Our First Christmas as a Family of Three

This post is way late.  We've been busy around here.

Christmas Eve we went to my Aunt's house.

I took a photo of her white house ornament tree.  

I forget what year this one is, but I like it.

Anika got to sit in a VERY Old high chair to have her dinner. There were 10 kids there :)  She was the youngest, but only by 5 months.

Hanging out with Nona.  I got lots of pictures of A playing with her cousins and my cousins' kids.  She really loves playing with other kids. I love watching her.

After dinner and presents, we headed home. IT was the first Christmas Eve I spent at My own house. EVER.  I have stayed at my parents in the past.  When we got home, we put Anika in her Christmas jammies and opened our ornaments from each other.

Opening the one from me.

It was a Baby's First Christmas ornament with a photo from our xmas card in it :)

Andrew gave Anika a Monkey because she is such a monkey. Climbing up on everything all the time.
I gave Andrew an ornament with a Kiwi and NZ flag on it. I should have given him a US flag to represent him becoming a Citizen this year...but didn't think of it in time. We wrote the year on the back of all of them.

Andrew gave me this ornament. IT says "All you Need is Love. And Boobies" haha. To represent my year of breast feeding? lol.

After Anika went to bed, we put the presents under the tree.  A lot of the gifts were for Andrew and Me. We didn't go too overboard for Anika.  SANTA wrote Anika a letter and left it for her :)  The piano was from Santa. That's it. hahaha. IM not letting Santa give her EVERYTHING. I want credit too :)

Christmas Morning. SHe was pretty excited!

Daddy gave her that ugly doll. As you can see, she thought it was ugly too. lol.

I got that headband on etsy. Its darling, but too tight. The seller is sending me a bigger one.  She was trying to drink the baileys from my stocking :)

My mom and dad stopped over for a bit.

I have to admit, i was expecting a certain gift from Andrew. I thought for SURE I was getting it, so when I didn't, I was upset. HOWEVER, he got me a lot of PRACTICAL great gifts, but I thought I was getting a NON practical gift :)
He got me a new Washer and Dryer! It gets delivered this week.  He also got me a small electric heater for the basement since there is no heat down there and I like doing my crafts and stuff down there. It gets too chilly for Anika to be down there with me.  he got me some new windshield wipers. And, a new pair of ski racing mittens! I have wanted these new mittens for years to replace my old pair which I have had for 12 years! They are expensive mittens, so the perfect gift. Although, they are not hte exact ones I wanted. He said they were sold out of my size and he got me the top of the line ones...but the top of the line ones are not the ones I wanted. haha. I know, Im a biatch.  He also got my locket engraved with an A on the other side (for Anika) and tons of batteries (I always complain he uses all mine!) haha. And a Dvd player.  I was totally spoiled, but it took me a day or 2 to realize that.

He got Anika these little drums.  Look at my cute daughters.

We went to my parents house for brunch later in the day and to open presents. My mom made lobster eggs Benedict- YUM!

My brother, his wife and my other niece did not come over until the next day, but look at all the stockings at my parents house :)  And, sorry about the dead animal Jenny. Its a Fisher cat by the way. Speaking of dead animals, my dad gave me 2 fur headbands (made of Fox) and one is pink and one purple. Anika also got a fox fur scarf but I want to have it made into a hat instead.

Anika got some happy baby food in her stocking. I think she likes the food I make better :)

I wrapped up TONS of boxes in a big box for my niece. In each box was a $5 or $1...last year she complained when all the presents were unwrapped, so this kept her busy for a while! haha

You cant tell, but I had Anika wrapped in a blanket she got as a gift. I called it her woobie. I had a blanket/woobie :)

Nona gave Anika a back pack with her name and matching lunch box.

Her big present from NOna was this Vtech train. Its very cool with all the letter blocks and you put each block on the side and its says what it is and a word that starts with that letter. She got Elf on a Shelf for next year too! AND, LOTS AND LOTS of books from nona and from daddy.  Nona got her a really cute personalized book about fairies.

This shirt came from Andrew's sister from NZ.   They have so many NZ made clothes and its so hard to find made in the USA clothes here.  We actually heard something on the radio this weekend about how easy it is to find made in NZ products in NZ and the opposite in America.

 This shirt came from Auntie Liz in NZ. Rapaki is a Maori community where Andrew's family owns a holiday home. They are the only white people to own a home/land in the Maori community.  I spent some time at Rapaki with Andrew when we first dating. It is a special place. I take photos of Anika wearing or playing with all her gifts for her Thank you notes!  We finished all her thank you notes while I had some time off last week.

 Hoodie from my friend Molly who is in grad school at University CA, Santa Barbara.

Shirt from Andrew. Same as my ornament :)

My aunt sent this hat to Anika. SO CUTE!

 She got this hat from my aunt too  and this is her train from my mom.

These ruffle pants are darling and also came from NZ :)

She got this popcorn toy from my aunt and uncle. Its noisy!

This is me at my parents house the day after Xmas. We went back there for dinner with my brother, his wife, other niece and my dad's parents. We did more presents and ate more food.  It was kind of weird because my dad's parents (my dad's dad and his wife actually) were really late and the expensive meat my mom bought was over cooked.  my mom was mad and it just made for an awkward night I guess.

My little walker!

