I'm Calling it a Survey--that's what it is

1. Post the rules on your blog.
2. Fill out the questions below
3. Tag 5-7 people at the end of your post.
4. Pass on the tag. Have FUN!!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Choco​late?
Egg Nog in Hot Chocolate

2. Does Santa​ wrap prese​nts
No

3. Color​ed light​s on tree/​house​ or white​?
White lights

4. Do you hang mistl​etoe?
Yes, then burn it (so our trees don't catch the disease!)

5. When do you put your decor​ation​s up?
Saturday after Thanksgiving

6. What is your favor​ite holid​ay dish (​exclu​ding desse​rt)​?
Warm rolls with real butter

7. Favor​ite holid​ay memor​y as a child:
After Christmas Eve service grandma and grandpa as well as all aunts, uncles, and cousins would come to our house for chili and soup (HA- Joel's beer cheese soup, unforgettable!), Christmas cookies, and sparkling cider. Then we'd all open our one Christmas Eve present (PJ's!)

8. When and how did you learn​ the truth​ about​ Santa​?
I probably suspected in late elementary, but he still visits me!

9. Do you open a gift on Chris​tmas Eve?
Yes, PJ's and slippers (although my mom will deny every year that she got us pj's again.)!

10. How do you decor​ate your Chris​tmas Tree?
Lights, garland, special ornaments, and then the generic colored balls

11. Snow!​ Love it or Dread​ it?
Love, love, love it, I'm a Colorado girl! Every time it would snow my sisters and I would sing "Let it Snow!"

12. Can you ice skate​?
Heck yes, I pretend to speed skate when I get out on the rink--yup swingin' my arm and everything.

13. Do you remem​ber your favor​ite gift?
There are so many, but I do mostly remember when I got my Adidas jacket in Jr. High--I cried.

14. What is the most impor​tant thing​ about​ the Holid​ays for you?
Celebrating the birth of our Savior with family

15. What is your favor​ite Holid​ay Desse​rt?
Christmas cookies/goodies: toffee, peanut butter balls, puppy chow, and Scottish shortbread

16. What is your favor​ite holid​ay tradi​tion?
All of it from decorating on Saturday after Thanksgiving to opening our advent calendars each day in December, to the Christmas Eve with our family, Early morning Christmas day, family Christmas dinner, and our family's (Mark, Caedmon and I) newest little tradition of having Little Smokies and Orange Cinnamon Rolls with Egg Nog for Christmas breakfast.

17. What tops your tree?
A star (coordinating colors, of course)

18. Which​ do you prefe​r givin​g or recei​ving?
Giving, definitely--I much prefer to see people's faces when I get the "perfect present" and the anticipation of giving the gift! But it wasn't until I was old enough to make money to buy "perfect presents" that this became true!

19. What is your favor​ite Chris​tmas Song?
White Christmas, or The Christmas Song

20. Candy​ Canes​!​ Yuck or Yum?
MMMM- yummy

21. What do you want for Chris​tmas?
I'm not really sure (and it's driving my husband and mother nuts!)

22. Do you atten​d an annua​l Chris​tmas Party​?
no

23. Do you dress​ up on Chris​tmas or wear PJs?
Dress up, then go to the aforementioned PJ's

24. Do you own a santa​ hat?
Of COURSE

25. Who do you norma​lly spend​ Chris​tmas with?
My family, Mark and Caedmon and either my in-laws or parents


Here's the kicker- I don't know how to tag people on this! Plus I'm pretty sure everyone else has already gotten it (except you McON, if not then just copy and paste, ok?!).

There is Nothing Going On

YES!!!

Nothing is going on here right now and it's GRRRReat! I have to host Women's Council at my house Thursday evening (I say "have" but it's my choice to have it here). Then Thanksgiving with the Anderson super clan (I've decided we're super-sized, even though we're still in the intermediate family--you'd understand if you'd ever seen us all together). Then there's the Christmas parade--which we HAVE to enter again this year. Last year we won Grand Prize for our float, by a stroke of genius the theme was "Unwrapping the Magic of Christmas." Uh how easy is that?! It fit perfectly with our Children's Christmas musical, Angel's Aware.

