Halloween

Abby loved picking out a pumpkin. She would not let us carry it for her. :) She is getting more and more independent every day.My little ladybug and bumble bee. I couldn't get a good shot of Abby's wings. She didn't understand why I would want to take a picture of her back.
It was a great Halloween. We went to a couple trunk or treats and around a neighborhood. She got so much candy in her little pumpkin it was full by the end of the night, but she refused to let me carry it for her, and it was heavy!

Chloe's Blessing

We blessed Chloe on September 4th 2011. It was a beautiful blessing and we were grateful to have lots of family to share the day with us.

The Williams family

The Anderson family

This is Chloe and her friend Zion and both of their dads. Chloe wasn't very happy, and Zion must have thought that was funny. :)

My beautiful Chloe

The dress that Grandma A made. I helped a little with the top and I also crocheted the blanket. And Grandma W made her cute little bracelet. (Abby has a matching one too, but she broke it already... two year olds.)

Me and my baby girl. She's making a funny face.

Grandma A and Chloe.

We had a nice luncheon after the blessing. Unfortunatley Nate couldn't get away from church and missed everything. Oh the joys of bishopric callings. But with that one exception it was a wonderful weekend.
Chloe is a wonderful baby. She is starting to give me lots of smiles. She loves for people to talk to her. Sometimes that is the only thing that can calm her down when she is upset. She is pretty spoiled and likes to be held all the time, which is a problem when we are home. :) She's starting to chunk up too, her cheeks and chin are filled out nicely! She has already grown out of her newborn clothes, she's growing too fast! We feel blessed beyond belief to have another healthy beautiful girl, and we love her to pieces!!

Beautiful Girls

This is Chloe at 8 days old.

Abby absolutely loves her baby sister. Chloe gets drowned in hugs and kisses from her every day! I was surprised we got so many good pics of the girls together. My almost 2 year old wasn't the most cooperative.
For these last two pictures one is of Chloe and one is of Abby at 9 days old. They look so similar it's crazy. Abby had more hair than Chloe does and their head shape is different Chloe's is more round, besides that they look like the same baby!

Chloe Paige Williams

Born July 25th at 11:51am

6lbs 10oz, 19 1/2in longI had an appointment to be induced on Monday morning. I was really hoping I would go into labor by myself before that date, but this little girl was content where she was. We got to the hospital at 5:00 am. At 6 I was dilated to a 4 and they started me on pitocin. I starting having pretty regular contractions, but they started dying down after an hour so the nurses kept giving me more and more pitocin. My doctor came in at 9 to check on me and I was still at a 4, but he went ahead and broke my water. The contractions got stronger and more regular and around 10:00 I asked for an epidural. (I didn't have an epidural with Abby, so I was nervous about getting one this time around). The anesthesiologist came in told me I have mild scoliosis so he had a hard time putting the epidural in. I kept having feeling on the right side of my body every time he pushed the needle in further so he had to go super slow and he stopped every time I had a contraction. It took forever (at least 30 min) for him to get the epidural in. Eventually he realized my contractions were getting really close together and really strong so he had to hurry things up. The nurse had to help hold me down and make me relax. Which was probably the hardest thing about the whole day. After the epidural was in I was freezing, so my body was just shaking. They piled the blankets on me and Nate was rubbing my legs and feet so I could get warm. The epidural was in just before 11:00 and I was starting to feel pressure. The nurse checked me and I was 8cm dilated and completely effaced, but only on one side (very weird). So they made my lay on my side to try and get the other side of my cervix to thin out. Maybe 5 or 10 min later I started feeling the sensation to push. Luckily I did have an epidural because the nurse would have been delivering my baby. It took everything I had to hold my baby in through the contractions. Finally, probably only 8ish minutes later, my doctor got there and as soon as I had a contraction I started pushing. It took 3 pushes to get her head out and a couple more and I had baby Chloe in my arms! The nurse later told me the Dr was there for only 4 minutes before I had my baby. Chloe is the most beautiful baby. As soon as Nate and I saw her we both said "she looks just like Abby". We were having serious de ja vous. And we have called her Abby a few times already.
Abby really likes Chloe. She has been an angel about letting me tend to the baby. She forgets about her most of the time because she has been sleeping so much. But as soon as Chloe makes a noise Abby runs to check on her. She is very cute with her baby sister.

Our most recent family photo

My really good friend had a baby boy the day before. We had the same doctor and delivered at the same hospital. They brought their little boy Zion over and we were joking about it being their first date.
Chloe has been such a sweet little addition to our family. We are working on getting lots of sleep and figuring each other out. I love my little family!

Craziest weekend!

