The most confusing day of the year.

For everyone who doesn't know, Valentine's day is ALSO D's birthday which makes for an interesting holiday. 

Despite the fact that this day is a commercial ploy to sell obscene amounts of chocolate and flowers I like it. Why not join the nation in celebrating love? Plus I'm a girl, so my job in order to "join in" is graciously accepting said flowers and chocolate.

I also am a firm believer in getting completely pampered on your birthday. One day a year that you don't have to lift a finger--you can do anything you want all day with no responsibilities.

As you can see we are at a bit of a stand still, that leaves D and I both squirming to make February 14th special for the both of us. 

This year was a success!

Saturday was Daniel's day, it was full of sleep (a rare commodity around these parts since a little man, about 2 ft tall, light brown hair, who yells a lot, moved in with us) volley ball and lots of tennis! We ended the evening with some sushi and a movie.

Then of course Valentines day was a lot of fun. Complete with Fadi's take-out, chocolate creme brulee, and a chick flick. Daniel knows me too well.

Finn and I made some Valentines as well, he is a master with that finger paint!

and thank you Crayola for making it non-toxic

When all of the festivities were "over" I surprised Daniel with a Tennis themed birthday party! We all shouted surprise when he walked in the door, then ate homemade pizza and played games. My husband is a quarter of a century.....

These past 2 1/2 years have been such a blast! I love you babe, thanks for being born!

Finn's new moves

"The Bathtub Boogie!" 

He started breaking it down in the tub and kept slipping so he learned to plant his feet and groove with just his hands, I'm diggin it!

And apparently he's never wearing all of his clothes when he's in a dancing mood.....

Um seriously 1 yrs old...?

My little man is 1 years old and I am in absolute awe! 

It is insane to me that in 1 year an uncoordinated, itty bitty baby can turn into this! 

Finn has been absolutely hilarious lately. His personality is blossoming and between 8am and 8pm the Anderson household is no less than a  party. Everything he does has a "Finn" flare to it, here are some of my favorites:

• He has figured out how to run! He starts going and begins to pump his right arm (yep, only his right) as hard has he can to help him go faster which usually leads in him getting off balanced and tumbling over. But he's up just as quick starting it again.
• He has got about 5 signs down pat! those include: Please, thank you, more, again, and bath. He knows when to use them and it has been amazing to be able to somewhat communicate with him.
• He has figured out how to shake his head yes, and when I say "head" I really mean that when his entire upper body shakes back and forth his head follows. He loves to answer all of my questions with a very enthusiastic body shake!
•  He has mastered the 1 finger point/, so when he sees that he has your attention, he'll point to something (anything/nothing at all) then look at your face to make sure you're following, then raise his eye brows as if to say, "yep I just pointed to that with my finger."
• He loves to be my helper. He'll follow me around the house to make sure that he can help out. He's really good at stirring mixtures in bowls when I'm cooking, putting clothes in the dryer, "folding" laundry (best anti-folder I've ever seen...) putting his toys away, and vacuuming with the dust buster.
• When we were in Utah Finn wouldn't put down this toy vacuum at Nona's house. He would walk all over the place pushing it back and forth like you would a real vacuum. So I looked all over to find him one for his birthday and I finally found one that was Bright Pink (seem wrong to anyone else, since when is vacuuming only a girl's job hmmm?) but hey I bought it and BY GOLLY my son is going to be the best vacuum-er on this side of the Mississippi!
• On a more "interesting" note he has taken to falling to the floor and purposely dropping his head into the ground when he's upset. Yes, yes it sounds very sad, and at first it was, but then I would see him slowly look up with smirk on his face to see if we were watching, and if we were, he'd quickly turn it back on and roll around on the ground.
• BUT as if to make up for it, just randomly throughout the day he will run towards me with his arms wide open and give me a big hug, and just snuggle me for a few seconds. Then he'll run away and start playing again. It melts my heart every time!
•  He loves putting things inside of other things. The other day I took the bag out of the bathroom garbage and gave it to D to take out, when D came back in he couldn't find the garbage can. Well we found it in Finn's room completely packed with all of his toys that would fit inside of it, he was pretty bummed when we had to empty it and put it away.
• Finally he LOVES to dance! He will run through his room and hit on every toy he has that plays music, and just rock out! His moves will change about every 2 weeks when he tries out something new. 

Here's a video of this week's moves, we're calling it "The Cave Man"

I am so proud of this crazy kid and all that he has learned in his first year of life. I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father sent him to our family, he blesses my life everyday! We love you buddy!

A Quick Guest Post from the Husband

I am taking over my wife's blog--do not be alarmed. But she is out of town throwing a shower for Betsy and I figure at least one of us ought to keep this thing updated!

Mostly though, I just want to steal a chance to say how much I love my beautiful wife, and if she knew I was writing this I'm sure she'd put the chops on it fairly quickly. So, we're going to ninja it. Sound good? Great.

I've thought for awhile about what I want to write, and I think the big thing to share is how grateful I am for Natalie in my life. Yes, she is gorgeous, intelligent, hilarious, a fabulous and loving mother, spiritual, resourceful, crafty, creative and hard working. She is all of those. But on top of all that she's something more that is tough to explain without relating an experience we had when we were still dating.

