Merry Christmas

Uncle Ed, Aunt Anna, Uncle Christopher, Aunt Victoria, Aunt Beth, Grandpa Curtis, and Grandma Florence,

We just wanted to let you know that we sent you a special treat. Be on the lookout, it should come by US Postal Service. Mommy and Daddy had a lot of fun making it the other day. I would tell you what IT is but that would ruin the surprise. Be sure to let us know what you think. Ed, Anna, Christopher, and Victoria, I can't wait to meet you. Beth, Grandpa, and Grandma thanks for the memories.

My First Christmas

Wow....Christmas is so fun!

Santa spoiled us all. We spent the day just being together. Mommy made a breakfast pizza in the morning, and they all enjoyed their own special types of hot chocolate.


All of our stocking were full, but I think mine was the best.




This is me with a special Santa given to me by my Grandpa Curtis...it used to by my great grandma Ruby's Santa. Aren't I the cutest little Christmas Doll ever! Wait till you see how big I am next to it next year.

I love my stocking. It's little like me.


I got a bunny toy for my car seat.

A new pacifier and clip so that I don't lose it and get mad.


Santa knows Grandma well....he brought her M&Ms..the peanut kind....her FAVORITE!


Look at all my presents....man, I'm a lucky little girl....j/k...I think I'll share with Mom, Dad, and Grandma.
Mommy and Daddy got Grandma this really pretty Ornament with her initial on it.


Mommy got Daddy a Sea World Pass...so now I can go see Shamu , Clyde and Seymour whenever I want. I can't wait....I think I'll make them take me on Saturday.


Grandma Anderson got Daddy a REALLY BIG mug for his root beer. I think he likes it.


Later in the day , after naps, Mommy made an awesome ham dinner. I wish I could hvae had some. I am getting so big, look at me sitting in my chair...Mommy even put my bottle on a china saucer.
Grandma Florence told mommy about this Christmas Ham recipe from Paula Deen. It uses a orange marmalade and dijion mustard glaze and then you top it with cresent rolls. Doesn't it look yummy! I think it turned out great. Did you see mommy's Holly Leaves.


After all that food and fun.. I was worn out. I didn't even make it through dinner.


Mommy took advantage of me sleeping and put on the hat that Aunt Merridy gave me. I look like a snow bunny. I hope that all of you had a great Christmas. I can't wait to do it again. How many more days do I have to wait?

Love, Savannah

Danish Christmas Eve with the Andersons

One of the things I love about the holidays are traditions. I want to share some of the Anderson traditions with you. Phil, my father-in-law, went to Denmark on his mission. And ever since, their family has celebrated the holidays with a Danish twist. Christmas Eve, we get together and have a traditional Danish dinner with pork, potatoes, red cabbage, potato chips, and gravy. It's a lot of fun. Then we read the Christmas story, each person reading aloud in their own mission tongue. It really makes you remember why we celebrate Christmas. The part that we can share with you a little more easily is Pastry. The week before Christmas the girls go to Mother Anderson's house and make cream cheese and almond Danish pastries. It's a great time to spend talking and laughing as a family. And then the best part is that you get to eat a really yummy treat.

Phil pulling the pork out of the oven.

Brittany setting the table for our special meal.

Chuck is helping by getting the kids all riled up.

Mom is stirring the potatoes and we are just about ready to eat.

Santa came early this year.....it's a good thing too because I don't know if all the presents would have fit under the tree.



Daniel and Lisa got my a longhorn tablecloth and they got Orson an Aggies beanie and coffee mug. It was funny they said that the Aggie stuff was just in case she wanted to go to the "dark side" sometime.

Our little snow angel....I love the pom pom on top.


Hurry Santa, Hurry!

Danish Pastry

Phil (my father-in-law) went to Denmark on his mission and
brought home some awesome traditions including making Danish pastries at Christmas. I could eat these all day. This year we got all the daughter-in-laws together to make them last Saturday. My favorite one has a cream cheese filling, and the other one we make has an almond filling. This is the dough during the first rising, with the recipe next to it.

Lisa is now filling her pastry with the cream cheese filling.

Here is the finished product. Don't they just look yummy. Man, I love this time of year.

Savannah's Blessing

We have had a busy weekend. Friday Night we had all of our friends and family over and celebrated Savannah's blessing. For those of you not familiar with the LDS faith, a baby blessing is kinda like a christening. Orson was able to use his priesthood and give her a name upon the records of the church and also to give her a blessing to help her in this life. The night started off crazy because Orson's family was picking up the food and on the way to our house, the car died. So Chuck and Orson raced up to get them and then fought traffic all the way back. Just a delay though, no problem. We had Panda Express cater the dinner. So there was lots of food. We had Orange Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork, Beef and Broccoli, Fried Rice, Steamed Veggies, Chow Mein, and Jasmine Rice. I think everyone loved it and got more than their fill (we are still eating it). After the food we gathered everyone together in the family room and the men stood together and gave her a blessing. She was promised health, strength, and a love of the scriptures. I felt so blessed to have Orson speak the blessing. After the blessing we had a chance to visit and take pictures with everyone. Oh yeah and we had a really yummy cake. Because we took so many pictures I have only included a few.

These are the brethren who participated in the blessing. Starting from left to right: Steve Thompson (Bishopric), Chuck Anderson (Orson's Older Brother), Daniel Anderson (Orson's Younger Brother), Phil Anderson (Orson's Dad),Carl Crawford(Orson's Home Teaching Companion), Orson (Dad), Savannah(Angel), Shae Wright (our home teacher).

Orson and Savannah right after the blessing.

The cutest family ever.

Her awesome chocolate cake.

