December:
--Getting & decorating the tree: Relatively early for us, we went Christmas-tree shopping; it took three different lots to finally find the one we wanted. This was the first year Annika really got the point of the exercise, and she loved it -- even though it was cold and wet out, and dark by the time we started. The next night, we decorated it -- she informed us, firstly, before we did anything: “You put the lights on first, DEN de ornaments.” She quickly caught on to how to hang the hooks, and was actually pretty good about spacing, within her reach (as opposed to the usual little-kid thing of hanging them all in one place, heh). It was such a fun evening, with Christmas music on the sound system and lights and boxes everywhere ...
--Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: We watched this for the first time with her -- she LOVED it, even as we wondered if maybe it was a little scary (oops, too late!) ... we ended up watching it a half dozen times this month, interspersed with Frosty the Snowman (Jimmy Durante, whoa!).
--Making stockings: During a Target prowl, I came across some of those cheap felt Christmas stockings and thought it would be fun for us to make one for everybody -- they were only a dollar each! I gel-painted the names (Mommy, Daddy, Annika, and Grandma and Grandpa, since they were going to be here for Christmas), and let her do the rest -- crafts are really getting interesting with her now!
--Babyschool Christmas party: The school did its annual little show, with each class of kids going up on stage to sing a song. Primary 2 did “Frosty the Snowman,” with one kid in a snowman costume. It was HILARIOUS! And she looked so cute up there, in a red dress I bought at Gap (a couple sizes too big, because they didn’t have a 3T or 4T and I loved it too much to pass it up!) with a black turtleneck underneath. Then there was a party afterward, with snacks and apple juice and such, and Santa came by! She managed to stop running around with “Genebeeve” for long enough to take her turn with Santa, but she didn’t want to sit on his lap -- just stand there beside him while I took a picture. She came back to us, explaining “I didn’t want to sit on Santa’s lap,” and we said that’s perfectly OK, you don’t have to sit on anybody’s lap you don’t want to; she said OK, but that “Maybe next year when I’m a bigger girl I will do dat.” Hee!
--Grandma & Grandpa visit: So actually that very night is when Grandma & Grandpa came to visit -- they went home with us from the party, having been at Aunt A.’s until then. As ever, it was a mutual lovefest pretty much the whole time -- the two of them are much more willing than R and I are to play the kinds of games where you get on the floor or make noises or whatever, so they made fun companions for the kid.
--Christmas Eve: The first year she really understood the concept! It was awesome. She was running around screaming “CHRISTMAS!! CHRISTMAS!!!” and got to watch Rudolph one more time, and hung her stocking, and put out a plate of the homemade chocolate chip cookies we’d baked together, along with some milk, for Santa, the whole bit.
--Christmas Day: Aunt A, Uncle P, and the cousins came up to visit after we were done with Christmas dinner proper. She had already opened a bunch of presents (books! puzzles! games! Gabba Gabba stuff, including a stuffed Muno that she still hasn’t put down!), but then she got a bunch more from them, and had a blast with the fam.
--NYE Sauce: We spent a nice week after Christmas with both of us off of work, just puttering around doing nothing much; then Grandma & Grandpa went home on the 30th, and the next day, we packed up the car and headed to M&H’s for NYE Sauce! Another awesome time -- I don’t know how much longer we’ll get away with sending her to bed before the rocking begins, but for now, it still works. We all went for a rain-soaked walk in the woods around their place, which ended with me walking about a mile back to the house carrying her. I’m gettin too old for that ... Anyway, it was a great way to ring in 2011.
January:
--A visit to Daddy’s office: I had a job interview, and we were going to stay in a hotel that night to avoid driving all the way back up to Pacifica only to turn around and come back in the morning [see below!], so I dropped Annika off at Daddy’s office for the afternoon. She was a model citizen, coloring and watching videos on her iPhone, and she LOVED the excitement & novelty of it!
--House hunt: In early January, it was back to the routine for a couple of weeks, but with one twist: Our house hunt began in earnest. We got our stuff together for the mortgage, we found a realtor, and we dropped Annika off at the cousins’ for a morning while we went out looking at houses for the first time. Saw a few we liked OK, but nothing that wowed us. The next week, we went to nighttime babyschool, then continued on to M&H’s, where we spent the night, then left Annika in their care (“Good morning! Spontaneous babysitting! You’re welcome!”) while we went out again. This time ... we found The One. At least, I thought it was The One. But since it was only our second time out, and it’s a buyer’s market, we figured no need to rush. So we went ahead with the Mandark Mini-Sauce that night (a one-nighter arranged so that Mandark could attend, since she missed NYE) and had an awesome time. A couple of days later, we found out that The One had gone into contract ... boooo! We were bummed, but had to keep looking. The next Saturday, we visited a few more houses, none of which were as good as “the one that got away.” And then the news: That deal fell through! So we jammed down to see it again the next day, Sunday, during an open house, and liked it even more than we had before. We knew we wanted to make an offer, so we started the process that very night ... [and now you have to wait till the February update for the rest!]. We’re really excited to be doing this, and it’s great to have so much more time with the cousins together -- which we’ll have even more of when we move!! Wheeeee!
