Valentines Day and a voice only a mother could love :)

We have a Valentine's Day tradition in the Andersen home that was started probably 6 years ago. For Valentine's Day we order chinese food, eat it out of the boxes, and Chris gets a new "chick flick" to add to our collection. He's always done a great job and it takes all the commercialism and pressure out of a pretty much meaningless holiday. This year was the first year that we've included Cadence in the tradition - she usually goes to bed before we get started. Chris' movie choice was The Princess Bride on blu-ray. We lost our DVD copy and so this was a great choice in my opinion! Cadence was so excited because we got out the sleeping bags AND we got to eat in the living room. As you can see, she was very excited and VERY into the movie :)

This next video has nothing to do with Valentine's Day but was so funny to me that I figured you could get a laugh out of it too. I had set Cadence up to watch a movie - Annie - on my laptop because had 2 early appointments on Tuesday (speech therapist and guardian ad lidem). So, she was watching Annie with headphones on. When it got to the part of the movie where Annie and Daddy Warbucks sing "Tomorrow" with FDR and his wife, she had several little people watching the movie with her and she was singing along with "tomorrow" By the time I found the camera the song was mostly over but I did catch a little bit of it to share.

*when she says "i'm annie" she's talking to her little people lined up on the computer :)

Click HERE to watch

Tis the Season!

Our mail lady has been warned and reminded that a holiday is coming by the packages that have showed up lately. Cadence LOVES a holiday - mostly because there are packages and we all know that there are few things in life better than a package on the doorstep :)

This package came from Mimi and PopPop a couple of weeks ago. Cadence has really enjoyed eating most of her meals on her Valentines plate and it has certainly kept her well lip-glossed to have her own Barbie lip gloss!

This one came this week from Aunt Connie. The candy is always a big hit and we've had to work hard to pace her on the candy eating this weekend!

We made a video of her opening the package from Yellow GiGi. It's kind of long but actually funny in places. You gotta love having a 3 year old who believes what you say ;) to watch it click HERE

and lastly, Shaun's stuff from the package from Yellow Gigi. We saved it because he was napping when we opened the package. I think he liked his stuff too!

Giving a Day (or 2)

This year Disney is doing a plan where you give a day of service to certain organizations and you get tickets for a day at a park. So, we Andersens, always looking for the most cost-effective way to visit the happiest place on earth, decided to get involved. Thru the Disney website we contacted the Mount Airy Habitat for Humanity who had projects we could do with young children in our home. There was a whole list of things we could build benches, key holders, bird houses, etc. We decided to make a tool box that will be used on worksites where homes are built. Here are the pics of us building and painting our tool box. :)

We all helped out - but Daddy did most of the hard work

The finished product

Cadence got to paint the toolbox a couple of days later. She did a pretty good job considering we had to paint inside due to yet another "winter storm"

The Newest Andersen

Yup, There it is! The newest Andersen all 2 centimeters of it. I'm 8 wks 5 days and due September 10th. We're all very excited in the Andersen house - except for Cadence who isn't really impressed with our blob. She'll get there ..............:)

SNOW!

Thanks to a "winter storm" that blew thru, we've had 2 days on uninterrupted family time! It's really been great and we've enjoyed it alot. We've played games, watched movies, and even spent some time outside in the snow - not much but enough for pictures ;) So, here they are

Cadence pouting about the amount of clothes she had to have on to even go outside

all dressed and ready to go!

Shaun is definitely the smart one who stayed all wrapped up in his bed - isn't he so sweet?

We did eventually drag him out for some snow pictures - he wasn't impressed at all.

Day 2 of our storm and the snow that was too powdery to throw yesterday is now so hard you can walk on top of it. So, today it is Cadence's beach and she's having a much better time playing in it with her beach toys.

A Silly Girl and a new video

The other night as Cadence finished her bath she said that she wanted to put her own lotion on. I thought it was a great idea because I was dealing with Shaun as well and needed a few minutes for her to occupy herself. When I came back into the bathroom, this is what she had done....

Obviously, I just laughed and went after the camera. Next time I'll know better because do you have any idea of how long it takes to rub that much lotion into someone?!?

Cadence has been spending lots of time outside on her bike lately - as the weather allows. She's getting pretty good at it and can even go all the way around our block without anyone holding onto her! here's a video of her and her mad biking skills CLICK

Where have we been??

So, this blog has been neglected for quite a while so this post is kind of random and catches everything up (sort of)

Liz and Shan came to see us on their whirlwind tour of the eastern part of the US. We were so glad they came and Cadence still talks about playing hide-n-seek with Uncle Shannon - and Shan, she's now hiding in different places when we play so thanks for that :)

Shaun can sit up in his little seat now and even plays with a toy while he sits there. He's way more into toys these days which is pretty fun. And Cadence is still into candy (alot) but at least today she sorted it by color before she ate it.

We've had 2 warm days since we got home from Christmas. Friday we had friends over and played outside all day long. Today was warm again so Chris cleaned up all the dog poo from the back yard and we got to swing! Even Shaun enjoyed it.

Oh yeah, and our other news - Chris and I passed a pregnancy test for the first time in our lives.It was a faint plus but definitely a plus (or as Cadence said "the cross like Jesus was on") It's been a week since we found out and we're getting more excited all the time. We started out in pure shock but have moved to more thankfulness and excitement as we put life into perspective. It's pretty amazing to have the letter from Dr. Verrill that said it would be a "medical impossibility" for us to conceive together. We sure showed him and are expecting a new Andersen sometime in August or September!