And then after that my friend, Leslie, and I are catering a Christmas dinner for 60-100 people. Then we have the Christmas program for the kids. That will entail 2 dress rehearsals and lots of painting/set work. Luckily I have my "work horse" friend, Misti, who is ready and willing to help with anything I need help with! And sometime between Thanksgiving and the parade we need to get the house decorated for Christmas--inside, and out.
Ok, so I've now realized I'm in down-time for all of 36 hours. *sigh* Oh well, down time is down time I'll take it anyway I can!

Hap-ee Halween

We had a fun (if not a bit stressful for me) Halloween. Our Fall Festival was great, we had tons of help and everything went well. I managed to sew Caedmon's costume a week early so I wouldn't stress about it the night before so that was good planning. Also, I can't take all the credit, Mark (who is a jack of all trades, seriously!) designed, patterned, cut out, and SEWED Caedmon's fake slip-over boots. They were the best!
It was so wonderful to have family here for the weekend. LouLou and Pappa (Mark's mom and dad) came down Friday to hang out with Caedmon while mommy and daddy were living at church! We managed to come home, get Caedmon dressed, and get him to a few houses to trick-or-treat before rushing back for final preparations for the evening. We got to then experience the joys of having grandparents to have fun with Caedmon during the night. It was great, he got to have fun and is really enjoying spending one on one time with "Pappa and Llll00-oo" (roll an "L" sound around your tongue a few times--yeah, that's what it sounds like).
Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Last week: doing a final fitting on the costume...

AHHHH! He's SO cute!


He sang the Backyardigans Pirate song: "Arr, arr, ar, ar, ar. arr, arr, ar, ar, ar, ar...(etc.)"

Oh my, he's ADORABLE!!!


Trick-or-Treating...



Off to the the Fall Festival at church (aka our backyard)


A favorite...we always played this game at my birthday party when I was little. Here Caedmon's playing with his Pappa.


Totally worn out...LouLou put Caedmon to sleep this afternoon (after we all, ALL went to church and cleaned!)

For the 3rd Time

Yes, I'll keep trying. I've tried twice already to post a video and it never works, so I may have lost some of my computer savvy in the last, oh say...week! But I'd realized that when someone ventures to my lovely blog the first thing they see is a video still shot of my darling boy grabbing himself. This won't do!
So here we go:

Mark caught this nasty thing (with his fishing line) while we were fishing early this summer...sick-O! (And that's Caedmon admiring it while sitting in Aunt Jilly's kayak.)

And then...

Dumb Vista, we need a Mac

Ok I'm going to try to put in a cute video of Caedmon (and if it works, WATCH OUT, I'll be putting tons up). Lovely Vista doesn't come loaded with the kodec to allow sound from any uploaded videos from our camera. I love it...we're so getting a Mac-SOON!

PeePee Par-tee

Yeah, I know kinda graphic title.
It's been a graphic week. First, we're not potty training Caedmon right now, he's not close to wanting to do it, we don't want to do it until he does, I'm not interested in changing his clothes all day. With that said: Caedmon has THE cutest pairs of undies (boys do NOT wear panties, I've been informed) from Scotland. They're so little and cute that the other night I couldn't resist and I put him in a pair. He LOVED them! He could scratch and run and jump and not have a diaper on...he loved it. He'd just gone potty, so there was no danger, and we got them off him after about 45 minutes. Fine- no harm done.

However, the next day Caedmon was wanting to experience his freedom once again. So against my better judgment I let him. Long story short, he pee peed all over the bathroom floor. Ahhh, I had to set him on his toilet seat to keep him out of the way so I could clean (and if you know me disinfect/sanitize/anti-bacteria-the-heck-outta-the-floor). Then I decided to just throw him into the tub. I did get my choreography finished for our kids performing arts class that night, during that time.

THEN...Saturday morning at 5:30 am someone is saying, "Momma?" to me while I'm dead asleep. I somehow roll over and get him wedged between Mark and I. Great, except after a blessed 5 minutes of sleepy snuggling, he sits up and says, "PeePee." I told him I wasn't going to get up and change his diaper that early, he'd just have to wait. Then him saying that made me realize I REALLY needed to make a trip to the little girls room (refer to post below). When I got in there I grabbed my nightgown only to discover it was soaking wet! I did what any sane person would do and start feeling around to see if I'D somehow wet the bed, then it all came together...
Yes, he peed our bed. Yes, he got it all over my (favorite) nightgown. Yes, Mark had it all over his back. YES, we still love that little guy!!! We changed (ok, Mark did it) him, put him to (his) bed, put new sheets on our bed, and we all slept another hour and a half.
Fun, fun.

