The Anderson Family

We invited all of our family over to celebrate Taylor's 12th birthday today. It was alot of fun. Taylor really loved having everyone over to celebrate with him. Taylor got lots of cool presents for his birthday. The one he likes the most is a cell phone. I know, I know, I can't believe that my 12 year old has a cell phone. But we decided that we would limit how much he can use it and not let him take it to school. We'll see how long all of our rules last. It will be nice to be able to get a hold of him all of the time. I am looking forward to that.




All of the kids loved to jump on the trampoline. Here is Josie, Brenden, Ryan, Ben and Hunter all having fun on the tramp.
We appreciate all of our family for supporting us and our kids in everything we do. We are truly blessed.

Today was a HUGE day in Taylor's life. Of course, he turned 12 years old, but he also graduated from primary and received the Priesthood and was ordained to the office of a Deacon. It was nice that his birthday was on Sunday so that all of these events could take place on the same day.

In primary, Taylor has been working on getting his Faith in God award. To get the award you have to live the gospel daily, but also memorize the Articles of Faith and complete lots of goals. He has been working on this since he was 8. This last week he finally completed all of the requirements and I got to interview him from the primary and he was interviewed by our bishop and he did receive this award. I got the priviledge of giving it to him in primary today, before he left to go to the Deacon's Quorum. I taught Taylor in nursery and I think I have been in primary with him all but about 1 year since he was 3. I am sad to have him leave primary, but excited for all of the wonderful experiences he will have as a Deacon. I was so proud of my boy today.

After our block of church, we came to our house and Taylor was ordained. Grandma Linda, Grandpa and Grandma Anderson, Brother Fenn from our Bishopric and Brother Henry from the Young Men's Presidency were all there to witness this special event in Taylor's life. He was given a wonderful blessing. Right after the ordination was complete he snuck off and changed his clothes so I didn't get a picture of him dressed up. I almost made him go back and get dressed again, but decided I better not.

I think that Taylor had an amazing day. One that I hope he will never forget. I know that I won't. It is difficult to watch your kids get older, but it is really rewarding to see them choose the right and do the things that they have been taught. I am so proud of Taylor for what a great young man he has become.

This was Taylor's picture for his 1st Christmas. He was almost 4 months old and look what a chubby baby he was. He weighed 20 pounds at 5 months so he was really big. I thought this was such a cute picture of him.

This was Taylor's 2 year old picture. What a little angel. He was so cute at this age. Steve and I loved to watch him learn and grow. It was so much fun. My dad loved this picture of Taylor. On the day that he died he still had this picture of Taylor in his wallet. I kept giving him updated pictures, but he couldn't make himself take this one out. He loved it so much.

Since today was the day that Taylor graduated from primary, I thought it would be fun to show him on his first day of primary. He has a crown on that said, "I am a Child of God." He was so cute and loved being a Sunbeam.
This was a black and white picture that one of my friends took of Taylor. I thought he looked so cute in it. I can't remember how old he was.



This was Taylor holding Brenden right after he was born in the hospital. We have him on video singing all of his primary songs to him. It is the sweetest thing. He sang "I am a Child of God," Popcorn Popping," Nephi's Courage" and every other song he could remember. Steve and I loved it.
This was when Steve and I decided to coach Taylor's t-ball teach. We had a blast doing it. This is how Taylor's love for baseball began. He started then and has not stopped since. He has become such a great player.

Taylor has grown up to be such a great kid. He is kind, loving, compassionate and a good friend. He is such an amazing son and a wonderful brother. We all love him so much. He has brought so much to all of our lives and I am honored to be his mother. I love you, Taylor!!!

Everyone really enjoyed being on the boat! The kids loved to go fast and go on the tube. Taylor tried to wakeboard and was SO close to doing it. It made him mad that he couldn't do it so he wouldn't try again. I'm sure that the next time he tries he will do it!

This was our view from the deck of the cabin. The hot tub was on the deck and the kids LOVED getting in the hot tub. It was so beautiful. I had heard that Bear Lake was pretty, but it was really amazing.

