Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day was nice, I was in charge. Anna and I hung hearts all over the house with qualities that we loved about Kent while he was at school and work so he would be surprised when he got home. We also bought him helium balloon that said we love you on it; I got it mostly for Anna really though. Since I really really did not feel like cooking that day either I planned a surprise date/picnic night for the evening. When Kent got home we went by KFC and got a picnic dinner and took it to a grassy area near down town Mesa. After dinner, with the map I had printed out, we went on a walking, self-guided sculpture tour of all of down town Mesa's s lovely sculptures. It was interesting and enjoyable. After which we came home for some ice cream and a movie.

Racquetball with a toddler

Kent and I used to play racquetball every once and a while. We haven't played for a long time so we decided to hit the outdoor courts near our place. We assumed we would bring a couple of balls for Anna to play with, in the court next to us, and she would be fine while we played a game or two. Well we assumed wrong. The moment we walked into the adjacent court to start playing she followed us over laughing at the sight of us running and leaping around swinging at a flying ball. She thought it was great fun and started running around with us. Fortunately all the courts were empty so we went court hopping to get in a few good hits and swings before the little muchkin would waddle over to our court laughing. After running from court to court wwe took to light swings and a game of dodging Anna while still returning the ball, not the game we were planning on but strategic in and of itself. We finished off with a real game, Kent holding Anna, as the handicap I needed to even score a point against him. Anna found that pretty delightful too. Anyway that was our fun crazy racquetball with a toddler experience.

Dancing Queen

We had a little dance party tonight and Anna put on her groove to the music.

A Crazy Move

This past week we moved from our lovely 1 bedroom, 2nd floor apartment in Scottsdale to a cute ground level 3 bedroom apartment in Mesa. Yea, we are excited to have more space and to be on the ground level, especially with the new baby coming. It would be very challenging to carry a baby and a toddler up and down the stairs every day along with a diaper bag, and whatever else all at the same time. Nope don’t think I could do it. We are also excited about grass in our front yard for Anna to run around on, living next to my cousin Keirsten, more counter space, extra room, and our own washer and dryer.

Having a washer and dryer of our own is my favorite part of this new place. I have been using shared apt complex machines since I moved out of my parents house ten years ago probably spent thousands of dollars worth of quarters in all those machines. It was also getting very difficult carrying Anna, a full laundry basket, and detergent down the stairs and around the back of the building to do laundry only to find that the one washer and dryer of the complex were being used. Don’t think I could have carried two kids and laundry.

Another note to self, it is very difficult to move and take care of a toddler at the same time. I would not recommend it and next time I will definitely get a babysitter. Every time I would back a box there was unpacking it.

While I was distracted packing she would take advantage of being unsupervised and get into mischief. I found her climbing onto boxes, and spilling cheerios all over the kitchen floor right after I had just swept among other things.

And try loading boxes into the car, nope you can’t carry Anna and a box down to the car at the same time. If I left Anna in the apartment while I took a box down to the car she would cry and cry at the door like I abandoned her and if I put her down outside while I carried boxes I would find her climbing the stairs by herself and giving her mother a heart attack. But good thing for a strong husband and good friends who did most of the loading of boxes.

Another side note about moving. I never realized how much random stuff we had and how crazy it is to move everything we own. Also I believe one accumulates about as much stuff as the living space will allow them to have.

So we are in now and unpacking which is another adventure of it’s own, especially with an Anna girl. We were very sad to leave the Eldorado Ward and the great people there and all our amazing neighbors. I was released as Young Women President and Kent was released as counselor in the Elders Quorum this past Sunday. Then Sunday afternoon we were sitting on the couch thinking, “ wow, we don’t have any callings and we have Tuesday and Wednesday nights free now! What are we going to do with ourselves.” :) Anyway we are looking forward to going to our new ward, meeting new people and having new adventures here in Mesa.

