Thankful for Thanksgiving

(Isn't this a gorgeous picture? James took this at VVC on a foggy day)

Thanksgiving week was very eventful in both good and bad ways. The weekend before all the Thanksgiving fun began, Riley had to be taken to the Emergency Room where she was given antibiotic shots for pharyngitis. She was running a high fever the whole night before, and had such a sore throat that she hardly ate anything, but drank a lot.  Thank goodness for modern medicine and sweet doctors and nurses. After that, she got over her fever in the next two days and was okay enough to enjoy the company that came over on Tuesday night.

Brittany's brother Tyler came down from Utah with his fiancee MiLinh and it was so much fun getting to spend Thanksgiving with almost the whole family (we love you Elder Keel!). We celebrated Levi's 22nd birthday by going to see the Muppet Movie, and then eating some Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The movie was so cute and since we took both Dean and Riley (her first trip to a theater) they both got to enjoy it. Dean has been singing one of the songs ever since..."I've got everything that I need...Right in front of me"...over and over. We love it.  We played some interactive games like Loaded Questions, Pounce, Guesstures, and Catch Phrase. It was a lot of fun talking and laughing with family like it always is. We also got to visit James' family over at Janine's for a few hours. It was a very nice week of being thankful for vacation/family-time, health, and good food of course! Here are a few pictures (sorry some of them are a bit fuzzy, but we work with what we got!) and videos from the Thanksgiving gathering, and other fun and cute moments.

Riley learned how to clap on Thanksgiving! Look:

 (Dean, Levi and AnaMarie in the back, and MiLinh and Tyler in the front.)

Here's a video of Dean and Isabel drawing on MagnaDoodle's together: 

 (All the women-folk painted their nails, and Riley got hers done while she was sleeping too!)

 (She's standing a lot more now!)

 (She is so funny! This is her sucking on a wipe! She kept making the funniest faces and then putting it back in her mouth anyway!)

(She loves to be under chairs, tables and anything else she can squeeze under.)

 (This is her with her "Susie" doll. She got so excited when she saw it at the store, she had to have it.)

 (There she is asleep with her Dad.)

(She pulls herself up on furniture all by herself now!)

 (Dean loves to build towers with his blocks, and play quietly in his room, or read stories to himself until he gets sleepy. Then he puts himself to bed!)

 (Dean, where are you? Are you gonna take a nap in there? "YEAH!")

(He can stand on a stepstool to brush his teeth all by himself now, he's getting so tall!)

 (He got up in this box while we were all unloading groceries!)

 (Look who found the food coloring Daddy!!!!)

We sure have been having some fun lately with all the new things our kids are doing. Some days we feel so overwhelmed being parents and all the responsibility it brings, but MOST days we couldn't imagine our lives without them...we love you Dean Parker and Riley Mae!!! Thank you for being part of our forever family.

We hope you know we love you too, wherever you are, and that you have sweet moments too, that make the rest of life worthwhile. Happy Holidays! Can't believe Christmas is around the corner already and look forward to enjoying the season with loved ones, and thinking about loved ones near and far.

Love,

The James Anderson Family

Halloween and November Events and Projects

Hello again. Time sure flies around this time of year. Excuse our tardiness in posting! So many things to report, but we'll just give the highlights.

Riley Mae is as cute as ever, and can get around pretty well now! Hope you enjoy this short video of her initial attempts. 

Dean had fun feeding her one evening, and we happened to get it on video for you too. 

Halloween was a fun time for us. We were able to enjoy three separate events that made it very fun this year. First was the Ward Party, where we all dressed up. We went in unco-ordinating costumes of a ZooKeeper, a Mad Scientist, a pumpkin and a lady bug. It was fun to dress up. 

Next was Grandma Goulding's 75th birthday party. Brittany designed the announcement (below) and we all enjoyed surprising Grandma. We got to visit with family, eat an amazing Rocky Road cake, and get to know Grandma Viola better. Dean kept snatching M&M's off of her cake, too. Lil' stinker! Good thing Gma V let him because she loves him so much! She is so amazing and we are so glad that she chose to be a mom, and grandma, and great-grandma to us even though she could have done anything she wanted to in this life with all the talents God gave her. 

(Dean with Gpa K, holding a "ball-la-loon" as he calls them. He loved playing with it!)

Halloween Night we had the kids dress up again, but we parents were boring and decided not to. :) It was so cute seeing Dean and Riley wearing costumes we borrowed from James' parents though, and knowing that they were costumes worn by him and his brothers and sisters when they were little. We have a picture of James around age 2 wearing the same pumpkin outfit that both Dean and Riley wore this year. Isn't that so fun? We loved it! Riley wore the pumpkin outfit and got to hangout in the stroller with Mommy, while Dragon Dean and Daddy went door to door for Trick or Treating. 


It was so adorable watching Dean actually go door to door this year! At first he was scared, but when Daddy went all the way up to the door with him he calmed down and said Trick-or-Treat pretty well, and even said "Thank you very much" on his way back to show us what he got. Everyone thought he was so cute. 


We only walked around for about an hour and Riley slept through half of it. We got to visit with Ray and Christina, and Gma and Gpa Anderson, and Uncle Joel. It was so fun going with them and getting to share the evening with them all. Cousin Camden even dressed up as a Knight so he could be pals with Dragon Dean (who really enjoyed snarling like one too, we might add). It was really fun showing up on Gma V's door too and letting her see Dean and Riley all dressed up on her birthday. Such sweet moments with the family this holiday season so far! 

(Feed the dragon!) 

Throughout the rest of the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Brittany has been striving to make beautiful meals to share with everyone when they finally join her at the end of a long day. Here are two of our new favorites: Baked Chicken Chimichungas, and Broccoli Cheese Twists. 

As a family, we also enjoyed putting some 24 days of Christmas presents together to send to Brittany's brother Bryce who is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He is currently in one of the areas near Star Valley, Wyoming, so hopefully, Elder Keel will be able to enjoy his last holiday season serving the Lord before he returns home in February 2012 and not freeze too badly in the process.  We sure do love him, and can't wait to hear what he thinks about his packages!

Brittany has also been busy with some sewing projects. She bought fabrics to do baby bedding in the colors she wanted in the babies' room and finally got around to making her first project: a quilt for Riley. And while she was at it she made one for Vance Richard Nielsen too, who was just born in the beginning of November. We hope it got to him okay, and that it works for him in the cold winters of Idaho! Riley sure loves her blanket, even if it is mommy's first try! :) 

We hope this tides you over until our next post. So many fun things to share coming soon! 


Love, 


The James Anderson Family

October is an Exciting Month Around Here!

Dean got to go visit the VVC ducks and geese with Daddy...

Riley got to visit with her cousin Matthew for the first time! He is only 11 days older than her. It was really cute watching them together and seeing how different they both are. Even though they're both so close in age and big kiddos, they're very different otherwise!

Most of the Anderson Family (Ray, Liz, James and our families and Joel and Mom and Dad) went to the pumpkin patch for pictures and fun...some of our favorite finds were a really tiny, perfect pumpkin, and a medium-sized bumpy one; we thought it looked like a brain.

AND RILEY TURNED 6 MONTHS! So we went and took some amateur photos to commemorate this...

We're so glad we're so close to family for all the holidays again! It's so much fun! We can't wait to post some pictures of the Halloween costumes our kids borrowed to wear, they're so cute.

Also, we were recently called to be Valiant 8 (nine year old class) primary teachers and are working with a bright group of kids. We really enjoyed teaching for our first time today, together, and hope we can do our best with this new calling.

Happy October everyone!

Love,

The James Anderson Family