Fall with the Andersons

It seems I can’t keep up with time.  I am constantly behind!  I am a putter-er.  I am realizing this more and more as I have been a stay-at-home mom.  Dillon will come home and will ask what we did during the day and I don’t very often have a good answer.  We did. . . stuff.  I am trying to make our days more memorable by doing SOMETHING besides just stuff.  We’ll see how it goes.  Here is is and update and some of the pictures captured while doing stuff. 

Dillon went hunting with my dad and brothers and here are some of the great pictures he took.  I was really wanting to go camping as I didn’t get my fill this summer, and these pictures make me wish that I could have gone!!

Dillon also held a shot-gun shooting activity with the Elder’s Quorum.  My dad and Blake also joined in.  It was a good thing, too, otherwise Dillon wouldn’t have had anyone to throw the pigeons!  We’ll just say, it was less than a stellar turnout!

We were able to go to Aiden’s baptism in October.  It was great to be there for that and for Lucy to be able to play with Annie and Aiden.  They have SO MUCH FUN together!  We didn’t take many pictures, but as you can see, Lucy and Annie had a great time dressing up.  Lucy also had a great time with Aiden, we just didn’t get any pictures with him. 

We celebrated my birthday, and of course, Halloween.  You should definitely watch my birthday movie from my wonderful husband if you haven’t.  It was the best gift anyone could ever ask for!  For some reason I am not finding the Halloween pictures. . . in fact I don’t remember taking any, but Sam was the cutest cow that could ever be, Lucy was an adorable fairy princess, I was a hair dresser, and Dillon was a hockey player.  It was great fun!

Sam had his half birthday.  He is now 7 months, but he turned 6 months in November, so he was able to start solid foods.  He loves it!!  And, hopefully, it will bulk him up a bit.  At his 6 month appointment he was 16lbs 13oz which puts him at the 28%, a significant decrease in st5anding for him.  He was 26.5 inches which is the 42%.  Previously he was up in the 70% for height and started out huge, so they are a bit concerned about his growth.  It is funny because everyone that sees him talks about how big he looks.  I guess looks can be deceiving!    We are trying to give him extra calories buy supplementing his food with formula.  Some days it is hard to believe a little baby can eat SO MUCH!!  Hopefully we will get him back on track before he goes in again so additional measures don’t have to be taken (I have no idea what they would be, that is just what the Dr said).

Lucy loves to help with Sam!!

The most exciting event that we had around these parts was on a very windy day.  To start at the beginning, I taught Lucy how to use my phone and on this particular day she called Dillon by herself while I was making lunch.  She asked if he was going to come home for lunch, something that he had only done a few times ever.  Since he wasn’t too busy, he decided to come.  Well, as I was to soon find out, that was all orchestrated by Heavenly Father as I looked out our window right as I was putting lunch on and our tramp started to lift off the ground.  I told Lucy to watch Sam and send Dillon to the backyard as soon as he got there.  By the time I got out there the wind slowed so the tramp sat back down.  I went inside and Dillon laughed at me saying “there is no way it could blow over that fence”.  Sure enough, not two minutes later I watched the entire tramp lift up and over our 8 foot fence.  The worst part is behind our house is the interstate.  Yes, we have a huge tramp blowing towards I-15.  I yelled to Dillon “You have to go stop it!!!”  I am so glad he was home.  What would I have done to stop a tramp from blowing onto the interstate?  I thought about it and I think I would have called my mom, that is my usual response.    I maybe would have called 911 to have them stop the traffic so no one hit my tramp going 65mph.  I really don’t know what would have happened!  Luckily, Dillon just went and held it down while I brought him supplies to stake it down until we could get assistance to carry it back over the fence, which is what we did.  Dillon took off the top surround thing and Jordan and Dillon walked it up the fence and then handed it down to me on the other side while my mom came to be with the kids.  Oh man, thank heavens for my little girl who called her daddy to come home for lunch!

This Thanksgiving we also participated in the Mini-Cassia Turkey Trot.  It was a 5k that ran around the city of Paul.  It was great!  I did a little training, meaning I ran about a total of 5k spread over 2 weeks before the day of the race.   It was my goal to run the entire way, and I DID IT!!  I think my time was 36:41, although I don’t remember for sure.  Jordan, Dillon, and Nicole were all just a few seconds to a minute behind me. 

