The Anderson Family

Album 04\11\10, by Janene Anderson

2010-04-11T19:34:00.001-07:00

I'd like to share my Walmart Digital Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

Album 04\11\10, by Janene Anderson

2010-04-11T19:12:00.001-07:00

I'd like to share my Walmart Digital Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

COMING SOON!!!

2010-04-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

I have not yet gotten around to posting any pics of our newest arrival Reagan Teancum but they are coming!!! Just as soon as life settles down a little ha ha :)

HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!!!!!

2010-03-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

Its hard to believe that my baby girl is 6!!! It seems like yesterday that I went through the longest 9 months of my life and cried when we were blessed to have her come 10 days early!! What a HUGE blessing she has been in our lives! I could not have ever asked for a more beautiful wonderful patient kind and loving daughter! I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me the privilege of being able to call myself her mother! It is a joy to watch her grow and change and love!

WE LOVE YOU EVIE!!!!

Christmas Break!

2010-01-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

We had such a super Christmas! We have so many things to be grateful for! A wonderful giving family, a beautiful home, 2 awesome kids and one on the way, the success of Jason's new business, great friends, and a loving Savior who gave his life for me!! Thanks to everyone for making this one of the best Christmas seasons EVER!!!!

Evie making her Christmas wishes known to the Claus

Lucas not quite sure what to think of the Claus

Evie thinks it is hilarious to rub her head on our new microfiber couch. I can't imagine why!

Too many late nights finally caught up with Lucas at our friends house, that or the youtube videos they were watching were really boring!

Evie has been asking for months for a "cake maker"! The Easy Bake Oven has more than done the job! She was super excited!

Lucas was convinced from the first time he felt this present that it was a bag of candy! I couldn't quite tell if he was more excited that it was a car or not!

The super duper deal I found on a littlest pet shop big huge thingy majigger!!! $10!! Yay me!!

Lucas has been asking and asking for a Mr Datato Head! He was so so excited he probably would have wet his pants if he weren't wearing a diaper :)

Lizzy and Rachel were closing their eyes taking turns letting Lucas "take them out" It was pretty funny!

Holy Blog Batman!!!!!

2009-11-03T17:14:00.001-08:00

So since I am so so very behind on my blogging this post includes a massive massive massive amount of pictures. So I will just comment on the pictures and you can skim till you get bored :)

Shortly after Jason got home from selling for the summer we took a walk around the greenbelt as a family and had lots of fun climbing on the rocks and just goofing around.

My pretty lame attempts at being a photographer with my cheap-o camera :)

What my kids do when I attempt to get them to smile for the camera

My beautiful little boy

My wonderful family!

She is growing up so fast!

What my little sisters do when they are at my house and bored! Thanks Lizzie and Rachel!! We love it when you come over and are glad you like to so much :)

Dressed up like daddy!

What can I say.......ask Liz and Rachel! They can explain :)

CHEESE!

He had a lot of hair

So I had my first fun in the ER after Lucas connected with one of Jason's big metal hand held weights. (fort building and weights don't mix). We spent 3 hours in the ER and came out with 2 staples. Fun Fun Fun.

Thanks Grandpa Pymm for letting us have one of your HUGE pumpkins! We enjoyed it while it lasted.......RIP pumpkin Joe whose guts littered our street sometime after 9:30 pm on Oct. 30th :oP

He was approximately 70 ish pounds and I hope the kid who smashed him has had serious back pain for making my kids cry :) jk but i bet he was a booger to get to the street

The results of hacking through 5 inches of pumpkin hide :)

eeeeewwwwwww it looks like a jellyfish mom!!!!

Beautiful Barbie's Lizzie and Cami! Thanks for letting me do your makeup you 2 babes!!!

Yoda and Facebook, and yes I stole this from the Office.

Yoda very excited for trick or treating! I think he has a new favorite holiday!! He LOVED it!! He was practically running from door to door till his bucket got so heavy he had to drag it, but that didn't slow him down..... much

I have to say that I am extremely proud of how Evie's fairy costume turned out! I made the tulle skirt and bejeweled everything else including her face and hair!

She was also very patient and let me give her rainbow eyes!! :)

Her biggest toothless jack o lantern smile!

And last but not least we had so much fun spending time with family

Happy Halloween!!!

Its Been A Long Time Comin

2009-10-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

I have not blogged in forever and I guess this will just be a super short update, no pics or anything. I am 15 weeks pregnant!! Yay! I have been massively sick. Bleck. But still I am super excited to have this baby! Both kids say its a sister so they will probably get a brother haha. We have been waiting a long time for this! We have all been home together for about a month. It has been super nice having Jason home! Evie is loving kindergarten when she is not bored :) she is learning so fast and is already starting to read on her own! Lucas is in the process of getting ready to potty train, i am pushing him to hard i think cause he is NOT interested, the stinker! Anyways thats about all I have to say! hopefully I will have some pictures and stuff soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY BOY!!!!

2009-07-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ok so it is not quite Lucas's birthday but since we are going to be traveling home on his REAL birthday next week we had a big party with all our friends here! It was so much fun! We have really made some fun friends and have been so blessed this summer! So I stayed up super late yesterday to finish this cake and i LOVED it! and then I had to ruin it by writing on it :) jk i still thought it turned out pretty good for an amateur. Anyways here are a few pics from the party.

Evie pretending to be the "cake monster"!!!!

El Cake-ito :) Almost done!!!!

The finished product!!!

All the friends singing happy birthday! (ok not all we had like 15 more people there but these are all the really important ones jk :))

Lots of candle blowing help! and it was very needed :) everyone got a little "piece" of lucas on their cupcake he he!

My baby boy! you are (almost) 3!

You have been such a light in our lives!

You always have such a happy smile and a big hug for everyone!

You are such a blessing and a joy!

I am so grateful that Heavenly Father sent you to me!

You are so good and brave!

You are so kind to your sister and so loving to all those around you!

You are so good at sharing (most the time)!

I am so proud to call you my son and I LOVE YOU!

Happy Birthday Buddy!!

Boys......Need I Say More?

2009-07-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

This last week we had the sales reps from Jacksonville FL combine with our office. They just so happened to bring with them........wives and children!!!!!! HOORAY!!! Friends!!!! It has been such a great week! The kids have made some fun friends and I did not realize how much I missed adult interaction and conversation!!! Heaven on earth I tell you what!!!!

So here is my memorable moment for the year....... and just for fun I am going to tell this in story format, so here goes........

Dread filled my heart! Lucas had a bright yellow soft air gun pellet shoved deep in his ear canal. I didn't know what to do! My friend Kirsten handed me some tweezers. "Work!" I prayed, " Please please please work!!" Nothing! The pellet was the exact size of his ear canal and I was only pushing it deeper! Kirsten handed me a baby snot sucker. Maybe I could suck it out. Nope. ARG! I was getting flustered! What was I going to do?! We didn't have insurance! I couldn't take him to the ER! To expensive! I would have to figure something else out. I frantically called my mom! "What do I do?!" " I don't know! Let me know how it turns out!" Thanks mom! :os I head to WalGreens where they have a clinic where they do shots and general health checks. Evie says a prayer on the way and I call Jason's dad. If anyone can give a good creative solution, it is him! "Man I wish you were here! I love a challenge! Try hydrogen peroxide. Maybe it will bubble up behind and push it out." " Great idea! I will try that if the doctor can't pull it out! It is really sealed in there though! I don't know if it would be able to get behind!" He mentionssomething about a straw but I am concentrating on getting Lucas checked in and keeping his little fingers out of his ear so I am not paying much attention " Ha ha yeah! Maybe I could just suck it out with a straw!" Half joking cause I didn't hear what he really said. "That might work! Try it if the hydrogen peroxide doesn't work!" " Thanks! I will call you if I need more ideas!"

