Day of many Celebrations

The 24th of May was an eventful day for our family. It was my 27th birthday and Haken's preschool graduation. I was glad that I could share my day with my BIG soon-to-be kindergartener. After you get past 25 it's nice to have something to distract you from remembering how old you are getting...although having a kindergartener doesn't make me feel any younger!

Grandma and Grandpa Evans came early before the graduation and brought Haken an early birthday present....A NEW BIKE!!! He was pretty excited about it...especially the fact that it still had training wheels like his last one. We will be working on getting them off soon...

One happy little boy!

On his maiden voyage in front of the house

Jack had to test it out for himself.

Before the graduation we enjoyed a yummy Mexican dinner at "El Parral" here in town (everyone should come to visit Tremonton just to try out that place). Thanks to Grandpa for treating all of us!

The preschool program was so cute. Mrs. Francom has done such a fabulous job with Haken this year. I heard that she was good, but I didn't really realize how much Haken would learn in only a few months with her help. He also made lots of new friends with the other 9 kids in his class. I'm so glad that he was able to get into her preschool. Here are a few pictures from the graduation. I wasn't able to get a full picture of his class but we have the whole program on tape, which I am sure he will want to watch over and over again in the months to come.

Haken's class in silhouettes. They all drew their own picture too.
 Haken's is the blue one. Not too bad for a preschooler, I think!

Loved being the star of the show!

Such a grown up boy! 

With Mrs. Francom and his friend Kason who we carpooled with everyday

Proud parents

Proud Grandparents

Mr. cheeseball himself...

Silly brothers enjoying the refreshments afterwards

With friends Karen and Kason

After the graduation we headed home for some cake and presents for mommy. Shad insisted on putting 27 candles on the cake. They took quite a while to light and 3 or 4 blows to get them all out with my lack of breath-support. 

It was such a great day! I am so proud of my sweet "Haken-Bacon." He loves to learn and I'm proud to be his mommy. I'm a little scared to send him off to kindergarten in 3 months, but at least I know that he is totally ready for it!

I thought I would also throw in pictures from the first day of preschool and the day of his graduation. I didn't think the boys had changed that much until I looked at these pictures next to each other. I think they are both some of my favorite pictures. They really show just how much these boys love each other 

First day of preschool

Preschool graduation

Penguins, Popsicles, Parks, Pets, and Pudding

The letter of the month is "P"

This last month has been full of lots of "P" fun! Luckily not the wet kind :) Here is an overview of what we have been up to....

Penguins...

Since Shad is a state delegate this year he had the wonderful opportunity to head to Salt Lake for the day to go to the state republican convention and vote on April 20th. He was actually pretty excited about the whole thing (although I could not think of anything I would like to do less.) Since he was making the trip down anyway, we decided to make it a family event and go see my parents in Bountiful. While Shad was at the convention we headed to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy with Grandpa, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Cam, and cousins Taylor and Riley. The boys had a blast. Haken has been really into sea creatures lately so he especially liked it. I think his favorites were the penguins and the sting rays that you could touch. We have been there before, but I don't think he remembers it since it has been about 2 years. This was Jack's first time. He spent most of the time in the stroller since he is such a wanderer lately. 

Afterwards we went to a nearby park and had a picnic. The weather was perfect and Haken always loves the time he can spend with his buddy Taylor.

Trying to find just the right time to touch the sting ray

These little boys looked more like twins than cousins
with their somewhat matchy shirts

Grandpa giving Haken a better look through the glass

Loving the penguin exhibit

Haken is as big as an Emperor penguin, like on "Happy Feet"!

Can't remember the name of the penguin,
but Jack was just the right size.

Popsicles...

After the aquarium we headed back to Grandma's house for a nap and then a BBQ. I think Jack is going to have a love affair with popsicles this summer. I think he ate 2 whole ones on Grandma's lap after dinner.

Parks...


With the weather starting to stabilize for the summer (or so we thought) we decided to walk to the library and hit the park afterwards. It was nice when we left but once we got there a freak hail storm came in and made us really glad the library was right there so we could take shelter. We waited it out for a half hour and picked out some books. It stopped hailing, but the walk home was pretty freezing. I guess you never know what to expect in April when you live in Utah. Since then we have had a few more successful trips to the park where it hasn't snowed on us and we have actually gotten sunburned. Hopefully it stabilizes soon we don't have to bring our jackets!

Pets and MORE popsicles...

With the beginning of May comes the awakening of our pet tortoise, Gus. We inherited him from my brother a few years back and he has become part of the family. He hibernates in our basement from about October to May and then we fatten him back up during the summer. He roams around our yard, sleeps under our porch steps, and eats our fruit and vegetable scraps. He is a pretty low maintenance pet (until he finds an escape route and we have to go searching for him), and Haken has finally decided that he is a pretty cool pet to have. This year was Jack's first time really meeting Gus. I think it went well and he didn't try to pick him up, which is a good thing because he can be pretty heavy. He is the love of the neighborhood and all of the kids come to feed him his favorite food: dandelions.

Pudding...


Jack had his first taste of chocolate pudding for our Family Home Evening treat last week. To say that he liked it would be an understatement. Although, I think more of it ended up all over him than actually in his mouth.

28 Weeks-On to the 3rd Trimester

I have seen this on a few of my friend's blogs and thought it was a great way to keep track of things during the pregnancy. I have forgotten so much about the pregnancies with my boys and wish I remembered more. If nothing else, this is for my own records so I can remember past last week with my pregnancy brain....

How far along? 28 Weeks 

Total weight gain: 19-20 lbs.

