The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Wow, what a month December was for us!

There was honestly so much that was going on during the month that I hardly ever had time to get around to blogging about each individual event.

So in the spirit of playing catch up, here's a short recap of our fun December adventures!

To start off with, one of my absolute favorite things about wintertime and Christmastime is hot chocolate!

I love hot chocolate.

Only thing is, Texas isn't exactly the most hot chocolate friendly place seeing as the weather was still in the upper 70s and we were still running our air conditioning...

But I still prevailed!

Not even Texas can make me give up one of my favorite cold weather treats...

Even if it meant cranking the AC higher in order to drink it!

Here Travis and I are enjoying our lovely hot chocolate while snuggling on the couch with all the lights turned off except for the Christmas tree.

Nights like these were a very common occurrence during our December!

Next up, we visited the Moody Gardens Festival of Lights several times during the month of December.

Lawson loved all the Christmas lights and running around looking at them all!

Except he got pretty upset when we made him stop to take a family picture as usual...

Lawson even got to enjoy his very first movie theater during the Festival of Lights!

We went and saw some special Christmas movies they were showing in the IMAX theater there and he thought it just awesome.

He even left his 3D glasses on the entire time!

But our favorite thing about the Festival of Lights?

The fact that we could go several different nights and not once have to put on jackets or bundle up to do so.

Beats out visiting Christmas lights in the freezing cold weather back in Utah and Colorado!

Next up, our local library here had a special breakfast with Santa Claus this year that we went to.

The kids got to enjoy Christmas story time, make special Christmas plates, meet Santa, eat a yummy breakfast, and then get to pick out a new book to take home!

Lawson had a ton of fun up until it was time to go meet Santa...

 Yeah...definitely not his favorite thing to do yet!

Maybe we'll have better luck next year.

Raleigh on the other hand didn't seem to mind Santa at all!

This was definitely one of the biggest highlights of our month and we will for sure be doing it again next year!

Next, we invited all of Lawson's friends over one day to have a cookie decorating party!
It was a ton of fun to see all the kids go crazy with the frosting, sprinkles, and cookies.

Lawson insisted on decorating all on his own.
It was pretty cute watching him have so much fun!

Loving eating his cookies he made all on his own!

Along with all of these activities, I tried really hard to have a lot of fun Christmastime things to do.
We made some crafts, colored, read lots of Christmas books and stories, watched Christmas movies, listened to Christmas music about 24/7 among other things.

It's so much fun having kids during Christmastime!
I already have a huge list of things I want to do with them next year!

We were lucky enough to be able to go to Utah for our Christmas break this year and spend Christmas Day with my family.

Lawson had so. much. fun.
Oh gosh, I totally remember now why Christmas was so awesome as a kid.
He probably doubled the amount of toys he owns within 20 minutes.

 Here's our two cuties right before digging into the presents!

It took Lawson a little while to get the whole "how to unwrap a present quickly" idea.
He would rip off tiny pieces at a time and then spend a few seconds trying to get it off his fingers and then repeat this over and over again without really getting anywhere.
Pretty funny!

One of his very first gifts was a bowling set.
Needless to say, he wasn't very interested in opening more gifts for a while.
The kid is still obsessed with bowling!

 Raleigh enjoying her very first Christmas with Daddy!

He eventually got better at unwrapping his gifts and then went crazy with everything!

He got so excited with every single gift.
He would yell "Oh wow! Look at that!" over and over with each gift.
Gosh, I love having kids at Christmastime!
Have I mentioned that already?!

Miss Raleigh with her very first Disney princess movie!
Mommy was really excited about that.
Daddy on the other hand, not so much.

I was so sad when I realized that we forgot to take a family picture after all the unwrapping was done.
Guess we just got too wrapped up in all the fun and excitement!
 We then spent the rest of the day enjoying being with our family, eating lots of yummy food and just relaxing.
This truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

So as you can see, our December was jam packed full of so many fun actvities!
And I haven't even covered what all we did during our trip to Utah...
I already can't wait for next year to celebrate with our two munchkins again!

