Christmas Pictures

Christmas Video

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Good-Bye Old Friend/Hello Speed!!!!

The above picture is the "old friend", Tara The Xterra. I have had her for 11 years. Gone on lots of camping trips, road trips, business trips, and vacations in her. I met my wife driving that car. But, she is 11 years old, has put on about 130,000 miles, and does not get along with the kids. So it was time to say good-bye to her. A co-worker of mine had a 16 year old in the house looking for a 4 wheel drive car. Once the price was worked out Tara got a new home, one without kids. That just opened the door for.....HELLO Chippy! Chippy (named by Tom) is the new member of the Anderson clan. A Silver, AWD, Mazda CX-9. He is a little quicker than Tara, has a third row of seats and when I bought him, only 45 miles on the odometer. So far, Chippy is well liked by everyone in the family.

Baaaa-Humbug

Tom and JoJo are sheep in Covenant First's Christmas show. The show is this Sunday (December 18th), this picture was at the dress rehearsal last weekend. Right now, it will take a miracle for the kids to make it to the end of the show, but they sure are cute!

Bath Time Shenanagins

I am posting this video for one reason. In 10 years, when these two are fighting over the bathroom in the morning, I want physical evidence of a happier time.

Thanksgiving Stuff(ing)

We started our Thanksgiving break at Festival of Lights at the Zoo. Tom and Jo Jo got to snuggle in the stroller.Sarah Jane enjoyed some wine and some downtime.This was Turkey #2 for the Anderson's. Emily did a great job cooking it, while I watched both UC and Michigan win their football games.

Thanksgiving Lunch at Goddard

Goddard does a pretty good job on the Holidays including families. They had a Thanksgiving lunch today in which every family brings a dish and then the kids all get to share the yummy food. Since the school is so close to my office, I headed over to check it out.
Sarah's room got really quiet when the food was served. Another dad and I thought it was almost too quiet. A room full of 2 year olds were hypnotized by Turkey and Cornbread.
Tom's room was the exact opposite. The 4 year olds went crazy when they saw all the food. The kids were just too happy and excited to calmly sit and eat. All around, it was a fun experience for me, Tom, and Sarah Jane.

Tom Meets Doctor Bishop

Tom went to the dentist for the first time yesterday. He is now the third generation Anderson/Moore who is seeing Dr. Bishop in Montgomery. Emily's dad sees him, Emily and I see him, and now Tom (and Sarah Jane eventually) see him. Dr. Bishop is the nicest dentist ever. He just has a very calming attitude. Tom did a great job on this first visit and I think Dr. Bishop gets a lot of credit for that.

Happy 4th Birthday Tom

So, our little guy turns 4 today. Unbelievable. It really does feel like just yesterday we were at the hospital waiting to find out if he was a boy or a girl. Last night, before he went to sleep we listed all the stuff he did when he was 3. The list was pretty impressive:

1. Moved from Crib to Bed to Bunk Bed.
2. Learned to ride a bike (w/training wheels).
3. Moved from Newport, Kentucky to Legendary Run, OH to Terrace Park, OH.
4. Went to his first basketball game.
5. 100% potty trained, and lots of new underwear.
6. Went from the Lizards to the Crocodiles at Goddard School.
7. Learned how to go under water and hold his breath at the pool.
8. Getting dressed all by himself.
9. Brushing teeth all by himself.
10. Spelling his name.

I can't wait to see what year 4 brings for our T-Man!

Anyone Know a Good Dentist?

It's Fall!!!!

This was about 1/3 of our yard. Our final leaf pile was just ridiculous.

Early Halloween

Tom and Francie tried out these "super scary" masks that Coley made for them the other night. Tom kind of looks like the Joker in his.

Camping Results = We Survived!

