Funky Tree Friday

I don't get these trees. They look like the branches actually grow down. I don't know if they get very tall but the trunk would definitely determine how much it could grow, either up or down.

Story Time

Anna pretending to be a princess

Anna loves stories, especially in the car. It seems like every time we get in the car, she wants to hear a story. I used to fight it more because I didn't feel like I was very good at telling stories but then I realized they aren't that bad and she loves them. We do still a limit of one story per car trip. Sometimes I try to get her to tell me a story but she says they are all mixed up.

One fun thing about telling the stories is I get to make them how I want them. There's nothing quite like telling a story to your daughter to help you see the lessons in it that you don't want her to learn. For example, the princesses are often older than in the originals (Sleeping Beauty generally gets until her 18th birthday at least). I will also give a different version than the Disney one. If she tries to tell me that's not how the story goes, I just say there are lots of different versions.

Last night I was telling her the story of The Little Mermaid. Generally I have a few problems with this one (I've never been a big fan of love at first sight, for example). So last night, when Ariel went up to land and met the prince, she didn't like him. He wasn't as great as she had thought so she rechecked her contract with the Sea Witch and discovered she didn't have to have the prince fall in love with her, just a human. So she went to the village and got to know the baker. He was nice and funny and they fell in love (I didn't go into how it happened in three days). Then after they got married, they decided to become mer-people and went back and lived with her family (he was an orphan so he didn't have any family to leave behind). And they all lived happily ever after.

Christmas

Anna in her new Christmas jammies.

We had a pretty mellow Christmas here at home. On Christmas Eve, we had a big ham dinner (Jason's family's tradition) then read Luke 2 by the lights of the Christmas tree (my family's tradition). Next, we drove around town to look at house lights. This was me being sneaky because Anna fell asleep in the car while we were driving around. It made for a very restful evening.

Discovering her stocking by her door, something they did in Jason's family.

I don't know if it's because Anna didn't really remember last year as much but she woke up at her usual time of 7. With Anna as the only small child, we had a pretty relaxed present opening. She was more interested in playing with things as she opened them. Her stocking alone kept her entertained for a good half hour.

As the only kid, she had, by far, more to open than anyone else. We mostly spent the morning watching her open and play.

One much enjoyed toy is this doll house. I knew she would like one after having to tear her away from one in a bookstore kicking and screaming.

Grandma putting together the swing set.

Getting ready to openthe next one. As the morning wore on, she really got into the flow of looking forward to the next one. Playing could wait for later.

Papa showing her about the pop-up book from my mom. It was kind of funny because when I said it was a pop-up book she thought I said 'papa book' and took it over to him. He had to show her that is was, in fact, for her and how cool it is. This is one of those presents that makes me think my mom is psychic whe it comes to gift giving. It's a Peter Pan book and Anna is really into Peter Pan these days. She even will pretend he is watching a movie with her. But I hadn't told my mom that, she just seemed to know. It's like magic.

Then we spent the afternoon snorkeling. All in all a good Christmas.

Funky Tree Friday

This is a plumeria tree and they crack us up. Apparently, when it rains, the leaves fall off. We're not entirely sure how they grow if they don't have leaves at the same time as water but I can only assume it works out seeing as they can get pretty big. I also think it's funny that they can have flowers (pretty flowers) but no leaves. Apparently they get pretty bushy over in Kona where it doesn't rain as much.

Smart Cookie

Playing with our nativity set. When we first got it, she played quietly with it for over an hour and a half.

Anna is one smart cookie. I'm often amazed with the connections she makes. When we go grocery shopping and she asks for things and I tell her it isn't on our list. Well when we were still living with Kristen, she took a piece of paper to the grocery store with her and when I told her something wasn't on our list she responded with, "it's on my list".

Playing with her jammie shirt.

Sometimes this can be more annoying than anything else. One day Anna wanted to wear a certain dress that she had worn the day before. Jason told her it was dirty so she couldn't wear it. Well, she proceeded to go into the bathroom and pee on the floor. When she came out she said her shorts were wet and she needed to change clothes. Needless to say she did not get to put on the dress she wanted.

Watching tv with Grandpa

At Keiki Steps the teacher does "Open them shut them" with hands and will often have the kids open and close other things like mouths or eyes. Once she asked the kids to close their nose and Anna said, "you can't, there's no door." It was such a hit that now they say it every time and all the kids say there's no door.

New Room

A while ago (ok, it was in November) we moved Anna into her own room. No more laundry room for her. We actually played a bit of musical bedrooms. Jason's parents finished a bedroom downstairs and moved down there. Then we moved into their room and it opened up our room for Anna. Before we could move her in we had to do a bit of painting. Our old house has lead paint so we scraped off all of the old latex that was peeling and got some more paint that shouldn't peel.


I let Anna choose the color so naturally she chose pink. We are planning on painting some designs on the walls in white but that hasn't happened that yet. Even so, I think it turned out pretty cute.


We are able to put her toys in there to. It's nice to get them out of the living room and not feel like they have to be all put away at night.

I'm working on teaching Anna the alphabet so we're putting them up in her room. She gets to put the foam shapes in the letters. Generally, she likes doing it. Sometimes, I help a bit so the shapes stay in the lines.

Unfortunate Business Names