Holiday Memories 2010

I had this post originally drafted in my head back in December - it initially was going to be a one photo post titled, "Seasonal Anxiety" or "Did you realize it was DECEMBER?".  This was the photo:

But, I procrastinated and we ended up going to the Montrose Parade of Lights where I imagined beautiful photos and a happy smiley baby with Santa waving to her from his sleigh to add to the blog post.  This is what we ended up with:

Passive aggressive crowd control.  Or, Santa is a felon, so stay out of his way.

There were lots of horses and dogs in the parade and Anika loved it!

Anika clapping after the horses went by.

 THEN I was going to do a post about decorating, but decided that I'd include that in a full post about pre-Christmas preparations.

Checking out the moody snoman nose (the snowman changes color).

Anika, the animal lover.

Yup, the Caddyshack Gopher got into the Christmas Spirit, too!

One of my favorite photos of Miss A. 
Nevermind the fact that our 14 month old is playing with live wires. 
She's tough.

Not to mention the trip to Murdoch's Ranch & Home Supply, where Santa let some of his reindeer do some PR work for him.  We didn't get to go up and see the reindeer face to snout, but we saw them walk through the store and Ben brought Anika up to their trailer.

Yup, Donder walked right through the store! (or is that Blitzen?)

Check out that fuzzy nose!

But this post didn't make it on because I was waiting to scan in our photo with Santa (Ben and I jumped in with Anika...I'm even holding her sippy cup), but for some reason I didn't get to that point yet.  Oh, yeah - our tax stuff is sitting on top of the scanner.  Wouldn't want to disturb that prematurely, now would we?

And then, it was Christmas Eve.  There wasn't a "Wigglers Service" like there was last year, so no 5 year olds doing improv and acting out the Nativity Scene...nor was there a hay fight in the manger, but we did go to a standard/traditional service and Anika got to hang with her peeps down in the nursery.

Anika had on her holiday finery and we had fun showing her off :-)



My 2 Blue Eyed Loves

In front of the tree at Montrose UMC -
yes mom, I know, I should've had my shoulders back -
"Be proud of your height"

And then, it was Christmas Day...and that, my friends, is another post - perhaps if cookies make it to our house (gluten-free, of course!), the photos will make it up a little more quickly.

Awww...what the heck - here's little tease: The offering to Santa (shot of bourbon compliments cookies well, I've heard), and what Santa left behind!

Santa needs a warm-up every once in a while!

Ummm...Santa distributed the loot before devouring his treats -
he didn't want to get sidetracked!

Okay, Merry February 25th to all and to all a Good Night!

Art comes in all forms.

Yes, this is a slightly random posting, but the video is worth it!!!

When one thinks of "art" (or at least when I think of "art"), still images come to mind.  But, as we all know, "art" can come in many forms.   Here are a couple pictures of Anika's forays into crayon, sticker, marker, and paint art:

This one goes....

"Daaaaaare!"

Gotta keep the blood sugar up with a cracker!

Anika was initially slightly apprehensive with the texture of the paint.

She got over it.

Ta-da!  (I couldn't help but notice a Bismarck body
in the lower left of the photo - never far behind!)

Art also includes performing.  Here is Anika's performance art:, a quick video we took last night at dinner of Anika going through her animal noises :-)

Did you see that great elephant interpretations?  She's got the trunk action DOWN!