August Phone Dump

August 17 marks 40 years that my parents have been married! For their anniversary my Dad wanted to surprise mom with a picture of all their kids and grandkids. This is a little tricky to do when we live in 3 separate states and 2 continents so we did the next best thing and decided to photoshop a picture of all of us together :)  Chris took a mental break in the middle of his photoshop fun and put us in lots of different places. I think they're worth sharing......

and the basic final product. Mom and Dad were pretty happy with it so that's all that matters!

August means cramming in as many pool days as we can before the weather cools off too much!

I love how Creed's brain works. He is definitely an independent thinker! In the top picture he has built a campfire and is roasting marshmallows over the fire. And the bottom pic was taken the day after Christopher fell off the swing set and was knocked unconscious. Creed was really worried that he would fall somewhere and have to go to the hospital too so he chose to wear a helmet all day long :)

Charis and Christopher started Preschool at First Presbyterian Church. Christopher in the 2 year old class and Charis in the 3's. Charis LOVES preschool. Christopher, not so much...

We took a day and went to the Big Discovery Place in downtown Charlotte. The kids got to pet a snake and Cadence got to be a part of a science experiment so overall it was a really fun day!

and this is what the first day of Homeschooling looks like for the Andersens! 

The littles doing videos for K4 and Cadence just doing bookwork for 3rd Grade. 

We took our yearly youth group afternoon to have Day at the Lake where a family is gracious enough to provide a fun evening on the lake with boats, jet skis, and this year it included kayaks and paddle boards which were also super fun for our kids!

So, that's August in a nutshell....Come on September!

August Birthdays

These 2 do such a great job every year of sharing a birthday. It's really a blessing and a curse to have a birthday buddy. The blessing being that there's always someone as excited as you are about your birthday and the curse being that you always have to share your birthday :) but Cadence and Caleb are pros at it and do it so well! 

a 5 and 8 year old...what in the world??

Our family celebration was pretty low-key and outside in our back yard 

 I love the difference in boys and girls. 

Cadence loves all things dress up and princess and Caleb loves Angry Birds

Cadence was so excited about her purple piggy bank from Grammie...

evidently she asked specifically for one!

Caleb also got a big boy bike from Mom and Dad

To celebrate Caleb we went bowling with some of his friends. 

He wanted a Star Wars Angry Bird cake so we pulled off one of the easiest cakes ever :)

Cadence, on the other hand, wanted a dress up tea party. And so we obliged in that arena too!

We are so grateful for our August 3rd babies. They're the ones who make us parents first. 

The oldest brother and sister who have to constantly set the example for all the younger ones. And they do it so well! We are proud of the people they are becoming 

and can't wait to see what year 5 and year 8 hold for them! 

July Phone Dump

If you were around the Andersen Casa in July, here are some of the things you might have experienced....

Spiderman on a Spiderman Bike

 Caleb petting the fake dog at the nursing home on Sundays

 Christopher stuck by his shirt on the rock climbing wall

 Charis making silly faces

 Cadence taking a selfie

 a new park we discovered in downtown Charlotte that is LOTS of fun!

and for 1 week in July, Chris and I took a pile of teenagers to youth camp. We did all kinds of awesome, kingdom-building stuff and also took selfies in front of a waterfall in downtown Greenville, SC

More Florida Fun!

Family Time is the Best Time!!  

 and when we're in Florida, we will our family tank up till it overflows. Here's the yearly pic with all the cousins who were there in their semi-matching outfits from Grammie :)

the beach is the BEST place for a shrimp boil...just saying..

We pulled our camper down for this week and stayed in it right beside Green GiGi and Poppas camper. It was so much fun to kind of be "roughing it" but really to just have a great time with all our family. 

there's nothing like seeing the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico!

camper fun on a too hot day definitely includes play doh

One night Chris and i got to go out while the kids stayed with the grandparents. We chose to go play putt putt and in true Florida fashion, it rained :) but also in true Florida fashion, it went away pretty quickly and we kept playing!  and in Florida, there are live alligators along the putt putt courses 

We really love our time in Florida and are so glad that it always works out to be able to go down and spend time with our family. Hopefully it will work that way for years and years to come :)