Setting Up the Tree

Well, Summer unboxed the Christmas tree today along with the countless boxes of ornaments and decorations..... despite the fact that it's still November. Still, I have to give her credit; her mother frequently has the house decked out in Chrismas decor the day after Thanksgiving. That being said, the tree is up and she's happily decorating it while Christmas music chimes away in the background (yes, there are several stations already playing Christmas music). The kids came up and pulled out their old Mickey Christmas caps from when we spent Christmas in Disneyland a few years ago. That sure was a fun vacation, and it was nice to get away from the snow.

Speaking of snow, Logan loves to play in it. The first snow of the year came on Thanksgiving and Logan kept looking out the window yelling "IT'S SMOWING!!! SMOW! SMOW!!" Everytime we go outside to get in the car, he takes a detour onto the lawn to step through the inch of snow that actually stuck to the ground, and Andrew's already asking if he can pull out the sled and slide down the hill on the north end of the elementary school. Unfortunately, it doesn't work when there are only a few patches of snow here and there.

We're planning on sticking around for the holidays again this year, especially since it would cost over $1200 for us all to fly home, and it's probably best, seeing as how we'll be t-minus two months from Hannah's arrival. We stayed in Cleveland last year, and it turned out really nicely to be able to spend the morning together with just our family, and then spend Christmas with friends the rest of the day. We even fired up the webcam so the kids could chat with Summer's parents and show them what they recieved from Santa.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, we finally did it..... we made a blog. After seeing so many friends and family doing it, we finally succumbed to the peer pressure. So here goes...

This past week has been relatively eventful. We were somewhat nervous about hosting our first Thanksgiving away from home, especially when we planned to have it with such a big group. I think we counted a total of 23 people including us and all the children.

Baking our first turkey (or in our case, turkey(s) since we bought two of them to ensure we'd have enough) was an adventure all in itself. Since neither of us had done it before, we really didn't know how the whole process worked. We called Summer's mom and she walked us through it, but when she explained that we would need to stick your hands inside both the front end and the back end of the turkey to get the giblets and insides out, both of us looked and each other and said "no way, I'm not doing it!" You could say it grossed us both out... a lot. In the end, we bit the bullet and did what needed to be done, but it still sends chills down my spine if I really think about it. Also, we're glad Eric Shupe was there to teach us how to carve the turkey, and that Kimberly knew how to make the turkey gravy. They were lifesavers. Anyway, the whole feast turned out great. The turkey(s) were nice and moist, everyone brought some amazingly good foods, and it was great to hang out with everyone and catch up on all the latest news from the ward.

Summer's pregnancy is plugging right along, although it seems that she has been pregnant forever. Luckily, her doctor says everything is right on course, and every test so far has shown that both mom and baby are healthy. We're excited to have a little girl on the way. The much anticipated arrival is February 17th.

The kids also got their flu shots yesterday, and neither of them cried at all. Summer got her shot a week ago at her OB appointment, and Andrew was upset that he had to wait an extra week until his appointment to get his shot. It was funny hearing a five-year-old complain that he actually had to wait to get poked with a needle. What's more is that he wasn't upset about not being able to get it over with; it was that he didn't want to contract the flu in the time he had to wait for the vaccine. As a kid, I was terrified of needles!

Logan is becoming a lot more expressive lately. It seems like just a few months ago, he couldn't even pronounce his own name. He kept calling himself "Dun-dun." Now he's speaking in full sentences, and he even hit us up the other day asking "We go to restaurant to eat chinese food?" What a crazy kid!

On the news, we heard that a lot of stores are opening their doors at 3 and 4 AM to roll out some of their post-Thanksgiving deals. There was even one store that was opening at 11 PM on Thanksgiving night! How crazy is that? Apparently, there were even hoards of people who were camping out in the freezing cold to be some of the first people in the doors. Personally, I would rather sleep in my nice warm bed, sleep in, and shop during normal daytime hours, even if it means missing a couple of sales and spending an extra few dollars.

Anyway, that's it for the Andersons for now. We'll try to update regularly.