Anderson Christmas!

Yes, I realize it is March and I'm now posting the last batch of Christmas photos. How embarrassing!

We were able to spend a week with most of my family in Michigan. Addison had fun with her cousins and Brylee enjoyed the extra attention!!

So sweet. :) We loved our extended time with Uncle Ryan. He stayed at our house in Chicago on both ends of being in Michigan as well. Treasured conversations and "uncle time."

We love having such a fun uncle!

Christmas is also not complete without much time in the hot tub! Grandma would often go with the kids. The other adults (and Grandma again) would often go after the kids were in bed. Bliss! :)

H-A-P-P-I-N-E-S-S in a nutshell!

Grandma with her hands full of girls!

Happy girl hanging out in the hot tub!

Love her amazing smile!

My dad was trying to make the other kids laugh by making some funny noises and it totally freaked Brylee out. Poor thing.

But, I also wanted to get some pictures of that sad face. It's a pretty rare expression, so I needed to capture it while I could. :)

Hello, beautiful girl!!

Nathan taking the snow running plunge!

Addison thought it looked like fun, but after a couple seconds the fun was all over!

Movie time! (This may or may not have been during dinner so all the adults could eat in peace! I think Grandma just joined them at the end!)

Two cute cousins probably making trouble! :)

What a great present!! :)

Since Addison doesn't have a sister big enough to wrestle, she got plenty of wrestle time with her cousins!

Watching the craziness and not too sure about it all! :)

Love my baby's toes!!

Christmas wouldn't be complete without heading back to the sand dune behind my parents house. Except, normally we are sledding and this time we didn't even need snow pants! Clearly...no snow. We had fun just getting some fresh air in the relatively warm weather (for December)!

Needing their walking sticks for the big trek. :)

Grandma and her girls running down the dune! Love all the expressions!

Crazy enough...we decided it was warm enough for an impromptu picnic! A couple of us ran home and put together a quick lunch. We all had our coats off for a little while when the sun was warming us up. Lovely!

I absolutely love these pictures of my Dad and Brylee on the dune. Absolutely precious and I couldn't narrow the pics down any more! Enjoy them all!

"Half a Suprise" Visit

Several months ago my brother-in-law, Paul (Kristin's hubby), emailed me about a planning a potential trip for Kristin to come to Chicago. Paul planned out the whole trip and then we just had to wait for the weekend to come. One Wednesday night, Paul set me up on Skype in their garage. He then asked Kristin to run out to the car to grab his bag. The lights flipped on and then she started hearing a voice coming from the garage...yes, a bit freaky! "Hey Kristin...over here!" After saying it a couple times, I heard a frantic, "Oh my..what the heck." I couldn't see her at all, but after no response, I figure she bolted. We got a text message from Paul, knowing she shouldn't be back in the house already, "Problem..."

She dragged him back out with her and she then realized it was the friendly voice of her sister. I then sent her on a mini scavenger hunt where she found clues (mittens, $, a book, a picture of our guest bed, and then her itinerary) for her departure the NEXT night! Her repeated response, "THIS IS CRAZY!!"


Suffice to say, our time together was such a blessing. Living cross country with our families means that trips to see each other usually includes the whole family. Marc's mom took the kids on Friday and Marc took over with our kids for the weekend and we truly had a girls weekend! It was so special to have uninterrupted conversations, time to laugh, share, eat, get our nails done and shop! One purpose of the trip was to help Kristin shop for some new clothes. While we had great success shopping, I can hardly tell you how good it was to just hang out together.

Added bonus - meeting Brylee for the first time and seeing our house!

Brylee loved Aunt Kristin! It was really special for the kids to have some dedicated time with just her, too!

Addison could wait to show Kristin all of her things and all of her tricks! :)

Double thumbs up for Kristin's trip to Chicago!!

Paul ~ thank you again for all you did to make this trip happen. It filled up my sister tank to the max. Thanks for all your work juggling 4 (sick) kids the whole time. I know it was a big sacrifice and I am so appreciative!

Kristin ~ even though you didn't have the possibility to say "no," thank you so much for coming. I loved our conversations, laughing with tears streaming down our face in the dressing room, meals, finding amazing deals, and just being sisters in "real life" again!! I miss you so much!!!! You are such a special sister. The more we get to hang out and talk, I realize more and more just how blessed I've been to be given a sister like you! Lots you lots!

The 3rd birthday celebration

We've had a lot of great events happen in that past *few* months. I'm embarrassed/overwhelmed looking at all the catching up I have to do! Working my way back...baby steps!

Here is a picture snapshot of Addison special 3rd birthday - February 22!!!

Coming through the "stripes" in the morning! She excitedly told us there were STRIPES on her door!

Birthday breakfast - Swedish pancakes from Daddy.

With the #3 and A for our girl. Addison loves when Daddy makes shapes out of the pancakes!

Maybe a bit too early for pictures, but she was very proud that she turned 3!

Happily opening cards that came in the mail for her!

It was very special to have both sets of grandparents with us for her birthday dinner. I've realized lately that I need to take more pictures of the kids with others! Sorry for not getting more of everyone! :) Thanks for celebrating with us.

For Addison, food isn't something she gets overly excited about and therefore had no preference about what her birthday meal should be. I decided to do calzones, so she could help make her own. That is up her alley!

Busy loading her calzone up with pineapple. Good choice!!

Angel food cake, strawberries, ice cream and whipped cream for dessert! She surprised us and actually blew out all three candles on her first attempt!

Where has time gone that we have a 3 year old girl?!

Time for presents!! We didn't take pics of all the presents from everyone, but here were a couple of cute ones.

Sweet dress from G & G Anderson

Cute new PJs from G & G Painter

Mommy and Daddy gave her a doll house, which she was very excited about. Having to stop playing with it at the end of the night produced major tears. In some ways, I was glad to see that she liked it so much! :)

Brylee hanging out with Grandma Painter.

For Addison's 3rd birthday, I really wasn't going to do a bigger birthday party with friends. And then one literally fell in our lap! There was a raffle at Marc's parent's church and we won a party to Monkey Bizness - an indoor play place with inflatables, slides, playground equipment, etc. Therefore, much of the cost for this party was nil! (Side note...we wish we could have invited EVERYONE that we love in our lives. The party "rules" had some numbers that we needed to work with. I hate making decisions like this!) It was a very fun party (which was the day after her bday) and one of my favorite parts...walking away from the building without hours of post-party clean up!! :) Addison loved being with many of her good friends and running around like she does best!

Could this be much cuter?! Sweet friends - Moriah and Addison. (This is about the only "action" picture that turned out. The kids were all too busy running around to pause long enough for a picture!)

The 3 year old birthday girl!!

With her Minnie Mouse cupcakes. She is very into the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show, so I went with that for the cupcakes.

I thought they turned out pretty cute! Since we try to avoid artificial colors, I was trying to figure out a way to color the frosting. Though it doesn't look too colored, I just used the juices from strawberries and a few blueberries and it gave it a light pink shade. Bonus...it gave it the frosting a light fruity taste. Mmmmm!

The crew coloring after burning their energy in the "gym." I'm kicking myself for not getting a better picture of the favors. You can sort of see them in front of Addison. (Most of other kids dug right in to theirs.) They were little flower pots with suckers as the flowers. Totally didn't mix with the Minnie themed cupcakes, but I wasn't going to a theme per se.

Attempting to get a group shot...when all they want to do it go back and play!!