Burn my body??

Annika loves playing the wii fit.  Today she opened a new aerobic exercise that involves punching a bag.  At the beginning, I was reading to her the instructions on the TV.  One part said, "... this exercise will help burn your body fat."  Annika immediately got wide eyed and said, "I don't want to burn my body.  Let's do something else."  I about died laughing.  Too cute!    By the way, she calls the "unopened" question mark boxes on mario kart "Mousekatools".  If you watch Mickey Mouse Playhouse you would understand why that is so funny.  

Ariel's Grotto for Lunch

Annika received a Christmas phone call from Ariel inviting her to have lunch with her and the other Disney Princesses.  At the time she really didn't know what to think.  I think she was just surprised that Ariel was on the phone.  Ariel is Annika's favorite princess right now.  At the luncheon, we were the first to go down the winding staircase and have pictures taken with Ariel.  Annika was so shy.  It was very cute.  She wouldn't say a word, just smiled.  While eating (actually, Annika didn't eat.  She was too excited) a bell would ring and a princess would join us.  They would individually go around to each table and sign autograph books and take pictures.  Below are a few that we took.  This was a dream come true for Annika.  I think Gavin loved the attention too. He recieved lots of hugs and nicknamed "prince charming" :)

Disneyland

Annika's Christmas surprise was going to Disneyland for 2 days, and having lunch with the Princesses (see other post).  We had a great time and the kids did very well.  We enjoyed everything Disneyland had to offer ... well, not everything.  We could have enjoyed it more with less crowds and long lines.  There was one ride Annika wanted to do and ended up falling asleep while in line.  I tried waking her up and she wouldn't budge.  I ended up putting her on the ride thinking she would wake up, but she was out.  After the ride, I set her back in the stroller.  She woke up screaming, "I WANT TO GO ON THE RIDE!!!!"  She didn't even realize she went on it.  So, back to the line we went.  Luckily there was no wait.  She made sure she kept her eyes open this time as we rocketed around on the Golden Zephyr.

This is one of the few rides Gavin went on.  He was usually asleep or not big enough for the rides.  Who knows what he thought of all the noise, crowds, and chaos.  He is a good sport to be pushed and carried everywhere and not able to just play and crawl on the floor for two days.
Even Daddy wanted his picture taken with Princesses.  I think he enjoyed meeting all of them just as much as Annika did.  

I love these last two pictures.  Disneyland is definitely a place where dreams come true.  Annika was loving every minute.  In fact, after church today she cried herself to sleep because she wanted to go back to Disneyland.  Today at church she went to Sunday School for the first time instead of nursery.  We kept telling her she is a big girl now.  So, because we told her this, she insisted on going to Disneyland and riding on the "swings in the big orange bowl".  It was hard for her to understand she isn't "that big" yet.  I felt so bad.  Wait 'til next year, babe.

Christmas in California

We flew to California for Christmas and just in the nick of time.  Seattle had a huge snow storm later that day which closed down the airport and caused a lot of chaos for a few days.  We arrived in sunny California with sunglasses in hand and took off the layers of clothes.  Besides just a few cold and rainy days, the weather was great.  We had a great reunion for close to two weeks with my 2 sisters and 1 brother, their families, my parents, Aunt Dale, and Gee Gee.  

Christmas morning the kids woke up excited to see what Santa brought for them.  It was a bit of a challenge to keep them still on the stairs for the Christmas morning photo.  I remember being in their place -- had to wait for Grandma to arrive, wait for the cameras to be ready, then line up in order of age down the stairs.  100's of photos were taken and we had to just stay there and eye our gifts down below.  Oh, the torture!!

This is one thing Annika was really looking forward to -- going in the spa with Grandma.  She is playing with her cousins Chelsea and Ashley.  Ariel, Mermaid doll, was what Annika asked Santa for and was elated to see it in her stocking -- "He remembered.  What I always wanted!!"

The kids had fun with the cousins.  Annika didn't want to leave.  She really bonded with her cousins.  I think she was in her normal clothes 10% of the time.  The other 90% she was in dress-up clothes -- leotards, princess dresses ....I stopped counting how many times she changed by day 1.  Gavin just loved the attention he got.  Cousins loved making him laugh and he loved being fed and cuddled by Grandma and Gee Gee.

We did all sorts of things on our trip -- movies, Temple, Temple Christmas lights, Christmas Caroling, Birthday Celebrations, date night, shopping, park, Disneyland,  ... oh, and urgent care (Gavin got RSV Bronchiolitis.  Poor kid!).  Nice to relax and let the kids play most of all.  I will post Disneyland pictures soon.