Annie Bananie

AnnieBelle

AnnaBanana

Annie

But surprisingly not so much Belle.

Annabelle started sitting at 5 months. She was scooting at 7 months and crawling by 8. She started pulling to stand shortly after. I have seen her start trying to stand in the middle of a room. She isn't quite stepping with help yet.

Taken Nov 16

She loves food. She wants some of anything I eat or drink. She is nearly impossible to feed baby food unless she is also feeding herself. We pretty much just give her what we are having. Like Mac and Cheese. Taken Dec 22.

Eating the orange from her stocking on Christmas Day.

She got her two bottom teeth really early. She has her two little vampires fangs on top but not the front ones yet. The top right just barely broke the gums. She has had some pain, poor kiddo. It makes us both a bit ornery.

She is also giving kisses, clapping her hands when you say "yay," and says "mama" along with many other baby babbles. She is our only one to say mama first.

She is definitely a mamas girl. One night though, I heard her cry a bit and then immediately stop. I came to check anyway and she had crawled over to Jon and was laying on his arm. They were both out cold but both smiling and holding hands.

This darling is feisty and so fun. She is adored by everyone. We just love her to pieces.

Christmas

After Thanksgiving, it was definitely time to throw out the pumpkins the kids decorated {for Halloween}

And get ready for Christmas! We tried to have fun and meaningful Christmas experiences as a family throughout the month.

#1 decorate

Our first year with a village! Jon found a guy selling nine buildings for $50! It was a steal. Of course, he had to add the train :)

Our elf came to visit

We visited Santa at Bass Pro

And rode the merry go round.

Decorate ginger bread houses

Some intense time spent planning and executing the ward Christmas party. Glad that one is over!

We did a fun, Christmas symbol riddle and treasure hunt.

Made lots of Christmas cards and wrote Santa lists

(Benson)

We also did sibling gifts this year for the first time. We took the kids to the dollar store and had them each pick something for the other two. There was minimal drama so we'll call it success.

We also took homemade bread to three families in the ward that we thought needed Christmas cheer. The kids did great singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

And of course, we went to Bagwell Lights and got Andys.

Christmas was here before we knew it.

Thanksgiving

After having two {excellent}Thanksgiving dinners in Utah, we decided to be very non-conventional and have a lobster feast. Complete with a live lobster whom the kids named Fat Tail. Because we picked the lobster with the fattest tail. 

It was a new experience for us to prepare a live lobster. We saw one tutorial suggesting you cut the lobster in half while still alive and I am just way too squeamish for that. So boiling water it was. 

It was a chill day, and the kids were a bit disappointed by the holiday. Haha. I always felt the same about Thanksgiving. But, we did try to make it fun and meaningful. Complete with thankful feathers and pin the feather on the turkey.