Merry Christmas and then some

Merry Christmas everyone! I love this time of year to refocus our efforts and our thoughts and our desires. I've read a few articles in the Ensign (a monthly periodical published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) recently that have made me remember to be grateful for my children (as Mackenzie crushes cereal into my carpet...). It's a special time of year and I hope you all take some time to reflect on our Savior Jesus Christ and the amazing exemplary life he lived, as well as the great Gift He has given us. He is the Reason for the Season, after all!

It's been a while since I've posted, and it's not because we haven't done anything, but quite the opposite. I've been busy with Christmas crafts and gifts (which won't quite be done. *sigh* But it'll get finished! Just not yet...), the kids and I took a random trip to Branson to spend a week with Grandparents while Justin studied for finals. He's still studying for Boards, so he's still busy, but it was a worthwhile fun week for us and a less distracted week for him. Grandpa and Grandma Sugar took most of those pictures, so if I get them emailed to me like I should, then maybe you'll see copies.

It was fun to see my sister and her family and my brother and his wife. It's so great to visit family even if for a short little while. Caleb loved seeing his cousins again, too!

Other than that, Mackenzie had her 18 month visit and is upwards in her percentiles, she's turned around forward now, and she's attending nursery splendidly. She and Caleb have both been sick this week, so we're just staying home and inside and trying to get better for Sunday and for Christmas.

We had a bit of a blizzard this Thursday (it wasn't as bad as they predicted, but it still kept us home), so that was helpful in encouraging us to stay cooped up.

Well lastly, here's my recap for the year:

Top Ten Events for the Anderson Family in 2012

10. We drove lots to explore Iowa, visit family, and create memories.

9. Amber took a sewing class, learning and creating much.

8. We had our first full summer in Iowa, filled with lots of camping.

7. Justin was called to serve as a Financial Clerk.

6. Justin finished his first year of dental school with flying colors!

5. Amber was called to be the Wolf Cub Scout Den Leader.

4. Mackenzie turned 1, then 18 mos. and goes happily to nursery!

3. Caleb turned 3, loves fire trucks and loves Mommy Preschool.  

2. Justin’s research abstract was accepted for the 2013 AADR conference.

 1. We (Justin) cooked our very first Thanksgiving turkey since being married (4 years)!

Again, Merry Christmas!!

Cute Faces and Public Races

My kids make me laugh so often! I love their faces and when I hear them interacting with each other it just makes me smile. Of late, they like to wear shoes on ther feet and then on their hands and pretend like they are dogs. And we pretend like we're dinosaurs too. Even during dinner and it actually works to get Caleb to eat his food!

I love Caleb's evidence of being a dog and Mackenzie's "cooler-than-you" look.

And Mackenzie' smile here is golden! Plus, she's got food all over her face and that just helps capture her crazy self.


And then for the Public Races. On the night of the General Election we decided to have a little election party. I'm so excited for when my kids are older and can actually understand what voting is and what electoral college is and what red/blue states mean. Then we can color maps and stay up with them appreciating the wonderful freedom of voting. But for this year, good food was enough to excite them.

 

 

It was a fun night that ended a bit disappointingly...but you move on. Now we're moving forward and looking upward and standing firm...and are so hopeful for the future of our family! We love our country, the grand United States of America, and are so grateful that we DO get to vote.

Here's to successive voting parties!

Pumpkin Carving, Trunk or Treat leading into Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody! I know we're a bit late, but at least I got these up before Thanksgiving!

We carved our pumpkins for a Family Home Evening activity...and though Justin and I were very excited about it, our children were less than accomodating.
First, Justin did all the dirty work.

I'm helping Caleb with his pumpkin.

and that's about as good as it got. :) We did some fun color pegs in their pumpkins and the kids really liked them, but our camera doesn't take impressive pictures of glowing things.

And then there was the Trunk or Treat! Caleb was a fireman and Mackenzie was a fireman doggy. Here they are both holding their "hoses." Super creative, I thought.

Mackenzie understands what the camera is for and has humored me/us by saying "Cheese" on command! I love it! It makes me laugh when she signs it instead of saying it...