A special gift from Grandma and Grandpa Anderson

The '07 Anderson cousins having a blast.

2 month check-up

So, we went to the Drs. on Wednesday for her check-up. She is now 10 pounds even. I don't know what percentile she is in for her weight...according to the web she is between 10th and 25th percentile. She is 23 inches long and in the 75th percentile. So dun..dun..dun....she gonna be tall...big surprise! Dr. Esparza said that everything looks good. She also got her immunizations. Four actual shots and one oral. She cried when they gave her the shots but once I picked her up she calmed right down. We gave her Tylenol right before and when we got in the car she fell asleep and was out for a good while. When we woke her up to feed her she was all smiles. I was amazed, I totally expected her to be grumpy. Now...I think she had a delayed realization because she had a really rough day on Thursday.

Savannah is now officially two months old!

Okay so I'm a little behind the eight ball...just shut up and pretend that it's Tuesday. Today we went to get her pictures done. We did two month/Christmas and blessing pictures today. She did awesome. I ended up working...well....helping Kyrra for four hours today. It's Holiday..there were lab issues and she wasn't getting any answers, so I called and figured it out. And I got to explain to customers what was going on. Not so bad....but I was glad I could be there to help so that it got solved faster. I love my job, but honestly I don't miss the holiday issues. Okay, now back to her pictures...she was smiley and sweet the whole time. Here they are.

Presenting....our Little Mrs. Claus!!!

This last one is my favorite....she smiles with her toungue ALL the time.

Her Blessing Dress

I absolutely LOVE this dress....and have from the minute I saw it. This last picture here has my wedding ring, and my grandfathers ring on her little toes. It didn't turn out exactly as I wanted because she kept flexing her feet and I gave up. Also if we would have waited any longer to do her blessing she wouldn't have fit into her dress. That would have not been funny.

The last few days of our trip

After Oregon we returned to California to spend time visiting family. It was great. I was able to spend time one on one with my sister Cheryl and her son Jimmy, my cousin Amber and her family, my great aunt Mryle, Beth and her kids. We went and crashed mom's holiday party at school. Oh yeah, I snuck in a five minute visit to Sea World San Diego to ride Journey to Atlantis (which was awesome). SO here goes the photo journal.


These little cuties are my cousins. Ariana, Deborah, and Ashley (L-R). They have gotten so BIG. I remember when Deborah was a baby. Yikes!


The Girls showing off their cool Christmas bracelets that we gave them.

Savannah is a goofball. She thinks that her headbands are sleeping masks. I keep fixing it and she would wiggle until it was over her eyes and then not move. I was on the floor laughing. She'll figure it out one day.


So the trip is over we are home and Savannah is a happy girl. I think she likes all the clothes we acquired on our trip. Yes, we had bring bring home another suitcase so that we could fit all her new clothes in. And I'm not talking a small suitcase. Thanks Beth!


So, we had a great trip. We loved being able to visit our friends and family. Those of you who we couldn't see this trip, we will have to get together next time. We Love you. Orie, thanks for the beautiful pictures. Dad and Florence thanks for the tour. Mom, as always you are the best. We love our hotel. Just Kidding. We love you tons and are glad that you came back with us for Christmas. Travel is always great but so is being home and as you can see....we are pooped. No more major travel for a while.

Our Stay in Oregon

Okay, so the next leg of our trip was spent in Oregon visiting my dad. We got there on Friday the 7th. It was cold. I think the whole time we were there it was like in the 40's . Yikes. Dad and Florence loved us being there. And by us...I mean Savannah. We had lots of adventures and took a ton of pictures. It is sooo pretty there. Thanks for the tour Grandpa.

This is when we first got there, they had to get a really good look at her. She was the center of their world...as you can see.

Grandpa playing with Savannah and you can see she's already hooked. Unfortunately...she gets his sense of humor.

This was mommy's favorite thing. It was so cold there and using that cover I felt like I didn't have to have her over bundled. It kept her warm and she was still able to move her hands around so she didn't get mad at me.

This was the coolest tree I saw in Astoria...Although right before I got there the area had been hit by some major storms. And the wind blew over most of the trees. It was crazy.

This is the 4 mile bridge that we went across to get to Washington. That's the Columbia River below. And the town you see is Astoria...we were on our way back.


Grandpa also took us to the beach. Mommy was excited. This was somewhere near Seaside, OR. We actually got to drive on the beach. When we first pulled onto the sand I saw this cool little critter. I still don't know what he is, but I thought he looked awesome.

Savannah's first beach experience. I even put her feet in the sand even though it was 36 degrees out. I couldn't pass it up. Dad has those pictures so I will add them later. She wasn't so happy when I did it. Mean Mommy huh!!!

Grandpa rescued her from me. She loves Grandpa.

The three of us on the coast. I think she was done with the beach. I reminded her that one day she would come to love it as much as I did.

Doesn't she look so cute in this picture. All tucked in.
This is the bed she was in....doesn't she look microscopic. Thanks Florence. We loved our room.



This was taken right before we left. Unfortunately the one taken with the flash and without halo effect I had my eyes closed. We had so much fun in Oregon. I promise Dad and Florence that we will be back, and we will even bring Orson.

If you look in the bottom right corner you will see the Wauna logging mill. Logging is one of the major industries in that area. I was stunned by the amount of logs I saw there and also by there size.

As you can see the few days that we were in Oregon were jam packed. I was introduced to Finnish traditions by Florence. I even tried Lutefisk...not too bad. We went to see The Chirstmas Carol at this really cool little theatre by the river. We took pictures of fishing boats for daddy (we love Deadliest Catch). Went to the beach for mommy. And just had fun being a tourist. Thanks again for the visit. Oregon is great.