Christmas??!

Having a toddler sucks up all my free time, and when she's sleeping all I want to do is put my feet up and recharge my batteries in anticipation of her getting up and needing all my attention again.  (Last night Andy said that waking up on the weekends with a toddler in the house is like someone waking you up by throwing you out of a car...which is the most perfect parenting analogy I've ever heard). So yes, I fully acknowledge that it's March and I'm just now blogging about Christmas, but considering the fact that Andy just took the Christmas Fur Rondy lights down today, I think I'm doing pretty good! So here it is...Christmas 2015!

I decorated! and we bought monogrammed stockings.  Also, due to some weird mixup at Pottery Barn, they initially sent us two "mom" stockings (progressive!) and then sent us an entire additional set of these same stockings.  So if you know anyone who wants a "mom" "dad" and "Olivia" stocking in the below patterns, give me a call. 

Love our fake tree.  I never thought I'd say that, but it takes about 20 minutes to put up and take down and no needles everywhere.

I tried to take some good pictures of Olivia for our Christmas card, but failed miserably so I went with some other pictures we had taken during the year.

She was obsessed with the stockings.

My parents came on Christmas Eve to spend a few days with us.  We got a family picture out of the deal (At least one of us is looking at the camera...win!)

Mom made this adorable owl blanket for Olivia and she loves it SO much (can you tell she likes owls? her stocking, her shirt...).  She sleeps with her owl blankie every night.

I made roasted chicken, potatoes, stuffing and green beans.  Olivia graduated from her high chair to a booster seat shortly before Christmas and enjoyed eating at the table with everyone and sitting by Oma.

Family photo!

After dinner I lit up the "jesus helicopter" for Olive to watch.  She loved it! (She's kind of obsessed with fire...)

After we put Olivia to bed, mom and I watched White Christmas while dad and Andy spent hours putting Olive's christmas present (one of many!) together - a new play kitchen! Looks like hard work...

In the morning, Olivia was freaking out about the presents.  Mostly her shopping cart!

She enjoyed delivering presents to everyone with it.  Nice hair, huh?

Need coffee...

I "helped" Olivia with her stocking.  She got a bunch of plastic animals to go with her Little People zoo and some other small stocking stuffers. We could have stopped with the stocking and shopping cart and she would have been thrilled (but of course we didn't...in retrospect she would have been perfectly happy with a box...see below).

I look so awesome in the morning, I know.

After we opened presents upstairs and did our traditional Ebelskiver breakfast, we went downstairs to check out the kitchen.  she LOVED it. 

The phone is one of her favorite parts.  She likes making phone calls while she cooks.

Uncle Bryan and Auntie Deedee got her a tea set, which is also a big hit in the Naylor house.  Uncle Mike and Auntie Kelly got her the plastic food for her kitchen.  She has so much good play stuff! 

You may notice her awesome head wound. She went face first into the box spring on our mattress about a week before Christmas.  Thankfully, it didn't leave a scar.

Love the kitchen! She especially loves putting everything away.  She inherited something from her Auntie Kelly I think...

Andy's parents also sent some incredible presents, including a CAR for Olive.  She could just sit in it all day long.

Running over papa!

She still (even now) hasn't really figured out how to push it, so she demands that someone push her up and down the hallway.  Opa got a few (hundred) laps in during the visit.  He also scored extra points for assembling the car.  Yay Opa!

Andy's parents also sent the most ADORABLE little cowboy boots.  Olive loved them so much that she couldn't wait until she was dressed to put them on.  This is a good look!

Of all the presents, the box that the car came in might have been one of the best things Olive got this Christmas (and Fro for that matter)...

The weather wasn't great when my parents were in town.  We have had (again) one of the least snowy winters in history in Anchorage, and when my parents landed, I think it was about six degrees outside. By the time they left a few days later, it was pushing 40 and the little bit of snow that we did have was starting to melt.  Even still, we made it downtown to do some shopping while they were here.  The Captain Cook hotel was a big hit with all of the pretty decorations and giant gingerbread house.