Looking at each other...

Then at me. Look how cute they are!

I made Caleb's costume from some Goodwill finds and some reflective ribbon from Joanns. WOW! We were so impressed with how it reflected and I think that was one of Caleb's favorite details! Plus, it made him safe, right?

showing off their loot.

The candy splurges begin with a blue tongue and a chocolatey mouth and smiling faces! 

"Do we have to go Trick or Treating?"

It was a bit chilly, but so much fun! I stayed home for part of the night to hand out candy, and then they retrieved me and we finished together. Mackenzie held her own bucket the whole time and loved walking around. She would nto be carried! She was too shy to ask for her own candy, so Caleb diligently asked for a second piece "for my baby sister" at every door. Love them!

Fall Hike

On the same Saturday that we got our pumpkins we visisted a beautiful state park not too far away and took a lovely Autumn hike. Caleb loves hiking and it was just so gorgeous and relaxing. It was perfect!
Let me highlight a few of my favorite pictures.

I love that Mackenzie and Justin are lifting the same leg. I think this picture is precious.

And this picture is definitely frame worthy. Perfect lighting, colors, and even smiles. I love my family!

I'm thankful for...Friends and Pumpkins!

About a month ago one of my old roommates and dear friends traveled with her husband and wee son to attend a wedding in Omaha. Well, they live in Chicago, you see, and we live right between Omaha and Chicago. And I haven't seen them in a few years. They've never met Mackenzie and Caleb was 2 weeks old last they saw him. And I'd never met their little boy! I insisted they stop by! They accomodated me and were able to stop by for about an hour while they fed their sweet babe, pottied, and just took a comfortable rest. It was so good to see them! I wish they lived closer, but at least a visit was made possible. Another should happen in the future...thanks for coming guys!


Justin's been super busy this semester (I might have mentioned that...) so on Saturdays if he actually has a Saturday that he feels like he can relax a bit on, we try to pack it full as much as we reasonably can.
One such Saturday we decided to go get our pumpkins for Halloween. We visisted Kroul Farm again, our emerging traditional adventure.

 

We had fun picking out pumpkins...

but Caleb for some reason did not want his picture taken. Silly boy! Pretty pumpkins though, yeah?

An update on me..and Justin!

I've been doing a lot of fun stuff for me lately, too. I've been making burp rags, I'm almost finished with Caleb's Halloween costume (a Fireman!), I added a button hole and a button to one of Justin's shirt, mended some pants of his...and...


I finshed my shirt! Some of you might recall I was in a sewing class last semester (Feb-May) that my so awesome and kind neighbor taught. Well, I made pajama pants and this skirt during the class, and I was supposed to make the shirt, but it took a bit longer and I worked on it all summer long. I finally finished it! It's not perfect, but I'm proud of it and proud that I knew enough to do it! So, here's the complete outfit!


In addition to all that, I've started a preschool with Caleb twice a week, I've been going to the gym 4 times a week (Yahoo!), and I am now the Wolf Cub Scout Den Leader. HAHA! It's been feen, the two weeks. A huge learning curve, at least for me! I've never done scouts before. But I'm excited to get to know the boys--they're 8 years old-- and learn more about all of it!

As for Justin. He's just busy. He did get to participate in IMOM this last Saturday: "Iowa Mission Of Mercy." It's a group of volunteers, many of them dental students, who travel to various parts of Iowa to perform free dental care. They set up in a gym or some big building, and just do fillings and such that needs to be done. So, Justin go to do anesthesia a lot. He was really excited! He'll get to do his first filling on a real patient this Thursday. He's a bit nervous about that one!

We are doing great!

Brother, Sister and Birthday Parties

One morning I was too tired to get up so I asked Caleb to get Mackenzie some breakfast (a rare occasion, don't get too jealous. Plus, imagine the mess!). But then an even greater gift was hearing them play nicely together. I came down the stairs as quietly as I could and spied them sitting together reading books. I love little moments like these (I think I've mentioned before) when they are friends. I ran upstairs to grab the camera but Caleb heard me and kind of ruined the magic, but I still caught a trace of it. :)



And our little Mackenzie is a nut. She's just crazy! She runs around, grunts, throws royal tantrums if we touch something that she wants, or if we don't, and has an obsession with her binkies. We say she "chain binkies." Working on that one. Here's a little example of how much she love them. Even if she has one in her mouth, if she spies another one, she insists of having it, too. Usually it's just in her hand, but this time she decided she could try put both in her mouth. And she did.

