my biggest birthday boy!

When i chose this great guy years ago I never imagined that it would feel like paradise even after all this time. Jared turns 33 today and I want to celebrate him by showing just SOME of his cuteness that we as his family enjoy everyday. he is the only man who could get me to go to the end of the earth with. that was a crazy hard fun time and his loving support made it an adventure of a lifetime. we all know he's a dang hard worker and i'm so happy he loves his very cool but dangerous job--plus he's semi-sexy in a hard hat. As the children started rollin in the real family fun began. Pregnancies and births were of course monumental but I will never forget his tender yet shy adoration he had for the tiny newborns. Jared is indeed my gentle giant (just like my own father). Holidays are of course joyful and full of memories. I appreciate how Jared always takes over with festive activities for the kids and lets me just watch and enjoy my favorite people in the whole world. It's been a great ride already babe. You make our world the happiest place on earth. Happy birthday my sweet sweet.

double wedding weekend--woo-hoo!

love is in the air or something. my sparkly brittany and cute cute kristen got married this weekend. i've watched these girls thru the young womens program and now they have to be out in the big bad world. at least they now have life partners that better treat them as the royalty i see them as. raylee was asked to be the flower girl with kendra as an escort--in case raylee melted down in the aisle. she didn't by the way, and i was choked up to see my little squirt hold hands with kevin the whole way to the stand. however she quickly yelled "MA MA" as she was done and needed to find me. --too cute. brit had me do her cake--just the display one for them to cut into. it was...o.k. seeing as it was my first one. my back still hurts from crouching to smooth out all the imperfections. this was jared and my view for kristen and hunters reception--we played the music for them and enjoyed every minute watching the happy couple dance the night away. thank you double wedding weekend for reminding me of my own beautiful day. our reception was at the same building as these so it was awesome to sit and reminice with jared. we cracked up at ourselves and realized how much we are still so much in love. we hope the newly married couples will be just as blissful.

a shower, a power outage and a photographer

One of my original young women is getting married this weekend. the phone calls and planning have taken my spare time but its fun and she's a crazy girl who i have a lot of history with. all i can hope for is her happiness. this was our "model pose" she insisted we take--Brittany's always been known for her sparkliness. reading by candlelight--too cute. i think they were there for like 20 minutes. SOMEONE got hold of the camera during a car ride..... hmmm i wonder who??? this kid cracks us up.

fun times with Grandma VoFo

when my mom comes to town we like to be overachievers and take on lots of little projects. most of them now are home improvements--this week we'll be painting and detailing ray's dollhouse. we also just like to walk around the house and dream up projects for jared. one of the boys' room walls will be royal blue so we are having to paint over brady's artwork that he made on this wall by his top bunk. brady drew that so according to him, "Caden won't come up here." oh brady, you're hilarious. ray got new butterfly clusters on her pink wall. she insisted on helping, but I only handled a few hammer swings. grandma always has to get a special gift for each child and it happened to be zoeys birthday too. they are all so loved. when grandma is here we all just have a great time, the kids all show off a little, and soak up every bit of attention they can squeeze out of her. grandma vofo visits are wonderful.

our first anderson nephew

jareds siblings both had girls first so our cute little sebastian eli added to our our sons and now we have more anderson man power. here he is in his cuteness saying hi to the outside world. he just didnt want to stay in the womb very long, he was ready to meet his wonderful family in waiting. he came out 3 weeks early on Dec. 10 a healthy 7 pounds 10 ounces and 21 inches long--ryan might have cloned himself in a miniature form. it seems like we were just blessing cute little scout. this is my favorite little newborn face and he made it for me while i was holding him for the first time. we are so grateful for his healthy arrival into his great family. love you ryan, aud, and scoutie.

reflecting at new years

resolutions aren't something i normally do, dr. phil advises that they are usually short lived and you should be constantly setting small attainable goals. so as the past year has passed i've been very reflective on things i would like to improve upon. of course family is first, i want to be a better mommy for my wonderful children and more specificly value each one more individually and help us all learn bettter ways to cope with caden and his special needs. i need to realize everyday how blessed i am to have good friends around me. these girls (some of my original young women) and i talk about EVERYTHING and they keep me youthful and so happy to be a girl. this year i hope i can make them, my fb friends our family friends, coworkers, church family and my homegirls feel as special and loved as they do to me. im happy to say goodbye to the hard times that occured in 2009. i know we have trials to try our faith and our character. i cant say i'm thrilled with my performance but i am willing to keep fighting and hoping. i confess that i've learned A LOT about myself--being broken down and building yourself up again is a difficult but so worthwhile process. i sincerely hope all of my and any of your upcoming challenges turn out to be wonderful experiences--and in between them we have a dang good time with each other and the ones we love.