Somebody loves her Opa!

Olive especially enjoyed wild through the hallways.  Love that 70s honeycomb tile!

The visit was too short - it was really nice to see Olive finally ENJOY Oma and Opa (she was a little scared the last time we saw them).  We've tried to facetime a few times since then and she's really liked that, though recently we hung up and she ran to the stairs and said "OPA! OPA!" thinking he was in the guest room :( I guess we need to book some more visits soon!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Only a week behind.  Boom.  I'm basically blogging from the future at this point.

So last week, Andy's parents came up to celebrate Thanksgiving with us! Now that I think about it, I think this was the first time we've ever hosted family for Thanksgiving.  Even better - they did all the shopping and cooking! That's my kind of hosting :)

We mostly just hung out on Thursday.  We even let Olive have a little taste of TV, which is rare for her.  She was into it...for a few minutes.  Sitting with Grandma helped.



We brought out her beanbag chair so she could watch and she seemed to enjoy that. Zombie! Also...doesn't she look about 12 in this picture? Where is my baby??



Olive had a great time showing Grandma and Grandpa all of her toys...and her favorite pillow.



Olive had fun goofing off with dad while we waited for dinner.



Andy's dad was in charge of the turkey.  It was beautiful! (and delicious!)



We even set the table like real grownups.



I should have taken a group photo.  I assure you we all looked fantastic that day.

On Friday we headed out for a short walk around Hilltop.  Despite having over a foot of snow on the ground just a few days before Thanksgiving, a weird winter storm brought warm weather and rain just in time for the holiday.  Basically everything turned to ice.

Beautiful and treacherous...

Olive didn't care about the trails though, because she was ridin' in style.  She absolutely LOVES the hiking backpack (thanks for the hand me down, Bryan and Deanna!).





Just look at these two. Oh my god...



Ripley even tolerated the ice...his talon-like toenails help.

This was my attempt at a group photo. Nice.

After naptime, we headed out to the museum to do some indoor exploring and go see the Van Gogh exhibit.  We'd been once already but thought Andy's parents would really enjoy it.  It's not an exhibition of any original works, it's this really interesting multimedia installation with music and videos about Van Gogh's life, along with images of his work.  It's really hard to describe, but it's really cool!

A picture I took from the internet...

It's also amazing to see something hold Olive's attention for more than three minutes.  Thanks museum!



After the museum, we had dinner at the museum's awesome restaurant, Muse, while we waited for the downtown tree lighting ceremony.

We walked over just at the time the festivities were starting.  Since it's usually three degrees this time of year, the program was brief:

Listen to some people talk...



Christmas carol sing a long! - Olive's favorite!



Then santa shows up with some reindeer (real ones, of course, though Star did not make an appearance...I can't believe they snubbed Anchorage's biggest celebrity!) and they turn on the tree. Boom! 20 minutes and you're done.  Good times had by all! I also love that we got there just as it was starting and we had a perfect view of the whole thing.  You never really have to worry about dealing with big crowds in Anchorage...especially during outdoor events in the winter.



Finally, on Saturday night, we went to Zoo Lights.  We got there right when they opened and there were hardly any people.



Olive had more time in the backpack, which she of course loved, and it was a really fun thing to do just a short hop from our house.  I wouldn't say it was the most spectacular light display ever, but we all enjoyed it a lot.  I think the best part was getting to see the animals at night.  The wolves and tigers were especially active, which was really cool!

In fact, while we were walking around the zoo, we heard all the wolves howling and we rushed over to their area to check them out.  I took a video, which isn't much of anything (too dark), but check it out just for the sound - the first time I've ever heard this!  Olive also loved it, and now she loves howling whenever we ask her what the wolf says.

It was a great, but too short, weekend.  Come back and see us soon Grandma and Grandpa!

Happy Halloween!

