Anderson is ONE!!!

Wow....this last year was the fastest year of my life!! Our sweet little Anderson is one today. We had a small little celebration with homemade pizza and cupcakes. Anderson wanted to invite his friend, Eli. :)

We was really tired when we were doing cupcakes, so I am glad he made it through with a smile.

Love the curious face.

"What is that bright thing on the top of my cupcake?"

"Hmm....I've never tasted anything like this before...but I think I like it."

Yummy!!!

Jack sporting the party hat.

We were trying to get a good picture of Eli and Anderson, and this one was by far my favorite! Even though Anderson isn't paying any attention, Eli's face is priceless!! Does it get any cuter than that?! He looks like he is a dental ad or something, showing off those pearly whites and cute smile. The funny thing is, Anderson is just barely older than Eli and he still has no teeth. Zero! Jack was 11 months old when he finally got some, but Anderson is trailing behind.

Anderson found a bowl of mini m&m's and we found him going to town on them. He has never had any candy or anything, so between the cupcake and the bowl of m&m's, he was loving life....

....until I took the bowl away. This is him climbing up my leg crying, and begging me to give them back. I'm a mean mom, I guess. One cupcake and a half a bowl of m&m's is probably enough for one day buddy!

We didn't open presents yet because he was too tired, so we will do that tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Anderson!!!

We love you!

Soccer

Jack had his first soccer game this morning. He is beyond excited to play and he is even more excited that Justin is his coach. After the game, we got in the car and he says to Justin, "Thanks for being my coach!" It was so cute. We did have a small meltdown this morning when we were putting his shin guards on. I should have tried them on him earlier so he could get used to it because he did not want to wear them. After we convinced him that if he wore them, they would make him kick the ball really hard and run extra fast, he was ok with it. :)

As you can tell, my camera is high quality. Especially with action shots. Ha! Every single picture was blurry. Oh well.

He had a lot of fun during the practice time when they were doing drills and other stuff. Once they started the game though, he would go after the ball and with 20 3 yr. olds, someone usually got there before he did and kicked it first. We had a small break down towards the end of the game, when he said with a few tears, "Everyone keeps taking the ball from me!" Overall, he had a blast. It was cold and rainy but fun.

Go Jack, go!!!

Sulphur Springs

A little while ago, we had a really warm day and decided to head out to Sulphur Springs, near Chagrin Falls. I am so glad we took advantage of the warm weather! Especially since today was 52 and rainy.

We tried to hold Anderson the whole time but about ten seconds after we got to the water, he would NOT stay in our arms. He wanted to get down so bad, so we let him get in, even though he had his clothes on and he had a blast. He was so cute kicking his feet through the water and picking up the rocks and throwing them.

I love his little straight smile :)

We were all having so much fun until we got to a slippery part and Jack fell into the water. He wasn't sure why I was just standing there taking a picture and not helping him. He makes a pretty good sad face.

It is so beautiful walking through the water with all of the trees all around.

This is one of the many places that I will miss when we leave Ohio. It is still 7 months away but every time we visit somewhere, I think about how much I am going to miss it.

Feeling much better after we started to dry off. :)

Jack's first day of Preschool

Jack has been waiting for this day for a long time. He has been "practicing for preschool" since we found out he was going to go there months ago. Everything that he does that is something a big boy would do, he says he is "practicing for preschool". He talks about how he thinks his teachers are going to teach him how to drive a remote control car, and he has been counting down the days until he actually gets to go. So you can imagine that he was a little excited when he woke up and realized today was the day. He was pretty cute, even when he was taking forever to eat his eggs when we needed to get out the door.

Justin went to grab his backpack and Jack says, "Oh, just like I have a backpack?" He loves that he goes to school just like his dad and that they both have backpacks.

You are a pretty big boy Jack!!

Love the Chinese eyes...he keeps doing this silly squinting smile.

We parked at the school...

...found his room, 142...

...found his cubby where he hung up his backpack...

...said hi to one of his teachers, Mrs. Epstein, who gave him a name tag...

...and he headed straight for the trains. He didn't miss a beat. Some kids were crying and not wanting their mom and dads to leave them, but he was just so excited and he was totally fine. Part of me was sad to see him so independent, but the other part of me was glad that I didn't have to leave him there sobbing and sad.

He gave us some kisses and off we went, leaving our little guy behind to have his first day of school. Weird!!!

When I picked him up he was sad that he didn't get to go and play in the gym but his teacher reassured him that they would be going there tomorrow so he felt much better after that. He said he was tired and had a long day at preschool but he also said he had lots of fun and that he really likes his teachers.

You did great today bud!!! Thanks for being such a great little boy. I know you will do so well in your class. You always make friends so easily and I am excited to hear about all the things you will be learning throughout the year. Good luck Jackers, we love you!!!

Final days of Summer

Summer has been wrapping up so quickly, we can't hardly believe we are even in the month of September. We celebrated Justin's 28th birthday on the 31st of August!! Once again, he didn't want a big party, but Jack and I were sure to make him a cake and his favorite dinner of roast, carrots and "real" mashed potatoes. Jack decorated the upper left hand side of the cake. :)

Do you like the 2 plus eight extra candles?? 28!

