The holidays in brief

What Annika Says is Her Favorite Present: Baby Jaguar.

Her Real Favorite Present: Car ramp.

How Many Hours it Took to Get to Grandma & Pop's House: (not including layover in Santa Monica) 9.

How Many Hours it Took to Get Home: 6.

How Many Presents Annika Opened: Too many to count.

How Many Presents We Bought Her: 5.

How Many Cookies Did Annika Put Out for Santa: 3.

How Many Carrots for the Reindeer: 3.

Who Actually Ate Said Cookies & Carrots: It was a group effort.

Most Memorable Moment: Watching Annika take in all the presents under the tree on Christmas morning.

Second Most Memorable Moment: When she begged me to remove her "itchy" (yet perfect) holiday dress.

Best Playmate: Joshua Henry.

Most Exhausted Playmate: Daddy. 

I'd like to thank my parents for hosting us and spoiling us, my brother and his new wife for being the "fun" aunt & uncle, my husband for driving all over creation and my baby for going with the flow, not (yet) showing signs of over-spoiling and being too cute.

Tis the Season

Annika's first Christmas presents of the season came in the form of a Santa Clara University sweatshirt (that's where I met her Daddy!), a Candy Land game she actually can play and a Dora inflatable house ball-thingie from Godmommy, Lisa, Gabs and Nico came. Annika and Nico actually played with each other and everything.

Much fun was had. Chris even bought egg nog ice cream. 

Tastes better than it sounds.

Little known Annika facts

- Annika likes to play with cars. I think we're going to get her a car garage/ramp thing for Christmas.

- She hates to be wrong. If you ask her to do something that she a) doesn't understand or b) doesn't think she can do, she'll either decline, look away or proclaim, "I can't do it!" If you push her a bit, she'll sometimes try to address the task at hand, but she doesn't like taking chances. She 100% gets this from me, because, man, I hate being wrong. (Try not to gasp.)

- Yellow is her favorite color.

- We read her at least two books every night - one on the floor and the other while she's in her bed. She gets to choose who reads: Mommy or Daddy.

- She cannot - and I mean cannot - stand getting water in her eyes. To the point that if she cries, she begs you to wipe away her tears. I'm keeping a watch on this in the event it's actually a medical issue, but I'm thinking that it's actually a case of the drama queens. Chris bought her goggles for the bath. We're having mixed results with that.

- Annika is fascinated by balloons. When she sees one, she must have it. But when she gets it, she either starts to cry or won't let it go. She then gets disturbed when she's in the same car as a balloon. It's all rather strange.

- Annika's favorite song is "Sexy Back." (Note to CPS: Please don't take her away.)

A big girl's bed

She told us that she was too big for her crib. Multiple hundreds of dollars later, we present you with...Big Girl Bed: The Movie & Accompanying Photographs.