Four Years

Four years ago today I got to marry my best friend...

 

December 20, 2008.

What a four years it has been...

Both graduated from BYU, two little munchkins, almost half way through medical school, living in Texas?!

 If someone would've told me four years ago where I would be today I would have been pretty impressed!

Lucky for us, we get to NOT really celebrate today.

Having two kids, a Renal final for Travis tomorrow and still being poor students doesn't make for a great anniversary celebration.

But we're going to make the best of it.

The kids are going to bed early, I'm making a really nice dinner (I bought Travis a steak! That has never once happened in the last four years so that's proof I'm trying to make this nice...) and we're going to snuggle up on the couch and watch the BYU bowl game.

Don't worry, we're going to Utah in a few days so we'll take advantage of free babysitters and go out on the town then!

But until then, I'm going to enjoy our semi-nice night tonight and reminisce with my babe about how amazing this last four years have been!

I love you Travis Anderson and can't wait for many more years and eternity to come!

Christmas Tree 2012

We set up our Christmas tree the Monday after Thanksgiving for our Family Home Evening.

It was so much fun doing this with kids!

We never even had a Christmas tree until last year and that was after Travis and I had already been married for three years.

I know, pathetic, but things like this is so much more fun with kids!

Especially a two year old who was completely in awe so excited the majority of the time.

When we first pulled it out of the box Lawson would just stand and point at it like this and keep yelling "Oh wow! Look at that!"

This was the best.

After we turned on the lights for the first time he fell completely silent and just stared at in in awe!

 Meanwhile, this is what Raleigh was doing..."enjoying" herself some tummy time!

 Lawson was so excited to put the ornaments up.

It took a while before we could convince him to put them all over the tree rather than all clumped together in one spot.

And of course he had to do it all by himself.

What a big boy.

 

Miss Raleigh finally got tired of tummy time and decided she wanted in on some of the tree decorating action!

All finished and loving it! 

Lawson loves holding Raleigh by the way.

He is very insistent on it several times throughout each day.

Little family portrait!

We're loving this time of year with our kids and starting up new family traditions!

Thanksgiving 2012

Oh man, I'm behind, but we had a great Thanksgiving!

We were able to fly to Colorado to be with Travis's family like always.

We were planning on just me and the kids going for an entire week and then Travis coming Wednesday after he got out of class but the day before we were suppose to leave Travis changed his mind!

He found out right before that there really wasn't much of a reason for him to stick around for school those 3 days before Thanksgiving so he changed his ticket to come with the rest of us!

(Thank goodness for Southwest!)

I'm so glad he came with us though because I honestly don't know if I could've handled both kids by myself on the flight there.

Raleigh was great. She ate and then slept the whole time.

The problem was Lawson.

It's hard enough to keep a two year old cooped up in a tiny airplane seat for 2.5 hours but it becomes even harder when holding a 3 month old and trying to prevent said baby from waking up.

Anyway...we survived but I was sure glad to have some back up from Travis.

The week was spent doing all our usual Anderson family traditions for Thanksgiving.

Eating (lots!), movies, Black Friday shopping, basketball games, Turkey Bowl, bowling, more eating, and just relaxing and enjoying being all together which only happens once or twice a year.

This year was extra special though because Travis's little brother Nick got engaged...

Hallelujah!

I've been waiting FOUR years for one his brothers to get married and give me a friend and it's finally happened!

We're so excited for Nick and Rachelle!

(Seriously, you have no idea how excited...)

Yay for another girl joining the Anderson family!

Here's a picture of the whole (huge!) family after our Thanksgiving feast!
Don't you love how Lawson is refusing to sit with the rest of the family and be normal for the picture?
Little monkey turd...
(That's what we call him when he's not cooperating very well by the way...)

And here's all the babies that we're born since last Thanksgiving!
Raleigh is a little outnumbered by her boy cousins :)
And way to represent the aunts among all us nieces Aunt Kristi!

It was a great week and of course went by way too fast.
We were a little sad to be going back home but we'll be back in April for a wedding!
Now on to Christmas time...the most wonderful time of the year!

