Way Late Christmas Post

You know you're behind in your blogging if you post your Christmas post in February. We had a good Christmas though. We kicked off Christmas as early as possible setting up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I love turning on the Christmas music and all working on putting up the tree together.

I love taking our family picture in front of the Christmas tree every year too.

Then the day after that we went to Temple Square and saw the lights. I love how in this picture, Jenny looks angelic with the light behind her almost like a halo.

A little bit of snow makes it always feel a bit more Christmasy.

Jenny loved the snow so much that when we had to go in, she cried really hard.

Tessa loves dressing up. Getting into the Christmas spirit, Tess is dressed up as a rudolf.

Then we went to literally the best ward Christmas party I have ever attended. They had this polar express train made out of cardboard.

They had all these different stations for the kids with these really fun activities. One station was a write a letter to Santa station.

At another station, we made Christmas tree ornaments out of pipe cleaners, which was fun. They had this other station where kids could make reindeer food by putting oats, glitter, sugar, etc in a ziploc bag. After we made it Tessa wanted to feed the reindeer right away. Santa had already arrived at the party and I think she thought he had his reindeer with him - reasonable - how else could he have made it there from the North Pole? I explained that the reindeer weren't there but that she could give the reindeer food to Santa to give to the reindeer when he got back to the North Pole. She agreed and we got our pretty much first ever non-crying picture with Santa.

Tessa loved all the different activities, and I had a lot of fun with it too. 

We did a Christmas party with David's family on the Saturday before Christmas. Then on Christmas Eve we had a nice church service. Tessa got to be an angel.

Tessa was really excited to set out milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. The note reads "For Santa".

We did Christmas morning just with us. Opening presents and stopping to play as we opened, which was fun.

After doing Christmas in Utah, we drove to Washington for Christmas with my family, meeting my sister Courtney's new baby, and my sister Kaitlin's wedding. It was definitely busy with all we had going on and add in the fact that there were something like 21 people all under one roof with 5 babies two and under, and it was pretty much pandemonium. There was pretty much always at least one baby crying during the night. I think my dad set up a sleeping bag and slept in the laundry room at one point. It was nuts.

Tessa absolutely loved playing with her cousins though.

Jenny seemed to enjoy playing along side with cousins.

Jenny was funny though. Being around so many babies younger than her she was very adamant about insisting that she was "baby". She's called herself that for a while but being around all the other babies it's like she wanted to claim that she was the one "true" baby of the group of them.

The girls loved getting to spend lots of time with uncle Zach too of course. It was so cute to hear Jenny learn how to make the "Z" sound over our Washington trip and say it for the first time so she could say "Zach".

It was great to get to meet Courtney's new baby. She was so little. You forget how little they are when they're first born.

Christmas with my family was really good. We did our annual nativity. Tessa and Jenny were the shepherds while David and I were sheep though in their costumes my kids probably looked my like hipsters than shepherds.

And then opening presents of course was really fun.

Then we also had Kaitlin's bridal shower too which was a lot of fun. Kaitlin and I did Courtney's dress and accidentally spent too much time on the top and ran out of time leaving Courtney in a mini-skirt wedding dress - sorry Court - lol.

Then the day before and day of Kaitlin's wedding were busy but really good. It was really cool to get to all work together as a family setting everything up, etc that goes with a wedding.

Inside Anderson family joke - Zach is filling in for Dad here.

It was a really nice day and really beautiful to see Kaitlin and Josiah so happy and in love. It was definitely a busy Christmas season but it was really good.

Trip Down South

We really enjoyed our trip down South last month. It was the first time I had really been to the South so it was neat to experience something new. We were only there for a week and the was so much that we didn't see and do that I really want to go back again at some point for a more extended trip. It was really fun to get a taste though.

We had super cheap tickets into Atlanta - $80 round trip so we started our trip there. Here is our first look at The South - an Atlanta sunset outside of our plane window:

For our first real stop we saw Montgomery, Alabama. There was an inch of snow on the ground and since they're not used to snow, most everything was closed up. We were wanting to go into the Rosa Parks Museum which even has a children's wing but it was closed. We atleast were able to see the arrest site though where she was arrested for not giving up her seat initiating the bus boycott and that was pretty neat.

There was also this cool urban art kiddie corner to the Rosa Parks Museum depicting the third march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the intimidation and Jim Crow laws preventing black Americans from being able to exercise their right to vote.

We also saw a Civil Rights Memorial that memorializes martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement. The museum behind it was closed but it was good at least to be able to see the memorial.

We stopped for lunch at this awesome creole place in Prattville - Uncle Mick's Cajun Cafe. It was a little out of the way but I was eager to try real creole food and the place did not disappoint. They had gumbo and jambalaya. They had alligator. And this cornbread that just so buttery and yummy. There was dirty rice and black eyed peas and these delicious buttery green beans. Everything was sooooo good.

After lunch we continued on toward where David's grandma's live and saw Grandma Wilcox in Castleberry, Alabama. David got a four generation shot with his grandma and dad since his dad happened to be there helping take care of his mom at the moment so that was nice.

Castleberry was probably the most rural place I have ever been. It was so different than what I'm used to. All the houses were super spread out. Many of them could only be reached via dirt road. And there were just trees everywhere. I felt like the houses were literally in the woods. Most of the homes didn't even have the trees cleared immediately surrounding their houses. Aside from a few spread out homes and dirt roads there was also just a few churches, cemeteries, one school, and the tiniest ghost town of a main street, and really not much else.