Every year Steve's family puts together a vacation for all of us to go together. We have been to Moab, to Zions, to Yellowstone and some other fun places, but this year we decided to head up north and go to Bear Lake. Most of us had never been there before but we were all really excited for the trip. It turned out to be so much fun. We stayed in a great house up on the mountain that had an amazing view of the lake. We rented a boat for 2 days and everyone had a great time boating. We were able to play at the beach, swim in a pool and just enjoy hanging out together as a family. We took this picture above right before we left Bear Lake so Jared and Jessi are not in it. They had to leave before the rest of us, but they were for most of the festivities. It was a great trip that I'm sure we will all remember always. The next few posts will have lots of pictures from our trip. If that is boring to any of you, just skip past them. I took a ton of pictures, but I will just pick out the best ones to post.

Last week we went to the new Payson Pool with our friends, the Monroes. The kids had SO much fun and I had a blast hanging out with my friend, Cheralyn. We took a couple of extra boys from the neighborhood and they all had a good time. These first 2 pictures are of all the boys playing 500 in the pool. They played this almost the entire time we were there. It was a lot of fun.


This is Josie with her friend, Emily. These 2 love to be together and play. They are going to be in the same class in 1st grade so Josie is WAY excited to have her good friend in there with her. They are both such cute little girls.

Kate just loved hanging out in the little kid pool going on all of the little slides. She also liked the lazy river. It is a lot of fun. Josie and Emily thought it was funny to dump water on me and Cheralyn in the lazy river. It was okay, though. It was nice to get wet!!!

They ended up kicking us out of the pool because of lightning, but most of the time we were there the weather was GREAT! It was funny because we ran into my sister, Kelli, and Hunter and Savannah. They got there just before the lightning started so they weren't able to swim for very long. It was still fun to see them there!!

Well, as you can see I do not have any pictures from this trip. My dad started this family tradition several years ago. We go down to Marsyvale and take the 4 wheelers and go riding on the Piute Trail. We stay in cabins in Marysvale and it is a lot of fun. We always go the first weekend in August. Since Taylor had a baseball tournament, we were not able to go. But the rest of my family did. Last year we didn't go either because my Grandma got so sick and we were not able to leave her.

I hope that they all had a good time. We really missed being there with all of you. My kids were upset that we were not going again. Maybe we will make it next year.

The other highlight of my trip was hanging out with the girls, doing a little shopping with them, and getting the new "Twilight" book. I had so much fun with Tricia, Courtney, Jen and Whitney (Tricia's daughter). Whitney, Tricia and I were at Walmart at midnight on Friday night to get the book. We had fun shopping and hanging out until the books were released. I'm already past page 300 so it is a great book. I want to get it read before I hear from someone else what happens. This is cute Whitney with the new book.


We decided to not to take the entire family on this little trip. Steve just got a new car and we thought that we could save quite a bit in gas if we took his car instead of the Tahoe. We can't fit all of us in the car, so we decided to leave a few of the kids home. Josie wanted to come with us so bad, since we left her home last time we went to a tournament. She mainly wanted to go swimming in the hotel! Brenden stayed home with Sharla and Grandma Anderson and Kate stayed with Jessi and Jared. We appreciate them so much for taking our kids and helping us out. The kids had a great time and loved spending time with them. Josie played and played and played at the ball games. She was so dirty. You can't really see in this picture but her legs were so disgustingly dirty, we didn't even want her to get in the car. We went to the dollar store and bought some cheap toys for her and she was entertained for both days. I think she really did have a good time. And, yes, we did go swimming, but I didn't get any pictures of that. She was thrilled!!

This past weekend we headed down to Cedar City for a baseball tournament for Taylor's team. We had a lot of fun. Taylor absolutely loves going on these trips with all of his friends. We left Friday morning. The boys played 2 games on Friday and 2 on Saturday and then we came home this morning. They played pretty well, but won 2 and lost 2 games. There were some really good teams in the tournament. The kids had a great time. Steve and I really enjoy going to these tournaments, too. It is fun to hang out with the team and their families and do fun things with them. This is some of the boys eating lunch between games yesterday.

I actually go this picture right as Taylor picked up a grounder that was hit to him. He threw it to first base and got the out. I was surprised to actually get the ball in his mit in the picture.

I thought this was a cool picture of Taylor at shortstop and Colton at 2nd base going after another ball that was hit to them. I honestly can't remember who got the ball and threw it, but I think we did get the out at 1st. I was too busy taking pictures to actually see what happened in the game.
I just got one picture of Taylor at bat. When he was up to bat right before this time, I was trying to get a picture. He bunted a really good bunt and made it to first. Needless to say, I was too excited to get a picture. It was an awesome bunt.