Our first harvest of our home grown lettuce. Yee haa doesn't it look yummy! I was like a little rabbit eating away at it.
I never had the chance to post about it but about a month ago we planted a little garden in the backyard. It's coming a long very nicely, we're very excited.
~lettuce
~carrots
~garlic
~tomato plants
~Brussels sprouts
~peas
~green peppers
Last week Sam's sister, Shannon, came in to town. She was supose to fly here but ended up with a broken down plane and had to wait all day for a new flight to fly her in to LA. We were disapointed that she didn't get to come see our home and that Sam wouldn't be able to take her pictures like planed. But it turned out to be fun anyway, Sam's parents and Mason were coming down to see her and spend some time in LA with her. They invited us & took our family along to Univerals Studios on Friday. We had a really fun time and we were glad that we got to see her after all.
Shannon & I on the "Red Carpet"
Carlee had too much fun playing in the water.
Me and Carlee with the statue guy.
Poor Preston isn't pictured with us but the rest of our little family with this mouse (can't remember where he's from).
Carlee and Mason with Curious George.
Preston sleeping!
All except me!
Hard Rock guitar!
Carlee with Papa and Mason walking.
And last one of preston by the Sparkey's shop (a candy story).
About a week and a half ago Sam & I (well Sam, I edited) took the pictures for the tri-stake mormon prom that they do down here. Way fun idea, I'd never heard of an activity like this for the youth in our church. Anyway, they all turned out really nice. Sam and I wanted to show our favorites.
I could quite literally go on & on forever. Some of them were so fun and some had the most beautiful dresses, my favorite dress was probably the girls silver dress, pictured here in black and white with the frame still in color, this picture doesn't do it justice! It took so long to edit and it was hard to make the time to do it but I think it paid off, the pictures all turned out really cute, there was a total of about 50 couples. But most of all, I really enjoyed spending that entire night with Sam while the kids were at home with a babysitter.
Beware, I invite myself over to peoples homes and only give them a few hours notice! With the kids being sick & us cooped up inside for a while I was itching to get out! So there is nothing like family, right! I called Teresa, my mother-in-law, Wednesday & asked if I could come bum with them for a few days. They were very sweet in letting me come, what would they say, NO! Anyway it was fun & just what I needed. It snowed!
We had fun, even if we couldn't go outside much, we love playing inside. Mason got the "Rock Band" game, so Carlee wanted to steel the show & play with the microphone. She's my little diva!
Preston loved all the space, I had to take a picture to show how he sits up, he seems to balance a little better this way. He does go from sitting to crawling but he now also goes from crawling to sitting too.
They got me this super cute outfit, from anchor blue, so cute, hadn't shopped there in a long time. Thanks so much I love it, I guess it was time to retire my favorite jeans of 7 years!
Carlee loves her grammer and papa, Preston too he just doesn't show it that well yet. Thanks for everything, we had a good time.
Good things lately:
~ we are all slowly getting better
~ I've had a little wake up call with everything that's been happening, a few different things to help make me a better mother
~ I finished my first home video Sunday. I wanted to organize all the videos in chronological order for each child & make videos out of them with a play menu and a scene menu. Didn't know if I had the equipment to do it, but found it within two different programs, so I was able to do it.... so excited about it!
~ Yesterday I COMPLETELY de-germed the house. Cleaned all toys, put stuffed toys in the washing machine, small toys in a bucket of bleach and all the bigger things wiped down with disinfectant wipes. Bathrooms, kitchen, floors.... you name it, it was cleaned & disinfected. I'm going to get this family health again!
~ Carlee is being, as we call it, "TV detoxed". We decided that Carlee, lately, has attitude (maybe it's a faze maybe not); she doesn't listen to what we say or ask. She doesn't say any of the "nice words" (please, thank you....) so we decided to not let Carlee watch any TV this week and see how her attitude changes. Twice yesterday & once today she has come up to me, given me the remote control and open the doors to the TV, she really wants to watch TV. I'll tell her we aren't watching TV this week so she shuts the door & moves along. I feel like she's already being more nice, but I think that has to do with me having a better attitude also.... we both are responding well to this "TV detox", lol!
