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!)