We did our first family camping trip this weekend. We cheated, a little bit, by staying out at the Moore's Farm. I'll give you the quick details, in list style:

1. We camped out on Saturday, setting up our site around 5:30 PM
2. We were with two other families, The Spurlings (Brian, Mary Ann, Jackson and William) and the Johnsons (Wade, Dena, JoJo and Cole).
3. Weather Conditions at 5:30 = 50's, cloudy, windy
4. First person in bed = Cole. He was pretty tired and he is 2 years old, so we'll cut him some slack.
5. First person to bail and head up to the house = Sarah Jane. She was not tired, and 2 years old, keeping track of her in the dark became a bigger challenge than Emily or I thought it would be.
6. We had Hot Dogs/Fruit Salad/Beans and all kinds of snack food.
7. Smores galore!
8. Lots of beer was consumed (Dena drank 1 from 6 PM to 11 PM)
9. Last people to go to bed = Wade and Patrick. We placed ourselves in charge of finishing the beer (with Brian's help), so that kept us up later than we wanted to be. While drinking said beer, we "chased" a deer through the campsite and I almost fell into the fire. Instead Wade saved me, good catch buddy!
10. Coyotes heard = ??? It sounded like a lot of them, but it was probably 2 or 3.
11. Temperature overnight = 38 degrees
12. Number of people crying/waking up through the night = 0

It ended up being a very nice camping adventure for us and our kids. This could become a yearly tradition, if everyone else is game?

Farm Stuff

We had a very nice day at the Moore's farm yesterday. First off, the weather was perfect. Not too hot, not cold at all. Second, we had a free day for the first time in a while, so the timing worked out great. Finally, the Bengals were not on TV, so we didn't have to watch that mess and we could focus on all the fun stuff there was to do.

Tom got to actually drive the tractor with Grandpa.Then he got to hold a chicken, which he was not too excited about.Sarah Jane (our animal lover) was more than happy to pick up where Tom left off.Finally, we got to get our campsite ready for next Saturday's BIG adventure. That fire pit behind Tom was a labor of love. Emily (and Tom) dug up the hole. I (and Tom) collected rocks. Grandma (and Tom) collected some good firewood. Grandpa bush-hogged the area so we could actually move around and do all that work. We are hoping for the same weather next Saturday when we actually attempt to sleep out in the tent with our kids.

Perspectives (by Thomas William Anderson)

Some nice pictures taken by Thomas:

Family 5K

Over Labor Day weekend, we loaded the kids up in the double stroller and headed up the street for the 5th Annual Bulldog 5K in Terrace Park. This race raises money for all Terrace Park Rec leagues/teams. We thought it was a good cause to help out seeing that our kids will, hopefully, be future participants in Terrace Park sports.

It was a nice flat race and I did pretty well (under 24 minutes). I think the kids had fun running with me, at least no one cried as we were running. Hopefully this becomes a yearly tradition.

Bicycle Time

We were going to wait until Tom's Birthday, but Emily scored an awesome deal at the Terrace Park yard sale (hello $5 for a perfectly good bike!) so Tom got an early gift. She also found a red kids car for Sarah Jane for $4. Keep in mind, Emily was up at 6:30 and at the yard sale by 7 to get this stuff. Apparently, it gets a little crazy. Anyway, here is the video of the kids getting their gifts.

Emily got these things on Saturday morning. I think Tom has been on his bike every day since for at least 3 hours a day. Sarah Jane is not as interested in the red car, but she likes it enough to ask for it every time we go outside.

Move In Video

At long last....our move in video is complete. It's a little long, but, if you watch until the end, you get to see what our house looks like in it's current form. That's a HUGE payoff!!!

The BIG Gun

We are "official" Terrace Park residents now (our move in video to follow) after a long week of organizing and unpacking. Saturday night, we finally had a little free time to go out for a family walk after dinner. Terrace Park has a little green area near the middle of the city with a Gazebo, benches, water fountain and the ceremonial cannons. Well, Tom was all about those cannons. At first he was a little scared they might actually go off and "make a loud noise". After I showed him that they were just there to look at and didn't actually work, he really started to have fun with them. By the end, we had taken down "Dark" Vader and Dark Shooter. Sleep well residents of Terrace Park, the force is strong with this one!

Happy Birthday Sarah Jane!

Our little girl is 2 today. Still a messy eater, but she's getting better!

Wanoka #7 - Kitchen

The kitchen before CabinetsThe kitchen with Cabinets.

Move in date is this weekend, July 30th! We are pretty excited, but also exhausted from all the late nights trying to get the small things taken care of before we move.

