Happy Happy 11 Months To My Angel Baby!

Evergrace is less than a month from her first birthday! I am, yes, even with this being my third, shocked at how fast the first year flies by! Evergrace babbles a ton. When I tell her no she yells at me then presses her tiny lips together! Sister sassy! She can hold her own with her two older siblings. I could just sit and watch the three of them play all day. Not that they would ever spend a whole day playing sweetly, but the tiny bit of time they do is a joy to watch:)! She can say bye bye, MOMMA, daddy, hi, red, and no. She is a climber. She climbed in the refrigerator to grab cheese of the top rack. Her most impressive stunt happened when she climbed in to a covered slide at Joe's Dog House and I had a panicked because I couldn't find her! I was almost in tears! She was happily playing in a slide! She likes to climb the stairs and play in the potty. She isn't walking but very very close! She love the moby wrap still but has also started liking the ring sling again, good news for me. She loves food all food! Is still breastfeeding:)! We plan on continuing nursing for a while. She only likes to drink water. She wears 18-24 month clothes and is on the second to last snap on her cloth diapers. We are head over heels in love with our dragon! She is a handful but she is our handful!

This picture was taken one year ago today! I was 35 weeks!

Preoccupied..

Honestly, all I can do is think about moving! I have never been this excited to move! This is our final destination. This will be our 10th move in a smidgen over 5 years. This is it, and the house is worth the 9 prior moves leading up. I have always imagined our forever house as at least 2 stories and and approximately 100 years old. After experiencing that life with three small children, I am so over it. Our new to us house is one single story, can't express how excited I am to be the owner of one story ranch style house! NO MORE STAIRS! woooo hooo! okay, moving on:). Also we will have 5 bedrooms. Each of the kiddos will have one and still have one to spare! Gone are the days of Evergrace sleeping in the dinning room and not having room for guests. Josh & I are beyond thrilled! I am repainting all of our scuffed up furniture damaged by an absurd amount of moving! We take possession tomorrow! I have been counting down the days! Only one to go!

Really?!?!?!

Well....I did leave them with ice cream cartons unsupervised for at least 87 seconds! Really, who is at fault. Besides it is summer, ice cream for lunch is totally acceptable:)!

**we are not currently of a gluten free dairy free diet, in case you didn't notice:)! more on that in another post

***also, my wonderful and amazing mother is going to buy me a new breakfast set for my new house:) i love my old table and wanted to get matching chairs but they really clash with our new home so i am going to get new!

****um, hey mom, will you buy me new furniture? i actually have it picked out and on hold.....thanks! love ya lots:)!

i LOVE this man....

So very, very, much! Creating memories of bible reading & popcorn snacking:)!

Back on the wagon...

Or, I guess off the wagon, depending on which camp you're in. We decided to homeschool a while back. Much earlier than our public announcement. Recently, we decided on sending EJ and possibly G to preschool. We have returned to our original decision to homeschool...clear as mud? Just a little note to say we are once again and for sure going to homeschool! We are so excited about it and I am very excited that my best friend is homeschooling so I can look over all her lesson plans and compare them to mine....okay okay I am just going to copy hers! HA! I love the idea of choosing what curriculum I want MY children to learn. I have tons of choices, just so happens one of the best is Lindsay's! Other bloggers covered the "why homeschool" topic and did a far better job than I could possibly do so click here, here, or here even here ***if you care to read about why homeschooling is OUR choice for OUR children:) !
***I do not agree with every single word in some of these post but with the majority of it....enough of it not to write my own post:)!

Happy 1st Birthday Daxx!!

My favorite Great Nephew celebrated his first year! EJ & G love Daxx! One of their most played games is pretending that Emery Jai is Meagan and Guice is Daxx.
Party Pics!!

moonlighting....

I have spent the past several, 6 or 7 to be exact, weeks working as a server for Josh. I worked 1 or 2 shifts a week, about 4 hours a shift. I have to be completely honest and say it was great to get out of the house for a bit! Not having a job outside of the home is hard financially sometimes, but the financial stress pails in comparison to the mental strain. For me at least. Talking with people over the age of 4 twice a week without having to yell to be heard or saying just a second because I had to wipe a bottom was AMAZING! I LOVE staying at home, why else would I do it after all:)?!?! But it is super nice to get out, even if it was for work :)! The kiddos had as much fun as I did. They got to go to Mimi's! EJ & G would ask me no less than 100 times a day if it was time to go! We usually ended up getting in the car way too early, just to get them to settle down. E was less than enthused about the separation. She was borderline out of her mind about it. So MiMi called in reinforcements and had Uncle Jamie & Aunt Tina come over to help with the dragon. I am no longer serving, Joshua changed jobs in case you haven't heard. EJ asked me if I could find another job. I can tell that she values me as a stay at home* mom. G wants to still go to Mimi's, he told me that I can go but he doesn't want me to tell him no. Sounds like someone has Mimi around his little finger! My guess is that they ALL do! As soon as they walk in the door they start asking for snacks and juice! No matter what they have just ate. One day I had taken them to eat pie at the Branding Iron right before I dropped the off, it didn't change a thing! Even Evergrace would start demanding food the moment she entered. A HUGE thank you to MiMi, Uncle Jamie, & Aunt Tina!!!!!
Pics of the kiddos having a blast with Papa! They LOVE the wagon rides, every time we are there they must have a whirl! Yes, even Evergrace! I am convinced she has zero clue she is a baby! If the older ones are doing it she has a FIT to do it too!