Lawson's New Obsession

A few weeks ago, Lawson came up to me asking to play something.
He kept saying a word over and over again and I couldn't quite make out what he was trying to say.
I then asked him to show me.

He went over to our recycling and grabbed a few empty water bottles and stood them up next to each other.
He then went and got one of his little basketballs and then proceeded to roll the ball and knock the water bottles over and then started cheering for himself.
The poor kid just wanted to go bowling!

I was pretty impressed that he was able to show me exactly what he wanted to do so well.
And I'm not even sure why all of a sudden he wanted to go bowling since we've only played it on the Wii a few times and it had actually been quite a while since we'd done it.

So for the next hour or so that's exactly what we did.
We went bowling.
And he had so much fun.

It's amazing how much fun a little two year old can have with a bunch of empty plastic water bottles and a little basketball.
It just goes to show that sometimes the simple things you have lying around are better than wanting the newest, most expensive, fancy toy on the market.

Here he is getting excited to roll the ball!
I thought the kid would have a stroke since I made him wait to knock the "pins" over so I could take a picture.
Oh us moms and wanting to take pictures of everything...

So happy and excited to go bowling!

He then started getting a little more creative with his rolls!

It was a fun little afternoon.
And you better believe that nearly every day since then he's played some sort of bowling.
Either this way, for real at a bowling alley, on our Wii, or even on an iPhone app.

And every day when Travis gets home from school the first thing Lawson asks him is "Go bowling?"
And so every day when Travis gets home he plays a game with Lawson.
The kid is slightly obsessed for some reason!

3 Months Raleigh

Our little Miss Lady Bug is already 3 months old!
I swear it feels just like yesterday that she was born.
It's not even funny how much faster time seems to be going each month.

I love 3 months old.
In my mind, it's a big turning point.
At 3 months they don't seem to be little bean bags that just eat, sleep and poop all the time and nothing else.

Raleigh has become so interactive and social in the last month and I love it!
Nothing makes my heart melt faster that a big ol' smile from my little girl as soon as she sees me.

Here's a few other things Raleigh has been up to in the last month:

• Like I mentioned above, Raleigh is quite the little social butterfly. She hates being left alone and not being right in on all the action going on around her. If I move out of her sight she'll start crying. But as soon as I move back within her sight or include her in whatever I'm doing she's as happy as a clam!
• She has definitely found her voice! She is constantly cooing and ahhing and blabbering away. She loves to mimick us whenever we talk to her. And boy does she love it when we do talk to her!
• She loves sitting up so she can look all around her. If she's awake and lying down she's not happy. She loves for me to hold her upright so she can just take everything in around her.
• She has discovered her hands! She loves playing with, chewing on them, reaching with them! She also loves my hands. A lot of the time I'll put my hands up in front of her and she'll immediately reach out to grab on to my fingers and play with them.
• She's also discovered her feet and toes! When the rare moment occurs that she's actually on her back she'll sit there and grab for her feet and toes and play with them. So cute!
• She's finally big enough for her Bumbo! I know these have been recalled but they help so much with her love of sitting up rather than laying down. She can only last a little bit in it though because she's such a little wiggle worm that she gets frustrated at not being able to move around very well while in it. Oh well, I'll take those few minutes of her being happy to sit up!
• She's still such a great sleeper! Every night around 7:30 she'll start to get sleepy which gives us the cue that it's time for bed! It's so nice because she'll just right on to sleep all on her own and then sleep until about 5 am when she wakes up to eat and then goes back to sleep until about 8 am. Lawson was a good sleeper for the first three months as well but hit a wall at four months and then refused to sleep. Let's hope Raleigh doesn't do the same thing and keeps up this 12 hours of sleep thing!
• Even though she's such a great sleeper at night the same cannot be said about her daytime sleep. The girl refuses to take longer than a 30 minute nap! I'm really, really lucky if she makes it to an hour which is a very rare occurrence. However, if I hold her or sleep right next to her she could probably sleep all day long. I'm just not willing or really able to do that so she just gets several cat naps each day. Kinda frustrating but I'll take it I guess. If I had to choose, I'd rather her sleep 12 hours at night and not really nap during the day rather than the other way around! We'll keep working on this and hopefully get a better schedule going soon.
• She's still a great nurser! Man, this little girl just loves to eat! Which is fine with me because I just love all her little fat rolls and thunder thighs!
• She's wearing 6 month size clothing and even a few 9 month clothes! I'm finally getting the hang of accessorizing a little girl and I love it!
• Her and Lawson are such great friends. He gets so worried and jealous when someone other than him, mommy or daddy is holding her.  He loves sharing and playing with her. He's always laying right down next to her and she just looks up at him in awe and wonder. I can't wait for these two to grow up together!