Travel back in time with me, will you? All the way to 2009...

Nat and I were in that phase of our courtship where picturing the future version of yourself is difficult to do without the other person being there too. If we weren't talking about marriage explicitly, it was at least sort of implied that we were taking this thing long-term.

Anyway, as was customary at this stage in a relationship, we were hanging out pretty much every dispensable minute of every day (I liked her, alright?). On one such get together, we were at my apartment to study, do homework, etc. and the kitchen was (how do you say?) disgusting. My college roommates were a lot of great things. But tidy, they were not. And about five days worth of moldy dishes were smelling up the kitchen, and in order to focus and study, they were going to have to be cleaned.

Well, I wasn't too thrilled with having to clean them, but I couldn't get any work done while they were dirty. So, I got mopey and decided to bite the bullet and get the dishes washed. 

Natalie, no surprise, cheerfully offered to help. I declined with the usual "you shouldn't have to clean up our mess, this is really gross, I'm embarrassed already, let me be the one to deal with it", etc. etc. But Nat wasn't hearing any of it. She promptly rolled up her sleeves, got the ol' assembly line going, and we knocked out the dishes in record time.

Finally, as we unstopped the drain and water was swirling out of the sink, Nat looked up and said (with her unbearably cute smile), "See how easy that was with the both of us?"

Hearing her say that made something click for me that has changed my life since. And what exactly clicked, unexplainable as it is, is contained entirely in that simple question she asked while we were doing the dishes together as boyfriend and girlfriend three years ago. I realized it almost the instant she asked it.  I knew at that moment that her question didn't apply exclusively to doing those dishes. I understood that no matter what life had in store for me--all of the trials, struggles, and challenges--it all would unquestionably be possible, manageable, and easier "with the both of us." 

That's what Natalie is for me. She's all of those wonderful things listed in the beginning of this post, but she's also my source of strength, help, understanding, and counsel that makes life and all of it's challenges doable for me--so much easier, if you will. What exactly do you call that? I haven't figured out the right words to describe what exactly that is, but however you define it, it can be summed up in that simple little question that my wonderful wife asked on that seemingly ordinary day while we were dating.

I am and will be forever grateful that I met Natalie and that she agreed to get married to me. I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that makes our relationship possible for all eternity. Thanks so much, Sweet Pea, for everything you do for me and all that you are as well. You make me so happy each and every day and I cannot wait for the rest of our lives together. Natalie Marie Anderson, you make my life.

My parents were here!: Finn's first hair cut

 So having my mom here gave me the courage to cut Finn's unruly hair! He sat so well and we got it done it no time! He won't have his sweet bathtub mohawk for a while but I think he looks pretty darn handsome!

This is his wild mane before I got a hold of it

We had to keep handing him things to stay distracted, other wise he would pull away and stare at me like I was crazy

Oh and just ignore my yucky pre-shower self...

It was kind of sad to see all his little baby hair all over the counter, he's growing up too fast!

After! What a little stud muffin

My parents were here!: San Antonio

 So my parents came to visit this last week! They got here on Wednesday night and left this past Wednesday. I loved having them here for a whole week but it still didn't seem long enough! We had so much fun with them here and made sure to pack in as many original Texas experiences as we could for them. Daniel and I were able to take advantage of our free babysitters and stayed in downtown Houston Thursday night, then Friday we went to San Antonio to explore the River Walk and to check out the Alamo. 

The Alamo

The Alamo

Downtown San Antonio was way cool too.

The hustle and bustle on the River Walk was so fun. There were a lot of unique shops and restaurants that we loved to look at,

But the quite peaceful areas were our favorite

We ate ice cream cones on the river walk, Finn was a fan of the chocolate.

We also went to the "Ripley's believe it or not" museum, where we (mostly) chose to believe it. We checked out the wax museum too which turned out to be way cool.

Hallo- to the -Ween!

Ok so I know this is way way late but I had to share some fun pics of Finn's first Halloween!
Finn posed as two players this year. First, Thursday morning Finn and I had a playgroup party to attend and we decided to dress up for it, but considering Daniel played a huge part in our family costume I decided to dress us up as something else. Finn's cousin Abby calls him "Huckleberry" so I decided it would be a fun quick costume to throw together. We went as Thom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. 

 Then Thursday night we had a party with some friends in our ward and we went as Calvin (Finn) Hobbes (obviously Daniel) and I went as Calvin's mom.

The best part of the party was seeing everyone's costumes, there was: Disney's Robin Hood and Made Marian, Broadway Lion King's Nalla and Simba, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, the Old man and little boy from UP, and a few more that I didn't snatch a pic of.

Then we had our ward trunk-or-treat on Monday night. Besides getting eaten alive by mosquitoes all night, it was a great time. Then we came home and had dinner at the "Witch's Broom Cafe" haha I just made up some funny menus and named all of our food funny things, add a few drops of food coloring and WALA you have a "spooky" halloween dinner! It was a lot of fun so we decided to make this the start of a new family tradition!
We were so bummed that we couldn't make it to Dallas for Callie and Grants party which was INSANE. Callie went all out on treats and decorations it looked so sweet check out her post here. But it was a fun Halloween, I probably get one more year of dressing Finn up as what ever I want before he starts making demands so I'm already planning his costume for next year :)