Tom's First Movie

Don't let the title of this post fool you. Tom has watched a LOT of movies. His favorite, by far, is Cars. So we figured the best movie to take him to for his first movie THEATER experience was Cars 2.

The picture above does not really capture how excited Tom (and Francie) was to see Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater on a big screen. We had been using this trip as incentive all Summer. "Tom, be a good boy and stay in your bed, and we will take you to see Cars 2 at the movie theater". That kind of stuff was said since we first saw the preview for Cars 2 on TV. So he was fired up to finally get to go to a theater and eat popcorn (and maybe a little candy).

The movie was pretty good, but hard for the kids to follow. A lot of spy stuff and some secretly adult humor. (The girl spy's name was Holly Shiftswell, very James Bond/Austin Powers). Like most sequels, the first movie was better, in my opinion. But Tom and Francie seemed to like being at the movies and they both said they want to go back again. I'll take that as a good sign.

Wanoka #6

Our Bay Window in MayOur bay Window in JuneOur finished Bay Window!

Wanoka #5

Tom's Room at closing.Tom's room now. This is a different wall, but definitely the feature we are most happy about. Emily found this "wallpaper map" on National Geographic's website. Tom picked out his own wall color, which was called "Newport". Emily and I were happy to bring some of our old Kentucky-ness with us.

4th of July Weekend

Our 4th of July weekend was spent mostly at our new house trying to get the kitchen ready for new floors and cabinets. Emily and I spent Friday night (8 PM - 1 AM) priming the ceilings and walls. Saturday we got some down time as we headed up to the Gonsior's lake house to celebrate Will's 5th birthday. We then went out to the farm for a relaxing evening with the Moore's.

The rest of the weekend is a blur. We left the kids at the farm on Sunday to start actually painting the kitchen walls. Thanks to some helping hands (GG and Hi-Pop) we were able to get that done. We did a quick clean-up from there, got the kids back, and headed over to the Spurling's house for some delicious ribs and crazy fireworks. (I am joking about the fireworks, we had some mislabeled "rockets" that just smoked and did nothing else.) It was a nice relaxing evening.

Monday was more of the same. We went to Lowes and ordered all of our kitchen appliances, headed back to the house to work on priming and painting the window trim (with some help from Grandma). Around 4 PM, we wrapped it up, showered and headed to the Goff's for one last dinner to celebrate America. Who said holiday weekends were relaxing?

Swim Lessons

Tom started swim lessons at the Sportsmall last night. He is in a class with two other boys and a girl, all between 3 and 4 years old. This Summer we have really noticed that Tom has started to be more open to the idea of going under water and jumping into the pool. He was a little nervous with his teacher, Marco (notice how Tom has one hand around Marco's neck in both these pictures). He eventually figured out that Marco was not going to let him go and by the end of the lesson was going under water and "floating" on his back (again with the help of Marco). He has lessons two nights a week for 4 weeks, hopefully by the end of Summer we have a little fish on our hands.

Wanoka Woods #4

Our house the day we purchased.Halfway through the renovation.The finished product. We used Fiber Cement Siding and Pella Windows. Getting closer to moving in, maybe by the middle of July.

Last Night in Florida

Our favorite Waitress Dora. Guess why she was our favorite?
The Splash Pad warming up.

Starting to go!

Full throttle!

The Anderson/Goff Kids (Minus Nick)

The pre-dinner calm before the post dinner storm.

Overnight in Birmingham

We are on vacation in Sandestin, Florida for the next week or so. We drove down with the Goffs and stopped for the night in Birmingham. The kids loved the big fish in the lobby. I took this picture around 7 in the morning before we left. It might have been the only time we were in the hotel when the kids were not crying/yelling/jumping/running around. Good news is, we made it to Florida in one piece!

Hot Red's Game

We all headed down to our first Red's game of the year (and Sarah's first game ever) last Saturday. The temperature at first pitch was around 96 degrees. We made it to the middle of the 4th before the kids (and maybe both mom and dad too) had had enough. The Redlegs looked good at first but blew it later in the game. I guess it was good we didn't stick around to see that!