Out on the Town

We never can get over how cute this girl is to us!!  We got her this silly little hat one day and she is so sweet she leaves it on:)  Love this girl!

 Stopping for one of our most favorite meals!  Calzones at Jonnies on 3rd St.  We lost count how many times we came here long ago!

 Not long after Grandma and Papa took us to see the fish at the aquarium, our great friends Whitney and Chapin offered to take us along with their free passes.  Yes please:)  This is Anabelle taking a closer look at the scary sharks.  She doesn't know they are scary yet, but just seeing her so close to an open tank of sharks gave me a case of anxiety!  For some reason I get this feeling like when I am close to a high ledge and it seems I could randomly lose control and fall, I was always afraid I'd some how be able to fall in with the whales or something as a kid.

Taking a ride on a hermit crab.

Like I said, she doesn't know they are scary and so she was trying to feed her cracker to the large mouth lined with teeth:)

 It was so cool, there were a bunch of people sitting and watching the seals be trained and get their exercise, but when Kyle put Anabelle up on the ledge the guy had seal come right to her and say hi!

 They shared a little smooch!:)

 She also loves water so much that she was happy to stick her fingers right into the touch tank of sting rays and we got her to touch one a couple of times. Silly girl.  I was proud of myself for doing it too and they feel surprisingly cool.  Like a hard snail.  They are slimy! 

 We were excited this time that the birds were out and we could feed them.  They attack you for this yummy nectar juice.  Anabelle usually loves animals, but she thought these were a little too close for comfort and she just wanted to get out!

 She is giving me the "why on earth would you make them come over here" look:)

Thanks for the fun day guys!

Surprise, Surprise!

Kyle and I were anxiously awaiting the day to spill the news... Baby number two is on its way!!

I think I was a little more anxious as I was dying to be truthful about having been miserable and stop pretending to be ultra lazy just because:)  I was beginning to think our friends would assume I was a bum!  Plus, this belly is growing faster than last time and I felt like every glance was lingering and that everyone was eyeballing my belly as if they knew exactly what I was hiding! ha  Hooray for baby and for sharing the excitement with everyone!

One fun thing about Anabelle is that she is a true girl and she loves her accessories!  I can usually convince her to keep in a hair bow or headband just by telling her how pretty she is and letting her see in the mirror.  Once she sees how great she looks, she is happy to show it off for everyone.  We thought these mittens were adorable and were so surprised when Anabelle seemed to agree.  She would actually leave them on for long amounts of time and then ask for them to be put back on if they fell off.  Shes such a silly girl and so much fun!

 This girl loves her blanky.  She is seriously attached along with those ever present binkis.   She took a little time out from play in order to indulge in both:)

 Grandma Broadbent sent this fun Christmas package and we had a good time with it.  Once again, Anabelle had fun checking out her new accessory in the mirror!

I realize that our videos are all sideways.  We are so smart.

 Enjoying some music at the ward Christmas party.  Kyle insisted she wear the antlers for part of it:)

 Anabelle and I had a little date to Pinkberry on the Promenade while Kyle was home sick with the flu. I felt bad leaving, but he was quarantined in the bedroom and we needed a house break.  Yum!

You won't feel so bad for Kyle knowing that I got it myself just two days later.  It was the most terrible flu too!! We were both absolutely miserable and wiped out!!  I had a little break down after one whole day of misery and not getting to hold or kiss my baby for the first time ever.  I had already been sick for weeks and this just sent me over the edge.  My body ached like I had fallen from a three story building. If you were one of the few to avoid it this year, count your lucky stars!

How lovely are thy branches

We decided last year that we really wanted to get a real tree even though we would be gone for Christmas and now we love our new tradition!  There is nothing like having the real thing.  Anabelle was a bit more help this year too:)  She was so funny pushing around the massive orange cart and we were surprised that she could push it around all by herself!

 Yup just right. We found it!

 I guess she decided a free ride was just as fun as pushing it herself:)

Home for the Holidays

Ok, so this picture doesn't have anything to do with the holidays, but I couldn't leave it out.  She just looks so cute despite those scary looking arm bandages.  At least they are scary to me!  My poor baby had to have blood drawn and it didn't go too well.  Luckily I had Kyle to hold her down because I was getting sick just being in the room and knowing what was happening.  I was so worried it would go badly and it did.  They couldn't get blood and had to poke her twice. I think the first guy was just dumb and didn't do it right and hurt my poor girl!!  She still woke up from her nap smiling and beautiful as usual:)

 This picture is funny because it captures me in the back being sick prego mom during the phase that was secret to everyone else.  Sadly for Anabelle this was my status many a mornings while I was enjoying morning (more like all-day) sickness and exhaustion.  Pulling out the Christmas decorations is always fun and exciting for me so I was glad she was able to enjoy playing with them in the meantime:)

I mentioned before that we were home for Thanksgiving.  Although we were very much missing our usual family time for the holiday, we were pleased with how yummy our little dinner turned out and had fun together.

 Kyle wasn't about to have Thanksgiving without his family's traditional orange rolls and made his first attempt on his own.  They turned out great and Anabelle loved them!

This picture wouldn't rotate. Ugh. But I still thought they were very cute!

 Our yummy feast!  It was well worth the work and we enjoyed it for the next couple of days:)  We were happy that Anabelle loved the potatoes and turkey just as much as we did!

 Mmmm Turkey

Anabelle is somehow always more likely to relax and lay back with Kyle more so than she ever does for me!  She usually demands my complete attention at all times!! I thought it was so funny to find them both kicked back like this! ha

Visitors!