We just love our little Raleigh girl and can't believe how fast she's growing!
We just love her!

Sickies

We have been a house full of sickies this last week!

First off, I got stuck with yet another round of mastitis.

And let me tell you, that stuff is not fun!

And to make things even worse, my medicaid from when I was pregnant with Raleigh had run out only 6 days before.

So, I had no health insurance to go to a doctor.

Luckily, it wasn't the worst case I've ever had. 

As soon as I started to feel it coming on I started taking preventative measures immediately and I think that helped a lot.

I never ended up getting a high fever along with all the aches and chills like last time so I was able to fight it off all on my own without having to take out another student loan to go to a doctor without insurance.

It was a long couple of days but it finally went away.

And just in time for Lawson to get super sick!

Lawson had had a small cough for about 10 days or so but nothing too bad.

But for some reason, all of a sudden he woke up one night around midnight coughing so hard that he made himself throw up.

Plus he was very congested and could hardly breathe.

It was a long night waiting for 8 am to roll around so I could take him to the pediatrician but we made it!

So at the doctor they ended up giving him a steroid shot to help his airway open up more and then put him on an antibiotic since he'd technically had a cough for over 10 days at this point to help clear up any infection.

It was quite the ordeal being there at the doctor though.

Any time someone would even just knock on the door Lawson would immediately start screaming and crying.

Let's just say that Lawson is not very fond of doctors right now.

To make things even better, the next day was my birthday and so we had to cancel all of our plans to stay home with one very sick, cranky and whiny Lawson.

Not the greatest birthday I've ever had...

And then I start feeling a little tickle in the back or my throat and start coughing here and there.

Great...

Luckily, I haven't gotten it too bad since I started taking cough medicine right away to try and ward it off as much as possible.

We were really worried about Raleigh getting sick but luckily she didn't seem to catch anything...

Until today.

She woke up a few times last night (which in very unusual for her) and was very congested.

She's now had a hard time sleeping and eating all day because of not being able to breathe very well.

 Poor girl.

I feel so bad when there's not much you can do for them when they're feeling so sick!

I guess we'll have to see how tonight goes...

And to top all things off, Travis told me today that he's starting to feel a little tickle in his throat as well.

Ugh...

So hopefully all of this will play itself out and be over with by Sunday afternoon because our Thanksgiving vacation is coming up!

We're heading to Colorado for a week to visit family and eat way too much yummy food.

So I guess in a way I should be glad that this last week was spent with all of us being sickies instead of next week...

Because next week is one of our most favorite times of the year!

Big Brother, Little Sister

The other day as I was going about my day I looked over and noticed Lawson doing this...

I quickly grabbed the camera and was careful not to disturb him as he quietly sat right by his little sister and proceeded to "play" with her and share his toys.

This is a pretty common occurrence lately and it just melts my heart!

 

I love the little relationship that they already have.

In fact, Lawson almost loves Raleigh a little bit too much sometimes.
He's always wanting to hold her, share with her, talk with her, and be right by her.

I was a little, tiny bit disappointed about having a girl instead of a boy for our second since I knew that they and Lawson would be so close in age.

I always just imagined having two brothers that would be best friends.

But oh how wrong I was!

It's clear to me now that (hopefully) these two are going to have a special relationship and be best friends even though they are brother and sister. 

How lucky our Miss Raleigh is to have such a loving and protective big brother already!