See this bell? She loves it. Well, on Friday something funny happened. We got home and she needed to nurse. I took off my dress and bra because my dress was high necked. Also, I don't wear nursing bras anymore, so its just easier.... After she was done she went over and played with her toys. I continued laying on the couch topless and turned on the TV. A few minutes later I look over and I see Anika running at me Ringing her bell! The look in her eyes was hilarious...she came over grabbed my boob, put it in her mouth. Took a few sips and looked up at me and laughed. Then went back over to her toys and tossed me like last week's garbage!! The whole bell ringing and running at me had me laughing my butt off.  Andrew worked late and missed it. I reenacted it for him when he got home. I hope she doesn't think she needs to ring her bell when she wants dinner! LOL.

haha. my girls :)

My mom had gotten that bib for Anika. I kept forgetting it at our other holiday meals.

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I hope you all had a lovely Christmas as well.

I will have to write my New Years post this week. I Might have to put it on my old (private) blog due to the content. I will let you know : )

Christmas Time around the K&C house

I figured I better get my butt on here and write a post since I got a special request from my sweet bloggy friend :) 

What we have been up to...

We went to Santa's Village. It used to be so much cooler, but I'm sure Anika didn't care that it wasn't as great as it used to be...and that the toys they had out were the exact same ones they had when I was her age. NO JOKE.

My niece, Miss A and dada

My Uncle sets up his train set there.  Its pretty cool! Actually one year, he had a train made up that said "Will You Marry ME?" and a ring on top so when his now wife came up to see him,  he told her to look at the new train....and there was the ring....

A looks miserable in all these photos, but I promise she wasn't. Well, maybe she was. We did wait a long time to get up there.

She liked the red nose on Rudolph

Meeting Santa.  My niece was on his lap and then I Just tossed Anika on too. There was a line and I didnt even get a picture of her alone. Whoops.

 After Santa's Village we went out for my mom's birthday...and everyone was kind of tired, so we just went to Chinese where my mom sucked down too much scorpion bowl (in my opinion) and I told my dad to keep his eye on her! ha

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Hmm what else has gone on. We went to a Christmas Party down in MA. OVER 2 hours away.  We usually spend the night but we actually drove home that night- well Andrew did :)  I had some wine and then I slept most of the way home and we got home at 3 AM. We were both exhausted Sunday.

 The hosts have a baby, Stella, 7 weeks younger than Anika. The host, A, is a college friend of mine.  We meant to get pictures of Anika and Stella in their xmas dresses and then their xmas PJ"s but we forgot :(

Our little Family

I brought a pumped bottle for Anika to have before her bed time. SHE REFUSED it. 3 people tried and she screamed. I had to leave the room. IF she saw me, it was worse. She wanted Titty! haha. She has been a bottle snob lately.  It got bad for a bit, but then Finally Andrew got her to take it...and she did it in her own little position....

At one point, I peaked around the kitchen corner and she was on all fours, not even on Andrew with her head up drinking it. Everyone was laughing. BUT, other than that little issue, she was a party animal, LOVING the attention!  She did make Stella cry TWICE Though, by just touching her! Apparently we have a little bully on our hands . Funny because a few years ago when I brought Piri to this same friend's house, she had a little altercation with A's husband's family dog. SO, I guess Andrew and I have bully children or girls who just want to play and the other dog and baby are the snobs or as Andrew said, the wussies. with a p.

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This is a sweater her Nana and Poppa from NZ gave her when they came to visit in the spring. IT just fits now, and I LOVEEEE IT!

I also liked this preppy look on her... with JEGGINGS!

 I might have posted this one already.

And Guzzi?

I burned myself with a hot glue gun doing crafts. ON the face. IT is still there!  I have been putting coconut oil on it though and it seems to be healing. I also put my other great natural healer on it. You should guess what that is :) 

When we getting ready for swim last weekend. haha. She was so ecstatic to be in that bag. it was so funny.

The other morning or was it this morning? haha, I dont remember. I heard a "Knock, Knock, Knock"  while I was across from the bathroom taking nappies out of the washer and I went in the bathroom to see Anika using the sprayer to knock on the wall! Using it like a hammer. Then she was flushing the toilet! AND, boy did she seem proud of herself.  We also have her little potty in the bathroom. Every morning when I get up the first thing I have to do is pee. She comes with me, since usually she wakes me up. I sit on the big potty and I take off her nappie and put her on her potty. We both usually go at the same time. This morning though she pulled herself up (using my undies no less- ugh) stood UP and then peed ...and had a pretty decent aim! LOL.  SHE ALSO is taking 4 steps in a row unassisted now. She tries to sneak over to the stairs all the time. Then she will get on the first one and look around...and then YELL to get our attention...its like she KNOWS she is not supposed to be doing that so she wants us to know. haha

 . I put a few presents under the tree (Not hers) and I should have known...she tore them up.

I made this card holder thing! It was easy. An embroidery hoop, clothes pins, hot glue gun and Andrew spray painted it for me. I used ribbon I had!  I saw it on Twitter @LvdMoreThncrrts twitter. Then I looked it up on Pinterest to see it more closely. I need to add more clothes pins to it because its filled up.

And, tomorrow is a BIG day for our Family! Mr. Andrwe gets sworn in as a US CITIZEN!! YUp. BRIGHT and Early tomorrow Morning!!  So, I better get to bed :)