skating!

So, I thought January was all summed up until I dumped Chris' phone pictures onto the computer and then I discovered that we had totally missed out on the kids first trip to the skating rink - and that just can't happen!  This is definitely blog worthy :)

Our church's awesome family pastor thought it would be a good idea to have a family skate night!  So, CCCM rented out one of the area's skating rinks (not as extravagant as it sounds) and we all headed over to show off our mad skating skills. It was such a great night, not only for our church body, but for all the kids as well and so, while there were lots of pictures of lots of our church family, these are the ones of the Andersen 3 skating it up!

Oh the agony of finding the right size skate to fit.....and the pep talk necessary to get her off of the carpet....

Out on the rink with Daddy for the first time!

 Creed walked around most of the night holding his shoe. I think he was hoping a skate would appear on his foot and he didn't want a shoe to be in the way :)

What could be more fun than an arcade game while everyone else is skating?

Doing Great!

 Caleb got to get in on the action too!  So, off he went in his little skates! 

 I know I'm biased but that may be one of the cutest things ever. 

Cadence Flying Solo!!

Creed's thought "forget skates, I'm just going to walk around out here with everyone"

and then we ordered nachos and Creed's thoughts of skating or walking left him completely :)

Such a fun night for our kids!! Thanks for being a great Daddy and Pastor to our children, Chris, it's more than we deserve. 

January - all summed up :)

It seems like we just didn't take many pictures of January. Maybe it was coming down off the holidays, or the fact that we're busy, or just laziness, but either way, here is pretty much all of January :)

How do you not love this face?!?

Caleb loves to dress up. It's rare that he's not in some type of costume, or sporting some accessory (usually boots and a cowboy hat - whether appropriate or not. Here are a couple of his favorite outfits. For the record, he comes to us already dressed, we just have to take the picture!

and this little girl got a new outfit from Yellow GiGi and LOVES it!

My deck came about in January!!!  It's very exciting to me :)  We school on it at least once a week and with the awesome january weather we had, it was usually more often than that!

We went to FL for Uncle Joe's funeral :(  and while there aren't many pictures to capture the insanity of Emily and I with 6 children 5 & under (Cadence, Jane, Caleb, Creed, Cora, and Tristan - 3 week old foster kid) this particular day at the park with GiGi we did get some pictures of.....

Back in NC and playing in the yard on yet another amazing weather day. 

Yup, Creed is both wet and muddy but we let him play anyway because we have a bath tub to clean all that up. 

Chris helping out with the kids.......

do you see the pattern of outside days?!? Probably my favorite January since we moved here.

and just because we'd be incomplete with it, here's a video of Cadence and Caleb having so much fun with the Wii!

click HERE to watch

More FL Fun!

This just might be the last post about 2011!

Along with Christmas celebrations, we also had some other fun :)  

We went to Bayside's Christmas Eve celebration (not on Christmas Eve). It was super fun! Not only was the family there but the Lourceys, Yellow GiGi, The Grahams, and the Allen's came!

After a short sermon and some worship, we were off to the kid fextivities. including face painting, art projects, petting zoo, train ride, and snow mound to sled down!  

Cadence is hard at work :)

She liked the pony

Creed, not so much :(

Caleb also enjoyed the pony!

Everybody getting in on some petting action

Xander and Cadence took some time to make sure they got to speak with the Claus'

and to see Mary and Joseph :)

on the train!

and the main event for the big kids, sledding!  They were bummed that we wouldn't let them do the big hill in the background, but the line was too long and we were afraid they'd get to the top and choke. So , we stuck with the smaller - but still fun - hill. 

We got to spend time with several friends while we were in FL and while there aren't many pictures of it, we had lots of fun. This day we met the Natalie and Josh at the Fun Center. 

On one of our "wauchula" days we went to the library and park with Aunt Lizzie and uncle Shannon (which I have no pictures of because Chris had his phone at the laundry mat washing our clothes while they played). But we do have pictures of lunch with Yellow GiGi!  We were so thankful for the chance to warm up and thaw out while in FL :)