Where was I for Christmas?

I know many of you know where I was by now, but if you don't know, we went to New Zealand for Christmas!

We left December 17th and returned early this morning!
We actually got home at 1 AM. We didn't get to bed until after 2 AM and I went to work today!

I had to go to work after taking that much time off. I am lucky my job let me take such a long holiday.  We went back to spend Christmas with Andrew's family and do a lot with the house over there.  I will post photos and stories in the coming weeks of all our travels. The trip over is about 30ish hours door to door, so I am sure you will want to know how Anika was on those long flights!

I took a lot of photos of Andrew's old house (So sad to see it the way it is now post earthquake- we fell in love in that house and that is where I stayed many many nights (almost all) when I was studying abroad there in 2005) and we saw our new house, but it has a renter already.

 

Just a few pics for tonight. I have 3 suitcases to unpack and lots and lots to put away. ALl of our Christmas stuff is still up.

We came home to LOTS of Christmas cards and I was so excited I sat on the couch at 1 AM with my wide awake child and opened them all and loved them all. I wish I had a better way to display them all. This way covers some up. Please give me suggestions for better ways.

 

 

 

Some pics from our 25 days away.

 

 Anika playing in Poppa's Zen garden! ha, not normally for kids play.  That truck was her daddy's when he was younger.

Anika and her cousin, Indi.

 

 

Christmas morning at Nana's and Poppa's. We just did a stocking for her and she got gifts from family. It was perfect. We have Christmas with my parents this coming weekend :)

 

 

 

 

Can you believe no one else really dresses up for Christmas in Christmas dresses in NZ?  NO little kids had Christmas dresses!

 

 

 

 

A delicious cake my MIL made. 

 

 

 

Photo from one of our road trips.

 

 

 

Mt. Cook

 

Lots of time with Poppa.

It was PERFECT and not nearly long enough! We both have a bit of the post holiday/vacation blues right now.  We talked A LOT about moving there. A LOT, but in the end, I will not take Anika from my mom and dad.  And, I don't want to leave them either :) One day.

Oh, and no smart phone for that whole time!!
When we drove in the car, we actually TALKED. Andrew LOVED me not having my Iphone- LOVED IT.  it was like the old days when we first started dating :) Except we had Anika this time to share the fun with.

HI!

Oh, Christmas has been over for a few weeks?

Ya...How behind am I?

here are just a couple photos from Christmas week...

 

Christmas breakfast

A milk biscuit...she wasn't sure about that.

"cheers!"

Anika's "coffee"  She always begs for coffee.  She gets these things called Fluffys.

They have steamed fluffed milk. Normally, she doesn't even get regular milk, but special things for special occasions :)

Christmas morning

Santa brought a stocking and just two small gifts. It was PLENTY!

Family does other things.  She was putting on manuka honey lip gloss above.

A little wooden toy "fishing"

Homemade sleep sack from Nana.

I have LOTS of exciting things to write about in the coming weeks, but I hope to find the time. I am so sad how much this blog has been suffering.

I will share now that I REALLY Thought I was pregnant over Christmas.  I felt it and I REALLY wanted to be, but a couple days after the New year, I found out I wasn't.  I was sadder than I thought, but I'm optimistic it will happen when its ready.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and wonderful New year!!

I want these for Christmas! The Rayban Wayfarers. The newer ones. The old ones that have been around for many many years tilt in, but the newer model don't tilt in and they don't touch my cheeks. I love them. I think they look great on me.
Here I am trying them on at the store:
ha

The ones in the photo have a blue lens and are polarized. I will be happy with the all black ones that are not polarized as well.

What do you want for Christmas?

She will keep me honest!

I asked my mom to make up a small Christmas arrangement for a lady that hangs out with Anika most mornings I do spin. She comes into the gym daycare, but Anika is the only one, so she gets a lot of special attention from her. I have gotten to know this lady and I am also very fond of her. She has a background in early childhood education and development, and works with Anika on so many fun things. Lets call her L.   When we see L around town, Anika gets excited to see her and vice versa. We even went Trick or treating with her this year (and many other people I have met through Anika!)
I realized today would be the last day we see L for FOUR months because she goes away for the winter. I didn't have anything at home to make her something special, so I called my mom last night. My mom has all the greens and decorations to make arrangements because she makes a lot of them this time of year.  My mom also knows L and thinks she is someone very special to Anika.  

