Macie Taylor Anderson

She's here!!! Macie Taylor Anderson joined our family Monday morning, July 5, at 8:18 after the world's shortest labor! After all this waiting, she suddenly decided she was in quite a hurry to get here! She weighed 7 lbs, and measured 19 1/2 inches long. She is healthy, tiny, and beautiful! We are so thrilled to have her here! The boys love her and are pretty proud. We got home from the hospital last night, and are all adjusting quickly. My mom and dad arrived yesterday afternoon and it has been so wonderful to have them here to help and enjoy this beautiful baby with us!

The pictures are all in a pretty random order, but here are a few. I will put more up on facebook soon as well.
Enjoy!

Swimming

Since our great friends' pool opened a few weeks ago, the boys and I have been swimming a TON! When we first started both boys were really scared of the water and just clung to me or Katherine. Parker would beg to go home the whole time we were there. After a few times going, They both got to where they would relax a little and kind of enjoy themselves as long as you were holding them really tight. Last weekend I found a life jacket at a yard sale for a dollar, and after a few times with it, Parker has become a little fish in the water! It's so exciting to see his progress and see him actually liking the water. It's no shock to anyone that knows me that my kids don't naturally take to the water, so I was worried they would always hate it. Now Parker will stay in for hours, never wants to leave, and begs to go back every day. It's been so fun, especially since it's been too hot to enjoy anything else outside these days. Kaeson definitely doesn't swim all around the pool by himself like Parker, but he does have fun now. He plays on the steps on his own, and loves to jump off the edge of the pool to me. He still wants you to hold him pretty tight in the water, but he has loosened his death grip quite a bit since we first started! We are so grateful we have somewhere to go swimming, and it has been great way to kill the time and stay out of Lance's way in the evenings so he can study! We're so glad Katherine is willing to take us to her pool any time!

The pictures I have of them in the water aren't the best because I'm usually in the water too. And we aren't taking pictures of me in a swimsuit right now! But here are a few.

Kaeson just playing on the steps.

Parker just swimming all over the pool. You had to see where he started to truly appreciate what a great feat this is!

The boys playing and being sharks in the water.

Sorry I forgot to turn this picture. I just love this picture of Kaeson posing and cheesing it up!

Camping with Daddy

Last weekend, Lance decided to take a little break from studying for the evening and camp out in the backyard with the boys. Parker was so excited and talked about it all day waiting for Lance to get home from school. We are so thankful for Lance and all his hard work in school! And they are so lucky to have such a great dad that takes time when he can to spend with the boys doing such fun stuff. We can't wait until he is done with boards at the end of the month and we can have him back for more than just one evening a month! But it will all be worth it! They got to stay up late, watch a movie in the tent, and run around the yard all night trying to catch the fireflies. The boys had a blast, and wanted to camp out again the next night. It was way hot all night, and I don't think they will be doing it again until the weather cools off a little!


The boys' attempts at smiling for the camera! Thanks for trying boys!

Hanging out with dad.

Parker couldn't get enough of trying to catch the fireflies! They were way thick that night, and he thought it was so cool. Fireflies are the coolest things by the way. I love them!

Thanks daddy for being so great!

Showered With Love

This past week, my wonderful friends here threw me the most amazing baby shower! They did an awesome job with it, and it all turned out great! Thanks so much girls! I know it is a really crazy, busy time of year, so I was so grateful to all those who were able to make it! I was so spoiled and I was showered with lots of adorable gifts for the baby! Now I'm really anxious for her to get here, so I can use everything!


The super cute party favors they made.

The yummy food! Look at how pretty it all looks!

The delicious punch

Some of the girls doing the pop quiz about me. Congrats to Laura who apparently knows me amazingly well!

Opening my first gifts. My friend Katherine made me these incredibly cute dresses. Don't you just love them?! There is another one I hadn't opened yet in this picture, and she is working on two more! I'm so spoiled! She is very talented! I think they are the cutest things ever!

Thanks so much for all your hard work girls! And thanks to all those who made it to the shower!

Derby Party

As you can imagine, around here, the Kentucky Derby is kind of a big deal! Some friends in our ward through an awesome derby party full food, fun, friends, and kids running everywhere! We had a blast. They had a derby hat contest, and everyone bet on the race. I of course didn't pick the winners so well, but it was lots of fun anyway. I have decided we should always have a big Derby celebration! I don't know why, but I love Derby. Maybe someday we will actually make it to the races, but for now, we will just enjoy watching it on TV!
Our little family waiting for the race.
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Sarah showing off her prize for best Derby hat.

Natalie won the betting on the race.

I love Derby hats! So Katherine and I went on a hunt for cute derby hats the day before, but we didn't realize how expensive Derby hats are around here, so we opted for these 3 dollar hats and dollar store flowers and made them ourselves. Not the best imitation, but the price was right! Katherine's turned out lots cuter because she spray painted hers!

Thunder

This last Saturday was Louisville's Annual Thunder Over Louisville, that is the official kick-off to Derby Festival. It is a HUGE fireworks show that is incredible! This year they predict there were about 700,000 people who headed down to the Waterfront to take part in the marvelous event. There is also an air show during the afternoon and evening to help keep the crowd entertained all day. This year, we left the house at about 9 am to start our day of Thunder. We spent the ENTIRE day down there braving the crowd! IT was a lot of fun hanging out with friends and enjoying the beautiful weather. The kids did great, but it was a long day for them, and they were exhausted by the time it was all said and done!
These pictures are in a pretty random order, so sorry!

About fifteen minutes before the fireworks started, both the boys just couldn't keep their eyes open any longer! Kaeson miraculously slept through the entire fireworks show, but Parker did wake back up and watch. At that point, he was so tired, though that he really didn't enjoy it that much!

Our little family!

We put these ear muffs on Kaeson to help with the noise of the air show, since the F-16's are insanely loud and they scare all the kids! I was surprised at how much Kaeson loved them! Even when it wasn't loud, he kept putting them back on and he thought he was pretty cool in them!

We had a big load of stuff we brought with us, but you have to walk a ways so Parker just rode on top of everything. He thought it was great. (Until he fell off coming out that night)

Heather, Chelsea, Laura, Me, Janelle, and Katie hanging out earlier that day.

At about 3 o'clock, Kaeson finally gave in to his exhaustion and took a short nap through all the crazy noise of the air show. It didn't last long, but it seemed to be enough to get him through the day.

My cute little Parker! I was so proud of him, he was so good all day!

Kaeson cheesin' it up with the ear muffs.

We took a group shot, but unfortunately a few families had already gone home before we thought of it. So this is most of us who spent the day together. Not bad company!

Our Easter Weekend

We had a fun filled and exciting Easter weekend. We decided to take advantage of our beautiful spring weather and take the kids camping up at Taylorsville Lake. Other than a little rain Saturday morning, the weather was absolutely perfect and we had a great time. The kids had a blast. Parker talks about it everyday and asks when we can go camping again. They spent hours throwing rocks in the lake, playing at the playground, digging in the dirt, and playing in the tent. We came home Saturday, hunted Easter eggs, and had a delicious dutch oven dinner with friends. We dyed Easter eggs for family home evening on Monday night, and that too was a big hit. The boys both loved it. Kaeson threw his hands up in the air and cheered for himself after every egg he dyed or put a sticker on, then told his dad to throw it across the table. Happy Easter everyone!