A Fun Surprise

When Maggie got home today we found her school picture in her backpack. I had asked Mrs. Cain before pictures were taken if she thought they would be back before we leave and she said she thought they took about a month. I was prepared to leave a forwarding address with her or have Sharon pick them up for us. Luckily we don't have to do either.

No, she does not have a concussion! This is how she looks all the time now that we have to give her Atropine drops to blur her right eye. As you can see here, her left eye still turns in and there has been little improvement in her vision. Our move comes at an unfortunate time where Maggie's eyes are concerned, but hopefully we can find a great Opthamologist in or near Evanston.

I had the packet of pictures sitting on the counter and when Maggie walked by she said "Wow, I'm pretty!" Yes you are! From the moment you were born people, starting with the Doctor, stop to tell me how pretty you are.

OOPS!

I just realized I didn't get any pictures of the boys on here. So, they get there own special post!
Devon
Riley & Hannah
Jake & Zoe
For a long time Zoe would only go to Jake. She loves him a lot and he is the only cousin that gets hugs. She finally decided a while ago that Devon and Riley were alright and they too could get a hug once in a while.

Another Goodbye Dinner

So where does the Andersen family go when we want to get together? Casa Ole of course! A few of the clan wanted to wish us farewell so we all had dinner last night at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

So here they all are: Allan, Brenda, Natalie, Randy, Austin, Zoe, Glenn, Maggie, Peyton, Kevin, Haley, Devon, Kristie, Hannah, Riley, Sharon, Jake, Rick, Geri, Bob, Grandpa Andersen, Ona & April (holding Lexi)

Zoe and Hannah were really enjoying the chips and avacado dip.

Maggie and Haley are just few months apart in age and have always had a lot of fun playing together. Maggie will miss being able to see Haley at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Maggie wanted to be the photographer for the evening. She did pretty well, but missed getting Grandpa and Grandma and also Great Grandpa and Ona. She took a whole roll of film so I'm not going to put all the pictures up.



Aunt Geri & Uncle Rick

Uncle Allan, Aunt Brenda, Lexi and Sharon

Me, Zoe and Glenn

Kristie and her favorite Sister-in-Law!

Another Bunch of Pictures

Thursday (October 23) Kristie and Hannah came over to help with some errands. Before we started running around we went to Wendy's for lunch. The girls were being so silly. Instead of dipping their french fries in the ketchup they were having fun dipping their fingers.




Friday (October 24) was the most anticipated day of the week. Glenn and his cousins have put together a volleyball game for those in our wards that are interested in playing. Some weeks there are a bunch of people and other weeks there are hardly enough for them to play. This week was an average week, but two of his cousins came with their kids. Maggie loves volleyball night and asks everyday if tomorrow is Friday. She enjoys playing with the little kids, but really likes it when some of the kids from the ward come with their dads. The Lyon kids were there for awhile but didn't stay long so Maggie got to play with the little kids.




In the top picture: Natalie got surrounded! From left to right: Allison, Maggie, Austin, Jenna, Zoe
Second picture: Super Star of the volleyball court...Glenn
Third picture: Glenn and Sharon the back waiting for the serve
Fourth picture: Everyone watching Glenn to see what kind of trick he was going to do. I told him to dazzle me so he jumped up in the air and touched his toes. Of course I missed that spectacular move! It was dazzling and quite impressive I must say.

Saturday (October 25)
Trunk-or-Treat





Glenn's cousin Randy was the DJ for our tri-ward party and the girls loved the music. Zoe can not help but bust a move whenever she hears music. It was difficult getting pictures because she wouldn't stop dancing. All the people behind us were just busting up watching her dance.

Thank you Randy for bringing out the dancing diva in my girls! You rock!!


Here are the family spookables all together again. Left to right: Danielle, Jenna, Austin, Maggie, Allison & Zoe


These are a couple of girls from Maggie's Sunday school class. They have been in the same class since nursery. I know Maggie is going to miss the twins. Left to right: Zoe, Shanna Captain, Maggie, (I'm not sure who the next girl is), Sabrina Captain







After the Trunk-or-Treat I knew it was going to take a while for the girls to settle down enough to go to bed so while they were in the bath tub I set up a little "camping" adventure on our bed. We have a large canopy bed so I draped blankets over the sides and grabbed Glenn's laptop and a movie and we camped out on the bed watching Curious George until Maggie crashed. While I was busy taking pictures Zoe was busy working on getting a blue gumball out of it's wrapper. Oh how I love my little stinkers!

