Our New Family!

Enjoying the nice December weather in our backyard

4 days old!

Ella Joy is Here!

We welcomed another beautiful little girl into the world on Saturday, December 8th at 10:13 a.m. Ella Joy Anderson was 7 lbs, 11 oz. and 20 inches long. Our home birth was a wonderful experience with no complications. Grace seems to be adjusting just fine and shows her love by waving at Ella and tapping her on the head.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We spent the 80 degree day doing a little bit of cleaning (Grace loves Swiffering our floors), playing outside in our beautiful backyard, and celebrating with our friends John and Amy. It was a nice relaxing day for us as a family, and for that we were very thankful!

Happy Halloween, From Our Little Monkey!

Visit to Connecticut

Grace and I traveled to CT this past weekend for my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary-what an amazing legacy! We had a wonderful time visiting with family, especially Aunt Rhonda and twin cousins, Maddox and Jacobi, who traveled all the way from CA! Playing soccer and football outside with the boys and apple picking with Nana and Papa were also highlights of our trip.

Labor Day Camping Trip

Grace and I tagged along with the boys to Hanging Rock State Park for a fun weekend of camping, hiking, and rock climbing. Here's a picture of our family from the top of one of the ridges. If you look close you can kind of see Jr. #2!

Beach Trip

We spent the first week in August in Emerald Isle, NC with the Coombs side of our family. With Ryan, Rhonda, and the twins living in Montana it's rare that we are all together at the same time. We had a great week together and spent most of our time at the beach and being entertained by three beautiful little girls! It was also Grace's first birthday while we were there (I'll post some of those pictures later). Here are some shots from our family photo shoot on the beach.

All Dressed Up

Nate and I went to our friend's Brandon and Julie's wedding a few weeks ago. We never get dressed up anymore so it was nice to see my husband out of his painting clothes and in a shirt and tie!

Sailing Adventure

Yesterday our family took a little adventure out to an island in the Outer Banks to retrieve our tent Nate had accidentally left there the day before. Being Monday, Nate couldn't find anyone to go back out there with him, so Grace and I (being the troopers that we are) agreed to drive back down to the coast with him. This was the first time we had brought Grace out on the catamaran with us, so I was definitely a little nervous, but everything turned out ok. It was a beautiful day, the wind was whipping (which meant we were going a little too fast for comfort), we saw some of the wild horses on the island, had a nice picnic lunch out there, and returned with the tent. Mission accomplished!

PB&J

Here's a cute picture of Grace from the other day...her first pb&j sandwich! I think she enjoyed it a little too much!

Disclaimer

So I know it's a little weird that the last time we posted to this site was almost a year ago. I'm not going to try to come up with a legitimate excuse of why that's the case, nor am I going to say I'll start posting on a more regular basis. It'd be impossible for me to try and fill in the gaps over the last 11 months, but here are the highlights: Anderson Painting and Power Washing is now in full swing and Nate is always busy with work, I'm in graduate school trying to obtain my master's in Reading Education, Grace now has three cousins: Maddox & Jacobi Coombs and Aubrey Anderson, we are expecting a new little one in December!, we just purchased another duplex down the street and will be closing July 25th, and our beautiful little girl will be 1 on Aug. 10th! Whew! Time seems to fly.....especially when you haven't updated your blog in a year!