Look, I know I'm about two weeks late on this, but, considering how far behind I've been with the blog lately, putting this post up on November 15 makes me feel like I deserve a medal.

We got our first snow just in time for Halloween! Snow for Halloween in Anchorage is like rain for Halloween for Seattle, it has to happen so the kids' costumes get covered up.  It's practically a law of nature.  Olive is not quite sure what to think of the snow:

She finally found a way to tolerate being outside when there's snow on the ground.  Riding on Dad's shoulders! 

We had fun carving pumpkins the week before Halloween.  Olive jumped right in! 

About 30 seconds after I took this picture, she demanded to be let down to the floor to terrorize the cats, (her new favorite activity!) so Andy and I finished the pumpkins ourselves.  Guess which two I did and guess which one Andy did.  

Fro isn't as stupid as she looks...the baby can't reach her when she's on the table.

We were scared the moose would run off with the pumpkins so we kept them inside...carved.  We luckily got them outside before they completely liquified, but only just barely.  Next year they're going on the back porch until Halloween.  (oops!)

We can't remember what we did last year for Halloween, which probably means we did nothing. This year, we figured Olive might want to check out some fun stuff around town.  

After her nap, we hit Trick or Treat Street in Downtown Anchorage.  They had trick or treating at a bunch of local businesses and the mall.  Since it's October in Alaska, we focused primarily on the mall.

Isn't she the cutest ladybug ever?  She absolutely adored her costume and enjoyed wearing it to school on the 30th and then all day Saturday.  A few days later, she saw it in her closet and really wanted to wear it to school, so I'd say it was a big hit.  The wings are my favorite.

She really enjoyed Andy's devil horns - they light up! Nice $5 target purchase.

I wore my own $5 target purchase.  Cat mask.  Can't beat it.  I even dressed up in all black to try to make a costume out of it.  We really went all out, didn't we??

She did not really want to be carried, but it was hard to just let her loose in the mall.  There were a TON of people there.

Eventually we braved the cold and went outside. We put Olive's jacket on her, but she was pretty warm in her costume and it was only in the 20s (compared to the -3 the thermometer is reading right now...brrr!) so we didn't leave it on the whole time.  

We walked past the Performing Arts Center and she had fun checking herself out in the window.  

Running is the best!

Eventually we made it to the festivities on 4th Avenue...just in time for the Thriller flashmob.  It wasn't very well attended, but the kids knew all the moves and Olive loved watching them dance.  

We checked out some blow up decor...

And then Olive decided she'd had enough.

We rushed home and I threw a batch of my infamous spinach artichoke dip together just in time for us to head to our friends' house for a halloween party!  The best thing about these friends is that their son is in Olive's daycare class and so when we go to visit them, they have built in playmates and the house is pre-baby proofed.  I am clinging to these friends forever! (in fact, the house behind them is currently for sale and they said if we bought they'd plow our driveway for us and help us move...VERY TEMPTING!).  Their neighbors go ALL out for halloween.  This picture does not adequately capture how awesomely these houses were decorated and how many millions of kids were out trick or treating.  

The kids had a blast running around in their costumes and terrorizing the house...as they do. 

Look at Jaxson's costume! How adorable is he?!

They preferred banging on the table together to watching the World Series...

We did a little trick or treating of our own and went to check out the neighbors' decorations firsthand (including the neighbor who was dressed as a creepy clown and popping out of the garage all night scaring people.)  Their house, full of creepy decor, was right up Andy's alley.  

One of the neighbors was handing out glow sticks to kids and Olive absolutely loved hers.  She even wore it home in the car.

Around bedtime, Olive hit her limit and we packed it in...thankfully they live about a three minute drive from us.  When we got home, we lit our pumpkins, but we don't think we ever had any trick or treaters, which was sad.  Oh well...We had a terrific Halloween and hope you did, too! 

The pumpkins are still on the porch two weeks later...they are full of teeth marks from the moose now!