The doctor at Walgreens is no help and doesn't charge me. Good and bad!! Back to the car. On the way home what I said jokingly about sucking it out with a straw keeps tickling the back of my mind. What if.....could that possibly work?! Home at last, I check my utensil drawer. One last yellow bendy straw. I grab the hydrogen peroxide, just in case. Turn on a movie for child distraction, lay him on the couch put the straw in and suck. No suction! Moving it around a little and pulling his ear open a little more I try again......better! I actually get some suction. I suck for about 5 seconds and look in. Its closer to the surface! Again! and again!!! Ta Da!!! All of the sudden its out!! Say a thank you prayer!! and cry! I ask Lucas, " Are you ever ever going to put ANYTHING in your ears ever again?!" and his eyes get big and he shakes his head "No mommy!".

The End!!

Thank heavens for the blessing of the Holy Ghost!! I NEVER ever would have come up with an idea like that on my own!

HAPPY EXPLOSIVE'S DAY!!!

2009-07-06T13:32:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July 2 days late! :) I am so grateful for the opportunity to live in this great country and for the many freedoms we have been blessed with! I am so in awe of those who are willing to give it all for their country! Thank you so much to all those who have served to protect my rights and freedoms! I am so PROUD to be an American!!

The original plans I had for the 4th fell through and I really didn't want to take the kids any place super busy alone!! But I (wo)manned up and went out anyway and I am so so glad I did!! I had such a great time with the kids! They were super good and so much fun to be with! We went to Franklin TN, supposedly the "Beverly Hills" of the Nashville area (fyi Miley Cyrus and her family used to attend the firework show there when they lived in TN ooooooh). Anyway they had a super fun street fair there! Tons of stuff to do and see, live music, and lots of yummy eats!! Here is a little photo montage of our day and a few random extras :)

Evie the fashionista!! Jason brought the kids home popcorn from Transformers and Evie immediately thought skirt!! I never would have imagined!! :)

The Cone of Shame! This will make sense to those of you who have seen Disney Pixars UP! Everyone else...you are missing out so just go see the movie already!!!!

Lucas having his face painted at the fair! He was so good and held so still and the results were so worth the wait!!!

Dunnuh dunnuh dunnuh dunnuh BATMAN!!!!

My beautiful angel face!! Can you believe this is my baby!? She is growing up way to fast!

The kids had a ton of fun at the petting zoo! Can you believe the size of that pig?!

This goat had crazy horns! They grew twisted together! Weird!

Evie's favorite to feed was the donkey! It followed her all around!

A very sleepy happy smudgy Batman on the way home :) Looks a little more like the Joker now haha

So my computer is being weird and won't let me comment under some of the pics but oh well! :) The picture above this is the Fabulous Hudson Hornet! When Lucas saw this car he about died! "Mom its Doc Hudson!! Mom Mom Mom!!!! Doc Hudson!!" (Doc Hudson is a character in the movie CARS btw) So of course we had to take a picture with "Doc Hudson"

The gorgeous Nashville TN temple! I wanted to take some pics of the kids on the grounds but it was all gated and locked up! :( Maybe next time!

Celebrity Morph by MyHeritage

2009-07-06T12:31:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Free genealogy - Free family tree

This is seriously so crazy!!! I have had people tell me that Evie looks like Shirley Temple, but until I did this I didn't realize how very very similar they are!! Kind of fun!

Randomness

2009-07-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

I really don't have a lot to say today. Just a few pictures and one silly story. So here are the pictures......

A small sample of the wonderful variety of ENORMOUS bugs we have been so fortunate as to encounter here in Nashville, and no thats NOT a spider thank goodness!!!

The bird aviary at the zoo.

Feeding the birds nectar.

Evie actually let me braid all of her hair in small braids and when we took it out the next morning it was SO cute!! Unfortunately she wouldn't let me take an "after" photo. Stinker!!

She has an endless supply of silly faces :) ok maybe she has an endless supply of THIS silly face :)

We LOVE the park up the street called Red Caboose Park and they have family concerts every Friday night during the summer. This one was fun cause the guy sang kids songs. He really encouraged the kids to get up in front of the stage and jump around, dance, and sing with him! It was fun! The kids loved it AND best of all.....They completely wore themselves out and crasahed HARD when we got home!!! YAY!!! Smart mommy :)

Are we having fun yet?

Rolling down the hill during the rolly polly potato bug song!

More hill rolling. It was hard to get them to stop once they got going :)

This song entitled "Sing Loud, Jump Hi, Dream Big!" had the kids going mosh pit style with this guy in front of the stage. The whole time I was having visions of Evie 12 years from now at some wild concert thinking "hey this is cool! i've done this before! no sweat!" or something like that! what am i teaching my children?!?!!

The beginning of the afore mentioned song. Evie and Lucas are on the left edge of the group, I zoom in on them kind of after a minute. Alas these are my video recording skills haha, or should I say the lack thereof :)

Now for the quick funny story! Lucas is getting in a HORRIBLE habit called "nose picking major" habit. Drives me NUTS!!! Anyway on Sunday we pull in from church, Jason goes around to get Lucas out, and Lucas has both hands going up both nostrils!! I mean the kid is diggin for gold in his BRAIN!!! Anyway Jason swats his hands away and says "thats really gross bud" as he pulls him out of the car and sets him on the sidewalk. Lucas turns around and says" No Dad! I like to eat them!! Boogers are my FAVORITE!" Shoves his fingers BACK up his nose and turns around and walks away!! I was almost on the pavement in my Sunday dress I was laughing so hard!! Well I don't know what the plan is to get him to stop, or even if I have one, but at least I got one good laugh from the disgusting-ness that is called nose picking :) Even my dad laughed when I told him that, and thats saying something, cause he doesn't laugh at the silly "kid" stories I call to tell him :) Either that or he is going deaf and can't hear me very well jk dad :)

Happy Fathers Day!

2009-06-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

I am so blessed! I am married to one of the best men in the universe!! Seriously! I could not have asked for a better husband, father, or friend.

Jason you are my best friend! You have been such a light and inspiration to me! You lift me up where no one else can! You are my saving grace! I am so happy that you chose me and that we get to be together with our beautiful family for eternity! We have had our ups and downs. I am not the best at looking at the positive side of things or remembering to look for the good, but we have been blessed with so much good! So thank you!!

Thank you for.....

Making me your wife,

Allowing me to become part of your wonderful family,

letting me hog the bed,

the most beautiful little girl in the world,

the happiest little boy on the planet,

being willing to change millions of diapers,

helping me with the little things,

honoring your priesthood and being a righteous husband and father,

being able to see the good even when I can't,

being patient,

your wonderful sense of humor,

your hard work and dedication for our family,

loving me even when its hard,

and for being the source of so much good, love and joy in my life and the lives of all those around you! We love you and are so grateful that we have you!

Love Janene Hyrum Evie and Lucas

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Anniversary Fun and then Some.....

2009-06-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

So today is Jason and my 7th wedding anniversary!! Yay!! Somedays I wonder how in the world we have done it :) But I am so so super blessed to have him for a husband! He is so kind, patient, hard working, loving, and the very best daddy any kid could ask for! Thanks babe for being so wonderful! Here's to our next 7 years and then some! I can't wait!

So since our anniversary is on a Sunday we celebrated a few days early! Jason took Friday off work and we seriously had the BEST day EVER!!!!

We started out with lunch at Red Robin! My favorite hamburger joint minus one on the planet!! For those of you who have yet to go there, GO! and be sure you try the fabulous Whiskey River BBQ Burger! YUMMY!!!! The kids got balloons and lots of Mac N Cheese.

Then it was off to the zoo! We bought a year pass when we got here and I am so glad! There is no way you could see the whole thing in one visit!! Here are some pics of our zoo trip! I posted some from the my trip with the kids a while back, but this is all new stuff that we hadn't seen yet!

