One Year Ago...

These are just some super cute pictures we had taken one year ago, crazy that Noah used to be that little!! :)

 Look at Noah's fingers in this one! How did he do that?!

He is SO handsome!!

Anniversary

Today is our 7 year anniversary! I can't believe we've already been married for seven years, it has gone by so fast. Ben told me that he is grateful he gets me for eternity because just this lifetime is clearly not going to be enough for him. :) We are going to celebrate this evening by going out to dinner and then to a play with our season tickets to Hale Center Theatre, we will be seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which I think will be awesome. 

I am so madly in love with my man still, and he is with me even though I can't figure out why! Our love story hasn't always been perfect, but we fix whatever sometimes breaks because our love story has always been worth it. I am so grateful for a husband who has infinite patience, who is a hard worker, who is loyal and loving, who is passionate and romantic, who is an outstanding father, and who is my absolute best friend. We still stay up way too late most nights just talking to each other. 

Happy anniversary, Ben!! I love you with all of my heart, always will, and I am so grateful you asked me to be yours forever! I will be eternally grateful that I said yes! Love you!!!

Random Updates...

I really don't know where to start on updates, since I haven't blogged for a long time, so I am just going to do a bunch of bullet point updates of whatever comes to my mind! :) So, enjoy!

• Noah is absolutely in love with a new playset that I bought for our backyard. I found a Little Tikes plastic playground for him on KSL and it was less than half the price of buying new so it was a great deal! It has holes to climb in and out of, a little ladder to climb up, a platform to play on, and a slide which is his favorite part. I hope it warms up soon and stays warm so we can keep playing outside and enjoying the yard and sunshine!

• Ben is SO close to being done with school! Next month is graduation and I can't wait for it to be done! I am "making" Ben walk in the ceremony, he doesn't want to but I think it's important to celebrate that achievement, especially with all of the sacrifice and and effort it has taken on his part. Right now, his schedule gets him home at 10:00 or later Monday-Thursday every week, and he is gone most of the day on Saturdays as well. Poor Noah misses Ben like crazy during the week and clings to him like crazy when he's home. Ben is looking forward to more family time in May! He is absolutely amazing to have done all this schooling on top of working full time on top of being an amazing husband and father. 

• We found out in January that we are going to be having another little boy join our family! We have decided to name him Joshua Ron Anderson. Ron is Ben's father, which I think is neat. We are so excited to have two little boys in our family, I am officially and thoroughly out-numbered now! I do like referring to Noah and Josh as "my sons" or "my boys", and sometimes I refer to Noah, Josh, AND Ben as "my boys" and I love that. Joshua is still scheduled to arrive around June 9th, so we are getting there!

• I am finally feeling better with this pregnancy, most days that is. With Noah, I was totally done being sick by 18 weeks, and I am almost 27 weeks now with Josh and I still throw up and get nauseated really easily. Gr! I can't remember the last time I ate anything with meat since that is a major trigger for me. Hopefully I'm not this sick the whole time, I am ready to eat normally again. This time around, the biggest obstacle has actually been the pain I have been experiencing. Joshua is sitting REALLY low and really far back, so my pelvic area (super personal, sorry), lower back, and lower abdomen are very painful feeling. Some days it hardly bothers me, but most days even walking is excruciating. Getting in and out of the car and going up and down stairs is getting harder and harder, I don't know how I am going to function by the end! Good thing Ben will be around more by then! I have been enjoying feeling a baby move around inside me again, I love feeling the kicks and squirming. That is definitely my favorite part of being pregnant! Josh is pretty strong, I think Ben has been able to feel him earlier than he could feel Noah. Good thing he is so active, he will have to be to keep up with his big brother!

• Ben and I still teach the Sunbeams together, and we have a lot of fun! We have a cute group of kids and we really like serving together. It's much easier to teach and focus on class with Noah in nursery now. We actually put Noah in nursery a month early, he started attending in early January instead of February. He LOVES it, even if he does keep the teachers on their toes! Every week when I go to pick him up I get comments about how he never sits still and how he is always on the go. Even the lady who has 2 year old twins looks a little shocked by how active he is! :) He likes the other kids, and he likes the treats and bubbles too. He went to nursery on his first day without a look back and he continues to go with no problems from week to week. Such a secure, happy little boy!

• Noah continues to be an excellent sleeper, he sleeps 12 hours at night and has one 2 hour nap during the day. I am so grateful for a good sleeper, hopefully Joshua will be the same way, I plan to use the same sleep training system on him that I used on Noah because it made such a difference. Noah is also very verbal still, he has about 75 words that he uses right now, and he can identify things in his picture books including colors. He is obsessed with cows and that fact that they say moo right now, and he still loves puppies too.