I am not a fan of the term stay at home mom.....sounds, to me at least, that I am just to lazy to get a "real" job. I haven't come up with a label that fits exactly.....any suggestions:)???

The perfectionist...

Of course, I am not talking about myself! Ha! I am speaking of my first born. She has to do everything perfectly the first try. In some aspects this is a wonderful attribute to have, but sometimes not so much. We tried to do the annual Mother's Day questionnaire, it was a no go. She refused to answer a lot of the questions and after each one she asked me if she got it right. We have had a hard time, nightmarish really, getting her to write her name. She would get so upset that it was not perfect she refused to try. She wanted her letters to look exactly like mine the very first time she put pen to paper. We have made much headway in that area. I just keep encouraging her to try! MiMi bought EJ & G a slip and slide, EJ could not enjoy it because she wasn't sliding just exactly like the boy on the box. She just kept trying and then would go get the box and look at it, EJ even asked me to read the directions on how to do it properly. Emery Jai is so very amazing, even in her stubbornness:)!

breakfast....

The small ones enjoyed waffles for breakfast...let me clarify...NOT homemade:)! If/when my kiddos ever sample waffles from scratch we might have a revolt on our hands. Currently they are, as you can see, over the moon happy with the straight from the box blueberry.

Just call me lazy...

We have enjoyed a super fun weekend and I haven't taken a single pic! No need to verbally assault me, I feel bad enough already.

Josh & I along with our wee ones attended our local festival....it was OK. pails in comparison to Toad Suck. The kiddo's had a blast, then again they can entertain themselves with a just about anything:).

Amy, Joshua's new boss, had us all over for a pool party/cook-out! Good times! EJ & G did great in the pool! No fear! Amy has taught swimming lessons for years and helped them learn a few things. Lessons are in our very near future!

Which is really important considering this is our backyard.....

also...

we are no longer attending Cornerstone Pentecostal Church. I could go into all the details but will just say this. You must have very thick skin to be in ministry. Extremely thick.
We are attending several churches in the area and are looking forward to finding a home church.

A whole lotta changin' goin' on!

I have been mulling over this post in my head for a few weeks now, trying to come up with the most creative wording.....after much deliberation I am going to blurt it out...
We have been blessed beyond imagination!! God has provided for us in amazing ways! In no particular order...
Josh will be working here.....

And we bought this......

under construction....

as cute as my background was it was dysfunctional. for whatever reason i couldn't add my links...so back to the drawing board! i am also working on an about me! am i the only one who hates to write about myself? really! i never do this, not even my facebook has one. anywhooo, that's what is up with the glorious white back ground:)!

Brilliant Simply Brilliant!!!

Every moment and every action of every day displays either how much we know Jesus or how much we need Jesus

click to read all!

Crib Dweller.....

Our poor third child without cute bedding sleeping in the dinning room....so neglected.....but we do let her drink diet coke:)! being the 3rd (in 3 1/2 years :) has a couple of advantages, one being caffeine. HA!

10 Months!

Evergrace has reached double digits! We are head over heels in love with our dragon! Dragon is her #1 nickname, we here in the Anderson house are big on nicknames :). She is demanding, opinionated, short tempered, spoiled rotten, and over the top precious! She is now a crib dweller, and we are all loving it! She was nursing all night long, honestly. She was latched on more than she wasn't. Even with cosleeping it was not working. Evergrace & I woke up totally exhausted every single day. Soooooo she is now sleeping ALL night in her crib! Glory Glory Hallelujah! We are thrilled! She is nursing around 2 or 3 times a day. I had to put her more on a schedule. She would go 3 or 4 days and nurse around the clock then not nurse for a couple of days. CRAZY! So, I laid down the law! She doesn't take a sippy, she drinks from a cup that we hold. The dragon eats like a horse. Loves all food including roasted red pepper hummus on a whole wheat wrap. She will eat anything and tons of it. She adores her older siblings, loves to take their toys and pull their hair. She is getting very good at pinching and scratching also. She can stand for a few seconds unassisted, walking is just around the bend.
We are constantly amazed by our third blessing!