Would you just look at these 2 handsome men! I am so very blessed to have these boys in my life!

My gorgeous little fam!!

Quick side note.....

Lucas's blue balloon from Red Robin got away from us as we were headed to the car and Lucas turned to Jason and said "Quick Dad! I gotta get some wings!!"

Is my boy cute or what?!

Evie found a bamboo walking stick and thought it was the coolest thing on the face of the planet! She hauled it all over the zoo till it finally broke and we had to chuck it.

My fave! I heart tigers!

So these next pics are in reverse order sorry!! Oh well! We went into this huge building they have called "The Unseen World" where they have all sorts of different snakes, bugs, reptiles, amphibians, bats, spiders. The list goes on and on!! We were at the zoo for 2 and 1/2 hours and 2 hours of it was spent in here! Super cool! The kids loved it!

Lucas loves loves loves turtles and dinosaurs so a turtle that LOOKED like a dino! Well you can imagine! I love that in this pic you can see the reflection of his awed face in the glass!! what a cutie!

More turtles!

Midget Caiman (crocodile) :)

This little guy is just a 25 foot anaconda! Whoa nelly!! I would NOT want to come face to face with one of these babies outside!! This guy was wound all over the place! Lucas and Evie just about had a heart attack since one of their favorite youtube videos is called "Green Anaconda"!!

Check it out here

Giant snapping turtle!! Awesome! It just chilled looking like a statue! It was enormous!!

Rhino Iguana! This guy was huge too!

Jason and Evie

Lucas had crashed hard by this time! Poor guy!

Evie was fascinated by the stork cause she really thinks this is how babies come!

"Lucy! You got some splainin' to do" !!!

Its Timon!!!

Evie pointing at the invisible meerkat! :)

Getting up close and personal with the meerkats

My other favorite! Hyacinth Macaws!

Well thats the end of our fun zoo trip! Afterwards we went and ate Krispy Kreme donuts while watching how they are made and ended the day seeing Disney Pixars UP! Its a good anniversary movie! Those of you who have seen it understand why and for those of you who haven't, well you are just missing out so GO!!!!!! the newest Pixar short also explains why Evie thinks the way she does about storks! After all how could I contradict Disney?!

Anywho here are just a couple more fun pics I have taken lately and wanted to share!

Evie found a little pie tin and has been dying to make a little pie! Jason took her and Lucas out into the forest and they found a bunch of wild strawberries. They brought those home, mixed them with blackberries and she made her very own strawberry/ blackberry pie! She was super excited! But I guess wild strawberries don't taste super great! Oh well! :) with whipped cream EVERYTHING tastes good right?

My babies are so sweet when they sleep!

Even when their faces are covered half with blanket and half with book!

And ESPECIALLY when they are sleeping together! Aren't they beautiful!!!

Will Flip for Food

2009-05-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

I will send $.50 to anyone who can hear well enough to figure out what movie Lucas is half zoned in on while performing his fabulous flips ( i seriously was worried he was going to break his neck with his face being planted in the couch cushion with his feet flying over top)

Parks, Puff Paint and Parties!!! (even a little free food!!)

2009-05-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

Ok so this is so super 80's, but I used to LOVE decorating things with puff paint. Do you remember that stuff? Well i decided the other day that my kids would probably love the stuff as much as I did and I was soooooo RIGHT!! We had a blast decorating their shirts! The kids were super creative and I think the shirts turned out GREAT!!!!

EVIE'S fabulous shirt has loads of SPARKLE and lots of FLOWERS! i LOVE how well she writes her name! She is SO ready for Kindergarten!

LUCAS had a blast putting the puff paint on his hands and slapping them down on the shirt! I drew Mater under his name and he promptly SMEARED him to smithereens!

We are a HAPPY family!!!

If you haven't read my last post, it explains the absolute NEED for a party for my awesome HUSBAND! He is absolutely amazing! We threw him a fun WELCOME HOME DAD party with these fun decorations, some bite sized pies, cards from the kids, and a shnazzy new PARKER ball point pen! GREAT JOB BABE!!

We have a super great PARK nearby and its right next to the library so we are there A LOT!

Here is just a fun photo montage of some of our FAVORITE things to do there!

Last night, thanks to the hard work of all the sales reps in the office, we had a company paid dinner!! YAY!!! i LOVE to eat out! however the guys always get home so LATE that these dinners are at like 11 PM!! So we woke the kids up to go ;) I was NOT going to miss out on FREE food! So the kids were good sports and woke up just long enough to get settled at the restaurant and then crashed! It was WONDERFUL!!! I got to eat and talk to other ADULTS in peace and I didn't even have to worry about hiring a BABYSITTER!!!! Thanks you APX!!!!

PRODIGAL SON!

2009-05-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

NASHVILLE, TN - Jason Anderson started working for the the alarm business in 2005, working for APX. After his first year he switched over to another company and was there for the past three years, even managing last year. After a bad experience with the other company, Anderson returned this year to APX, the prodigal son.

Anderson is now part of the Nashville office and led the office last week and this week in families protected. The first three weeks Anderson only averaged one a week. However, last week and this week Anderson has protected 10 families.

Protecting families isn’t the only way Anderson has shown initiative. This week Anderson held training for first year reps to help them with door approaches before the daily meeting. He did this on his own accord.

Yes, APX’s prodigal son has returned.

This is an article APX ran on their website for their sales reps. Can I just say that I am so stinkin proud of my hubby!!!! Jason has really been pushing himself the last couple of weeks and it is paying off!! He is doing better than EVER before and if he is able to keep up his momentum this will be our best summer ever!! He has had massive adversity including super bad allergies, ticks, and a whiny needy wife :) but he has overcome and right now is #1 in our office for sales, #3 in our region, and #119 in the entire company. Now that is out of like 2500 sales reps so in my opinion that is pretty freakin awesome!!!! I don't think I have ever been prouder to be married to such an amazing hard working husband! and I just have to brag about it :)

Bubbles and Rain Showers

2009-05-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

So we figured out that here in Tennessee when it rains it POURS!!!!! it is insane!! i have never seen rain like here. It is like someone is dumping a bucket of water above us. You walk outside and you are soaked in 5 seconds literally. so evie has figured out that when its raining and the wind is blowing the rain comes in on the balcony and makes a "shower" so every time it rains now she and lucas have to go out and have "rain showers" they have so much fun!!

also i broke the kids the news yesterday that we are not going to be able to go home for BJ and Renee's wedding :( i am so so upset and sad about this! i have been crying for days! i knew the kids would take it pretty hard because we have been talking about it since we came out here and we were all looking so forward to it! so i went to walmart to get the kids each a little something to help soften the blow. they were still disappointed but the awesome little bubble blowers i got for them proved a nice distraction. they had a lot of fun with them yesterday! in fact they had so much fun that i have to run out and buy more bubbles today cause they used them all up yesterday.

also yesterday we watched the movie "hotel for dogs". pretty cute little flick and evie loved it, but there is a really sad part and evie had her first real emotional movie experience! it was so cute! sad but cute! she was watching the movie and the sad part came on while i was on the phone with my mom. anyway i looked over and she had the funniest look on her face and i said "are you ok sweetie?" and she burst into tears and threw herself into my lap sobbing "its making me saaaaaad!!" i was laughing so hard, mean old mom that i am! it was so cute and she has never really had such an emotional connection to a movie before!! i was trying to explain what happened to my mom in between laughing and my wailing 5 year old, needless to say she couldn't really understand what i was trying to tell her the first few times i attempted. anyways thats about all i have to say at the moment.

Finger Painting Fun!

2009-05-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

We have had the most beautiful weather here the past 2 weeks and decided we needed to take advantage of it! We cut in half a big piece of poster paper, filled plates with fingerpaint, went out on the balcony and had a blast (parts of my balcony are even painted :)) Good thing we did it that day cause our warm weather has been turned into rainy mucky blah the whole week since :) i will have to post pics later of evie's new fave "swimming suit rain showers" on the balcony.

evie and her beautiful finger painting

mr blue face

lucas's awesome finger painting

colorful hands!

