This Christmas was Anna's second Christmas. She showed much more interest in her gifts this year than she did the previous year. We spent Christmas day at our house. When we placed all of Anna's gifts on the floor for her to open she squealed with excitement. She has been trying to get to those gifts for weeks now they are laying right there for her to get her hands on them. The first gift she opened was a Xylophone from her G-ma and G-pa Van Brocklin. She was so interested in playing it she didn't want to open any of her other gifts. I had to open most for her b/c she was so busy playing with her other toys. That day she ended up receiving a Xylophone, books, daisy doll, Sleeping Beauty DVD, and a polar bear with shirts from her G-ma and G-pa Van Brocklin. She opened and Cabbage Patch Kid and Leap Frog Tag Jr from Santa Clause. She also received a neat Tinkerbell book with a wand from her Great G-ma Van Brocklin. She has a good Christmas. Anna and I both had a cold so we felt a little under the weather but it was still a great day.
For dinner I made a Beer Butt Chicken that didn't turn out. It was an Emeril recipe for a 2-3 pd chicken and I bought a five and didn't make the comparison until it was time to start cooking. It didn't end up getting completely done, so we didn't eat it. The Boston Baked Beans turned out really good though. We had Brownies with Ice Cream for desert, which Anna loved.
The following Monday we went to G-ma and G-pa Fields's house to celebrate Christmas. We opened presents when we got there. Anna received a Fisher Price play center with many bins, Elmo, and a stocking full of goodies from her G-ma and G=pa Fields. Aunt Meg got her the game Whack A Mole, which was really cute. Uncle Nelson got her a Crayola toy that she can color on and the faster she colors the faster the music plays. We had a lot of fun that week playing board games, Mario Cart on the Wii, going shopping, and out to eat. Andy and I had the chance to go to Roanoke and see the movie "It's Complicated", which we loved. After that we went to dinner at Texas Steak House. It was very nice to have some alone time, and equally as nice to get back to our smiling Anna. We were there for a week. On the last day we all took Anna to see "The Princess and the Frog", it of course didn't work out. She was so amazed and captivated for the first 20 minutes but she could not stay still longer than that. We ended up leaving. I figured it wouldn't work out but it was worth a try.
Aunt Megan and Grandma was going to come see us in Pittsburgh for a few days after we left but it snowed for a week straight here and in West Virginia so they didn't make it here. Her Grandma Fields is planning on visiting us in a bout a week instead because Grandpa has an out of town meeting coming up so we are eagerly awaiting her visit.
