Ward Fall Festival

Saturday night, Ryan, Jared, and I had our ward Fall Festival with our White Oak Ward. We'd been working all week, mostly Ryan, to have our costumes ready. Ryan is an amazing sewer and never ceases to impress me with his creations and ambition. As usual with our Halloween costumes, I came up with the concept and Ryan made it happen and made it amazing!

Ryan hanging up his hula-hoop frame.

Ryan cut the hoops, drilled holes, and tied them together.

This Halloween we decided to be pumpkins. Jared was a cute, little jack-o-lantern. I had a nice, round jack-o-lantern belly. And Ryan was a huge, first prize winning pumpkin! 

Ryan pinning the cloth in preparation to sew.

It was a lot of work and hours to put these together, but it was a great family project with me as Ryan's assistant and Jared keeping us company and holding still to get measurements. He liked getting to wear his steam hat with daddy.

The boys wrestling in their stem hats.

At the Fall Festival (a.k.a. carnival, trunk-or-treat), everyone loved our pumpkin family costumes and Ryan especially got a lot of attention when we first arrived. It was funny how amazed some of the little kids were to see such a big pumpkin costume. 

Jared getting his face painted.

Ryan didn't have any arms all night, so I helped him eat a bite of caramel apple and then he walk around with Jared while I ate my dinner. Jared was pretty good about staying with his pumpkin daddy; they were so cute together.

The State Fair prize winning pumpkin!

The pumpkin family! =)

Later, when I was holding Jared, Ryan would run at Jared in his big pumpkin costume and make Jared laugh and squeal. It was so cute! 

Jared loved the games, most of them were throwing or tossing games.

During the trunk-or-treat part of the evening, Ryan passed out candy while I took Jared around to get candy. You might wonder how he was able to pass out candy with no arms. Well, it was definitely pretty entertaining for the kids. After they would say "trunk-or-treat" he would throw a candy into their bag (or at least attempt) from the opening in his neck area. He actually got some good practice and made it into their bags a good portion of the time. We were pretty impressed! =)

Ryan was some how able to fit a chair inside
his costume with him so he could sit down.

Jared was having a hard time saying "treat," so we'd say "please" instead as he went around to get candy. It was pretty cute. When some of the people held out the bucket to let him pick it was funny to see how particular he was about looking at them all and picking one.

Me and my VT companion, princess Leia. :)

We had a really fun night! We're looking forward to dressing up again on Thursday! We hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!!!

Love,

The Andersons

Happy National Boss Day!!!

 So, last Wednesday was National Boss Day, so I told Ryan and asked him if he wanted to do anything, even though his boss is out of town (out of the country really). He decided he wanted to do this. I made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and he took a plate to work and took some pictures of him sharing them with his coworkers, and then sent an e-mail something like this.

We just wanted to wish you a happy National Boss Day on this very special October 16^th. For this grand holiday we brought you a plate of pumpkin spice cookies…

And since you’ll be away for another long while, we wanted to let you know that they were delicious…

Ryan sent me a copy of the e-mail after he sent it; it made me laugh when I saw this! Sounds just like something Ryan would have fun doing. =)

Playing at the Park

Jared's and my way of getting out of the house, when we're not running errands, is to go to the park or the library. Last Tuesday we joined our wards playgroup at a new park we hadn't been to yet. Jared loved it. There was a lot of exploring to do. This one had sand, where our other one has wood chips and he had a couple little friends to play with who he knew from nursery.

Jared...

on the see-saw.

in the Flintstones car.

on a dinosaur.

in a tire.

on the jungle gym.

playing with a friend.

smiling!

32 Weeks

I'm now 32 weeks pregnant with our Baby Karl!! I had a check-up today and everything's still looking good. He's in about the 54 percentile with a weight of 4lb 6oz, according to the ultrasound.

He was so cute! During the ultrasound he was sucking his thumb, or one of his fingers, and got the hiccups. 

He'll be here in two more months!! We're so excited!!