Lucas gave himself a pretty cool bright blue mohawk! whenever he has anything on his hands that he wants off this is where it goes! crazy kid!

Zoo Adventures!

2009-04-25T06:53:00.000-07:00

We got a 1 year membership to the Nashville Zoo the other day and were super excited to try it out! I don't think we were even able to see half of what they had to offer but thats why it was worth it to get the membership! We get to spend the day outside, let the kids run around, see all sorts of cool things, and i get exercise all in one! There is no downside! Anyways as we were walking around Lucas was naming all of the animals based on a few of his favorite movies! see if you can guess before you look what he named each animal :)

these cute little lemurs were bestowed the name of king julian by lucas or as he first said" mom!! its the move it move it guy!"

Evie was in charge of the map and making sure we got where we intended to go! she loves maps and insists on having one while we travel too :) While we were here Evie found a little green inch worm, made it her own and named him Jack and played with him he rest of the time we were there. She said he was her favorite animal she saw at the zoo! what a crazy!

Melman melman melman! (sing song voice if you please :))

Its Marty! and i dunno who else that long necked guy is (everyone/thing is a guy to him, his classic question is "mom whats that guys name" even if he's pointing at a picture of a girl :)

the zoo just brought in 2 white tiger cubs! they were so pretty and it was fun to watch them play! presenting bonwa and taboo! (those are their real names not lucas names)

And last but certainly not least, sorry you can't see him very good, its his absolute favorite!!!

MASTER SHIFU! yes he is a red panda Jason!

My favorite were these hyacinth macaws! they were the most brilliant blue!

lucas loved the aviary! he almost got bit a few times! :) he loved being up close and personal with the birds!

pretty bird!

Lucas thought the duck asleep with his head under his wing was hilarious and tried everything he could think of to wake the poor guy up. No success the guy just wouldn't let him ruffle his feathers (ha ha) and it is hard to sleep through Lucas believe me!

Last thing is 2 videos that i took. The first is a video of the tiger cubs playing. a little background, there were 2 fences in front of us, the one you see and on about 5 feet away right in front of us. my teeny little super guy found a miniscule hole in the fence and slipped through and was headed up to get a closer look, which is why i am screeching at him at the end of the video :)

The second video is of some amazing monkeying around! this guy was so fun to watch!

A Little More

2009-04-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

i know i just posted but Rob asked me to post this pic plus i was going to and i forgot. :) also we found some ginormous eggs on our walk today! we could not figure out what kind of eggs they are, but they are like 3 times bigger than any chicken egg. pretty cool! they were just laying in the grass right next to the parking lot. if you are an egg-spert haha and happen to know what kind of eggs these are let me know!

Jackson Hole, Easter, Traveling to TN, and a little more....

2009-04-23T07:04:00.000-07:00

I have not posted for quite a while. This time of year is usually a big roller coaster ride for us. Packing up, packing away, moving 1500 miles away from home etc.. this year having our own place to leave stuff made it so much easier and i have to say i am really getting good at just packing the minimum. no fluff and stuff :) anyways so this little photo montage documents our trip to Jackson Hole with my wonderful family for Easter, our trip to TN (we left straight from Jackson), and our first Sunday here (we are in the same ward as the red haired girl from SheDaisy and a lady in our ward said she sees Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman at MY Sams Club all the time !!!!!!!) anyways ENJOY!

Pre-Easter Excitement! Also Jason got Evie that hat and she has not taken it off since! So long girly hairdo days :(

Excited to be on the road to Jackson and to get their first square ice cream cones Yay!

We took a beautiful hike in Jackson and these are some pics we took in the massive snow. Lucas and beautiful Rachel

Evie and her elk impersonation

Robbie climbing up a tall skinny tree

and up a little more.........

and down! :) he got to the top and it bent him all the way back down to the ground! haha Fatty! jk Rob

Evie and Lucas demonstrating how high the snow was!!

Evie was very impressed by Grandpa Pymm's face making skills :)

Yummy Nasty Snow Bleck!!

My wonderful husband and my two beautiful babies! Could i be more blessed??

Now on to our fun trip to TN

We get really bored in the car. Who knew fruit snacks could be so very entertaining!!

More fun with fruit snacks! Hooray for Curious George! :)

Riding in style up to our hotel room!

Can you tell we don't have a tv at our house? :)

And finally we arrived in beautiful Nashville TN where everything is green and blooming and warm! The kids were excited for the 1st Sunday and making new friends!

Lucas kickin it church style

Took a while but after i pried the hat off her head and washed her hair i think it turned out super cute!

Lucas kickin back with his Zinger yummy and if you will notice he is always ready to get the leftover sugar bugs out of his teeth as soon as he's finished.

Evie in her new dress courtesy of wonderful soon to be aunt Renee! We love you and are so excited to have you in our family!

We are so happy to be in TN and to have been so blessed with a good job and the ability to travel like we do. Our ward here is great. We got a pass to the zoo, found a super fun park with trains (Lucas thinks he has died and gone to heaven), there are hiking trails and nature parks everywhere and Jason is working hard and excited about selling out here! We love you all and are so grateful for your love and support. I will be better at updating you on our adventures here and hope you will comment and let me know how you are!

ITS A.........New Post!!!! Yay!!!!

2009-03-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

It feels like years since I posted last! Probably because so much has happened! We are finally moved in to the condo of our dreams :) ok maybe not but it took long enough that right now i feel like i could happily live here forever! Happy Valentines Day to me! that was the day we moved in and it was the best present i could have gotten! It took almost 2 months and a great real estate agent who would not let our loan die! they resurrected it 3 times! it has been a huge blessing! all of our stuff is finally in one place and out of my parents cellar!! hip hip hooray! we are enjoying being so close to family and so close to everything that idaho falls has to offer :) haha. the kids are growing up so fast and its fun when they beg to go to grandma's! i am surprised they aren't sick of it cause of how long we lived there :) So i am just going to leave it at that and post a bunch of pics. anyways yeah....

Evie Lucas and Daddy

Always the BIG Cheese

Sweet Princess Smile (can you tell she loves to dress herself and do her own hair? :))

Sledding with Lizzie and Rachel at Grandma's

Evie and Rozie

Ooooooooh!

Lucas and Spencer

Lucas loves to skype with BJ's fiancee Renee (she is in Canada staying with her mom)

And Then Some.......

2009-01-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

Well we were supposed to be moving into our new townhome this last weekend, but alas we must wait one more oh so long week. blah. i am so excited to be in my very own home and do not think i will emerge till shortly before we leave again for next summer ha. so if you want to see me you are more than welcome to come to my house and visit, because i will be holeed up like a hermit crab or something to that effect. meanwhile we have been living with Jason's grandma, Grandma Evelyn. Evie is named after her and it has been so fun for the kids to get to know her better!! she is so hospitable! we love her to death!! we wentto our new ward today and i am very excited! everyone is so nice, Evie loves her class, Lucas is happy in nursery and blah blah blah. it seems like i am just super excited about life! anyways i just wanted to post a quick update so there ya go.....

AT LAST.......

2008-12-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

Hip hooray and skippity doo dah!! We are finally (ok so we have been here for 2 weeks) home in Idaho! Just in time for the holidays! And we are in the middle of negotiations to purchse a condo!! Yay!! I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am! It is going to be like Christmas when we move everything out of storage. There is who knows what in there after 3 years! I can't even remember half of what I have! Its gonna be so FUN!!! We got to spend Thanksgiving with my dad's family in Pleasant Grove UT which was a blast! and now we are staying at my mom and dad's and i get to take care of my 3 sick kids (yes Jason is numbered among those) who are down with lovely strep throat. Other than that we are just super happy to be home!