• Ben's sister will be getting home either late next month or early May and I can't wait for her to get to meet Noah! He was only like 3 months old when she left, so he has obviously changed a lot! I am glad she will be home for Joshua to be born too, it will be fun to have her back for that! 

• I am officially done working from home, now I am "just" a mom, and I LOVE it! Sitting at the computer for too long for work made the pain I've been experiencing so incredibly much worse, and it's a relief to have that over with. I do with the job itself in some ways, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it, but I am also glad to be a mommy with nothing else to split my focus. I am especially glad that I will be able to be a full time mommy when I have two kids in the house!

So, there's the general update, basically we are busy but happy, waiting anxiously for warm weather, and loving life! :) 

Dinosaur Museum

On President's Day, Ben had a rare day off of both work AND school, so we took advantage of it by taking  Noah to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. It's nice to live so close to something so fun! This museum is very interactive and kid-friendly, lots of places to play and things to touch. We got there right as it opened and our first time through the museum was interesting, Noah didn't really stop to look at much! He was more interested in running into every nook and cranny he could find. He's such an explorer, more interested in freedom of mobility than anything else! After a little while, we reigned him in a little bit and started to actually show him some of the exhibits and things to play in. We went through the whole museum four times (it's a pretty big place!) and we also had lunch in the cafe there. Noah was exhausted by the time we got back home for his nap, he slept extra long and extra deep! :) It was a fun family day, and it makes us look forward to Ben being done with school next month so we can enjoy more family time!

 

 This was a strings instrument in the Evolution of Sound exhibit that is just before the actual dinosaur museum. Noah liked plucking the strings to make sounds.

 Exploring on his own

 I tried really hard to get him to look at the camera for a mommy/son picture, but he was too excited to run around and be in a new place. :)

 Just wants to get down so he can run!

 There was a spot in the museum that had big magnets shaped like dinosaur bones that you could build into skeletons, and Noah had a blast pulling them off and putting them back on!

 Another section of the museum has wooden dinosaurs that you can put into the correct spots, like a big puzzle. Noah didn't care so much about matching them up as he did about building a pile of them on daddy's lap!

 When he really concentrates on something, the tongue comes out!

 The wet sand area of the museum, Noah touched it once, and that was it. He didn't like his hands being dirty!

 

 The excavation sand pit was Noah's hands down favorite thing of the day. There were shovels and brushes to "excavate" the dinosaur bones, although Noah mostly liked to just play in the sand! We spent a lot of time here!

 He really liked to hand off big handfuls of sand to Ben, he did that over and over!

 There were lots of kids there, and Noah made a friend!

 Sharing daddy's water at lunch...

 After we got done eating, Noah kept pulling Ben's arm down to use as a pillow! He would lay on it with his thumb in his mouth and almost fell asleep a couple of times!

I'd say it was a successful day! Noah and I went back a few days later with my sister in law Ashli and Noah's little cousin Dylan, and Noah had a great time again! As soon as it warms up, we are going to see the  farm part of Thanksgiving Point, it has all kinds of animals you can pet (sheep, bunnies, cows) and there are chickens to feed and a bunch of other stuff. Noah LOVES cows, for some reason, and I think he will be ecstatic to see one up close and personal, so stay tuned for farm pictures coming soon, if the weather will cooperate!

Snow Day!!

Earlier this year, I think it was mid-February, there was actually a semi-warm day outside, so I bundled Noah up and we took off to the backyard! Noah has always loved being outside, getting the mail is an exciting event for him, and he loved being able to run around the yard on his own and play! I can tell that this yard is going to be a life saver this summer! 

 I love this picture of Noah's blue eyes, this was toward the end of our play time (it started getting colder and colder) and this was about the only picture I could get of his face, he wouldn't hold still long enough for pictures!

 Experimenting with the snow...

 And eating the snow...

 Noah refused to walk on the snow at first, no matter where I set him in the yard, he would go right to the edge of the snow/grass line and plop down. 

 I did finally get him to walk on the snow, our footprints are slightly different sizes...

 Love the baby tracks! :)

 This reminds me of a Family Circus comic...

 Peek-a-boo in the snow!

I am so excited for spring to come so we can play outside more and more, Noah cries every time I bring him in from playing outside, so I am glad that we have such a big backyard and that we are just around the corner from a big park!