Oh, and we* carved a pumpkin. That was fun. It's Pablo from the Backyardigans FIY.

*If by "we" I mean mommy drew a face on then got bored and made caramel apples; Caedmon got grossed out by the stringy-slimy stuff in the pumpkin and decided to taste test caramel apples; daddy gets out a power tool to get the job done right and he does it himself.

PREGNANT!

I'm pretty sure any of y'all who know I have a blog already know, but just to cover my bases: Mark and I are expecting another baby on April 9, 2009! We are so excited and looking forward to the joys of having another sweet baby in the house. As of right now I'm almost 15 full weeks along. I think I may have felt the baby move last night, but I'm not sure.
We've had several appointments and an ultrasound already. We really enjoy our doctor because he's such a great Christian man. He knew the fears we had at our first appointment with this baby (nicknamed 409 by the way) and so before we left our appointment he prayed with us. Just like he prayed with us when he sent me over to the hospital to be induced with Caedmon and when we found out in the ultrasound room our precious baby, Iain, was no longer living. The Lord truly placed Dr. Wright in our lives for a reason!

I still daily have to give my fears about the health of this baby to God and realize there is no better place to put my faith and trust then in the hands of He who measures the universe in the span of His hand. Mark and I can honestly say we don't care if we're having a boy or girl (and if you didn't already know, we're not the finding out sort of
people!) so we'll be so happy in April to see our precious little baby boy or girl! Caedmon will be a great big brother!

This is me pregnant! (it's not now, this is when I went to the hospital with Caedmon!)

We Had A Party

Only a week later, y'all should be impressed! We had Caedmon's party on his birthday (it's kinda a big deal to us to do the party on the day) which was last Saturday, October 4th. It was a good day, I wasn't too stressed (hey I didn't say I wasn't at all, I wouldn't be a Middleton if I said that!) and Caedmon really seemed to enjoy re-meeting the whole family and playing with his cousins. My parents and sister got here on Thursday evening and were a great help to me. My mom is great about doing meals/parties for large groups of people. Inevitably I forget the small stuff like drinks, napkins, etc. So it was good to have her. The party started at 3 and we had lots of smoked brisket, sausage, and pork loin- yum! It was a regular BBQ and fun. We had [Caedmon's] Grandma, Papa, LouLou, Pappa, Aunt Jilly, Aunt Catlin, Uncle Matthew, Aunt Chandra, Noah, Isaiah, Nehemiah, Uncle Luke, Aunt Mandy, Asher, Levi, Addie, Uncle Josh, Aunt Kristi, cousin Willy, and friend Paul. It was a good time. I think even Quigley, the dog, had a fun with everyone. I'll be honest and tell you my cake wasn't quite what I'd expected, and so it was not as spectacular as I hoped. But it was the yummiest one I've made yet--I somehow messed up the recipe on the frosting and it turned out DE-LISH! Ok, I'll stop describing things and go ahead and let the pictures tell the story!

It's always great to come in and see the chandelier decorated and presents on the table first thing in the morning of your birthday!

Parts of various outfits Caedmon received...he's skiing by the way (yes, with his drumsticks).

Caedmon with his daddy and Papa putting together his new tricycle.

Caedmon's Papa doing a magic show--Uncle Matthew (left) and Mark are doing a mind-reading illusion!

HA- all the "big boys" had moved to the front row of the magic show (L to R: Uncle Matthew, Uncle Joshua, and Mark).

Cousin Asher helping out with a smooth linking rings routine.
Caedmon by his birthday cake & cupcakes. If you want to know why the cupcakes are purple, let's just say my red wasn't red enough and when I'd royally screwed them up and swirled them with the blue frosting...yeah, I know, so much for thinking ahead.
He's 2, therefore he didn't care for "Happy Birthday" being sung to him.

Blowing out his candles!