Halloween Party

2008-10-29T20:03:00.001-07:00

Here are just some random pics from today. We hada our ward halloween party today and we went to barnes and noble for halloween story time and some trick or treating. The pics are in reverse order sorry!!

Lucas getting a slight sugar buzz (he freaked when i took his candy bucket right before this)
Happy with how the ward trunk or treat went and very ready to go home and go to bed!
Ready to go to Barnes and Noble!
Captain Jack (pinkies up :))
Hiiiii-yaaaah says Batman who sometimes calls himself spiderman or superman haha

BYU TCU

2008-10-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

So in my opinion win or lose BYU football games are such a blast! Especially when you have an awesome cousin like Brock Richardson who gets you superb tickets and and lets you hang out with him at the fireside and post game! Thank you Brock so very much! You are the greatest!!!! We were able to go to the BYU fireside the night before the game which was incredible, then Brock invited us to come hang out at the hotel. Lucas thought the revolving door was the coolest thing he had ever seen and came really close to getting stuck in it, he definitely kept Jason on his toes the entire time we were there. The morning of the game I got on good old youtube.com and showed Evie the haka. holy smokes she was instantly obsessed!! she watched it over and over and was so excited when i told her that the team would do it at the game! So you can imagine how excited she was when we got there and our seats were like right on the sidelines at the 10 yard line and the team did the haka right in front of us! she went bonkers!! and she and lucas fell in love with cosmo of course and couldn't give him enough high fives, since he and the cheerleaders were right in front of us also. It was a blast! Sad disappointing game but a blast none the less. And then while we were waiting for Brock by the locker room our friend McKay used our adorable children as an excuse to take pictures with Fui Vakapuna and Harvey Unga. It was so nice to get a little taste of home! i am so ready to come back!

HAPPY OCTOBER!!!!!

2008-10-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Halloween is just really one of my favorite times of the year! I love fall, the change of colors, the smells, the COLD!!! We have so much fun getting costumes, decorating, painting/carving pumpkins etc. I just LOVE it!! Anywho here are a few fun pics of our antics lately.

Today I bought Lucas's very first pair of cowboy boots!! They were extremely hard to find! I kept thinking "We are in Texas!! they should sell them everywhere!" right? Anyway we went and played at Chuck E Cheese today and he got these cool pirate duds and has been walking around all day like this saying "AAAARRR. I a cowboy! YeeHa!" Somedays I just am not quite sure about this kid !

Evie painted a beautiful pumpkin version of herself and proudly displays it on her dresser where her fish Lily can see it. PS they LOVE these vampire teeth, just in case you couldn't tell.

Evie and Lucas with their awesome pumpkins. I decided after this fun event that I am never painting anything again with a 2 year old since he thought he had to soak up a gallon of paint on his brush before he would even consider using it and then it usually ended up in 1 of his 3 favorite places to put things. 1 his hair 2 his stomach/down his diaper or 3 all over me.

He also has been wearing these teeth for about a week straight, whenever they are not in evie's mouth they are in his.

Lucas has been learning and growing so much! His absolute favorite song to sing is I am a Child of God. I went to pick him up in nursery the sunday before conference and the teacher was just beaming and told me that they had sung that song right before the prayer and that he sang right along as loud as he could, and knew every word! We sang it for naps yesterday and after we sang it i rubbed his back and he hummed it with me till he fell asleep. It was so stinkin cute!!!! He is truly a little angel and he tries so hard to be so good. He and Evie have really turned into best buddies, they play so good and always make sure they know where and what the other person is doing! Evie is the best most careful caring big sister! she is so quick to run get me if he is doing something dangerous or naughty. she is getting smarter every day! We were talking the other day about all her wonderful grandma's and she asked how many she has. I said you have 4 great grandmas and 2 grandma grandma's. she sat there for a few minutes and then turned to me and said so i have 6 grandma's. i was completely blown away!! she is 4!!! i said how did you do that!! and she just said oh i just figured it out. :)

The Adventures of Diaper Head Man

2008-09-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time in a land far far away called Dallas Texas there lived a great super hero! By day he was the (sometimes) mild mannered alter ego Lucas Anderson, a perfectly normal 2 year old boy

Lucas loved to read books

He loved to cheese for the camera

He loved to play at the play area in the mall

and He loved to hug the ginormous Pooh Bear in the Disney Store

After long days out he would come home and seem to crash with his beautiful sister Evie. But after everyone else was asleep

he would dawn his awesome mask and become.......

Diaper Head Man!!

He was the fiercest of the fierce, stongest of the strong......oh wait that was just the smell of the other diaper he wears! :)

Ok so that was my tiny bit of creative spirit for the day! Yay me. So I thought it was hilarious that Lucas walked around all day with a diaper on his head, and I just read my little tale to Evie and at least she laughed her head off. It has been so crazy working and taking care of the kids and the house but just a little extra cash for me to play with has been much worth the time and effort. We are slowly winding down the summer. Jason is doing so awesome! I could never do what he does every day, but I can tell that it is wearing him out. By the time we head home he will be worthy of a nice long vacation from work. We went to the Disney Store the other day and got Evie her awesome Captain Jack Sparrow halloween costume (which she wore ALL day yesterday). Lucas is going to be Batman, he already has jammies with a cape and everything so all we had to do was buy a mask for $1! yay for cheap simple costumes!!

Kids and Craziness

2008-09-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

It has been such a long time since I last blogged!! Things have been insane! Mom came to visit this last week from the 28th of Aug-2 of Sept. It was absolute heaven!!! She was so much fun! I was so lucky she was here because Jason had an emergency with work and I had to take over the Office Manager job and had a lot of catching up to do from the girl who quit so mom was able to just play with the kids while I did hours and hours of paperwork. Now I do paperwork in the morning while Jason takes the kids and I get a little spending money of my own which i LOVE!!!! Also while mom was here I got in my very first car accident ever. Someone tried to turn left in front of me. We were all ok but there was about 8 thousand dollars worth of damage done to the van so I am car-less for a while while it is in the shop. I am also extremely angry with myself because things were so crazy and I did not get one picture while mom was here!!!!! AAARGH! but here are some fun pics of our shenanigans this last sunday.

Me and my beautiful babies! They are getting so big! Evie loves to write and walks around the house copying words from everything. and Lucas is just a boy he gets into anything and everything and is CRAZY!!

Evie loves to stand on the coffee table and sing her guts out! She really gets into it.
Lucas thought wearing this crown around was absolutely hilarious. Evie kept chasing him around saying "Take that off! Boys can't be princesses!!" I guess he sure proved her wrong! Doesn't he look fabulous?!
This picture really does not do the sunset justice. It was one of the reddest most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

Fun in the Tub (cause the sun is too hot :))

2008-08-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

The kids LOVE taking baths, especially with each other. They get a little crazy sometimes and it is so much fun to watch them enjoy each other.

2008-08-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

This last Monday Evie took her first ice skating lesson! She was so excited it was almost like Christmas! When we met Coach Andrei I think Jason was almost more excited because Andrei is from St Petersburg Russia so he got to use a little Russian. Coach Andrei took her out on the ice and they skated around at first with him in front kind of pulling showing her how to move her feet, then with him in back showing her how to push her skates out to the side to stop from falling (which she only did once! i was so proud!) then he moved next to her holding one hand, and finally he skated behind her only touching her every once in a while when she looked a little wobbly. He would skate away from her and do the stop that kind of sprays ice a few times and make a little snowball and then she would have to skate to it and pick it up. He even made her a snowman to skate to! Pretty soon she was doing it all on her own!! I think this will be a great way for her to work on her balance and get out a little extra energy once a week! And after her lessons Jason goes out and skates with her for a bit. The whole time she was out on the ice Lucas kept yelling " Evie c'mere!" and he had to go touch the ice and watch everything she did. Hopefully when we move back to IF we can find a good teacher at the skating rink there so that she can continue!!