It's seeing moments like these that make everything so worth it.

 Having kids is hard and a lot of work.

And some days are just plain bad, stressful and full of tears from both the kiddos and mommy.

But when I catch a glimpse of a little impromptu moment like this...

I know that everything will work out for the best and be perfect.
Oh, how I love being a mom!

Sailboat Race

A few weeks ago was the Harvest Moon Regatta Sailboat Race here in Galveston.
It happens every October but we unfortunately missed it last year so we made sure to make it out to see it this year.

It was so cool.
Literally hundreds of sailboats out in the water!
Lawson got so excited and just kept saying "Oh wow!" over and over.
That kids loves boats!

These pictures definitely don't do it justice.
It was so pretty seeing so many sailboats all together getting ready to race.

Lawson checking out all the sailboats.

Lawson still getting very excited and pointing out to the water even after most of the sailboats were gone.

This little guy loves the beach!
He always gets so excited when we go and immediately jumps in the water and sand to get extremely messy!

I had to make him hold still long enough to get a picture with me.

You'd think I was torturing him or something...

That kid just never wants to stop!

Miss Raleigh was at the beach also but spent the entire time napping in her car seat in the shade (thankfully!).
This was the first time I braved the beach with both kids by myself and I would say that it was a success!
This time of year is perfect for the beach  because it's not too hot and not too crowded.
We love fall time here in Texas!

We loved seeing all the sailboats and will definitely be going back next year!

Halloween Festivities 2012

This Halloween season was full of lots of fun for our family!

First off, I took the kids to the Houston Zoo Boo a few weeks ago with a bunch of friends.
Lawson always loves the zoo but the Zoo Boo is especially fun because you get to dress up and then participate in a bunch of Halloween activities and pick out a pumpkin to decorate.

The only bad thing about it was it being so dang hot!
I never thought I would sweat to death by going to the zoo in October but it was pretty miserable.
Last year when we went it was freezing and raining.
So maybe next year it'll be just perfect since we've experienced the two extremes in past years!

Lawson and a bunch of his friends!

One of the few pictures of Lawson holding still...
He loved the pumpkin patch!

His favorite...the elephants!

It was too cute watching how excited he got over them.

This is how he stood just admiring them for several minutes!

He also got really excited about the lions!

We were lucky enough to catch to feeding time so we got a pretty good close up look at them!

And this is how Raleigh spent the majority her first trip to the zoo...
It was way to hot to keep her little Tiger outfit on.
So then she became a little ice cream cone!

The next Halloween festivity was our annual Ward chili cook off and Trunk or Treat!
We had a great night of way too much chili eating, a fun cake walk, bean bag tosses, all our friends and of course lots of candy!
It didn't take Lawson very long to figure out the whole "go up to someone and hold up your bucket and they'll fill it full of candy" trick.
He loved it!

Here's our little Lighning McQueen and Miss Tigeress!

 As soon as Lawson saw the Lightning McQueen costume at the store it was all over.
He was very insistent on getting it!

 

The next Halloween festivity was a Halloween party our good friends the Nordgrens had last night!

Here's a little family shot:

Mine and Travis' costumes were very last minute and very impromptu.
But we love our Denver Broncos!
(Even though these are technically Tebow jerseys...oh well)

All the little kiddos getting ready to go Trick or Treating!

Once again, it didn't take Lawson very long to figure the whole process out.
He got pretty fast at running door to door and getting his candy.
After every house he would run up to me holding up his bucket and yell "I got candy!" and then bolt towards the next house.
Oh, that kid...

After Trick or Treating we headed back to the house for tons of yummy food, socializing and fun games.

We're so glad we got to party with all our friends.
Plus it was fun having a child who actually got all excited and understood what Halloween was all about!
(Thanks Ashlee!)

The morning after...

Already raiding his candy bucket!

Needless to say, Mommy has already hidden the rest of the candy because this little guy was probably going to go into a sugar induced coma!

Funny, he didn't even know what candy was until the past few days.

He definitely knows what it is now!

Happy Halloween!