Caedmon with Aunt Catlin, and cousin Nehemiah.
Papa and cousin Noah watching Mark help Caedmon open gifts--Mark's obviously enjoying it!

Aww, kissin' cousins! Caedmon gives Asher a thank-you-for-my-present-kiss while cousin Levi (foreground), cousin Isaiah, and cousin Noah (pictures from the background) look on.Oh and to start out our weekend we had the lovely and somewhat traumatic experience of watching our former house be ripped from the ground and moved down the street from us! It was sad. It was also disturbing that the very next morning (on Caedmon's birthday) we noticed "looters" going through the basement where the house had been. I sent Mark over to tell them just what was on the stuff they were grabbing and they said, "How 'bout we'll just wash our hands before we eat?" AHHH- of all the nerve! Some people...

Here it is this is the sun porch (left end) leading onto the living room, the dining room is the middle window with the kitchen on the right end. Upstairs is Caedmon's nursery, then the guest bathroom, and our bedroom/bathroom on the right end.

How I miss that house!

Weekend Fun, Weekday Woe

Ok so I'm back! I brought with me one heck of a cold, but I think I just was working too much for my body to catch up on being healthy this weekend! I played many roles including (but not limited to) cake decorator, floral arranger, photographer, and assistant to the bride! HA- but I love my Shelbs (my cousin, the bride) so it was a joy. There are definately some lessons learned in the cake, and so next time I'll be more even on my arches, points, etc. But I was pleased if people didn't look too close! Here you go:

The flower arranging was my favorite part!

Stage 1 of set up on site
Almost done...
Finished!
With our lovely Explorer in the background (sorry!)
Shelby and Josh cutting the cake (if you look close you'll see the hundreds of gnats that flew into the frosting and got stuck! AHHH- but I didn't care, we just told people to pick them out--the price you pay for an outside wedding!)Aftermath- the second layer chocolate was gone! This layer was butter pecan- yum!

A couple of my favorite pictures I took and made sepia...
We call this one Shelby's "Estee Lauder" picture
And to finish it off, our sweet boy, Caedmon (left) with his second cousin, Tanner on Great Grandpa's tractor!
I may be posting again soon as a big event is happening today around our area. It's called their moving our house! Not the one we're living in, but the one ruined by the Great Flood of '07. I'm SO sad, I don't want to see it done, I LOVE that house. Not that I'm not grateful for the house we have now, but to those who have been to both there's just no comparison! To make things worse we can see all what's being done because the house's are separated by just an alley! Here are the pictures of our first home here on Cedar, and our current home on Summit:

Our beautiful first home:
Our current home (but it looks a lot better now, because my flower beds are in bloom!)

Good News with a Cake

Ok, so I fixed the couch (just for you, Mandy). I went online to get helpful hints as to the best way to do it, but got answers from "just throw the cushions in the dryer for a couple of hours, but make sure they don't touch the back or they'll burn up" to "I simply took the cushion out and used my electric knife to saw it in half and then it dried out quickly." Holy mackerels people- do you KNOW how much this couch cost?! However the basking in the sun on our car seemed to do the trick.
On to better and brighter things; I'm making my very first wedding cake! I'm nervous about it, but fairly confident that it'll turn out. I just don't want it to look like the bride's cousin (me) made it!
I've been making cakes for about a year and a half now, and while I'm still not confident to charge for them, I'm convinced I need to for all the work involved! I've learned many valuable lessons over time like "Aunt Pat's Frosting" is simply the best; Jiffy cake mix is simply the worst; and nothing beats having a sister around to be my sous chef and fill frosting bags and replace tips for me! I'll include a few pictures of past cakes and the like and hopefully after this weekend I'll get home and post a picture of my first wedding cake!

My most recent cake--the traditional bear form from Wilton. It was fun, and don't kid yourself, smoothing an area with a finger dipped in cornstarch is a LOT harder than it sounds!

