Lost...but found...

I seem to have lost my camera cord over Christmas, but I was able to find another that works. So I have pictures again!!

Annika with her new walking toy (she really doesn't walk with it...she pushes it around while on her knees). :o)



This is the sight I see when I come up the stairs from doing laundry. Yes, both sit like that on a regular basis!


Check out the thighs on these babies! :o) Annika and her friend, Timmy. Timmy is 2 months younger than Annika.


Just because I thought this one was cute!


Mom, is she not like me or what?!?! Mac-n-Cheese! For those of you who do not know...I am an avid Mac-n-cheese fan. I ate this growing up ALL the time...it wasn't unusual for me to eat it everyday and sometimes twice a day (that's two boxes...I would of never warmed it up...YUCK!). To this day my favorite food is still Mac-n-cheese. Although I don't eat it quite as much, however it's not unusual for me to have it at least twice a week! Just starting her while she is young!


Hope you enjoy. I have a video of her I will try and post another time.

10 months...(tomorrow)

Only 2 more months until Annika tuns one!

Annika's Favorite List:

Food: bananas and wheat bread (plain, crust and all...she takes after David) :o)

Activity: She loves to "chase" Lincoln around. She'll grab his rope and bring it to him, because she thinks he needs to have it if he's awake (or sleeping for that matter). She'll give it to him (after about 3 seconds of tug-o-war and when he pulls her down). She than proceeds to "chase" him all over the house. He does not bring it back to her (we have tried to teach him this but he just wants to keep it all for himself).

"chase"= crawling on belly (yep, she still will not crawl on hands and knees she knows how we have seen her do it countless times, but she always ends up on the belly).

Song: Anything she can sing to. She loves to be involved in choir and the Sunday evening service when she can sing.

Toys: Lincolns tug-o-war rope or anything that belongs to him!

Skills: :o) She waves "bye-bye", says "Yay" while clapping her hands, brushes her hair, and tonight she started saying "Oh, Oh" in a high pitch voice while holding the phone up to her ear. (I don't know where she got this from, I do not talk on the phone like that)She is now pulling up to her knees when she does this she just gives you this cheesy grin. She is climbing on everything and learned tonight how to climb the stairs.

The many faces of Annika:

The "watcha doin'?"

The excited!

The not so sure!

The tired!

The grumpy!

The happy!

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!!