(Anderson was already in bed when we took this.)

For Justin's Birthday present, I sent him to Utah to see his whole family and his nephew Jaxson get baptized. He took Anderson with him so his sister's family could meet him for the first time! (Sad, I know!) I wish we lived closer!!

Justin managed to take about 3 pictures. One at the baptism, and one of the wonderful improv diaper he and Ryan came up with after they dropped the only diaper Anderson had in the toilet at the Spaghetti Factory. :) Gotta love it!! At least they managed, right? Other than that Justin said things went great and Anderson was awesome. If you want to see more pictures and a little more about their weekend, you can see it on Stephanie's blog.

Then last weekend we went to the annual dental school night at the Indian's game. They won and they had an amazing fireworks show after! That is one of my favorite activities of the year. We all get to sit in the same section and chat and let the kids have fun together. Our good friends, the Mortensen's let Anderson sleep at their house while we enjoyed the game. Thanks guys!!

Now we are in full blown fall, with school, cooler weather and Patterson's Fruit Farm opening this Saturday! Yay!

5 years

Last week Justin and I celebrated our 5th anniversary together. What a fun milestone this has been for us! 5 years ago, we were both in school at BYU-Idaho and now we have two kids, live in Cleveland, OH and almost done with dental school. My how time changes things.

Justin let me sleep in a little that morning while he made breakfast and displayed the 5 bouquets of flowers which he and Jack picked out. Later that night, our friend, Jenni from Justin's class came to watch the boys while we went and ate at our favorite hamburger place...B Spot. They have the BEST food!! It was so yummy.

Before we went out to eat, it was time for me to reveal my little project I had been working on for a good month or so. Justin and I have always hated our bedroom. It is the catch all that never seems to be picked up and was not decorated. For 3 yrs since we have lived there, Justin has asked me when I was going to do something with our room. I just never knew what I wanted to do. But after looking at a million blogs and inspiration from a few friends, I finally figured out what I wanted to do with it and did it secretly. I have been stashing my haircutting money and buying things here and there, hoping it would all come together like I had pictured in my head, and I LOVE it!

I repainted the blue table from the bedroom set that we got from his Grandma Palmer. The chair was given to me by our neighbor who moved so I painted and reupholstered it. I also had my sisters edit some of my wedding pictures that I had printed along with a couple of new ones from a recent shoot Angie did while she was here.

These dressers were also part of the old bedroom set and I somehow convinced Justin to help me repaint them about a month ago. He never knew that I had a bigger plan in mind!

I got this headboard for $20 off of craigslist, painted it and hid it in a friend's garage. I painted my mirror, a bunch of frames and the inside of my fireplace. It used to be just white.

I was going to put a "before picture" but I was too embarrassed! Seriously...my room was BAD.

Now....I LOVE IT!! Justin was so surprised and super excited about it. Now we actually have a peaceful and relaxing space all to ourselves that we might actually want to be in! Before it was just chaos and ugliness, and that usually included a mound of laundry (or 2!).

We can finally sleep in peace. :)

Anniversary Surprise #2

So besides the awesome day we had on our actual anniversary, Justin left a note on the bed when he left for school saying to pack an overnight bag for the kids and one for myself. It also said to drop the kids off at our friend's house and pick him up at school by 12:30pm. So I did as I was instructed. I was a little nervous because I have never left Anderson but I didn't have too much time to think about it since I only had 4 hrs until I had to drop them off. And we left them with some great friends who were so nice to watch our kids!!

So I picked him up and he informed me that we were spending a night in Niagara Falls. I was so excited to have a little getaway! Not once have we ever taken a little vacation by ourselves except for our honeymoon, so I was super excited. Justin found an awesome deal on a nice hotel with an excellent restaurant in it. The food was SO YUMMY!! We loved all of it.

The next day we started out on the Maid of the Mist. It's a boat ride that takes you right up to the falls. You can see the little boat on it's way back in the picture above.

We're ready to get wet!!! :) I think that the blue ponchos are a good look for us.

Waiting to get herded onto the boat. They fit a lot of people on a not very big boat.

It was really fun though and felt like you were in a big rain storm. The tour guide told us that a 63 yr old school teacher went over the falls in a barrel (for fun....what the?) and survived. He also said a 7 yr old boy was playing up river in a life jacket and got swept down the falls and survived! He was rescued by a Maid of the Mist boat. I just kept thinking how scared that little boy would have been and how terrified I would have been to be his mom.

There are a lot of random things to see there, such as this chair and wax model of the tallest man ever to live.

Our little trip consisted of lots of yummy food, good conversation (without children interrupting us!) and we slept in until 9am, which NEVER happens at our house. Anderson is up between 6 and 6:30 every morning so we are early risers around our house and it was so nice to sleep in!!! It was exactly what we needed.

Thanks for the surprise Justin! Here's to the next 5 years! :)