A Little Bit Mexican

It is always fun living in a predominately Mexican neighborhood. Yesterday, I took Anna outside to play with some of the little neighbor kids. When one of their mother's came outside for a moment I had a short conversation with her in Spanish. After which one of the children looked at me with a puzzled face and said, "You speak Spanish? You're not Mexican!" Then staring at me thoughtfully he continued, "Oh, you must me a little bit Mexican," then continued playing. I couldn't help but smile and chuckle to myself. I guess I am a little bit Mexican.

Our Big Helper

Our big helper:

Today at Grandma’s house, Anna was “helping Grandma do the dishes.” As grandma would put the silverware into the dishwasher Anna was “unloading” the silverware onto the floor.

Anna always wants to help me with the laundry. As I fold the clothes into piles, Anna will “sort” them and “arrange” them to make sure they are stacked just right.

Then she loves to help me put the folded clothes away. But she always ends up getting mixed up, and instead of putting the folded clothes in the dresser drawers, she ends up taking all of the clothes out of the drawer and unfolding them.

She makes sure that the toilet is always flushed and checks frequently that the door stop behind the door still has it’s spring.

She keeps the dust from settling on the mixing bowls in the bottom cupboard by pulling them out here and there and tossing them around.

She helps her parents to never be bored, being generous enough to provide us plenty of things to do all day long.

Anna very thoughtfully helps to “clean up” little things that happen to be lying on the floor by disposing them into her mouth.

She helps us not waste water by keeping our shower times quick and short.

She helps us wake up on time every morning, no later than 7:30am.

She reminds us of the simple joys of life an brings love into our hearts.

She provides plenty of laughs, smiles, hugs and kisses. We sure love our big helper.

Fosson Family Christmas

 

It had been planned for several years, that Christmas 2010 would be the Fosson Family Christmas. We would all come home and we did. We were all together for a whole week with a lot of fun. Some highlights of the week are as follows…

 

We played games and games and lots of games. One reason is that it was raining most of the week. We loved settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Banana Grams. We couldn’t get enough.

We all had a night to cook a favorite meal. Brigham and Elizabeth made Gnocchi, Shayla whipped up some zucchini casorole, Kent and I made Kent’s family’s traditional Christmas eve cheese fondue, Mom and Dad made the delicious Christmas dinner ham with all the other goodness, & Gabe and Jane Ann made a yummy minestrone soup with bran muffins. It was fun to try new meals.

These are the Bran muffins that were so good. One day we came home and had an “orange Party” with a bunch of grandma’s oranges.

We went on our traditional Christmas caroling rounds with dad playing his accordion. The day before we left we dug out the old almond tree, chopped up, and bundled the branches for my dad. When he got home he was so surprised that we were able to do all that in such a short amount of time. It was fun good hard work.

 

Anna quickly became the center of attention being the only grandchild.

She was held and loved to death by everybody.

 

Christmas eve we read the Christmas story, sang Christmas songs, drank wassail and ate chestnuts. It was a lovely evening. We all got a book from my mom called, “Mary, did you know” and listened to the song and played games afterword.

Christmas morning was great opening presents from everyone and finding out we were expecting a girl.

Gabe and Jane Ann opened received the adventure blanket we made them and Anna was so excited about ripping all the paper opening presents that all of a sudden she closed her eyes and just felt asleep in the middle of opening her quite book. Just zonked like that. It was so random and funny. Too much for a first Christmas.

 

I love this picture of Anna on her first Christmas coming into the living room and seeing her stocking.

      Some other highlights: We also went to the Redlands temple as a family and did sealings for a bunch of our Fosson ancestors. The sealer did great with so many Fosson names being used. Since it was raining most of the week we went to the church building a few times to play some heated games of basketball. When it stopped raining we all had fun at the park with Bocci ball. I accidently brushed my teeth with arthritis cream. We all hit up some stores for some last minute Chirstmas shopping and went to In-N-Out for a yummy Christmas eve lunch.