~ Sam stayed home with the kids Sunday so I could go to church (not a good thing) but the fact that I was able to stay in the meetings and listen really well, I got a LOT out of the lessons, especially my RS lesson, so great! All about being a better mother, speaking kindly & being gentle. It was our ward conference so the stake leaders spoke, one other was about slowing down and listening to the spirit because those days of sitting on the porch with your grandparents are long gone, so we need to make it happen on our own. Me personally, I'm working on not being in a rush everywhere I go!
Sam and I just finished reading this book that he found, The Wednesday Letters, we both really liked it and would recommend it to anyone. Sam and I decided to started reading books together and this was our first attempt that we actually got through.
Sam has helped our friend take pictures at two weddings within the last few months. I finally made a post about them in our photography section. To take a look click here.
Saturday was fun! Sam's parents and brother came for the day. We went to John's incredible pizza. It was fun, there were tons of games.
At first Carlee was scared to go on the rides but she warmed up with Grammers help and then you couldn't get her away from them. I love this picture, also see Sam and Preston in the back
Preston got to try some pizza and ice cream and LOVED it, I had to fish out pizza from his mouth.
We had fun, especially the kids, thanks for coming and visiting.
We left for Utah on Friday night at 8:00pm from our home and got to Logan, Utah at 8:00am.... that was a long night for Sam and I but much better with the kids sleeping for the most part.
Saturday Becca, Kent's new wife, went through the temple. Sunday we went to temple square. We did a tour through the conference center, it is beautiful. The top picture is of Sam taking pictures in a mirror of us, it was fun! This next picture is of the conference room, it's amazing and huge.
Here are a couple of pictures of the view from the top floor of the conference center.
On Monday we had a family bachelor party for Kent. His day consisted of getting a new PlayStation3, time at best buy for new games and gadgets for the PS3, time playing it, & of course family lunch and dinner, it was a fun time.
Tuesday was the big day for Kent and Becca, for some pictures of the happy couple that Sam took click here. Here is a picture of Sam, the best man, and Kent,
Here is everyone waiting outside the temple for them to come out.
Getting ready for the happy couple this is my mother & sister-in-law.
This is Kent and Becca with Kent's parents, my in-laws.
Later that day they had a luncheon, which had really good food at Hamilton's. Here is a picture of my photographer, Sam with his brother Mason & our little Carlee. Sam took all the pictures for me that day.
The rest of the day we all hung out in the hotel and played. Here is a picture of all the grandchildren from the Andersen side.
Payton, Conner, Preston, Anna & Carlee
A shot of Preston that I love.
Wednesday we all left to go home. Sam and our family stayed the afternoon and visited some of my family. I got to see my cousin, who I haven't seen for about 7 years, she has always been a really close cousin of mine. We got to see her dad & step mom and their children, obvious I'm sure, my aunt uncle & more cousins, it's been close to 5 years since I've seen them. And one more, I got to see my Grandmother, she got to meet Carlee and Preston for the first time. This week my family is throwing a 90th birthday party for her, which see turns in a few weeks & she is still just as healthy and wonderful as can be. It was so fun to see all of them I love them tons. I didn't get a picture with my Grandmother but this is everyone else.
We left after a good visit with them at about 4:00pm and we got home at 2:30 am our time to our poor birds nearly starved to death, we felt SO bad, I had forgoten to ask my friend to come fill their food, but they are all right now.
Have a Merry Christmas tomarrow!
We went to Utah for Sam's brother Kent, he just got married to Becca. While we were there we went to Salt Lake City to temple square & stayed late to see the temple lights. So, here they are, enjoy, and there will be more pictures of the event to come!
Some have requested more pictures of the family photo session so here you go.
Amazingly enough there was one were we all were smilling!