In the throng, there were around 750 runners!!!!!  I didn’t expect near this size of crowd, as the population of Paul is only in the 1,000 range.

Nicole and me in the groove, about .5 mile in.

After we survived the race.

Then, we came back to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with Dillon’s family.  It was delightful, as always! 

A little after-Thanksgiving fun with Grandpa.

We went to get Christmas trees, to Jordin’s Tavaci concert and Blake’s choir concert which helped us get in the Christmas spirit. We also held a delightful dinner for Dillon’s presidency, where I cooked my first, and the finest ever, Prime Rib.  It was, I must say, the best thing I have ever made!  We are so excited for Christmas this year and hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!

Be sure to watch the decorating of our beautiful Christmas tree on the movie that Dillon posted previous to this post!!

Our Christmas Tree

Happy Birthday to my awesome wife.  She is a great mother, and my best friend.  I am so blessed to have her as my eternal companion.  I love you!

Milwaukee

First of all, note that this is my third post today, so to see the others you have to click "older posts" at the bottom of this page.  There is just too much for me to tell in such a short space!  :)

The last week of September the kids and I took a trip to visit Jessie’s family in Milwaukee.  It was SO fun.  There are only two things that could have made it better: 1) if my wonderful husband was there and 2) if it would have gotten above 50 degrees the entire time we were there, or at least stopped raining for a full day.
Here are the three musketeers.  They were so good together!  They played, played, and played.  They also made HUGE messes constantly.  It would have been great if the weather was better so we could have them play outside, but, they had fun anyway.  I think these two pics are of the only times they were sitting still!
This what happens to Jessie after eating two full pumpkin rolls.    Really, this is what happens if you leave your camera sitting out at Jessie’s house. 
Kevin and Julia’s preschool teacher let Lucy come along for the week, which was so fun.

Sam and Lacey really had some bonding time, as they were toted every where.
They were the lucky ones that got to go with Jessie and I to the Brewer’s game.  It was just the four of us, Jessie, Lacey, Sam, and me.  We got several comments with the two of us toting our two babies to a Major League baseball game.  We had AWESOME seats and didn’t get beat up (which is a rare thing lately, especially since Sam was wearing Chicago Bears colors, a big No-No at a Brewers game!). 
Yes, we are both nursing at the game! 
This playpen really got used and abused during the week.  No, we did not make all three kids sleep in it, they just LOVED to play in it.  Every time I went to put Sam in bed I had to pull out tons of toys. 


Of course I love all three of Jessie’s kids, but Julia and I have a special bond.  I would have brought her home if I could!
Jessie was the maid, cook, etc. 
If you want hilarity, watch two three year olds boxing on the Wii.  So FUNNY!
Sam was snuggling with her so tight, his face was smashed. 
Although all three kids played together very well, Lucy and Kevin have a special connection.  They are at the same stage in their playing, which really helped.

Jessie had a bit of a spider problem.  Those in my family will know that I do not like spiders and had an “incident” while vacuuming like this.  I found out, Jessie is no braver than I!!
We went to the zoo in the rain, it was great because there were very few people there!

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. We couldn’t decide which kid needed which at the time.

This was a hilarious night.  I don’t know that Jessie knew this was going on.  Poor Lacey probably doesn’t have any head bands that fit her anymore, but I was laughing so hard that I let it go on.  Kevin started the whole thing by wanting to put them on Lucy, and it progressed from there.
 
Julia and Sam connected for some reason.  She was so sweet to him.  When I came out and saw them she said “I am massaging his hand”.  So cute!  Look at his face, he is smiling at her!

Lacey loved to stick out her tongue.  If her tongue was not sticking out, she was spitting up.  She is a beautiful baby with adorable hair!  She was a very good baby the entire time!

We took the kids to get their pictures taken together in outfits that my mom bought for the kids.  We hope to one day get all the grandkids at the same time, but this time it will happen in shifts.  We went to JCPenny Portraits, and I cannot recommend them enough!  They were awesome and very well priced.

It was a great trip, but it went by much too fast.  We are so excited for Christmas to come we can all get together again, and have our other siblings join in as well.