goodbye to 2011

2011 has been so good to us. It has been filled with great memories with family and friends. We hope that 2012 can live up to this past year and bring many more fun days, laughter filled moments, and good health to those we love. Happy New Year!!

Museum of Science

Anya had a fun time visiting the museum of science for the first time with me and Dwight today :) It was very busy since it is school vacation week. Next time we will go on a non-vacation week. Her favorite part was seeing the dinosaur and the moose :)

Christmas day

What a blast it was to watch Anya's excitement on Christmas morning.

Some of her favorite gifts were big bird, her train, an animal planet farm, a little people amusement park, cookie monster play doh kit, Dora guitar, and a wuggle making kit among other things.
Herman enjoys her train as well...

In the afternoon we headed down to celebrate Christmas with my parents and my sisters family. It was so nice and relaxing to sit near the fire and talk, eat and have drinks. It really was a wonderful Christmas!

elf yourself :)

Click here for our elf yourself video from 2011!

Christmas eve

I am sitting here in my pajamas with my coffee waiting in anticipation for Dwight and Anya to wake. I can't wait to see her face.
Christmas eve was a wonderful time at our house. Anya was SO excited to see uncle Eddie, Grammy, Great Grammy and Paul. Here are photos from our celebration.





Sprinkling her reindeer food outside...

Anya left out milk and cookies for Santa as well. After she was in bed Santa arrived and I was able to get a photo of all of the presents. She was a good girl this year!

Her train that goes around the tree..

These stockings look like they are on steroids..

Don't forget to check out last nights post of Herman enjoying the holiday. :)
Merry Christmas to all!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Cousin fun

~Anya and Abby playing~

Last night we baked sugar cookies with Anya. I always dreamed of the day of rolling out the dough and cutting out cookies with my daughter. It was a great time and Anya was covered in flour by the time we finished. Abby was cute as a button in front of the tree while we baked.

Holiday playdate

Today we hosted Wednesday playgroup. The kids had a pajama playdate, watched Frosty the Snowman, and made reindeer feed! The reindeer feed is a mix of oats, chocolate chips, marshmallows, and sparkly sprinkles. On Christmas eve we will sprinkle it outside to lure the reindeer to our home. They will munch on it while Santa delivers our toys!

Twas the week before Christmas..

Anya has been getting her fill of cupcakes. We have been to a birthday party and two birthday playdates.. lots of fun...

.. lots of frosting..

She re-discovered her pal Violet this week and is in love. She has been bringing her everywhere, talking to her and feeding her a bottle :)

This holiday weekend can't come fast enough although we have a lot of fun planned for this week. Tomorrow we are having a pajama playdate with a showing of Frosty the Snowman, and we will be making reindeer feed. I will post pictures of it after.

winter wonderland

Last night we brought Anya to a farm for a holiday winter wonderland. It was such a magical night...
We started the night off by feeding the sheep..

Next, we moved on to Anya's favorite.. the goats. She may have hugged every goat at the farm. She even gave out some kisses haha..

We found the cutest barn kitten to play with. She was such a little fluffball!

After feeding the animals we headed over to the bonfire. From here we boarded a horse drawn sleigh ride with bells and all. The sleigh took us through a forest full of Christmas lights. My favorite part was when we saw the nativity. Anya said, baby Jesus! It's Christmas! We also saw the Grinch dancing in front of his house. I didn't get very good pictures on the sleigh since it was moving and Anya was on my lap.

The sleigh stopped at Santa's reindeer barn where we saw his real reindeer and Santa himself!

Her favorite part of the night was meeting Frosty the snowman!!!!!! She hugged each of the few characters each about three times. It was so fun to watch.

Before we left we had some hot cocoa and this girl is a huge fan!

Pickity Place

This week we headed to the Pickity Place with my mom, sister and Abby. It is a cute restaurant tucked away in the woods. They serve a 5 course lunch using their own herbs. There is a cute little store where you can buy anything from pottery to muffin mix. My mom bought Anya the little horse with carry case in her hand in this photo of Abby and Anya.

little women

Sunday we celebrated the holidays with my dad's side. We know how to make girls on his side.. can you tell by the pic of the kids?...

Yup, that's right.. all girls..


Wonderful story from today ~
Today Anya and I tagged along to a doctors appointment with my mom. In the waiting room it was busy but completely quiet. Anya started singing, "jingle bells". Slowly one person after another joined her until the whole room was singing. It was like something out of the movies. I wanted to cry. This kid brings joy everywhere.. so happy she is ours. :)

Christmas Tree 2011

We had every intention of cutting down our own tree with Anya as we have done the past two years. This year it was a bad year for Christmas trees and today the cut your own farms in our area were already closed for the season. We ended up just going to a lot. The funniest part about it is I think this tree is my favorite one yet. It's smaller than we usually go for (which we wanted for space) a perfect shape, and beautiful. Anya had a great time helping us decorate it.

Every year I buy Anya a special ornament. This year it's Frosty because she LOVES Frosty. She owns every Frosty movie that was ever made ;)

"Daddy can I put the starfish on?"

She did it!

I love the glow from Christmas lights..

She loved the bell that Dwight put on Herman..

The end result!

the many faces of Anya

I am loving the 'day after braid hair' that Anya had this past Sunday..



... and one of sweet Abigail..

My funny family :)

and a few more of the Polish side family party...