The Mutton Bustin’ Birthday Girl

Lucy celebrated her 4th birthday on Saturday with style!!  She shared her birthday with the 24th of July Pioneer Day Celebration.

Once again, thanks to Alyona (Alyona Oborn Photography) for awesome pictures.  We have more fun ones to come, but we just took them today and I couldn’t wait to make this post.

She got several fun presents from grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles:  Coloring kit, fake nails, magnifying glass, jewelry, cash register, new shoes, and more.  Each thing was her “favorite thing that she had always wanted”.  It is so fun to have her open her presents because she just loved it all.

Grandma Terri made a bunch of signs and hung them all over the house for Lucy to find when she got up in the morning.  The benefits of living with Grandma!!!

The crew at the parade.

The most exciting part of the day – Lucy rode in the Mutton Busting contest at the fairgrounds.  Getting ready:

The ride:

Lucy Mutton Busting

After her ride, they decided to have the entire arena sing “Happy Birthday” to her.  What a sight!!  I started to get choked up to watch 500+ people sing “Happy Birthday” to my four year old!  It was amazing.

The clowns held pretty much every kid on, or pulled them off, to avoid injury.

Her getting her ribbon and with the clown family that helped.

Grandma Anderson bought Lucy a “girlish cake” as Lucy called it.  She loved it.

Sam helped blow out the candles.  So funny!

Lucy has also just finished swimming lessons, which were really fun.  

She, unfortunately, has to get several cavities fixed.  This was the first round, she was laying there getting the gas, which is supposed to make her happy, and did quite the opposite.  She did not like the gas at all.  Hopefully the next round goes better!

At four years old Lucy is an intelligent, audacious, fun-loving, happy girl.  She is independent without being difficult.  It is always amazing to hear what will come out of her mouth next.  She definitely keeps us on our toes.  She is a great big sister and loves to help in any way for any thing.  She loves everything “girl” but at the same time loves to play in the dirt and with tools.  She is ALWAYS dirty, but adorable anyway.  We love her so much and count our blessings for the joy she brings to our lives!

Celebrating Summer

We’ve had an event filled, fun summer.  The house has kept us extremely busy, but we’ve snuck some fun in there once in a while. 

My parents were up camping and we joined them for just an evening.

Jordin wrecked on the four-wheeler and got the handle bar bruise across the belly.  But awesome at the same time.

We had a mini family reunion with Dillon’s parents and siblings

Sam LOVED the big wheel and Lucy slept in the tent with Grandpa.

A few years ago I did a post with this same thing, but here it is updated:  The Anderson Family Fire-Breathers:

The after-effects:

Note I was the photographer/videographer and did not subject myself to the torture.

Alyona also took our pictures:

I’ll post an entire Lucy post next, but a bit about Sam:

At 14 months he is all boy.  He loves motorcycles, cars, balls and tools.  He loves his big sister Lucy.  One day Dillon took Sam somewhere without Lucy and Sam started crying and pointing at Lucy’s car seat.  He is usually pretty easy going, but has a stubborn streak that can’t be beat!  He is not yet walking, but will stand in the middle of the room without holding onto anything.  He doesn’t talk much, but can say “banana” so cute as well as more, Mom, Mama (Grandma) and says Millie and something for Grandpa that you have to know means Grandpa to understand.  He used to say Luc, Dad, and a few others but seems to have dropped them for now.  He likes to climb the stairs, but isn’t very confident in coming back down yet.  He does not like scrambled eggs, and is a pretty picky eater over all. 

He was in the booster seat in the beauty shop so he could eat a sucker without getting everything sticky.  He showed me!  He just crawled around with the booster attached.  It must have started to hurt after a while though.

Sam has been getting molars for about 6 weeks and they just won’t pop through.  He has a big blood blister on the top and you can see the huge swollen gums on the bottom.  Lately they have made him a bit whiney.  Hopefully they will pop through soon so I can have my happy boy back!

And here’s for a house update:

These are pre-sheetrock and then we jump to painting because we lost the camera for about a month.

My parents are life-savers.  One key thing they did in this process is painted my house.  My dad worked two 12-14 hour days painting and my mom was either painting with him or watching the kids so I could paint with him.

I owe him so much!!  His arm hurt for days!!  He did 3 coats on 1700 sq ft in two days.

Tyrel was the tile guy and ran everything for a while.  He worked for about a week “tiling” but he ended up helping electricians and cabinet guys and on the wood floor.  It became my joke that if any subcontractors had a question they could just ask the tile guy.    The tile looks awesome, but I don’t have a good pic of it on the camera yet.

We put in the laminate flooring in the kitchen, dining room, and entry way.  Somehow I don’t have the final pic of the room, but here is a glimpse.  Sam has spent countless hours in the play pen while we did something at the house.  We walk in the door and he points to it, I thought he’d hate it, but he knows his place!  Lucy was having a little pants problem that day, but what a cute bum! 

Sam saw this hammer and immediately wanted to go to work!

Above I was doing the clean-up before the carpet will start (TOMORROW!!!!)

This is after the final grade of the property had started.  It made the front yard level and up to the driveway, which was a big difference.  Lucy is so excited to move in and loves going to the house.  She did say the other day, though, that it might be boring not living at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.