A cute video...

I took this the other morning when Anderson was playing with one of his favorite birthday gifts, The Little People Circus (Thanks Giulianna). He loves the circus song it makes and often tries to hum it or asks me to. If you hang in until the end he talks all about his party. It's really cute!

The Big 2nd Birthday Bash!

We are finally back in the land of the living technology wise, but one casualty was my photo editing software. I was wanting to wait to make this post until I could crop and fool around with some of these pictures, but if I don't post these soon I have a sister in Tampa that is going to kill me! ...And yes that is a LIVE turtle in the picture above. My Aunt DeLane who has to be the ultimate boy mom gave Anderson his very first reptile! "Tuck" the turtle was and is a huge hit. We have to see him at least 10 times a day!! I knew her well enough to know the gift would be alive...I guess I'm just glad it isn't a spider or a snake!

We decided to hold Anderson's party at a local church. Being very pregnant and cleaning my house both before and after a party with tons of kids running around did not sound fun to me! Friday night we loaded up tons of Anderson's toys including his bouncy inflatable house (our gift to him) and headed over to the gym to set up all of the tables, decorations and toys.

Anderson's treat bags were filled with bug embedded bouncie balls, plastic insects, a mini-magnifying glass, "Bug Bites" keebler graham crackers and bug stickers

We went with a "bug" theme since Anderson LOVES bugs. He is all boy! We had bug decorations and a cake for the adults that matched his invitation. However, for the kids I made individual dirt cakes complete with gummy worms in them. It's really just pudding, cool whip and crushed oreos, but the kids enjoyed eating their "dirt".

We also had Ms. Erin come in to entertain the kids with a mini music class. She sang bug related songs like itsy- bitsy spider and allowed the kids to play some of the instruments. She also brought out the bubbles...a big hit!

Some of our guests...family and friends:

My Grandmother, step-mother, Dad and Granddad

My step-dad and Mom

Jeff's mom Judy with DeLane, Miss Susie and my mom

Tracie Manderson, Beth Mann and Mckenna

My cousin Quinn with her girls Avery and Elliott

Super Dads: David Rains, Jeff and Rusty Parker

David and Hartley Richardson with their cool daddy visors!

Lily Parker

Vivian Lang

Jackson Manderson

Me and my sister Marcie

Madeline Thetford

Happy 2nd Birthday Anderson!

Two years ago today our lives were forever changed by the arrival of our sweet baby boy! Anderson turned two today, and we spent our day exactly as we wanted. Daddy went to get Anderson's favorite breakfast, McDonald's Cinnamon twists. We played with some of the toys that he got at his party yesterday and then we headed to church. He told everyone all about how he was two and ate "the cakes" and "blowed out the candwels". We ate lunch and took a family nap which was so nice after all of the chaos yesterday! After we woke up we played some more. It was a quiet day at home with just our little family.

Anderson's party was yesterday morning and he had a great time. I want to post more about that when I can upload all of the pictures, and since we are still having computer issues that won't be tonight, but I did want to at least post one picture and tell everyone that our baby is now 2. We are so incredibly blessed by each second we spend with Anderson. He has taught us so much, and we can't wait to watch him grow even more!

For more on Anderson's birth story click HERE and HERE.

San Destin 2008

We have finally returned and gotten caught up on laundry and unpacking long enough for me to post this! We headed down to the beach on Thursday morning for our annual stay at SanDestin resort. Jeff has a conference there every June and has been asked to speak at ones in the past which have led to some great fall beach trips! We LOVE this resort because it is so family oriented. We stayed in a two bedroom condo right above the amphitheater. The first night they played "Shrek 3" on the lawn and we could watch it from our balcony. The other nights they had a band that allowed all of the millions of kids running around to play instruments on stage. It was so cute! It really is the perfect place for families!

We prefer to stay on the bay side near the shops and restaurants because at this age Anderson really doesn't just love whole days spent at the beach. He would much rather be in the pool. We can get to the beach by tram anytime we want, but we only went once for about an hour. He is very particular about "make a mess" as he says and the sand was not his favorite thing as it kept sticking to his hands and feet!

My mom joined us down there for the trip, and that was so nice. We tried to eat out the first night before mom got there and it was a disaster! Anderson has zero interest in being contained in a high chair these days. We decided to do everybody a favor and order our food to go. Once mom got there she stayed with Anderson so we could have a couple of peaceful meals and we even got to shop at the outlets one afternoon. Anderson loved having his GiGi at the beach. For a solid week before we left he would say "make sandcastles at da beach wit GiGi".

I did try to get Anderson on the beach for some pics and they are OK, but not as good as I would like. I hope to get some better ones when we go in September. By then Lydia will be here and our family will be complete. I can't wait to get some pictures of them together!

******Oh and just a tip for you mommas that are beach bound this summer from the Tuscaloosa/ Birmingham area. We stopped in Pratville at the Bass Pro Shop. I am not kidding when I say I have never seen my two boys more happy. It's like Disney World for the outdoors man. They had a huge waterfall and fish tank and stuffed bears, wolves, dear, and pretty much any other animal you can imagine! Anderson talked about "see da Bears and da Fishees" so much that we decided to stop there on the way back as well. It was a nice break in a very long car ride!

My Twin... David Barton

So we have some friends David and Lisa who had an adorable little boy the February before we had Anderson. David and Jeff work together, and Lisa and I were quick friends which eventually led to lots of fun times including shared pregnancies (we are both now preggo with # 2 and due 3 months apart), playdates (for David Barton and Anderson), and at one time football game tickets (for the adults)! We just love David Barton and apparently we love the same clothes! HA! We have shown up twice in the last couple of weeks wearing the EXACT same thing! Too funny! First it was swim trunks to the pool and then it was an outfit for another friend's birthday party. We are going to have to start calling each other I guess... :)

Here are a few pics from the parties we went to this last weekend...Leigh Powell (2) and our cousin Avery Williams (3).

hmmm... I think I'll have another M&M...or maybe the whole bowl!

Happy Birthday Leigh!

Take me out to the Ball Game...

Jeff's firm participated in the Family Night at the Met for the Birmingham Barons last Thursday night. They were able to rent out a sky box right behind home plate for employees and their families as a summer social event. They chartered a bus up there, but since we had swim lessons we opted to drive our own car up after Anderson's afternoon lesson.

He loved every second of it and was ALL boy! He loved looking at the game, but more importantly all of the lights and movies on the scoreboard. He also spent a lot of time running up and down the aisles of the sky box with Jeff or I one chasing him. I swear the boy does not slow down. He has two speeds: asleep and wide open! We were also given playground passes as part of the deal, and he enjoyed that as well. We had a great time, but it was a late night! We got home at 11:00 and Anderson stayed awake the whole time. Bless his heart he slept until 9:15 the next morning! Oh well...it is summertime after all!!