Epic. Blog. Fail.

I know. I know. Way too long since updating on the goings on of our little life. For those of you who eagerly anticipate the next post from me and have been sitting by your computer pushing refresh over and over on your browser just to make sure I haven't updated: I'm sorry.

All right. In my own defense, I have started to write posts a few times before now. But then life happens; Anika starts to demand my attention, I need to get dinner started, I remember that there is a load of laundry that needs to be taken care of. And right now, even as I type, I am remembering a load that is sitting the washer...but I will attempt to finish this first! The clothes will still be there when I'm finished...right?

My last post was...September 21st. Ouch. Okay. So here are the highlights of what has happened since then.

October:

Anika grew up more and more every day. We had fun playing outside in the beautiful fall weather. Nathan and Nicole came to visit us for their fall break. We took a trip up to Sioux Center and Luverne for some sibling concerts at Dordt and Southwest and have fun playing with friend Ava. Garry's mom, sister Melissa, and brother Brandon came out to visit for a few days. Anika dressed up for her first Reformation Day as Dorothy and enjoyed seeing all the kids in the neighborhood come to our door dressed up for candy. We had a blessed month. I worked a few times substitute teaching for a few different teachers.

And here is October in pictures.





















Now to summarize November. I started off the month substitute teaching a lot, which left little time for anything else. Anika learned a lot this month, and loves to color pictures. Although I have to watch to make sure those crayons stay out of her mouth. The non-toxic crayon had to have been invented by a mom. We were also busy preparing to leave for our trip to California to visit Garry's family for Thanksgiving. We were there for a week and had fun visiting a lot of our relatives. We even made it out to Atascadero to visit Justin, Kerrin, and Jane! We also had a fun time shopping in Exeter, CA with Beppa and Tante Melissa. Then we celebrated an early Christmas of opening presents from the Riezebos family since we won't be there for Christmas this year. Anika wasn't quite sure what to do with her present. She didn't even want to pull the paper out of the bag. I'm sure next year will be much different.

I call Anika my little pink Ewok when she has this sleeper on. :)
















And a few random pictures of Anika after we got home from our trip.




I will hopefully blog again soon about our goings on. But this is a lot all at once, so hopefully you have forgiven me for being delinquent.

It's Party Time!

Having a child changes everything. I know that saying is sort of a cliche (okay, it's very cliche), but it's true in ways other than overall outlook on life and responsibility. It turned me into a wannabe party thrower.
We had some fun birthdays when we were younger, and my mom made us some pretty awesomely decorated cakes because she's amazing. But as the years have passed, I've lost my desire for birthday parties.
Until my baby was going to have one.
Enter crazy ideas for decorations and wanting to have everything incredible.
Of course, I wanted to do everything somewhat frugally. I mean, she's not even going to remember it...but I still wanted it to look nice.
So i set up everything for the party a whole week ahead of time. Yes. Everything was decorated for a whole week. Good thing I love Blue's Clues!
I worked very hard for many hours with many pieces of construction paper to make her Blue's Clues characters to put on the wall. They are pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. And Target was my best friend. And
I am proud of my efforts to be a party planner, and that everything turned out well


When people arrived, we kept them busy with a coloring station. I had printed out pictures of Blue's Clues and had crayons available for people to color a picture and write a birthday message on it. I took a picture of them after the party. I thought it was a good idea and people seemed to enjoy it!


However, all that really matters was that we were able to celebrate with family and friends who love us and who love Anika, who are there to help us love, parent, and teach her about how much she is loved by her Heavenly Father and her Saviour Jesus. That she is loved with an everlasting love that forgives all her sins. That this love is so much better than any earthly love we could ever hope to show her.
To be surrounded by friends and family in Christ is the best sort of party, no matter the location, food, decorations, or presents.

Autumn Playtime

Today brought a cool front of autumnal bliss. I absolutely LOVE autumn. And now Anika gets to be all decked out to play outside. I think it makes her look more grown up. *sniff *sniff

This is the Day that the LORD has made!

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

God decided to give us a break today from all our humid, story weather. He gave us an especially beautiful day; so beautiful, in fact, that we just had to take a trip to the park. Anika was very excited. She loves the park. She also got to make a new friend: static electricity.
Here are a plethora of pictures so that you can feel like you were there with us!

(side note: I realized I look like I have abnormally large incisors when wearing my rubber bands on my braces. Combine that with my pasty-white flesh, I can safely assume that people think I am a vampire.)

One Year Later...

A year ago today I submitted myself to the world of orthodontia. I am both relieved that it has been a year, and surprised. I think that having a baby to take care of made time go faster this past year. So I will put a picture of my teeth a year ago and a picture of them today.
Hopefully only six more months! I am in the rubber band stage now, and I am wearing extra bands to hopefully make my teeth move faster.
Considering the final result of my teeth is the cost of a decent used car, I hope I like my smile!
On another note, it's nice to see that my face has thinned out since having a baby. I was looking pretty puffy. Haha.


So you can see that the one side of my upper teeth were sliding backwards into my mouth. When I would bite down, the top teeth would land INSIDE the bottom teeth, which is not a healthy bite. It was starting to get uncomfortable. And my bottom teeth were pretty crowded, but you can't see that as well.


Right after getting my braces. They didn't hurt....yet. The start of the pain came a few hours later.


And now today! I think we are getting closer to all my upper teeth being even!
A close up of my hardware. For those of you who don't get to see me smile every day. :)