Downtown Aquarium

Ryan, Jared, and I took a little family adventure, last weekend, to the Downtown Aquarium here in Houston. Houston is so big that we've only left the city once or twice since we've been living here, and there are so many things to do that we figured we'd better start exploring the city more. Going to the Aquarium was our first idea for some family fun here in Houston.

This was the first time I can ever remember having gone to an aquarium and it was definitely Jared's first time, so we all had a great time. It was like a maze as we worked our way from room to room and hallways full of tanks and so many different species of fish and reptiles.

Jared has always been fascinated whenever he gets to see a fish tank anywhere. He always loved going over and poking and staring at the pet-fish-tank at Grampa and Gramma Jacobs' house. So, this was like Christmas morning for him getting to see so many different, colorful, and some huge fish.

He also go to see jelly-fish, a large yellow eel (scary!), an alligator, some turtles, frogs, snakes, oh, and a snow tiger.

At the end we got to go into a sting ray petting room where we washed our hands and got to pet sting rays that were swimming in a shallow pool. Jared was so excited to see so close to them and have them splashing at us. He kept squealing with laughter, but he was still too afraid to actually touch them. Ryan and I did a couple times; they were pretty slimy and didn't seem to mind everyone touching them a bit.

It was a fun day and we had a great time together!!

Motorcycle

We got a motorcycle!!!

 We've been needing a second form of transportation lately, for Jared and I to make it to our doctor appointments and get other errands done while Ryan's gone at work during the day.

 Ryan and I hadn't really been considering getting a motorcycle a whole lot, 'til we talked to a friend who was trying to sell one. We talked about it and ended up deciding it would be a good economic choice; it'd be cheaper than getting a car and get better gas mileage. Plus, it could be a fun new hobby.

Jared was pretty impressed by it from the start. He loved the helmet and wanted to try it on at the store. It was cute!

 Ryan was able to take a rider training class a few weeks ago and got pretty comfortable with riding. He did really well on his tests and got his M on his license. We just have to get the inspection and registration done in the next couple days and then he'll be able to ride it to work everyday, or at least the non-monsoon days.

Happy 2nd Birthday Jared!!!

We celebrated Jared's birthday two days early, on Saturday, so we could make a day of it and so Mark and Kris could be here for it. We started off the day with some chocolate-chip pancakes and then opened Jared's presents.

It was pretty entertaining! He was really good at opening almost all his presents all by himself, but got some help from daddy when it got a bit tricky.

He got some new clothes and shoes from momma and daddy. Those were a lot of fun for him to tear open and he had to try on his new shoes right away!

 He also got a basketball hoop and ball from us. Ryan set that up and showed him how to use it and shoot like a pro! He's pretty good at it!

 Gramma Kris and Papa Mark gave him a rifle and pistol. He had a great time with those and couldn't wait to get them out of the box.

 We also gave him a little golf set, which he's been wanting to play with again and again these past couple days. Ryan tried to teach him the right way to hold a golf club. It was cute.

 These boys are good at ganging up on me!! Can't wait 'til baby Karl's here, I'll teach him to be on momma's side! ;)

After opening presents, we got ready and took Jared to the park to spend some time together as a family swinging and sliding. Jared had a great time! He wanted to do everything!

 

We then took him to Sonic for a birthday lunch. He loves anything he can dip before he eats it, so he loved the tater-tots and ketch-up!

He was pretty pooped by the time we got home, so he took a good nap while Ryan and I finished his cake. I baked it and made the different colored frosting. Ryan, who came up with idea of doing a motorcycle race track cake, did the decorating.

 It turned out really nice! Jared loved it!

 Jared and I have been practicing this last week or two with how to blow out candles, so when it came time to blow out his birthday candle he could hardly wait and blew them out in blow; he was very anxious.

 It was such a fun day and we were so glad to have Mark and Kris with us there too! =)

 

 We're soo proud of our new little two-year-old. He's such a smart, fun little boy!!!

Thank you to everyone who's passed on hugs, kisses, and birthday wishes to Jared!! I think he knows he's loved! =)