This is the first fondant cake I did for my sister's birthday. I have some big problems getting it to smooth out--it's never as easy as Wilton makes it out to be! Oh and right after I took this picture Caedmon threw up on the cake from drinking too much pop (I'll spare y'all that picture).
These are cookie bouquets I did for my friend's twin's birthday. Jillian did the cowboy decorating for Maguire and I did the girlie one for Ava.
This is my first baby shower cake (also the infamous Jiffy-made one- yuck!). My friend, Kamber, gave me a b&w picture to go off of but I dolled it up a bit. Jillian did the cookies, I'm just not great at cookies.This is Caedmon's first birthday cake(s). I got the idea from a Wilton book and took it my own direction. It was LOTS of work, but LOTS of fun! My mom helped me a lot and even Mark smoothed frosting on one of the cakes!
Sorry the pictures aren't great, I need to have our resident photographer, Mark, take them for me!

Hurricanes Irritate Me

Ok, so the simple fact that we're hundreds of miles inland should be reassurance enough from the threat of hurricanes- right? Wrong, so wrong.
My parents (who live in a Houston, TX suburb) escaped Ike with few inconveniences: raking small sticks and branches from the yard; their pool close to overflowing. Like I said, small inconveniences. The did NOT even hear it when it hit Friday night. However, we in a small Missouri Ozarks town were kept up half the night by winds (44 mph was the highest one recorded last night). And horror of horrors, today after church when Mark went in to take his Sunday afternoon nap in the living room he discovered that my couch, my BRAND NEW BEAUTIFUL COUCH is SOAKING WET! What?!?! The ceiling in the living room leaked all night long soaking the huge cushions!
I'm getting so sick of water (be it contaminated with city sewer*, or just sieved through my attic and ceiling) ruining my things! I've got the cushions outside basking (yes, they're basking--they're on a Siesta Keys beach towel in fact) in the sun on the hood of our car to dry them out. If that doesn't work, I suppose it's thank goodness for renter's insurance. We SO learned our lesson last time* and have that now, and while the sound of gushing water in my house still gives me the shivers I have a certain peace of mind about it now.
Just thought I'd give a shout out of thanks to the stinkin' hurricane that has wrecked a good majority of my past 12 hours.

*Referring to the "Great Flood of '07" where over 2,000 gallons of raw city sewage gushed into our house ruining most of our belongings on the first floor and basement. And when I say "raw city sewage" I mean everything that implies, yes THAT!

Dictation

Here's a sweet thing my boys did. Mark took Caedmon out to scout for deer while I had dinner with a friend. They both were thrilled with their evening and their finds: 5 deer, and 3 turkeys. Caedmon did love the animals, but that was perhaps amplified by the fact that he was sitting on a 4 wheeler with his daddy while watching them. He still talks about it and Mark can coerce him to do just about anything by promising to take him out to see the deer again. I think maybe I should keep track of how many promises have been made, this could mean a whole lot of nights off for me!

Am I supposed to abbreviate everyone's name here? I find it difficult, and I'm not giving out addresses or socials or anything...

Once again

Today has been a day. We got home late last night from the football game and of course baby boy was up this morning at the crack of dawn. Only today it was with the Backyardigans theme song being played on his kazoo. We're talking about room darkening shades, because seriously, we gotta find a way to sleep a little more! Mark's downstairs building a project we designed together. Caedmon's twin bed-it'll be done cowboy style and will be super cute I'm sure. I'm just not sure if I'm ready for my baby to grow up! Way back postpartum I would be especially distraught that my precious little newborn would have to grow up. I suppose it's the way things go. As my dear husband would say, "would you rather him live with us the rest of his life and never really live?" The answer of course is, YES! but I know it's supposed to be no.
Talking about him just makes me want to go peek in on him....and steal the kazoo.
I love my boys.

Finally! She posted again!

Whoa check it out, I'm posting for a second time! There's nothing new really going here at the Anderson household. We're just anxiously awaiting the cooler fall weather- my favorite time of the year! Also, we have a little boy who will be turning 2 in October! My, my, where does the time go? We'll be getting ready for that soon now too. It will not, however, be at all like the big event we had last year with 100 invitations going out. Nope, just a small (HA- with the Anderson extended family- right!) family gathering.
I'm out, and hopefully I'll remember next time that I have a blog and I need to get with it and figure it out!

So I'm new at this...

I'm new at the blogging thing. Being that I thought it was just a passing phase, that and the iPod (don't ever ask me to be your stock broker). My time on here will be limited to naptimes, as I tend to ignore my family when I get online (at least I know and admit it's a problem!).
Here goes nothing...