Christmas in California

Whenever we are in California for Christmas, we love to go see the lights in the Long Beach neighborhood of Naples. These homes are built along canals.

Anna started off pretty excited, but soon the stroller lulled her to sleep.
The face house is one of my favorites. Every year I look for it.


We loved the warm weather while we were in California and decided to take Anna to the beach. At first she was a little nervous about the waves. I guess I'm a bit of a novice because I didn't roll her pants or my pants up high enough. Before long we were both soaking wet. Only Dan was smart enough to keep his clothes dry.


Dan's mom has a tradition of putting Crackers by our plates for Christmas Eve dinner. Each Cracker looks like a paper firework. When pulled apart, it pops. Inside there is usually a fortune, a paper crown, and a toy of some sort (think crackjack sort of toy).
Of course Anna had to put out her stocking for Santa on Christmas Eve before going to bed.
Christmas morning: Santa brought Anna a grocery cart and she LOVED it.
Anna got a plastic banana, tomato, pear, and carrot in her stocking. It wasn't very long before the banana was also being used as a phone.

Button, Button

Anna's really into buttons these days. Usually she's wearing an undershirt so she just has to feel for her belly button, but I've caught her lifting up other kids' shirts and saying "button" as she points to their belly button. She also likes to point out buttons on our shirts. And she loves the panic button on our key fobs. We don't love listening to the car alarm though so we try to discourage that one. But it is funny to see the smile on her face after she sets the alarm off. It's probably a face that only a mom or dad could love.Sunday night she pointed to a freckle on Dan's leg and said "button." We thought it was hilarious. Then tonight she pointed to a zit and said "hurt?" What a sensitive child, even if she is pointing out embarrassing imperfections.

Temple Square and More

We thought it would be a great idea to take Anna to Temple Square in downtown SLC to see all the lights--that is until we had to fight the traffic and find a parking spot. In years past we just rode Trax, but we figured with a kid it would be easier to drive downtown. But then we couldn't find a place to park thanks to everything going on at the Conference Center and I forgot the stroller. We finally found a place to park about half a mile away. And it was so cold! The photo above is of Anna in front of a Christmas tree in the Joseph Smith Memorial building.
Anna loved the mural on the wall behind the Christus. She kept pointing and saying "moon, moon!" I didn't even know she knew what a moon was.

I crack up every time she tries to wear our shoes.
One of the best things I purchased recently was a toy shovel for Anna. Whenever I shovel the snow, she wants to use one of our big shovels and that leads to a lot of whining and crying since they are too heavy for her. She loves her shovel and often has to play with it for a few minutes before I can get her to get into the car. I just might have to start hiding it.
For Christmas my mom gave my dad a toy top with the idea that he would share it with Anna. She thought it was pretty cool.
My mom also gave her a Leapfrog Counting Candles Birthday Cake. It has little candles that light up with the touch of a button and you can even "blow" them out. We just let her play with it in the box since she didn't want to wait for us to take it out. Later that night I took it out of the box and put the box on the pile of recyclables. She found it a few days later, took it out of the pile, and stuck her cake back in it. I guess she figured it wasn't as fun without the box.

Christmastime

Anna loves the Christmas tree and slowly, all the ornaments are working their way towards the top out of her reach. In the morning when she gets up, she wants the lights on and she likes to stop at the tree on the way to getting her diaper changed and point out the "sheepies" and the Snoopy ornaments. She also likes to throw them over the stair railing. Then she'll hold out her hand to me, say, "c'mon" and lead me towards the stairs to go get the ornaments. So far she hasn't tried to climb the tree, but she has pulled pretty hard on a few ornaments, causing the tree to lean dangerously. Just one more reason why we don't have any of those pretty balls on our tree.
This photo has nothing to do with Christmas--I just thought it was cute. Anna decided that she wanted to eat her dinner with a very large spoon. I indulged her and took a picture. These days, Anna loves to help. She wants to help make the brownies, do the dishes, anything we are doing. She's also become quite the monkey-see-monkey-do. The other day I noticed that she had my nail clippers and was trying to cut her own toenails with them. Another day, I was in the bathroom combing my hair after a shower and Anna was begging for lotion. I gave her some and she immediately smeared it on her forehead because I usually rub moisturizer on my face after a shower.

Lately she's also into washing her hands and in the middle of eating, sometimes she'll start whining, "han, han!" meaning that she wants me to wipe her hands off. She still eats with her hands, as well as utensils, but I guess sometimes she doesn't want her food to mix.

Last night was the ward Christmas party with a special visit from Santa and Mrs. Clause. Anna just wanted to stand where she could see Santa and say his name over and over again. I don't think she even knows what he does, but I've mentioned it to her before, and she picks up much more than I realize these days. But when it was her turn to sit on Santa's lap, she wasn't interested. She just wanted to stand about three feet away (out of Santa's reach) and stare at him. So with my help and a candy cane, we got a photo close to Santa.

When we got home I asked her if she liked seeing Santa and she very clearly said, "yesh." But when we asked her if she wanted to sit on Santa's lap she said, "no lap." We'll try again next year.