I don't think its any secret that when it comes to decision making, I am the worst.  Second only to my mother:)  Thanks for passing that one on mom.  Anyway, in a lame attempt to keep our apartment owner happy we decided to stay here this year for Thanksgiving and it was our turn to visit my family.  I hated missing out on family time!!!  It's so much harder during the holidays! But we had a pretty sweet little dinner here on our own and luckily for us, my parents decided they would come for a visit before Christmas so that we could at least be together for a short time.  Yippee!

 While they were here we got SPOILED!!! They were excited to get Christmas shopping done since we wouldn't be together and then we decided it would be fun to let Anabelle play with her big gift while they were here to play too!  They got her a little kitchen and she loves it!!!  One of the first things she did was go put her hands under the faucet and try to wash them.  I think she was wishing water would really come out, but she has been learning to pretend and still does it all the time.  She like to "cook" the food and stir anything and everything that is on the stove.  We call the silver pot her hot chocolate pot and she loves to stir it and then poor it in her little cup for me to drink.  Its so cute to see her learning so much and I love to sit with her and see what she comes up with!

 We were trying to enjoy some sunshine so we planned a picnic at the marina.  It was a little chilly but it still felt nice to be out in the fresh air!  After being sick for a couple of months, I was missing my vitamin D!  Papa showed Anabelle how to feed the birds and she thought it was so cool.  She wanted to try and one flew up and snatched it right out of her hand! She didn't like that so much. Ha

 Anabelle showing grandma the seal we found.  She loved it and wanted us to take her to see it up close to bad!

Grandma and Papa also took us to the Long Beach aquarium and we all loved it!  It was the perfect activity to get out of the yucky rain outside.  She loves animals and had fun getting right up to the glass to see the big fish!

Giant Fish!

We didn't want to miss the sharks outside so we braved the rain and daddy let Anabelle wear his hat for cover:)

Look we found a daddy in this one! ha

I Give Up...

Well, as many of you know, I am terrible at keeping up with this blog.  I make myself all kinds of empty promises that I will catch up entirely and then be really great at it.  The tragic truth is that I planned to be all caught up before Anabelle turned one and then disaster struck our picture files.  Kyle kindly moved ALL of our family photos over to an external hard-drive in order to make more room on the computer and they have been a completely unorganized and almost impossible to track down mess ever since.  One day I got really motivated and tried to find pictures for all kinds of posts I was behind on and made a separate folder complete with dates and labels, only to learn that when you unplugged the hard-drive again, somehow all the files I thought I downloaded disappeared.  I was SO discouraged!  I basically decided it was impossible and have been terribly behind ever since.  So, I am finally going to suck it up, give in, and start off with where we are at now so that I don't continue to forget all the fun adventures we are having as I put it off any further! Heres to giving it another go:)

To Grandmother's House We Go!

Just before we were off to Utah to spend Christmas with Grandma and Papa, Anabelle got a Christmas blanket from Grandma Broadbent in the mail.  She liked it!

 Anabelle all bundled up and ready to drive through the pouring RAIN all the way to Utah.  We were lucky once again though and she was really good all the way there.  Other than a couple of expected stops and a couple of very messy diapers, we made it!!

 We had fun watching Kai and Anabelle have some bonding time too.  Kai shocked everyone by standing up next to her chair to get a good look at her face! He held himself up just like that for minutes until somebody grabbed him again:)

 Traditional bowling with the whole family.  We love when the Scherer family is with us and we have so much fun doing all the fun activities together!  Not to mention they were all meeting Anabelle for the first time, Great Grandma Scherer included!

 Another tradition, the nativity of course!  This was the innocent and beautiful beginning...

 And then the rest of the crew arrived and things got a little more interesting... but even more fun:)

 My mom and sister planned a night of minute to win it for everyone and we had a blast!

 Back and grandma and papa's house the grandkids got to open there first present, their Christmas PJs!

We were sure that Anabelle would be the one to wake us early, but she was so tired that my sister came and woke us all up.  Of course the only mornings Anabelle wants to sleep in we have to be getting up:) She was so tired that she kept sleeping until we were half way done with opening presents, but then she was happy and loved all her new goodies!

 Matching cousin jammies:)  

 We may have had a few issues posing the kids:)

 Kyle went to "check" on Anabelle.  More like fall asleep holding her binki in. Sleepy heads:)

 Matching Christmas outfits:)

 She got this sweet jumping toy from grandma and papa and we were so excited that she could already sit in it!  She loved it and we were excited to have a break for our arms!

 Late night family games!  Even Jared tried to be a good sport and play along!

 Cute little snow babies!!  Keeping each other company while we played lazer tag. Again and again:)

 We thought it would be fun to introduce the "skittle game" to the Gibson family.  Everyone actually did really well and we were cracking up the whole time!  Even Nanny joined in the fun- she's that cool:)

 Heather was resourceful and used her "upper lip!" Too funny!

 But in the end... I won it.  I think the fact that I am a professional junk food enthusiast might have had something to do with that.

 Our New Years Eve wasn't complete without the hot tub so we braved the FREEZING weather and Landon cleared a path with the shovel so we could get in.  Us brave ones that is:)

 Anabelle decided to wake up just in time to celebrate the New Year with us and we thought that was a wonderful idea.  Just made our night that much better!

 Happy New Year 2011!

We had so much fun and were so grateful to be able to spend the holidays with our families!  We did so many fun things together and made so many great memories.  To mention a few, lazer tag till we dropped with our family and cousins, sledding in the freezing cold, shopping, games, Kyle and I making dinner for all, Christmas Eve at Nannies, being together, it was the best!