Christmas eve

We had some family over for a Christmas Eve dinner last Monday. Anabelle's two favorite parts about it were the artichoke chip dip
and when Bennett, Jenn, Thomas and Tori all came caroling.Anabelle loved the dip so much that she ate almost all of it with Tori's help.

Christmas at the Wignalls

Our friends, the Wignalls, has us over for a small Christmas celebration. Anabelle loved the singing, but was enthralled by the piano."Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Me!" They also had a Snow White dress and a rocking horse that she loved.

Anabelle's new home

The other day Anabelle got a new home, and she loves climbing in, closing it up and then peeking out the little handle-holes in the sides. It's one of those times that we as parents ask "If she loves playing in a box more than playing with any real toy we buy, why don't we just stick with boxes?" Then we remember, "oh yeah! this box cost us $1400!" Anabelle also loved the computer that came in the box... literally. We told her not to touch it, but it has a little 2 inch LCD screen on the front of it (for diagnostics) so she couldn't resist... she realized that we didn't say she couldn't kiss the computer.

Nevermind the Giant Mayan Temples... They've got Monkeys in the Trees!!!

Maria and Anabelle spent the last few weeks in Guatemala and I joined them for the last week of their trip. While there, we took a road trip up to Tikal. So as to keep Anabelle happy on the 8 or 9 hour drive up there (and to distract and keep her happy when she's say "bye bye... home") we kept saying "Anabelle! Guess where we're going! We're going to Tikal!!" She'd then parrot back "Tikaa?" To let her know how cool it was going to be we then told her that there were monkeys there. I guess we got ourselves overly excited about the monkeys, as you can see below, they evoked a greater response than the giant Mayan temple behind us.(Us pointing the monkeys out to Anabelle)
Needless to say, in order to entertain her during the 8-9 hour drive back to Guatemala City, we kept asking Anabelle if she liked Tikal. She'd always respond "Yeah... Monkeys!" and follow it up with monkey sounds.

We'll be posting more pics over the next few days, so either you can sit and wait
or check out our Guatemala pics site here)

mmMMMmm.... Sand and Cake!!!

Kalyma, a friend of Anabelle, had a birthday party today at a park nearby. Her favorite parts of the party were the party favors (the video blowing on the is actually from Luna Bella's party earlier this month, but Kalyma had some of the same favors) and eating sand. She had a blast playing with all of the neighborhood kids.

Mama, No Hurt, Pwreesh...

Maria took Anabelle to the doctor today. On entering the office Anabelle started to get nervous, then looked up at Maria and said in a pleading tone while shaking her head, "Mama, Mama, no hurt, Pwreesh, no hurt." Maria felt awful because she couldn't assure Anabelle that it wouldn't hurt. Anabelle was going to get her flu shot that day.

An utterly fun Halloween!!

Anabelle saw this cow outfit at a local store and would not stop saying "mooo" the whole time we were there so we decided to buy it since it was less than $10! She looked so cute Halloween night as she went trick-or-treating.

We went trick-or-treating at Bennet and Jenn's House in Encinitas, and Anabelle loved hanging out with her cousins Thomas and Tori.

The Haunted Aquarium

On Saturday we went to the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UCSD. They had it all decorated for halloween, and best of all, it was free! Anabelle loved the whale fountains out front.Anabelle loved the jellyfish, the eels, the sharks, and kept saying "Dada! Dada!" whenever she a fish that looked like Nemo's dad (from "Finding Nemo"). She also got to touch a starfish, then like the irresponsible dad that I am, I let her eat a cookie with her bare hands... oh well. Anabelle had a blast with her cousins Thomas and Tori and with her Grandma. She also ran into Aeryn, one of her best friends, and so the two of them held hands while they walked around the tide pools and looked at the starfish.