10 Things That Make My Life Easier

2008-08-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

My friend had this posted on her blog and I loved the idea!!! you really have to think and it helps me remember that Heavenly Father loves me and wants me to be happy!

1-A good computer with the internet, I can pay my bills, balance my budget, and stay in touch with my family and friends in little to no time at all!! More time to be with my kids and hubby!

2-Having 2 beautiful kids that get along so well! They entertain each other so that I can get other things done!

3-Jason should probably be the #1 thing on my list, He works so hard every day to make my life easier and more enjoyable!! He is amazing!

4-My dishwasher!!! After living at Wymount and having to be my own dishwasher I am all the more grateful to have something to fill up, soap up, close, turn on and walk away!

5-A good book! What better way to relax and release stress (after the kids are in bed that is :))

6-Mango Sorbet! Works the same way as a good book and can be used in conjunction with!!

7-My mom. I love that she is willing to take the time almost everyday to make sure I am doing ok and surviving at home alone with 2 kids under the age of 4 for 10-12 hours a day. :)

8-Almost any food that starts with the letter B-Don't know why but thats about all Lucas will eat. bread blueberries bagels bacon beans butter broccoli

9-Having a car. this summer Jason has had to take the van a lot. it has been hard!!! getting the kids out of the house is a lot easier when i have the car to take them wherever i need to go and not just let them run around in our tiny back yard till they get bored and too hot in 5 minutes or less!

10-Swim floaties! i love being able to take the kids to the pool to cool off and not have them hanging on me the whole time we are down there. Evie and lucas have been getting braver and braver and it is alot more fun to sit back and watch all the "watch me mommy" moments with the other child in view instead of on top of me :)

Flowers from Evie

2008-07-27T18:13:00.001-07:00

I know i just added a post but Evie drew me the most beautifull flowers i have ever seen and i had to share!!!

Sunday is the BEST!!!!

2008-07-27T17:36:00.000-07:00

So Sunday is my official favorite day of the week. Jason is home ALL DAY!!! it is wonderful. the kids are in heaven! they enjoy being with him so much and miss him a lot during the summer when he is gone so much. Lucas has still got an ear infection and Evie is so stuffed up I am worried that she is getting one too. So we spent the day sleeping and writing letters to family. it has been fun. we went to toys r us the other day and evie found a star wars sticker book. we got it as a present for her and jason to put together together and they have had a lot of fun. it has like 600 stickers or something and tells about all the characters and stuff so they have been putting together like one page a day. lately when i lay by lucas in his bed at nap time he loves to run his fingers through my hair till he falls asleep. it is so cute!!! last night he konked out so hard though!!! it was hilarious!! i walked in to this.........

He is fast asleep face planted in Pooh with his sippy cup firmly grasped in his other hand (trust me i tried to remove it, when i say firmly i mean firmly!!) silly little goober!

So we went to see "the dark knight" last night and i really really enjoyed it! i kind of felt like maybe a little bit of the message was that no matter how bad things get, there is always a little good out there somewhere, not necessarily meaning Batman but even like the convict on the boat that threw the bomb switch out the window. that was one of my favorite parts of the movie, along with the rest of the end really. anyway i will just leave you with a few silly pics of the kids writing their letters today!

BIG BOY BED!!!!

2008-07-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Just a little post bathtime silliness!

Well we finally did it! Lucas is officially a big boy! he has slept in his very own "big boy bed" for 2 nights in a row! ok we tried it once before, sometime like last week i think, and he probably would have been ok but he fell out of bed. now he didn't even wake up and probably would have been fine, but i am a nervous wreck of a mommy sometimes and so i stuck him back in his pack and play for the rest of the night. After that and after finding out that he had a huge double ear infection we left that alone till 2 nights ago and tada!!! plus i got a lovely little bed rail! now he can sleep soundly IN his bed and i can sleep soundly not worrying about whether or not he is!

Today he is even napping in his bed!! I was so amazed! usually i have to be in there every 5 seconds saying lay down lay down lay down lay down. but this afternoon he fell asleep in like 2 minutes and i didn't even have to ask him to lay down once! sob! i am so proud right now :) so proud in fact that of course i had to get footage AND i am going to share it!

My attempt at an online business PLEASE HELP!!!

2008-07-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

So I am kind of attempting to start an online business via word of mouth, e-mail, blogging, and facebook. haha we will see how this goes! first and foremost i will be making baby/mommy bracelets namely in 4 categories: name, birthstone, blessing, and holiday. although there will be tons of combinations of the 4 available. so now that you and i both know what i am selling i need a name for my "store" any and all suggestions are more than welcome in fact begged for!!! i am at a creative loss here!! PLEASE HELP! :) here are a few little samples of what i am coming up with so far and any suggestions and/or comments would be very welcome also! Thanks everyone!!!

This is the beginnings of what blessing bracelets will look like. made from freshwater pearls, glass beads, and little plastic metal beads (i have sterling silver ones coming in the mail so that is not permanent)

This is a sample of a birthstone bracelet. Made with sapphire 4mm swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls, glass beads, and again with the cheap-o plastic metal beads that will not be in existence for long

This is a sample of a fun name bracelet, they will come in fun bright colored glass beads like this one, and as soon as i get the rest of my beads in the mail will also be classier with sterling silver lettering and some swarovski crystals mixed in.

As soon as I get the rest of my beads in the mail and have a name I will be setting up another blog that will have a link in the top right corner of this blog. I appreciate any and all help and support that you will give!!! WE LOVE YOU!

TADA!!!!

2008-07-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to be back in the picture business!! We have just gone kinda crazy today!!! so here are some highlights of our day which include but were definitely not limited to buying fish for the kids Evie's fish is named Lily and Lucas's is Lightning (big surprise there) Evie dressed herself this morning, Lucas has fallen in love with cheesing for the camera, the ginourmous spider that was on our neighbors air conditioner (turns out it wasn't even real but till you got like 5 inches away it sure looked real) Lucas kickin it in the stroller while Evie got to swim with friends, he had to sit out cause he has a lovely massive double ear infection, Evie enjoying her Buffalo Wild Wings (if ya haven't tried the place find one and try it AMAZING!!!) and finally sleepy time, i don't know who was more ready for them to be in bed them or me :) also we are 99.9% sure we are staying in this part of the country at least till the end of November (i am pushing for Thankgiving at Sea World San Antonio on the way home :)) we will see i guess.

At Last.....

2008-07-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hoorah hooray and yippity skippity doo dah day!!!! i got a kodak easyshare m863 digital camera (in red wink wink) last night!!! thanks to my wonderful hubby who loves me so much! so COMING SOON dun dun dun pictures of the Anderson children in all their glory!! (and no that does not mean they will be naked, although there may be some tub pics :)) so stay tuned!!!! we love you!

Camera Help

2008-07-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

So i have been bouncing around a few different digital cameras and these are the ones i have been most interested in #1-Fujifilm Finepix z20fd, #2-Kodak Easyshare m863 and #3-Nikon Coolpix s210. i have read up on a bunch of reviews and we are looking for a good little camera that is no more than like $170-180 ish and we would love input from anyone who happens to own any of these cameras or from anyone who has a different one that they absolutely love and would like to recommend! i need a camera people!!!! :) it seems like at least once a day i roll my eyes and think man i would give anything for a camera right now!!! ya'll know my kids and know that in all actuality this probably occurs to me more like 6 or 7 times a day. so any and all comments, recommendations, just input in general would be fantastic!!!