Those beautiful brown eyes get a very mischievous gleam when she knows she's doing something she shouldn't be doing: throwing food on the floor, walking all over library books, throwing things down the stairs, getting her brother into trouble. She's going to be a wild one!

Caleb has been invited to two separate birthday parties the past couple of weeks, which has been a lot of fun! I decided to go cheap with the first one and so for the gift bag we decorated a white lunch bag with stamps and stickers. Caleb had a blast!

 

 

And at the end of one of the birthday parties, we were walking back to the car and there was another of those friend moments. Walking side by side, Caleb guiding Mackenzie softly and patiently...but I was too slow with my camera. Hopefully they stay friends!

 

Pig Tails and Birdies

As usual, I've been busy! And I haven't taken very many pictures to document it. So there ya go.

Two important things about the above picture: Mackenzie's pig tails and the sticker on her left arm. She finally has enough hair to do pig tails! We call her "Boo" from Monsters Inc. When I do her hair like this. We think it's so cute! And the sticker says "Romney." We walked down to the pancake breakfast at our Institute building at one of the first home games, which happens to take us past the football stadium and all the crazy tailgaters and vender food tents. Well, on the way home, we kept passing these people wearing "Romney" stickers and we wanted one! so the next person we saw wearing one, we asked. And they happened to have a whole roll of stickers and generously gave each of us one. So we are Romney supporters!

And this picture is just cute of Mackenzie with Daddy reading a book.

Our local zoo (it's an hour away! lol) has various days free. In September, it was every Friday. So we went one day. It was really lovely. It's not a very big zoo so we can easily get through it all in a couple of hours and still see everything. This was Mackenzie's favorite part: the Parakeet house. They were flying around us and you could buy food, but of course I didn't want to spend that money, so we just watched them fly around and Mackenzie just signed "bird" the whole time and chased them around. I love learning what gets my kids excited!

My two kiddos at the monkey observatory! You can kind of see Mackenzie's chunky legs...but mostly she looks cute in general. Caleb is certainly a caring big brother! I can't believe how big they are!

Here are the Pics!

 When we got back from UT, I was unpacking and cleaning up the house and came across a handful of Mackenzie's bows. She saw them, became insistent that I put them in her hair, and we ended up with this beautiful crown of bows. To think she used to never let me put a ONE in her hair!

 At the county fair. Caleb loved the big tractors! I guess we're living in the right state...

 All of the ones above are from when we went camping for 3 days. The older men camping next to us had these awesome motorcycles and tents that their motorcycles towed. Caleb, of course, loved the motorcycles and the men entertained his dreams by letting him sit on one. 

Then Justin's chimney for cooking with his dutch oven and me and Mackenzie enjoying eating it! And then the kiddos and me with the old-fashioned tent behind us.

 Mackenzie playing in the tunnel at the campsite's playground. I love her eyes here!! and the little half smile! :)

 Caleb's 3rd Birthday Party! Justin and I stayed up the night before decorating that awesome cake. And let me tell ya...if ya wanna do red icing...DON'T! or buy it red or something. We used up a TON of food coloring to get it that red. But, he loved it! As you can see in his face. I cant' believe he's already 3!

At the state fair they had this building of vendors, one had a Clifford character. Caleb was so excited to see him...and once we got in line we had to wait for about 20 mins. And then, when we were next up, Caleb had an urgent potty call...and on his way back he got his finger slammed in the bathroom door. Needless to say, his excitement about seeing Clifford deflated quickly. 

And as a side note, we finally bit the bullet and are paying for kids club at the gym. So, the membership that I get for free (since I volunteer in the kids club), I now finally get to use! It's been the best thing this week, and I've only used it twice! It's just wonderful!! Life is good!