Monthly Archives: November 2012

A little diddy about Carter

Carter is such a character! He has been killing us lately with some of his antics. Like the other day when I heard hysterical laughing coming from the kitchen and went out to find this . . .

Carter had a bowl full of soapy water and was rubbing the bubbles all over his belly. It was a MESS, but how do you get mad when you’re laughing too hard to talk?

He has been a big fan of dressing up lately, too. Here he is working on his workbooks while wearing his hat and Swiper mask — “What? It helps me concentrate.” (Around here, fleece hats are considered dress up since it’s too hot to wear them outside!!)

This video is my favorite. He had just come out with his new jammies on and was demonstrating exactly what that bear on the front was doing. The laughing fit in the middle was a result of Daddy coming at him with “tickle fingers” — love that snort! His face and little clap at the end kill me every time.

[Video taken Nov. 11, 2012]

Thanksgiving week — Fort Worth Parade of Lights

Friday was a beautiful day and we headed downtown to the Fort Worth Parade of Lights. We found ourselves a great seat — despite only getting there a few minutes early — and pulled out the glow sticks.

The kids loved these glasses.

This parade is so much fun to watch. (These photos are from the newspaper — mine didn’t turn out because of the lighting.)

Carter loved the horses. As soon as one pack passed he started telling me that he wanted to see “more horseys.”

Thanksgiving week — the big day

Since Thanksgiving was just going to be the four of us this year, I decided to make it as simple and relaxing as possible . . . so we all could enjoy it. To accomplish this, I decided to only make the side dishes that we really love. This would cut down on effort as well as allow us to eat more of the good stuff without getting too full on the OK-but-not-my-favorite stuff.

Our three side dishes included orange rolls (because it just isn’t Thanksgiving without those), marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes (because we just don’t have those any other time during the year), and green-bean casserole (not something I grew up with, but something I recently realized that I love). DJ was in charge of the turkey and selected a nice small turkey breast.

In keeping with my goal to make Thanksgiving easy, I made two of the sides ahead of time — sweet potatoes on Tuesday, green beans on Wednesday — and had them sitting in the fridge, ready to go into the oven. First thing Thursday, DJ got the turkey into the slow-cooker. Then we all headed out to the turkey bowl.

It was really nice weather and the kids and I had fun playing soccer while Daddy played football with the old men.

When we got home, the only food left to make were the orange rolls. The kids had fun helping.

By 3:00, it was finally ready. Yummy!

Unfortunately, we were just a tad too late for Carter! I guess we should have tried to squeeze in a nap before dinner.

We had a yummy strawberry-rhubarb pie later in the evening with Nancy Walton, whose husband was working on Thanksgiving, and that completed our simple and delicious Thanksgiving meal.

Here are the things that went on our Thankful Tree this year:
Raine – Momma, my room
Carter – Daddy, toys
Momma – Stay home with my babies
Daddy – Happy family

Thanksgiving week — ICE!

We stayed home this Thanksgiving and spent the week having fun with each other. It was a fabulous week.

Wednesday evening we headed up to Grapevine to see ICE! at the Gaylord Texan. What an AMAZING display! They set up a tent with massive refrigeration units, drop the temp down to 15*, then truck in two-million pounds of ice and some Chinese sculptors. The theme was DreamWorks’ Merry Madagascar.

Our first stop was the coat check where they issued us each a coat. (This is Texas after all, we don’t have the kind of gear you need to be comfortable in that climate. It was in the upper 70’s outside. We couldn’t even put on our fleece jackets until we were inside where it was cool.)

Did I already mention that the sculptures were AMAZING!?!!

Family shot.

Raine loved the ice slides and went down over and over.

Carter loved it too. He had a little too much bum-friction though; he had to lay down and scoot himself with his feet. It was hilarious to watch. He thought it was great.

The final room featured a beautiful, crystal-clear nativity with the Christmas story playing over the speaker system.

After we finished ICE, we walked around the atrium looking at all the Christmas decorations.

This life-size gingerbread house was very impressive. It was made from 2100 bricks of real gingerbread, 1000 pounds of sugar, and 50 gallons of icing.

The kids loved all the train displays.

What an AMAZING outing!

Proud Primary-program parents!!

We finally have a child old enough to participate in the annual Primary Program! Yesterday was Raine’s debut performance and she did a fabulous job.

