Here come the winter holidays!

Well, it’s been a wonderful couple of weeks with beautiful weather and a change in the seasons. It’s finally feeling like fall around here with nice days anywhere from the 60’s to the 80’s. We’ve also had a lot more play-days in the park lately and have loved having the house open and airy…Ahhh!
Thanksgiving was nice for us (hope it was for you too). Kevin’s boss invited us again this year and Aanika was old enough this year to drive the kiddie Jeep all by herself. She’s got to get the steering concept down, but otherwise, she had a ball (it’s been decided that she’s not getting one any time soon).

She also helped me do some baking this year and we made pumpkin pies as well as a blueberry pudding cake. Yummy!
The day after Thanksgiving, Aanika was my little helper elf and we brought down the decorations out of the attic. We’re finally getting in the mood for Christmas and have managed to get the house decorated. It’s really hard to get in the spirit of things when you’re walking around outside without a coat on and wondering when it’s going to get cold!

Last Sunday we were able to get our lights up on the house because Kev was brave enough to climb to the peak again for me this year. It was absolutely beautiful that day and Aanika even helped put the lights in the bushes.

Whew! Too much happening

Wow, it’s been months since our last update. Things got crazy around here with hurricanes and such that I just got out of the routine of doing these. I’ll do my best to catch you up on everything. We’ve had vacations, hurricanes, a huge growth spurt, visitors from out of state (2 states, actually) and Aanika started school and goes two days a week. On top of that, we’ve got playgroup, playdates, Mommom’s functions with the MOMS Club (welcome committee chairmom) and the neighborhood women’s group (social coord.) and general fun days with Daddy when he’s home. Whew! That’s enough to keep anyone busy…and compared to other families, we’re not busy! Down here in Texas, we’re finding out that it’s all about ‘bigger and best’ and your kids have to be busy and occupied every day of the week. Thankfully, we deliberately keep ourselves from being too busy and are quite content with our nice peaceful family life!
Aanika is getting very tall, is learning sign language (at least 30 words already), and is smarter than a whip. She’s keeping us on our toes because she picks up on everything you say! She’s also developing a great sense of humor too. She was always quite funny, but now she makes jokes and teases and tries to pull the wool over your eyes with her tricks! Check out her sense of humor in the picture of her dinner plate....those are grapes in case you're wondering.

Little Hula Girl

Here's Aanika and momma after a women's group party - it was a Luau and momma was the party greeter.

This is Aanika doing her own version of the Hula!

Do as I say, not as I do

Aanika's really talking! Lately she is saying her name “Anka” in just about every sentence she uses. It’s really cute because instead of saying ‘I’ or ‘mine’ it usually comes out as “my Anka” and it’s almost always at the END of the sentence. Here’s a typical sentence if Daddy’s playing with her toy ice cream cone (see pic): “No no Daddy ice cream cone my Anka” – it’s not grammatically correct but she’s very clear on what she means!
Seeing it’s been so hot lately, it IS August in Texas you know, we tend to stay inside during the hottest part of the day and play in the morning or early evening before the mosquitoes come out. The picture here involves an after dinner shot of “the kids” playing in the backyard. The third kid that I have (you know the big one as Kevin) is an 8 yr old boy that we watch a couple days during the week, Cameron, and he loves golf. After a few crazy hits with the practice balls, they decided that they needed to be retrieved…hey, have you ever heard the phrase “do as I say, not as I do”? Well, Aanika was getting an early lesson in it!

Camping on the beach

This week has been relatively uneventful so I’ll give you a recap of our trip to Michigan and our recent camping adventure. We had a great time in MI even though the weather was unpredictable. It went from the high 50’s to the 80’s while we were there…we even had the heat on! June in Michigan…did I tell you that that’s why we moved? Well, winter’s the other reason!
Our camping adventure was just that. OUR part of it was fun and relaxing, but it’s those pesky neighbors that you can’t control. Between the 4 (yes, four) barking dogs on one side and the very intoxicated neighbors on the other with their late-into-the-night screaming/fighting, well there isn’t much else to say! Oh, I forgot to mention the mariachi music at 4a.m. – that was the final highlight of the night. All in all we had fun but one of the best parts was the water fun. We were camping in a county park and it was only a short walk through the campground to get to the Gulf. The water was hot like bathwater and you actually had to get OUT of the water to cool off. I guess that explains why there was a tropical storm this week!

The picture is at the campsite and Aanika on her way to the beach.

The little singer

Someone turned on the furnace down here! Ouchie…been in the high 90’s this week and it’s not gonna change for a while I think – we’ve had no rain for several weeks so it’s keeping the humidity low (for the time being). This is the time of year when you plan your afternoons around staying indoors between the hours of Noon and 3pm! Hot as it is, we’re planning an overnight camping trip to the coast today (Saturday) to see how Aanika does. We’d like to eventually take a week-long trip somewhere but we need to see how well she’ll adapt to a tent. She thought it was fun enough when it was set up in the living room (Kevin’s idea) but it might be a whole other issue when it’s surrounded by “nature” and other people. Actually, it could be interesting because of it being so close to the 4th – we’re hoping it won’t be too bad because the county we’ll be in has a burning ban enacted because of the dry conditions but time will tell!
This is one of Aanika's favorite activities lately with her daddy....FLYING!

Our trip to Michigan went well, but it was quite chilly and cool. We’ll do pictures and an update of that next time. I must say, the trip did nothing to change the still active obsession with Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). We’ve attached a short video clip this week of Aanika showing off her singing skills. In the video, they’re singing ‘Hail to the King, Hail to the Queen, Hail to Princess Aurora’ and it’s all done with much pomp and circumstance. Well, she’s been working on her singing and it’s the part about Princy A-Roar-Aahhhh (you’ll understand this spelling when you see the clip). Over and over and over…all day long…everywhere.

Thumb Sucking Solution!

Aanika is doing wonderfully since her surgery and is sleeping and resting much better. She’s even starting to lose the dark circles that were always under her eyes! Our ‘big’ event going on now is that we’re trying to stop the thumb sucking that she does when she’s waking up in the morning. Several months ago, Kevin got her to stop the nighttime sucking just by leaning over her and saying “Don’t suck your thumb”…she hasn’t done it since! The task for morning sucking is harder because we’re still in bed too, so we’ve come up with something that Aanika thinks is fun ~ she wears a sock on her hand. It’s so cute, when she gets up in the morning, she puts it back in her sock drawer and at night, she reminds us to put it on her. She’s just a hoot of a kid.
This week we had Aanika's first "lesson" in swimming....she loved the splashing!
Aanika and Mommom are off to Michigan next week (looks like it’ll be dreary and cool) for a visit. Kevin has a monster of a week with 2 large hospitals “going live” with their new computer programs in the Units. Needless to say, if we were still here at home, we wouldn’t be seeing much of him! We might even be going over to Grand Rapids for the Bethany International Festival, which is the agency’s big event of the year. This is who we used for her adoption and several of the families we traveled with to China are coming in from out of state. Oughta be fun!