Lucas's Fourth Birthday

Our sweet little Lucas. Everyone loves this little guy. He is sweet and sensitive but is starting to have a mind of his own. (He is an Anderson, after all.) The family came over for dinner and cake.

This is his attempt at a wink. He always makes funny faces at the camera.

He has been asking for a Wall-E cake for the last six months!

We gave him a big boy bike for this birthday.

He was so excited to ride his bike with the rest of the big kids on the court (including our wonderful neighbor Kyle!)

Jared Gets His Wolf

The idea of Cub Scouts continues to be overwhelming for me but Jared loves it. I never did Girl Scouts but I think that Cub Scouts is an amazing program that teaches boys values that allow them to be successful in life.




This is an example of the many people that impact our children's lives. Without his amazing leader, he wouldn't have gotten so many awards.

The Last Day of School

We made it! The kids had a great school year.





Jared loved third grade. He won the reader of the year award in his class. He won't admit it but I think he is going to miss school this summer because he had such a great class.



Leah had a successful Kindergarten year. The other day in the car she started crying. When I asked her what was wrong she said that she was sad because she loved her teacher and didn't want school to end!

Those Moments

We often take our cameras to the kids' games or school events but miss the moments that will matter when they are adults. Nonni was reading the kids a book the other night and I actually caught in on camera.



I know that this a picture that they'll look at fondly in their adulthood!

My Birthday

I generally enjoy birthdays but I have to admit I was not all that jazzed about this one. It might be that I now have to pluck out the gray hairs, the ** pounds are harder to lose or that I am just tired.

When I got home from work last night (my birthday eve), Jeff and the kids presented me with this card.

Age has never been a huge issue for me but seeing "35" in print made me shudder. Then I opened it to see all of the wonderful plans that my family had for me.

If you can read it, it talks about 35 things that they are going to do for me today. Many of them are my favorites. The best one might be "Flush the Toilet" - that is not always an easy one around our house. :)

So in the tradition of my friend Glen Barney who sends out a yearly birthday email, I celebrate this great day with gladness!

My father-in-law has a tradition of telling us how grateful he is for us on our birthdays and why he is thankful that we are born. So in that spirit I voice my thanks to all of you. I am grateful for my wonderful husband that works hard and makes it his mission to show how much he loves me daily. I have a great job and work with people that I enjoy. I am blessed with an amazing extended family, including parents that live close and are so much fun to be around. I was awakened by five wonderful smiling faces (the fifth was Duke) that love me! I vow this year to enjoy more of life and to focus more on the smiling and less on the tantrums.

I hope that I will see more of you in my 36th year! Some days it seems that we might just be getting things in order! I love you all!

Saturday Night with Branden and Bonzo

My sister and her husband went out of town so Branden and Bonzo stayed at our house.





Bonzo is their 6-month-old Puggle. Duke had fun but we were reminded how blessed we were to receive Duke after his puppy years had passed.

The kids had a great time with Branden. They built a mini golf course in a shoe box for my sister's birthday.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Baseball is not my favorite sport. I spent most of my childhood playing soccer so it is a little slow for me. When this season started, Jared was practicing for his play and at the end of his basketball season. To be honest, I was ready for something to go!

This is Jared's fourth year playing. The past few years have been a bit like watching paint dry while trying to chase the three other kids around. Something changed this year. Jared is so much fun to watch - making diving catches and getting hits during most of his at bats. He is not used to failing so when he does strike out, he takes it really hard.

It looks like baseball is here to stay.