted days. One morning we went to Sugar House park to go sledding. I put the babies in rain boots hoping they would be interested in the snow while Danny and Lucy went down the mountain. The snow was so high they couldn't walk! So instead I held the babies while Danny and Lucy went down the mountain a couple times. It was pouring snow so we didn't last long-but the sledding was really fun.

 * For the first time ever procrastination worked for me. Until August regular child immunization were not covered by my insurance and I had a $50 copay for a well child visit. I kept putting off going to the county for immunizations and finally decided I had to get it done. Luckily I checked my insurance, and in August they changed their policy and now completely cover both. Yea! Danny was kind enough to go with me for the babies' appointments. Two crying babies after shots is too much for me.

*We're moving home to CA on December 15th. I am in that difficult position where it is too early to start packing and organizing, but I know it will be time intensive and difficult with the babies so I wish I could get going. I'm not letting myself start until after Thanksgiving when my family goes home.
*That said, I've bought packing supplies and went through all of my baby gear that I may not need for awhile:(  I was happy that we have two good friends with new baby girls so some things I don't need went to good homes. I was super excited to free up three plastic boxes!
* We are super excited to go home, but I am also really sad to leave Salt Lake. I love it here. I love our ward, our house, our neighborhood. I LOVE being so close to Becca and Ruby. I'm so glad we've been here because Ruby really knows her cousins and loves me:) I will miss her so much. I will also miss hanging out with Becca. We have always talked on the phone every day, but living only a hour apart we were able to see each other weekly and do all those things we used to only wish we could do together.

*We found a family to rent our home. We were only here a year, but I'm really happy knowing a nice family of girls will be living here and appreciating this cute house.
*Katy and my mom are leaving after work and driving to UT today. We are so excited. Lucy has included her "grandma coming countdown" in her prayers-which is pretty funny. I am incredibly excited because we will have a super fun week and I will be totally distracted from moving etc.  I can't wait!

Halloween 2012

As usual we have spent most of October in breathless anticipation for Halloween. This year was espesially exciting because Marilyn was coming out on the 30th to send Halloween with us!

The festivities began this weekend with the third annual Page Halloween Party.  Danny and I got our first babysitter so we could attend. We tried to make make our costumes as cheaply as possible.  Danny was Thor and I was Katniss Everdeen.  The Thor costume was easy. We had Thor's hammer from our Avenger-themed Anderson Reunion. I bought the breastplate for $4, spray painted it black and used tin foil to make the six disks that adorn Thor's breastplate.  I got a yard and a half of red fleece from JoAnns with my 50% off coupon. Finally we had a long blonde wig from a  couple Halloweens ago that we cut to Thor's length. My Katniss costume was even easier. I borrowed Becca's combat boots and mockingjay pin and braided my Gabriella wig from years ago.  Do you know how hard it is to braid a wig? Freakishly hard! It didn't look as cute as it did in my head, but it was fine.  We went out to dinner (without our costumes:) and then had a great time at the party.

On Monday night some neighbors organized a Halloween party at the park.  The whole neighborhood was invited and it was packed! There was a bouncy house, face painting, pumpkin painting, donuts, cider and bobbing for apples. Our favorite part was the costume parade around the park.  Merida was super excited to wear her wig for the first time. Our little cow and duck held hands all night and I almost died from the cuteness.

There is nothing like a Utah fall.  All the beautiful trees lining our street have turned beautiful colors and now the leaves are falling.  On Tuesday we waited for Granda Marilyn's plane to arrive by raking the leaves in our front yard into a pile and jumping in them. The girls loved it.

 Marilyn got in that night. The girls were ecstatic and played with her before bed. Then the adults got to chat and snack the night away. On Halloween morning we walked Lucy to school and got to stay and watch the costume parade. We were able to catch her at two places along the route and yell "Merida! Princess of Dunbrock!" and embarrass her. She was one for four Meridas in her class:)

 While Lucy was at school Grandma made chocolate cookies for whoopie pies with the babies. I haven't let them be too involved in my baking and they definitely liked helping:)

 When Lucy got home we went to City Creek, had a fun lunch at Blue Lemon and walked through Deseret Book and the Disney store (so the essentials in life).  Grandma treated Lucy to the authentic Merida crwon. She was thrilled. After a relaxing afternoon at home (and naptime) Uncle Bryce came over and we enjoyed the Leininger tradition of a fondue dinner. i made a artichoke, Spinich and cheese fndue recipe from the Melting Pot. It was really good. We had a really fun dinner. Afetrward we turned off the lights and headed out with our trick-or-treaters. Here is Merida in all her glory. (I bought the bow and arrow set from an archery store online and Gma made Lucy the quiver out of a paper sack.)

Fuzzy but adorable.

 Our first house. The babies got the hang of it really quickly. I didn't thin we'd take them up to many houses but they insisted on it. Lydia would often sign "thank you" when I would remind Lucy to say it. It was adorable. Joyce was a pro at the whole thing. Lydia would lag behind a bit because she liked holding on to all her candy. After a full block of houses I noticed that she only had two candies in her bag-she must have just tossed her candy on the sidewalk!

The Loot all organized. She only wanted to eat one piece that night-I was really surprised! 

(sorry for the creepy flash eyes:)

It was my favorite Halloween on record. It was super fun to spend it with Grandma and be lavished with attention and love.