Maternity clothes? Mostly maternity, some of my "fat" clothes still fit

Stretch marks? Nope, but the varicose veins on my right calf aren't too cute.

Sleep: Sleeping great, especially with our new king size bed that gives me lots of room.

Best moment this week: Going bowling with my big pregnant belly, boy it gets in the way!
Funny moment this week: Coughing and not being able to control my bladder (one of the worst parts about being pregnant)

Miss Anything? Being able to workout to the extent that I used to

Movement: Usually in the evening when I am just sitting and relaxing. Gets hiccups often.

Food cravings: jelly beans (probably because of Easter)

Anything making you queasy or sick: I made these ham/egg quiches that sounded so good at the time. I froze a bunch and ate one for breakfast last Sunday. I was burping up green onions the whole day. They don't sound good at ALL anymore.

Gender: GIRL!

Labor Signs: No

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody: Happy this week....moody last week, at least for a day (I think we all deserve one of those once in a while though.)

Looking forward to: Being able to do Insanity again...for real

Here are the pictures for the week. I'm looking forward to my new camera coming this week. We just can't figure out the settings on our other camera and I'm tired of packing the huge thing around. Hopefully I don't always look that red faced for real! Doctor says I am measuring just a centimeter smaller than average but he is not concerned because I have a smaller build.

20 Weeks

28 Weeks

Easter Outfits

Jack's face makes me laugh in this picture.

 In all the craziness being on vacation for Easter I forgot to get pictures of the boys in their Easter outfits. They wore these on Easter Sunday while we were in Arizona (minus the vest, because it was 85 degrees) and then they also wore them the following Sunday in our ward. I made their ties (my first try). I think I will need to keep perfecting that art but I'm sure I will be making many more of those. I can't resist dressing them alike when I can because I love the big brother/little brother combo. I just think it is so cute! Shad just rolls his eyes, but I'm glad he lets me do it occasionally.

Jack was being quite the little sinker pretty much all day last Sunday so we are lucky we got even one relatively good shot before church. Some of them really crack me up!

"Yeah"

In the past month or so Jack has become a pretty agreeable baby. Whenever we ask a question (whether it is pointed at him or not) he answers "yeah." I was trying to figure out where he got it, and then Shad pointed out that I say "yeah" ALL of the time. He did go through a phase for a day or 2 last week where he said "na ah" to everything but then he went back to "yeah." I have been wanting to get it on video for a while and today he was being especially agreeable at lunch so here ya go:

Jack also has a serious fetish with shoes. Today his footwear of choice was Haken's dragon slippers. They look like duck feet when he walks. We love our silly Jack-Jack.

Another Anderson Vacation

An Anderson family vacation wouldn't be complete if something crazy didn't happen to us. We have been through just about everything while on vacation: ER visits, loosing everything valuable that we brought, and now car issues. I'm surprised we keep wanting to go places, honestly. I think the desire to see family must be greater than our desire to stay out of trouble.

In the end our "quick stop" in Mesquite, NV for one night on our way to Phoenix turned into 2 nights and 1 & 1/2 days due to some major issues with the brakes on our car (which I won't even go into right now) and the fact that parts had to be brought in from Las Vegas. Who knew that Mesquite is a pit with very little resources? Although, being stuck in the middle of a reservation in the desert would have been much worse. We just had to keep thinking that we could have died going through the canyon without brakes, so really it wasn't so bad being stranded for a while. The biggest downer was that we only had 2 days instead of 3 to spend with our family in Arizona that we were actually going to see. 

Although it wasn't ideal, I don't think the kids even knew the difference. Haken was happy as a clam with his cousin Sydney who drove down with us. We drove Shad's brother Brent and his 2 girls down with us, packing our van to the max. We made the most of our stay (or as much as we could around Mesquite without a car) playing at the pool, hanging out in the hotel room, finding a yummy place to have dinner, and doing a LOT of walking (probably close to 10 miles I would say).

Here are a few highlights of our trip. I really wasn't great at taking pictures during this trip but here are a few:

We had to get a picture by this rock because we thought it was funny that it says "...your future is here" right in front of an abandoned hotel/casino. I guess the economy has really hit Mesquite hard.

Swimming at the hotel pool...while it was snowing in Utah

Hanging out in our room. Jack's binki became his best friend on the trip.
We did a LOT of driving and he really was a trooper.

Riding in the stroller with cousin Eve to
the ward pancake breakfast and egg hunt.

Riding bikes with cousin Eli

My brother and sister in law 's family who we came down here to see.
Shad did a mini photo shoot at the Mesa temple for them before the pageant that night.
Aren't they the cutest little family? Baby Lily is only about 3 weeks old. It was fun to hold
a tiny baby again and be reminded of how not ready I am for mine to come.

Waiting for the Mesa temple pageant to start. That was a late night.

Haken with his cousins Eli and Abi. He sure loves his cousins!

We made the most of our time in Arizona. We did some golfing, shopping, watched the temple pageant, had a baby blessing for Lily, ate yummy food, and had an Easter egg hunt (with very melty chocolate). It was nice to see family we hadn't seen in a long time. Looking back I think all the events that happened were still worth the two days that we got to spend with them. Even the 12 hour marathon drive home wasn't so bad. Hopefully next time our vacation won't turn into such an event!

Shad's latest indeavour

Over Conference weekend Shad painted a new painting he is pretty excited about. He also started a new blog to document the project he is working on. Here is the painting he worked on this weekend:

Here is a link to his new blog that tells the story behind it: http://shadanderson.wordpress.com