More Christmas...

Grandpa & Annika (One of my favorite photos)











Annika always seems to cry when Uncle Bryan has her....












Uncle Geoffrey and Annika













The Aunts (Elizabeth & Kat) with Annika

















Presents...yay, I just think the bow is cute!!

















I know that I already shared these in the slide show in the last group of Christmas photos, but here they are up close...I can do this because it's my blog! :o)

Christmas Time Photos

Here they are...there are a lot. We went to visit lots of family Annika saw all of her great grandparents over Christmas! Including Great-grandma Karen from Colorado. She did such a wonderful job for all the people that were around. We started off our Christmas break with a wedding up in Cloquet, MN (Congrats Josh and Lisa)!! Then headed from there to Mauston where we stayed with my grandma. We went out to eat breakfast with my sister her 4 kids, my mom and grandma. Then headed to Beloit, WI to have Christmas with the Stertz. It was a fun time. Justin and Elizabeth came up from North Carolina. We however missed Jenny who flew home to Washington the Wednesday before we got there to be with her own family...next year! :o) From the Stertz we went to the Isaacs home (David's grandparents) and spent Christmas with them. There were a total of 31 family members there...we had a blast. From Hudson, WI we went to Chetek, where we spent a few days with some more Stertz (David's aunt and uncle own a motel in Chetek) we stayed there and David's grandma, Aunt Mary, and cousin Steve flew from Colorado. So we were able to spend time with them also. It was such a blessing spending all this time with friends and family. It was a good way to end the year and begin the new year!

Hope you enjoy the pics....again...there are a lot...sorry, I had a hard time narrowing them down this much!! :o)

Merry Christmas!

We just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday! From our family to yours! We are off to Wisconsin for Christmas!
Here is a video to hold you over until we get back in about a week. Enjoy :o)

Annika learned to brush her hair a few weeks ago....and she learned how to throw the brush that night while I was video taping!

Tradition.....Christmas Goodies

When David and I first came to Sunrise, we wanted to make it a tradition to take Christmas Goodies to all the families in the church. Well, we did not foresee the growth that our church has experienced in the last couple of years. We have about 65 families in our church now. Talk about major baking!! (Yes that is a cake container upside down holding chocolate chip cookies...we filled that container twice).
Every plate had enough goodies so that each family member could have one goody of each kind.


What kind of goodies you may ask...Well there was....








Peanut Brittle (a favorite of many)












White chocolate dipped pretzels w/ sprinkles













chocolate chip m&m cookies














Peanut butter blossoms (my personal favorite)







There was also fudge (not pictured but also a favorite of many).

These are the plates that filled with the cookies (like I said we had a lot of families and delivered 4 times this many). This was fun in past years but poor Annika was soo tired of being in the car (it did not help that we would pull her out and put her back in eventually we just left her in the car delivered the cookies and left). We did not stay at the houses to chat or we would never have gotten all the cookies delivered (in fact we have not delivered them all and many will get theirs after Christmas we are running a tad behind this year). :o)



Just wanted to share one of our Christmas tradition....

Fun in the Snow

We took Annika out in the *** snow*** today (for a very short time, mainly to get some pictures). She wasn't too sure about it. Lincoln (our dog) on the other hand was very excited to be outside!!

9 Months!!!

Annika went in for her 9 month well baby check-up. I figured I'd post this now (a day early) because David will have the computer at Central tomarrow.

She is growing up soo fast. The last month she has started saying "yay" and clapping, saying mama (and dada occasionally), and waving bye-bye (when she wants to). She has started eating regular veggies (not baby food). In fact last night I gave her mixed veggies (green beans, carrots, lima beans, and peas) she picked all the carrots out and left them on the tray. :o) She even ate the lima beans (she gets that from her dad).

Here's her "stats"

She is coming in at 50 % on height 27.5 inches
But only 25 % on weight: 17.5 lbs

And last but not least here's a picture I took of our big 9 month old girl!

Our Blue-eyed baby love!

Annika Overload....

Okay, here's a ton of Annika. First are a few Thanksgiving photos....




One happy baby love...









This is Annika's great-grandma, Annika was named after her Annika Carol.






Oh the joys of being a baby....













Not sure what she was doing here.....








Checking out everything around her...











One nosy baby wants to see everything that is going on!









Ready to get out of her exascaucer







I have started to barricade the kitchen off so Annika cannot get into it. She has found the animals water and the dogs food (yes, I fished a piece out of her mouth the other day)! So I started using the kitchen chairs. But guess what.....




She is okay after the nose plant and was smiling shortly after....And yes she said "mama."

Her other new thing she has learned is how to say "yay" she doesn't not say it in the video (but she can say it...her first official word), but the clapping is real cute! We are trying to get bye-bye down but every time I tell her to say bye-bye she claps!

Thanksgiving with Jenny!

O Deer, O Deer

I must start out by first apologizing...moving from something so cute as Annika to this...again I apologize!

David went hunting in Wisconsin this year with his family. Here's what he came home with....

He was pretty excited!

(Disclaimer: A deer was harmed before the taking of these photos)

Some new pictures....

Dear Family and Friends,

I asked and asked my mommy to put new pictures up of me, but she kept saying she was too busy. So finally I bugged her sooo much that she decided she would put some up...she has it in this weird moving thing, but that is okay because they are pictures of me, right?!? Hope you enjoy them!!!

Mommy & Annika

Someone mentioned that there are not many pictures of Annika and I together...here's a couple (I look the same in all of them, Annika doesn't). I was just going to put one picture up, but she's just too cute not to add more than one of her.

Can you resist a blue eyed girl?!? Not Me!! :o)

Our Florida Vacation

We had a blast on vacation! Here are the photos (click on the picture below and it will take you to our album). Hope you enjoy....

Florida Vacation Pictures

warning: there are a lot of photos

Surely Goodness....

Somehow I stumbled across this blog (called Girl Talk) and this video it was soo cute, I thought I would share...

More of the Pumpkin Patch

Here's more pictures from the pumpkin patch. Annika and I went with the neighbor lady and her 4 boys. Thanks Sara for taking the pictures for us! I slipped a picture of her boys in with Annika's pictures.

Pumpkin Patch Preview

We took Annika to a pumpkin patch to get some pictures. It was a quick trip (she was not feeling the greatest, but seemed happy for the time being so we did a quick photo shoot). I plan to go again with my neighbor lady and her 4 kids. I will post a few pictures and there will be more to come....probably sometime later this week. :)

Mirror, Mirror on the wall.....

Annika found her new favorite thing.....herself! :)

(Hence the kisses) :)

Here are a few pictures....

Loves kissing herself

"Two" Cute!

Hmmm....

"Mom, whatcha doin'?? I'm tryin' to play!!!"

Sunday's Best

While we were expecting our boy, I went through the boxes and boxes of boy stuff given to me by others and while it was fun. It however is not quite as fun for me as going through girl things. I just wanted to share a couple pictures of Annika's Sunday's best with you.

The first dress was bought by daddy (picked out by mom)! :)

The second dress was bought by Mrs. Christine Hindt. Christine's favorite color is pink. She loves to shop for little girl things (probably because she has three boys). Annika has gotten very spoiled by her. We wanted to thank Christine again for this outfit. She also purchase a brown corduroy pea coat to match this outfit (it was not cold enough to wear the coat last Sunday).