Fountain Fun

2008-06-27T10:09:00.000-07:00

So wow it has been a while or at least it really feels like it! we are no longer in virginia we just moved to grand prairie texas. our office was small so we decided to combine with another office and now between the two our office is the #1 office in the entire company!!!! yay! so we have been here for almost 2 weeks and i have been internet-less aaaargh, people in texas are way smarter than anywhere else as far as wireless internet goes, we get like 50 wireless signals and all of them are password protected!!! Curse you aqua scum!!!!! anywho so now we have our very own internet connection and i have pics!!!! even though they are from Va they are still fun! there was an outdoor mall with the funnest fountain and the kids had such a blast every time we went! enjoy!!!!

lucas's silly grumpy face that he thinks is hilarious

evie playing at the fountain at the great fashion place mall in richmond va!!

Lucas was so brave!! he loved to stick his face right in!!

so as you can see i have issues with finding swim trunks that fit my poor little scrawny munchkin. he still doesn't even fit in 12 month pants and he will be 2 in a month!!! :)

Lucas and our good buddy Kayson

Evie is obsessed with self inflicted wetness :)

Pictures

2008-06-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

YAY!! I finally got some pictures!!! Here is just a little montage of our trip and some of our stay here so far, unfortunately not necessarily in that order :)

Lucas kickin it watchin a movie at one of the many hotels we camped at along the way.

Evie by a tree at one of the half million gas stations we stopped at along the way. Her classic thing was 5 minutes after we'd stopped and then got going again she would have to go potty.

Lucas stretching his legs after many long hours in the car.

Our favorite place here at our new home. Where we spend about 80% of our time :)

Evie loves to just lounge in the pool in her floatie.

Our first Sunday going to our new ward, the Manchester Ward in the Chesterfield Stake. Great ward!

Evie in her swim suit on the patio.

Evie in her swim suit showing off her purple tongue in the bathroom.

Just in case you couldn't tell Evie wears her swim suit all day every day :)

Lucas kickin it with his Cars, don't ya just love that goofy little grin :)

Evie loves beets and gets the leftovers when we make her favorite pink soup (Russian borsch)

Another goofy grin, more Cars and he loves being outside!!

Lucas headed out to the patio with his cars (can you see the big fun forest right behind our complex? it is everywhere and never ends!!!

The kids doing what they do best on long roadtrips! Lucas even saves his fries for later, he had quite a grip on that thing even while sleeping.

Cool dude!

Evie loves her atlas and is a big help in finding the way, she has already informed her grandparents how to get here turn by turn :)

Rain rain go away.....

2008-05-08T06:37:00.001-07:00

Well we are still in Virginia, it is still raining and yesterday we spent and hour and a half lost in Richmond. Actually it is a lot better than I am making it sound. Our office is off and running and everyone seems to be doing very well. It should be a productive summer. We took a trip into old Richmond which is beautiful, we did get lost and luckily found ourselves again but it was actually fun to just drive around, there are all sorts of cool buildings and tons of random monuments for this or that and it was cool to look at them all. We were looking for a park to play at and never actually made it that far. So Evie said a funny thing the other day, she was watching a guy mow the big grassy area behind our apartment. He had the cool kind of riding lawn mower where you stand on a platform on the back and drive rather than sitting and Evie turned to me and said, "Mom that is so so cool! i want a moron like that someday!!" i think she was actually saying a mower-on or something to that effect i laughed so hard!!!!! So we knew we might have issues with Lucas when we bought him Lightning McQueen slippers for Christmas and he wouldn't take them off for like a month (not even for bed) but that is nothing compared to what we have gone through since we bought him Disney Cars matchbox cars. He freaks out if we try to go or do anything without Lightning, Chick and the King. 1 or 2 is not good enough its all or screaming bloody murder!! Bed, baths, walks, the kid is obsessed! Plus he asks to watch the movie everytime I walk close to the computer! Any helpful tips on obsession would be most welcome!

Virginia

2008-04-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well i wasn't sure if we ever actually would but after a 4 day very long car ride we MADE it!! we arrived at our place in Midlothian VA at around 3 am EST on Saturday morning and are finally finishing getting settled. it has been a really fun trip actually, we are extremely blessed with kids who don't mind traveling, i guess if thats not Heavenly Fathers way of letting us know we are doing the best thing for us right now i don't know what is :) we stayed the night in Cheyenne WY, Omaha NE (which was great the kids and Jason all threw up that night within 2 hours of eachother, fun fun) and Mt Vernon IL. We drove through St Louis MO right as it was getting dusky and it was so beautiful, the highway goes right down past the temple and the arch, we went over both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and Evie was so impressed she had to call both her grandma's and tell them about the huge rivers she had just seen. it was a great drive beautiful scenery, but nothing compares with Midlothian. It literally appears out of the forest, Jason and the kids can walk 100 yards from our apartment and be on a hike, and is just surrounded by gorgeous green everywhere. we got a taste yesterday of what jason will be knocking in yesterday, first it was 95 degrees and humid as "you know where" and then 3 hours later it was freezing and dumping rain like you wouldn't believe. the thunder and lightning were amazing!!!! any ways now my kids need naps and so do i!!!!! i will post pics when i get them developed cause no more digi cam for me. :(

2008 Bonneville Bonnevaires Tour de Chicago

2008-04-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

I just returned from one the best trips i have ever been on!! i went with Shari and Rozie's choir to Chicago for the Festival of Gold Choir Competition, in which their choir took 1st place might i add!!!! the kids in the choir are absolutely amazing! I have never been with a group of kids that get along better, love eachother more, accept anyone and everyone. they made me feel like i was a member of their choir. we did some way fun things!! the first pic is of Rozie and our friend Taunalee Clark in outside the Museum of Science and Industry. The second is Taunalee and I with a member of the Blue Man Group. AWESOME!!! if ever you get the opportunity to see it I would highly recommend it! and the 3rd is a me, Taunalee, Nathan Day, Chelsea Stucki, Katie Lewis, Ryan Hemsley, and Dalan Guthrie at the Navy Pier on Lake Michigan. We also went and saw Wicked AMAZING!!!! Ate some incredible deep dish Chicago style pizza, ate popcorn that Oprah buys every morning on her way to work at a place called Garretts on the Magnificent Mile and millions of other funly fabulous things!! I had 6 wonderful days of no kids no hubby and lots of fun!! Thanks Bonnevaires!!!!!!!

Bad Hair Day

2008-04-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Shari came down last weekend to try knocking for the first time (she has signed on in our office as a Pinnacle sales girl in Richmond VA this summer) and we had a blast having her here! It will be fun to have her live with us this summer. Marianne was so much fun last summer. While she was here she and Evie were goofing around and had a grand ole time doing this...

Evie loves to have a good excuse to make silly faces at the camera. :) and she loves to go cross eyed.

I am going to CHICAGO this week!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!! I get to chaperone for the Bonnevaires (Shari and Rozie's high school choir) Tour. I am way excited. We get to go see Wicked and the Blue Man Group. And do alot of other touristy things like the Sears Tower. AAAAHHH!! I am so so so so so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just in case it wasn't completely evident. This month is going to be a super crazy busy one!! This week I go to Chicago, Jason goes to Indiana, the kids go to Grandma's. As soon as we get back we pack like crazy for 2 days straight, haul all our stuff up to Idaho to store at my parents and then on the 21st we head off to our newest adventure in summer sales in Richmond VA. We will see if I make it through the month :)

My 2 Cutie Patooties

2008-03-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

Learning from Trials

2008-03-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

This last Friday we attended the funeral of Jason's aunt Terry. She waged a 13 year battle with cancer and it finally won out. The service was beautiful and her 7 children spoke about their mother. Hearing all that her kids had to say about her helped me to choose a few of the attributes that they loved about their mother that I would like to incorporate into my life. She was really an incredible person. One thing that all of her daughters mentioned about her was that she would never let them out of the house if they did not look perfect. Their hair was always curled with ribbons and bows, she made almost all of their clothes, etc. One thing that really caught my attention about this particular thing is that she would always tell her kids "If you look good you feel good." and that was very important to her. That her kids felt good about themselves when they walked out the door every morning. Thats the kind of mom I want to be! She also chose to laugh. Even when it was hard she chose to laugh and make sure that her kids remembered her smiling and laughing. I need to laugh more, enjoy life and all that it offers. She was great at making friends, something that I don't feel I am the best at. She was the first one to talk to someone new. She was on the school board in Pocatello for a very long time. One thing that was brought up about her was that even the people who really disagreed with her way of thinking and her opinions still liked and respected her because she did the same in return. I want to be that kind of person, the kind that people can like and respect in spite of differences in morals, values and opinions. Hopefully I really can take the things I learned about a great woman, even though it was not in the best of circumstances that I learned these things and make myself better in those ways.