We spent some time with a lot of David's extended family. It was really fun to get to meet a lot of his cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. David has a lot of really funny relatives and just hanging with them and chatting was a hoot. One of his cousins works as a chef and we had lunch at the restaurant she works at - The Gathering Place. I had the fried green tomatoes and they were so good. I had never had that before. Trying new food I've never had before is one of my favorite things about visiting a new place.

After spending some time with David's extended family, we continued on further South to Pensacola Florida so we could spend some time at the beach. It wasn't really hot but it was warm enough to get in the pool some and play on the beach some. It was really fun.

We also wanted to see some of the nature in the Florida panhandle so we went to the Tarkiln Bayou Preserve State Park. It was really neat to see all the trees and the Bayou. We didn't see any alligators though we did seem some alligator trails.

We also saw the Florida Caverns State Park. The cave was really neat to go through and our guide through the cave was really informative and entertaining even too.

Tessa is pretending to be a bat here after we talked about how bats take can live in caves. Our tour guide pointed a bat too, which was cool to get to see.

There were also some hiking trails at the Florida Caverns State Park and we had a lot of fun hiking there. The trail had trees that had fallen over that were growing mushrooms and moss growing on limestone, plants unique to The South, and small placards describing the vegetation. It was so educational and fun.

One of the hotels we stayed at had this cute front porch. It seemed like every house in the South had a front porch for the classic front porch sitting. I couldn't pass up enjoying a little front porch sitting myself. All we needed was a bit of lemonade and we would have been set.

For our last day, we spent the day in Atlanta. We visited the Civil and Human Rights Museum. It was such a sobering museum. It was really well done and powerful though. One exhibit, a simulated sit-in, was particularly moving. Listening to the kind of hateful, scary things, that those brave enough to actually endure a real sit-in made me so sad for what they endured and for that hate in the world. There were so many powerful, thought provoking exhibits. In the Human Rights section of the museum, there were exhibits on genocide, child labor around the world, sex trafficking, racism and sexism and other types of discrimination still going on today. It was a difficult but important museum to go through. It was the kind of place you walk out of thinking - how is there so much hate in the world and what can I do. It leaves you really wanting to work toward greater equality for all.

It was a really good trip but really a week there just mainly shows you how much there really is to see that you still want to see. For instance, I didn't even have a chance to eat some traditional Southern fried chicken or shrimp and grits or beignets. I still want to see alligators and manatees. And I still really want to visit New Orleans. It was a lot of fun but we'll definitely have to go again.

3 and a Half Year Old Tessa

Tessa has been getting so grown up lately. For one she, potty trained a few months ago so we were able to send her to preschool. She has been loving it. She says that school is like work for kids. Here she is at drop off on her first day of preschool.

She was so excited for her first day. And she is still is excited for preschool when ever we tell her it is a school day. I hope she never loses that joy of education.

Then over our past trip, Tessa started wanting to order her own food at restaurants. It was so neat to watch after I ordered for her, for her to adamantly insist that she wanted to order for herself. We called back the waitress and Tessa talked to her all on her own and said she wanted to order something with french fries. The waitress suggested the kids meal with chicken nuggets that came with fries and Tessa got that. It was so neat watch her to talk capably and confidently with an adult and stranger. Especially seeing how much Tessa wanted to be able to do something like that for herself and how happy it made her, it taught me that I need to stop jumping in so much and doing things for Tessa and instead let her do as much for her self as she can.

Shortly after getting back from our trip, we went sledding and Tessa even bravely decided she wanted to go down on her own.

One other thing that makes her seem grown up to me too is her increased ability to make logical arguments. She can negotiate and I'm often left replying or at least thinking to myself "fair point". I really like that we can work together and talk things out like that most of the time.

She loves to do new things and will often ask to play a game or do an activity we've never done before. We'll often try to do new science experiments for new activities. In this one, we built our own test tube holder and we're observing how celery absorbs dyed water and changes color.

A few months ago as we were heading out of the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point, Tessa even asked if we could go to a new children's museum she had never been to before. So we went to the children's museum in SLC. She had a lot of fun with that and has asked to go back again. She really enjoys going on trips too. Since we've gotten back she has said multiple times that she wants to go on a family trip, wants to go to the airport, and especially wants to stay at a hotel. She loves hotels. If you ask her why she likes them, she'll say it's because she likes going to lunch which by that she means she likes the continental breakfast. 

For all the growing up though, Tessa is still a really playful, silly, imaginative kid. Tessa loves to play. She loves to play chase with Jenny; she loves playing tickle monster and hide-and-go-seek. She loves freeze tag. She loves playing pretend of all kinds. Her favorite might be pretending to be a mermaid. We'll wrap a blanket around her for her fin. But she'll do all kinds of pretend including even a pretend blood donation game (after watching me donate blood). She loves to dress-up and loves all things princess. She loves to color and draw. She is a social kid and enjoys sending letters and receiving mail back. Getting random, her favorite color is pink and second favorite is purple. Her favorite food is probably pizza or cheese and she still absolutely loves milk. Her favorite show at the moment is probably PJ Masks. 

Here are some pictures from her 3 and half year old appointment at Camera Shy:

We so thankful to have our big girl. She is a really good big sister and is just a fun kid to get to be able to be her mom to. We love her.