A Season of Giving and Celebrating

Happy 2012 to all our friends and family! We had such a great Holiday Season and are so excited for what this new year has to bring. We are going to try and share some of our favorite moments from Thanksgiving until now, so we hope you enjoy the photos and memories to wrap up 2011.


Here are some photos of our cute kids, from the weeks in-between holidays...

 (Dean loves to draw all kinds of shapes and lines and dots. The results are pretty neat!)

 (Lately, Dean has been loving to draw rainbows and suns. He even made up a song for when he does it: 

"Draw the rainbow, draw the rainbow. Draw the rainbow, draw the rainbow." He's so funny.) 

 (Riley is our little dare-devil/acrobat/dancer. She's everywhere lately, and learning 

that moving has it's advantages and disadvantages!)

 (Seems like she's constantly in motion; thus, the fuzzy pictures!)

  (She learns so quickly, and loves playing with all the toys her big brother plays with.)

 (And of course, since she's ALWAYS teething lately, more 

often than not, the toys end up in her mouth!)

 (But, sometimes it's entertaining at least! Haha.)

 (Here's our big boy Dean at "briskcut" or breakfast, whichever!)

 (Riley loves eating breakfast too! She can eat half of a level 3 jar of fruit and a

 half-bowl of baby cereal in one sitting!)

 (Riley...where are you?! OH! There you are. We play this game a lot lately!!)

 (She loves watching TV shows, and pulling herself up and banging on the 

entertainment center in all her excitement. Can't believe she's eight months!)

 (Momma's girl worn out after all her crawling, pulling, banging, and eating.) 

 (Dean and cousin Isabel love hanging out together. It's so cute to hear them

 talking to each other and enjoying the same things together! Yay for cousins!)

 (Just some cute photos of Riley in one of her hoodies.)

  (Look at our big girl and those stunning blue eyes!)

 (Dean likes to pull out the chairs and line them up. So, when Gma K pulled

 one out, he pulled one out behind her and played with her hair! It was so cute!)

(We constantly find her limbs in-between the bars. She's such a little wiggle-worm.)

Here are some of the wonderful Christmas Projects we were able to do this year...

 (Brittany made denim ties for the boys in our Valiant 8 Primary class. It was an arduous process, 

and they weren't as successful as she had hoped. But they still look pretty neat don't they?)

 (This is a wrap bracelet attempt for the one girl in our Valiant 8 class. What do you think?)

(Brittany also had fun doing  a simpler version of candy-cane stripe nails for

 Christmas, with some of the little jewels she wanted to try out.)

 (Then Dean, Riley, Brittany, and Gma K got to whip up all sorts of Christmas treats!

 Here is Dean helping with the Shortbread cookies. He loved rolling it like play-dough.)

 (Brittany got to roll out the dough and cut the stars out. It was perfect dough to work with.)

(Riley got to watch all the fun. Gma K did all the sprinkles. Aren't they beautiful?)

 (Here are all the plates we put together after baking for two days! Brittany had so much fun!)

 (Isn't the packaging nice? We kept one for ourselves too!)

(Here are the names of the treats we made: Shortbread Cookies, Chocolate

 Peanut Clusters, Cool Whip Chocolate Balls, Fudge with Peppermint on top,

 Butterscotch Nibbles, and Rice Crispy Treats with M&Ms. Want the recipes?)

Of course one of the biggest Christmas projects is decorating! Brittany's favorite part was finally having something to showcase in her beautiful hutch. She even put a rope light in it, around the perimeter, to make it even more beautiful. James helped with putting up the tree, outside lights, and getting boxes out and putting them all away. It was a lot of fun, but so worth it in the end. It really helped bring the spirit of Christmas into our home. 

 (Here's what the hutch and dining-room looked like.)

(Dean LOVED looking at the lights, and would even scare us all trying to plug 

them in himself to look at them.)

  (James grew out a nice beard to show off at Christmas-time, in a true Santa spirit.)

The James Anderson Family: The Morning of Christmas Eve 2011

 

 

 Riley Mae Anderson, on her first Christmas morning, all dressed-up for church. (She is wearing the beautiful bow Gma Anderson made for her!)

 SANTA CAME! LOOK!

 (Riley waiting behind the traditional curtain to see if Santa came, with beautiful Gma K.)

 (Dean came right down and said "bicycle!" and sat right on his trike. His favorite gift for sure!)

(Here's Riley in the Keel Baby's First Christmas stocking!)

  (Dean liked playing with the tinsel, and Riley liked the bows, so we put them on their heads of course!)

Hope you enjoyed the photos we have so far. We're anticipating some from Christmas Eve at The Anderson's home soon, and hopefully we'll be able to recap more of the events after Christmas and up to New Year's Eve in the next post. 

Love, 

The James Anderson Family