I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures, and I don't think any of my siblings really did either. But we had the craziest weekend in June! It consisted of:"
-my sister Chelsea moving back from Hawaii with her 3 week old baby, and spending a few days with us.
-My brother Seth went through the temple for his endowments
-I helped throw a baby shower for Chelsea
-We had family pictures on the Anderson side (we were all together for the whole weekend, it was really fun!)
-My Dad turned 60!!! We all pitched in and got him a new grill and an apron with all 11 of his grand kids hand prints on it, so cute!
-Seth gave his farewell talk in church
-Chelsea and Lamar blessed baby Damon
-And we had a huge luncheon to celebrate it all

It was so much fun to be together for that short little weekend, and it was definitely jam packed with adventures! I love my family so much, it was very bitter sweet because my youngest brother Seth, (who I believe is everyone's favorite, including the grand kids) left on his mission the following Wednesday. I stuck around in Tucson a little longer to be there when he got set apart as a full time missionary and it was the neatest experience. He will be serving in Honduras for the next two years. Seth is the best little brother I could ever ask for. He is kind and selfless. And I am so proud of him for making the decision to serve a mission. Here are a few family pictures from the weekend.
Mom and Dad and all their kids: Seth, Bryan, Nolan, Will, Sunny, Me, Chelsea, and Mom and Dad.
This is everyone!!!All 11 grand kids. Abby would only sit there if she was holding Daniels hand. Very cute. I think Daniel was getting tired of it though! We are getting so big we don't really fit on the street anymore! Crazy!

I just love these people. And I'm so glad we got to spend some time all together before Seth left!

California

I have some blogging to catch up on!! June 1st we went to San Diego with all the Williams' for a very nice get away. It was nice to have everyone together and relax! We had some interesting adventures as well.

Thursday we went to Knotts Berry Farm. Abby loved the kiddie rides, but I will probably think twice before going again with a 20 month old and a pregnant belly. I couldn't go on any rides with her and of course Nate wanted to get in as many adult rides as he could. The craziest part of the day was right after we got there. Nate went on the Silver Bullet and while we was on the ride, screaming and enjoying himself a bug flew into his mouth, so he quickly spit it out. A few moments later he could feel his tongue swelling up so they went to the first aid station. They found out that he had been stung by a bee on his tongue, and the stinger was still in it. They had to scrape the stinger out and gave him some benedryl. The aid station people said that this was the 2nd time they had seen this happen in 10 years. Lucky Nate. Fortunately it didn't bother him too much and we were still able to enjoy the rest of the day. Here's Abby on her favorite ride.Jumping Castle

Another favorite ride, until she realized how high they were off the ground. It wasn't her favorite after that.

We spent a whole day at the beach, which Abby loved! She had so much fun in the sand.That same night we all played some games. I got a lucky shot of all 4 of the granddaughters sitting nicely by each other. Makayla, Abby, Julia and Natalie.

We also walked the pier and went to dinner one night. It was a fun trip, especially since we had everyone there. On our way home we stopped at the San Diego Temple, so beautiful!

I think this picture best illustrates how we felt one our way home. We were so exhausted, and it felt nice to sleep in our own beds that night. But a very fun trip!

We went to the Easter Pageant with Abby this year. I was surprised at how well she did, our seats weren't great, but she watched a lot of it. Our little (growing) family
Our Easter weekend was very busy. On Saturday we went down to Tucson for Karli's baptism, which was awesome. And since we were already there with so many of her cousins we did a big Easter egg hunt. I love this picture of Abby with her cousins. One of these things is not like the others..... Abby loved finding the eggs

But she loved the slide even more. We came back home for Easter Sunday. Nate was home for most of the day which was wonderful (not very common around here anymore). Abby was on such a sugar high. As soon as we got home from church and I put my things down I couldn't find her. She had found her blankie and bunny and crawled into bed. So I took off her shoes and ponytail and she slept the afternoon away. She's my angel.

My Abby

She is 18 months old now! I took her in for her check up and she is still 90% for height and 50% for weight. She is wearing 24 month clothes already because she is so stinkin tall!! She is growoing and learning like crazy every day! She may have taken her time showing us her personality, but it is shinning now! She can pretty much understand everything we say to her, and she is for the most part very obedient. She is officially in nursery now. I've taken her a few times before and she loves it! She is always exhausted after church from playing so hard.

She can say: more, please, thank you, hi, hello, bye, eat, shoes, socks, pretty, nice, go and she can say things like "where are you"- ahh you, "where'd it go"-go, with her hands facing up. She is starting to put words together, the first she said was bye daddy. She has said "Love you" a few times too. When she isn't saying something we can understand she is jibber-jabbing. She likes talking and says a new word almost every day. She can also do almost all her animal sounds.

*She actually just came up to me and said "help, please" because she wanted a bananna. LOVE IT!*

She loves music! If we are in the grocery store and she hears a good beat she will dance. She even dances to the hymns!! At church as soon as she hears the organ start she starts dancing and waving her arms like she is conducting. It is hillarious to watch especially when the song is something you normally wouldn't dance too.... all the hymns! If she sees sheet music she waves her arms and conducts also. And it's always a different dance depending on the beat. She just has to move her body!