For the program this year, each child was given a topic and then wrote their own speaking part. Raine’s topic was the Word of Wisdom. I sat down with her to work on it and this is how the conversation went:
Me: “What is the Word of Wisdom, do you remember?”
Raine, with her best ‘why-mommy’ face: “Why did Jesus tell them to drink wine?”
Where did that come from? I didn’t even expect her to remember that the Word of Wisdom was about food, let alone to have some deep theological questions.
Me: “Um. Uh. Well. Um. How about you go ask your dad?”
The look on her face told me that wasn’t going to work so I had to come up with something quick. Unfortunately, I had never heard an explanation that I really believed . . . so I made one up.
Me: “Well, because back then they didn’t have refrigerators to keep their juice cold. So after they made the juice they turned it into wine so it wouldn’t go bad. But today we have fridges so we can just drink juice.”
I thought it sounded pretty good, and Raine seemed to buy it.

The part she came up with was: “I choose the right like Nephi by eating good food and not eating bad things. Heavenly Father blesses us to be healthy when we obey Him.”

During the program, we had the Junior primary kids stand along the banister, instead of at the pulpit, when they said their parts so parents could see them better (and so we could control the mic better). I was helping the Sunbeam class during the program and so held the mic as Raine recited her part . . . perfectly! . . . from memory! After that, the entire primary sang “Wise Man, Foolish Man” while the Sunbeams did the actions up front. Raine was a little more reserved than she had been in practice, but she still got those flood hands WAY up above her head. In practice, she and George looked like they were leading a Pentecostal revival during that song, it was hilarious. Raine is such a performer!

This was also my first Primary Program as a leader. Unfortunately, it was a “baptism by immersion”! I was asked to write the script, which was more just assigning topics and staying on top of parents to help their children, so it wasn’t too bad. But then, just as we were getting down to crunch-time, our president had a baby.

I haven’t been involved in a Primary Program since I was in the program as a child, so I had NO IDEA how things were supposed to run! Fortunately, the 2nd Counselor had been involved somewhat recently so we were able to wing-it pretty well. I think it all worked out OK in the end — I don’t know for sure, like I said, I was sitting with the Sunbeams so I really didn’t see much of it. DJ said it was the BEST performance he has ever seen . . . but he may be a little biased!

Grandma & Grandpa Anderson’s visit

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson flew down from Utah to visit for a few days this past week. They arrived on Halloween, just in time to help Raine carve her pumpkin.

We kept them busy with projects while they were here . . . nothing photo worthy. But we did manage to squeeze in a trip to the zoo.

One of the flamingos stood up from its nest just long enough for us to see the new baby she was sitting on.

We lucked out in the petting-zoo too. Raine has been itchin’ to pet a chicken again and she finally got the chance.

Just a little sibling love at the alligator shack.

Of course the kids had to take Grandma on the carousel.

We stopped to see the turtles on our way out.

This last photo is going into the history books . . . Grandpa painting Raine’s toenails!

Let’s be clear: Grandpa is NOT a “beauty-parlor” kinda guy. This is a result of him distractedly saying “uh-huh, OK” to Raine while he worked on his laptop. She was talking a mile a minute — explaining the universe and how to solve its problems, or something like that — and he was busy reading something or other and pretending to listen by agreeing every so often. Well, at some point the topic turned — unbeknownst to Grandpa — to Raine’s need for a mani-pedi. She was telling him how Momma hadn’t kept on top of her chipping paint and then told him that he could do it for her. As soon as he agreed Mom and I looked up with eyebrows raised, not believing what we had just heard him agree to. Sure enough, he was oblivious, but there was no going back now. Raine had a commitment and she was not going to let him back down nor forget. And so we had a Kodak moment that will never be repeated!

Halloween 2012

Here we are at our Ward’s first-ever trunk-or-treat.

Raine loves dressing up so Halloween was right up her alley. Several weeks ago, she told me that she wanted to be a pink bunny for Halloween. I don’t know where the idea came from but it was a good one — i.e. easy to make — so I did some google searching and made it happen. She wore her costume all day at school and then couldn’t wait to put it on again to go to the church.

Carter, on the other hand, was not so keen on dressing up. For school, I only managed to get his t-shirt on him. He put on his cape for the trunk-or-treat, but just wore shorts along with it. Here he is with his favorite babysitter Savannah (“Nana”) the super-nerd. They’re so cute together!

Good thing it was 80* on Halloween so Daddy could sport his island garb.

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson didn’t dress up so they were the designated candy-hander-outers.