My mom goes to the gym Friday mornings too and she brought the flower arrangement and I got it out of her car. I kind of wanted to pass it off like I made it...well, more the fact, I didn't want L to know that I had MY MOM make a gift for MY Daughter to give her. Ya know? I'm an adult and I should have arranged something myself. 
Anyway, I had Anika hand the arrangement to L, and L looked at me and said "Ohh, did you make this?" and before I could answer little miss Big Mouth Anika said "Nona Did"

BHAHAAH.

I wasn't going to lie, but still I found it funny Anika piped right up.

She has already told on me a few times in the past.

She is a chatter box to boot. Speaking in sentences and telling me what to do, but she is so sweet still. Mostly.  

We gave Anika's sitter who watches her 3 days a week, a big arrangement like this:

 

Except hers was bigger and nicer and had more fun stuff in it.  My dad made the wooden boxes. The arrangement looked great on her porch and can stay outside or inside.  I wish I got a picture of the one I gave her sitter.

This week its really been made clear to me how many special people Anika has in her life.  People who really love her, and not just family.  The sweet things people say about her and how much they love spending time with her. I know MY family is bias because we are her family, but its pretty nice to hear non family people say how much they enjoy being around my daughter. I hope she continues to be the type of person people love being around.  It has been a fear of mine that I would have a kid that everyone hates to be around.  Admit it, we ALL Know a  kid like that.

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I now need to get MY mom something VERY Special for all that she does for Anika (and me). She is going to Hawaii next month, so I think I might get her some gift cards to restaurants and activities.

I did get her this wreath for her Birthday.  My blog friend Ashley made it.  She has an etsy store that you can find HERE.

 

 

 

Happy Friday!!

Christmas Time

 Last weekend, we went to see some Christmas trees on display.

Lots of different themes. Anika always recognizes Elmo and I'm not sure where she learned about him.

 

 

This past Friday, I hosted a girls night at my house. The weather was horrible and the roads were bad, so only 3 out of the 5 came.
We still had fun.  It was funny because one girl (who is a few years younger than me) was talking about a party in HS where she got sick and was on the bathroom floor. I was like, Hmm, I was at that party. We made jokes about there being no camera phones back then...but then I went down to my basement and pulled the photo album from 2000, and voila, I had a photo of her on the bathroom floor. LOL.  Poor girl, but we had a good laugh. Even before camera phones, I ALWAYS had a camera!

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This weekend, we made my mom's Santa Christmas cookies. Well, kind of. We replaced  a few ingredients and we never decorated them which is what really makes them!  I really had to relax and let this go...QUITE a mess was made! I kept reminding myself, I could clean it up later :)  

 Pouring and Mixing

Rolling

 

Cutting

 

The dough should have been chilled so the Santa cutter wouldn't really work.

 

 

 

Anika's old sitter sold us this piano for $20.
I MEAN, LOOK AT IT!

 

We were going to give it to her for Christmas, but she saw it when I brought her down to the basement to get the Christmas cookie cutters out of a bin.
She went ballistic, so I let her have it. 
The dress she has on was mine :)

 

We went to the Santa's Village near my parents town.
I actually was one of those elves when I was in 5th grade! ha

 

 

 

 

The entire train set is my Uncle's.

 

 

 

Night night baby Jesus.

 

She saw Santa from afar and said Santa, but she did NOT want to be close to him!

 

 

After, we went out to dinner to celebrate my mom's Birthday. By the way, we celebrated Andrew's last weekend.  I got him a bread maker.  We went to breakfast for his Birthday. I don't think I have any photos from his, but I do have this video.

 

 

 This photo below is staged  :) That would be Andrew's ROOT beer and not even that went in her cup. ha.