Haircuts!

2008-03-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Since I didn't have this blog when we did this I am going to do a blog about Evie and Lucas's first haircuts! When I went in initially it was because Lucas's hair looked like this

When we got there (we lived in Cali at the time) the salon was so cute! It had cars for seats with little tv's in front of each one so that the kids would hold still with their heads perfectly positioned so the stylist wasn't going crazy with how they were moving their heads. So we got Lucas all settled in to get his hair cut when Evie decided that it looked like so much fun that she begged to get her hair cut too! So I gave in fairly easily and voila-

The Results are In!

They both look so adorable!! :)

La La La (because its late and i can't think of anything better)

2008-03-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

this week has been interesting. i have been sitting at home with a husband who won't let me get up because i sprained my ankle really badly at my sister in law Laurie's house last Thursday. I was really lucky it wasn't broken. So it has been a lot of interesting fun cause one of Jason's sales reps is down for this whole week to go knocking with him so he has not been here. we got lucas some "Cars" cars today and he has had so much fun with those. i have never seen him haul a toy around like he has these cars. He even had to go to bed with Lightning McQueen tonight. booger bob! :)

Birthdays!

2008-03-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

This is a sample of my great cake decorating skills tee hee! It was fun to make this cake and we had some Star Wars figures to go on it but Jason put them in his backpack for safe keeping so they went with him to Texas and missed out on the party. I really can't believe I have a 4 year old! I'm not that old am I? this time of year is always hard for me, but I think this year especially. This wednesday is Hyrum's 5th birthday. wow how time has flown. time has been very kind and along with the help of my Heavenly Father has sure helped to ease my grief but it seems like it is returning full force for some reason this birthday. I am just happy for the knowledge that I have that he will be mine to raise one day! what a great blessing that knowledge is! I cannot imagine going through this kind of thing without it.
On April 1st Jason will be 30!!!! Holy moly, I am married to an old fogey!! :) How grateful I am for him!! Wouldn't trade him for the world!
Lucas is growing into such a little boy! He is no longer my baby. :( He has to do everything all by himself! He and Evie have so much fun lately! I love to just sit and watch them chase each other laughing around the house till they crash into each other and fall down laughing all the harder. I am trying to decide if that means I am ready to have another baby, we will see.
Right now Evie is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor jammy clad with her new giant coloring/paint book she got for her birthday! she has been dying to use it since she got it but we made her wait till we got home. She is having a messy blast! I love it!

Feels like FOREVER!!!

2008-02-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

So we have been in Idaho for almost 2 weeks and will be here another week and it already feels like FOREVER!!! I am very ready to go home but I am watching my brothers and sisters while my parents are in Texas this week. It has been fun but very long. This weekend we get to spend the weekend down in St George as a family which will be fun because Jason has been out of town a lot the past few weeks and it will be good to just be with him!!! EVIE TURNED 4!!!!!! I cannot believe I have a 4 year old! She wanted a Star Wars birthday so I made her a cake. It turned out pretty well and I will try to post some pictures as soon as I can figure out how to get pictures off my sister's camera. arg. She was so much fun! We went in to the bedroom where we stay at my parents, early in the morning before all my siblings and my dad had to be off to school, with a big bowl of Marshmallow Mateys with a candle in them and woke her up to the happy birthday song and breakfast in bed (family tradition). Then we all had breakfast together and gave her a few pillowcase wrapped presents (another family tradition, saves on wrapping paper :)). She was so excited. I cannot believe how she has grown, she is so big and grown up! She has also done a few really cute funny things while we have been here. I.E. she was sitting up to the table with my sister Marianne and they were talking about brothers and sisters. Evie asked if my sister Shari was Marianne's sister and Marianne said no she was an orphan and Evie just said oh yeah she's from orph! i mean what 4 year old thinks of that??!! lucas is just getting into the monster hug stage where he throws his little arms around your neck and just squeezes!!! I love it it is so so cute. He is a totally different breed than Evie but they are still so the same in so many ways! It is so fun to watch them develop their very own little personalities! I love it! Evie has always been a big daddy's girl, he is usually who he wants when she gets hurt etc.. but Lucas is the exact opposite and 99.9 % of the time I absolutely LOVE it!! just the other .1 percent of when I am trying to do something that requires 2 hands or am needing to go somewhere that it makes it hard! He is so incredibly patient with his 2 aunts ages 8 and 10 who think that every 5 seconds they need to pick him up and haul him around, but it has been kind of funny the past few days I think he has decided he has had enough "in your face" time and every time they even walk in the room he runs for me yelling NO!!!! MOMMY!!!! NO!!! even if they are not even headed his direction! He makes me laugh. He also has developed this pouty face that he will make on command where he knits his eyebrows together and lowers his head so his grumpy eyes are looking up at you from under his brows and sticks out his lower lip! it is hilarious! the first time he made it was when Jason was flossing his teeth so he thought he needed to also and when Jason couldn't find his flossers he came slumping into the living room with that face and I just cracked up so now he thinks it is pretty funny! Well it is late and I am sick :p so i need to go to bed!!!!

I AM A BLOGGER!!!!

2008-02-02T23:08:00.000-08:00

Well this hasn't worked out as well as i had hoped but i will keep trying to be better at updating this blog so that it is not completely boring. you would think i would have more than enough to write about just having to do with the things that evie says or does!! one such thing is that about 5 times every prayer she blesses us to be nice and strengthful and kind. i dunno, your guess is as good as mine! :)

Hopefully a regular thing

2007-03-08T20:02:00.000-08:00

I am the absolute worst at journal writing so hopefully this will help me to be more regular at keeping up with life in the Anderson home. right now we are living in Provo, if you can call it that :) we actually rent an apartment here but spend about every 2 weeks in Idaho lately. Jason is managing an office for Pinnacle Security this summer in Orange County California and is working hard recruiting anywhere and everywhere to finish filling his office. it seems like as of late all the kids and i are is sick :) lucas just finished getting over rsv and i think he is just determined to get as much out of the way before he is 1 as possible, we have already gotten through rsv, whooping cough, bronchitis, and a few other little maladies so we are well on our way. evie just loves life, she is big into why everything is what it is and how it got that way. she and jason went over to the byu earth-science museum last week and were looking at the cephalopods (shelly crab type squid things) and she asked jason what they turned into, and after jason's lack of explanation her face lit up and she said, " i know, cephalopods turn into ipods!!"
we have loved having brock and jordan live down here and we love to have them come hang out. the other night they were kind enough to come watch our kids while we took a much needed date. evie absolutely loves them to death and asks constantly if we will call them to come over. we feel bad about bugging them to much but love it when they can come "play"
we went up to idaho this last weekend to celebrate hyrum's 4th birthday with our families. we had a get together at jasons grandma's house and momand dad were able to come down with most of the kids. it was really nice, we went out and decorated his grave a little bit, jasons mom got some cute nice things (she is the most thoughtful lady ever!!) and then at grandmas we had cake and ice cream and had the kids take balloons outside to send up to hyrum. it is still so crazy to me that it has been 4 years already, sometimes it seems like yesterday.