She is also starting to actually play by herself, HEAVEN!!!! She loves her baby and pushes her around, wraps her up in her blankie, and feeds her, her imagination is expanding like crazy.

She is very caring. She noticed Nate had a scab on his leg and kissed it about a million times. She did a fake cry because he was hurt and kept saying "OW".

She loves lotion! She will sit and put lotion on Nate and I all day long if we let her. She gave Nate a nice back massage the other day, and they both loved it!

She also loves to color, and she really concentrates when she does!

Nate was trying to sleep on the floor the other day, and Abby kept kissing him and snuggling him, this is what her snuggling turned into..... her leg on his face.

Found this the other day. I was actually relieved to see that she wasn't playing with the tp in the toilet room. She pulled the roll out of our bathroom and closed the door behind her.... this could have been way messier, phew!

I just feel so stinking lucky to be her mom!

HAWAII!!!!!!!!

Don't you wish you were here right now?!

Me too!

Nate and I packed our bags, sent Abby to the grandparents and went to Hawaii for a week!! It was wonderful and amazing. We stayed with Chelsea and Lamar, and that made it so much fun!

Can you tell I'm excited?! Me and Chelsea on the beach, I looked like such a dork... every time a wave came I was knocked over, so I was holding on to her for support. ha!

The first day Nate went surfing and we just played in the ocean. Since Chels and I are both pregnant, and we had to even out our tan..... I dug out a hole in the sand so we could lay on our stomach. It was HEAVEN, but we fell asleep from being so comfortable and I got super burned! The awesome part is I had strings from my swimsuit accross my back, so I have the most awful design on my back! Nate burnt his legs real good too!


He didn't get to surf as much as he would have liked, due to weather, but he did get up a couple times. I wasn't very good at being a photographer, but I did get one with him up.... he's just on his way down. :)



On monday we went kayaking. It was super rainy this day but we still had tons of fun... until Nate and Lamar almost got us killed!!!! We were kayaking in the ocean out to a little island and us being the dorks we are took the short path and cut straight through the ocean where all the coral was. We didn't have any trouble getting to the island, but on the way back (despite the fact that Chelsea and I were telling the boys to go the long/safe way) we went the coral route again. But this time waves were a factor. (Keep in mind Lamar is on a stand up paddle board, a huge surfboard that you standup on and use a paddle to move, and the 3 of us are on the 2-person kayak.... I was the lucky person in the middle without a seat!) So we were trying to maneuver the waves but we inevitably got knocked out. It was hillarious watching us scramble to get back into the kayak before the next wave came..... especailly considering Chelsea and I are both pregnant. At this point I was yelling at Nate and Chelsea to turn the kayak, and this was a stupid idea, we are all going to die, etc. I'm sure they will have a good memory of my mouth that day! :) So we turned perpendicular to the wave and caught it, so we are now soaring through the water toward a huge mass of coral! As soon as the wave died out we found ourselves stuck on top of the coral, great! But we were pushed off with the next wave, and those two paddled like crazy people and we were home free. It was still a long ways to the beach but it was a nice and calm and safe. It gave me lots of time to switch Chelsea and take a paddle (poor girl was so tired), appologize for my mouth, and continue to yell at Nate for that stupid idea. :) Luckily Lamar was safe too, he stayed on his board the whole time. We didn't get any pictures of the beautiful island we were on because we were worried about ruining our cameras with the rain, they would have gotten ruined in the ocean anyway!

Here we are at the Hukilau Cafe, we ate there twice, yum!



Dole Pineapple Plantation. Pineapple in Hawaii is sooooooooo good!

Loved the pineapple icecream





Hale'iwa sign. Great place for shopping!


Of course the Polynesian Culture Center was amazing! I have been before, but it was Nate's first time. Definetly one of our favorite things on the trip. It was neat for Nate to see all these cultures that he already loves.


This is at our luau dinner. The food was yummy!

We had a million pictures from the different islands, here is Samoa.

Thursday we went to the temple. I forgot my temple reccomend, but luckily Nate is in good with the bishop these days and he called and got me in!

The flowers are as big as your head!

Beautiful temple

Nate and Lamar went golfing a few times at the Turtle Bay Resort (where Lamar works).

We also went to the famous swap meet and spent lots of money. Relaxed on the beach. Chelsea colored my hair for me. Ate lots of good food. And just hung out.
Thank you so much Chels and Lamar for the fun week. I wish we were still in Hawaii with you!!!

I was super excited to come home and see my Abby! Poor girl was sick most of the time, ear infections, teething, and homesickness. But it was so nice for Nate and I to get away and spend quality time together.