Time for peppermint lattes!

The time has come to start playing Christmas music, get the tree up and begin Christmas shopping (if you haven't already). It's time to get your peppermint ice cream, peppermint and gingerbread lattes at Starbucks and enjoy basking in the glow of twinkle lights.

Most importantly it's time to remember a little baby that was born so many years ago who changed the course of the world.

Let the festivities begin!!

Thanksgiving Morning

We visited Bobby's Coffee Shop which is our new favorite place for breakfast out. Then on the way home we stopped at a scenic spot to take a few pictures. This afternoon we head on over to my folks house for a big gathering of family and non-family for some bird, bread and berries.

I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving!

I have a rock collector

This and That

Oh, it has been way too long since I just wrote something and didn't post pictures of Anders. It's not the lazy way out since this blog really is just my version of Creative Memories.... (which I have no patience for).

Lately we have all had colds. Chris had a cold for about a day, Anders had one for a few days and I've had one the whole time. I'm still congested. BAH HUMBUG!

Anders is now insisting he sleep without a diaper and I'm sure it's about time! I was the hold out since I didn't want to have to change sheets in the middle of the night. So far we haven't had any accidents. WHOO HOO!

I have to say that I am a BIG promoter of waiting until your kid can SPEAK before really getting serious with potty training. It has worked well for us and it is so nice for Anders to be able to decide that he's ready for the next step and to tell us that. I love it.

Because I haven't been feeling that great this week I keep stepping on toys, sitting on clean laundry and hopping over bits of who knows what that have accumulated around the house. I'm just starting to notice and feel like I should maybe vacuum, put the laundry away and enforce the "no toys in the living room for any longer than half a day" rule. I've got to refer back to FlyLady for some inspiration. I CAN DO IT!

Other than that, life is good. I'm getting geared up for the holiday's and parent's in law visits which are much anticipated. This year I'm trying to get rid of as much clutter as possible because it always seems that around Christmas when presents come the house just explodes and this year I just want a minimalist kind of Christmas. Homey but minimal. Is that possible? I CAN DO IT!

Anyways, I think that's it for now.

Play Date's And Fairy Tale Parade's

Play Date's.......

And Prince/Princess parade's......

This week at Anders pre-school it was "fairy tale week". They heard the story of the three little pigs, Cinderella and more. The girls definitely seemed to enjoy the parade more than the boys.

Keeping busy

I've been wondering how all of my dry goods were getting rearranged.....

A little old fashioned fun, Costco style.

Getting Anders to "clean up" was the fun part. I just made up a rap about cleaning up and putting everything on the table (Boom chicka chicka, putt'n the rolls on the t-t-t-table!) and it got done lickity split!

Kids say/do the darnedest things....

Two days ago I came into the living room/dining room and found Anders opening and closing the lid of the kitchen trash can and taking big whiffs from it. I was horrified because it was a very full can and who knows what was in there! I asked him why he was smelling the trash and he said in a dopey dreamy voice "It smells like donuts". REALLY??....

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Yesterday Chris, Anders and I were enjoying a nice Sunday breakfast at the table. Chris is bouncing his leg (a habit he has that can be a bit distracting). Since Anders is getting more opinionated and sometimes ornery I thought this might be a funny conversation to look back on.

Anders - "Daddy, stop stomping your leg!"

Chris - "I can't, it's broken"

Anders - "Well, take it off and get a new one! That one's really OLD!"

Future Boy Scout

Yesterday we took advantage of our local park.... what I mean by park is the massive beautiful State Park that is within 5 minutes drive for us. We went for a hike and made it to the visitors station where there were animal pelts, snake skins, taxidermy local animals including a lynx a coyote and a mountain lion! Everything was hands on. What a fun place to bring Anders to learn about nature! The docent asked Anders to help her raise the American and California flag. He was quite pleased with himself and it really topped off our vacation like experience.

Chris' iPhone came in handy since we didn't bring our regular camera. Although all of the pictures have this etherial glow/need to clean the lens look.