We have had a fun week and are looking forward to an even more full and exciting week to come. It will be full of last minute packing and getting rid of stuff we don't need. Our excitement and anticipation continues to grow as we get closer and closer to our move.

Another arrival

Kinley's arrival definetly trumps this news, but the check for our moving expenses to Wyoming was just delivered and signed for! Thank heaven. We can now finalize everything and get the heck out of Dodge!! There are just not enough words, or at least I don't know the right ones, to express how happy we are to have this opportunity to move onward, upward, and forward with our lives.

I haven't said much about the move because things just kept getting pushed back and rearranged. I didn't want to get too excited and then have it taken away. That seems to be our luck, but that has changed now. Things are actually coming together and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It has been a very long, and at times extremely dark tunnel, but it is coming to an end. A new beginning lays before us and we can see great possibilities in our future!

Maggie has been a little distraught because she just doesn't have a great concept of time. She keeps asking us if we are moving today...tomorrow...the next day? I finally told her last night that she would know when it was time for us to move when she saw a great big yellow moving van in our driveway. This morning she and Zoe were outside playing with the sidewalk chalk and I had locked the gate so Zoe couldn't escape. Maggie had finished her drawing and then decided that she was going to check and see if the "big orange truck" was here. She got a little upset with me for locking the gate since she can't get out of it either. I almost had a riot on my hands but she didn't fight me when I told her it wasn't here. I was expecting a huge throw yourself on the floor fit. Maybe my little demon is growing up after all!

Our "big orange truck" will be here on Thursday. We will get it all packed that day and then Bob and Sharon will leave in it Friday morning. We will leave Saturday morning in our soccer mom mobile (Glenn is so happy with that purchase). We are hoping that the weather is good enough that we can get to Evanston by Monday, Tuesday at the latest.

Exactly one week from today we will be saying goodbye to Texas...hopefully forever!

SHE'S HERE!

Kinley Grace North arrived this morning! Congratulations Mandi, Justin & Big Sister Sadie!! We can't wait to meet out newest neice!

Falling so far behind

I am so far behind on my pictures. Since I have gone digital I have only gotten a small portion of my pictures printed. I fear it would cost a small fortune to get prints of everything. I am also falling behind on putting things on this blog. I still have pictures from this summer in Utah that I haven't added. I don't usually have many minutes to be able to sit down and blog so a whole bunch of things get left out and unsaid. That is exactly why I am blogging though. If I had to sit and write everything down it would NEVER happen. At least this way I can record a few memories and someday my girls will be able to read this and hopefully be grateful that at least I put this together. Scrapbooks have definetly taken a back seat these days.

So here are just a few of the latest pictures from our collection:

Our last movie night at Grandma and Grandpa Tomlinson's

We love to watch Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

TOO CUTE COUSINS

After family taco night the girls thouroughly enjoyed finishing off Grandma's rootbeer float. Hope you didn't want any Grandma!

A FAREWELL DINNER

Thank you Krouskop's and Parker's for a fun evening. Left side of the table: Mark & Sara Krouskop, Warren & Laura Parker, Maggie. Right side: Barbara & David Parker, Zoe & Glenn. Where am I? Behind the camera of course!

ZOE JADE & HANNAH MAE

Another attempt to get pictures of Hannah and Zoe together. This was the morning of our garage sale. That is why Zoe is still in her pajamas. She wore them almost all day. Is that a problem?

SCHOOL LUNCH

Maggie's school allows parents to eat with their kids on Wednesdays and Fridays. Every other week Glenn has Friday off so we go eat with Maggie. She gets really excited for Friday to come so we can be at school with her. This year I have been there more than I would like. I have forgotten several mornings to put her eyedrops in so I have to go down to the nurses office and put them in. A couple of days I haven't gotten them in at all. I will be accepting my Mother of the Year award soon!

HELPERS?

We finally got to the attic the other night and of course the girl's were very interested in what was up there. Zoe kept hitting Glenn's leg telling him to "GO, GO".

PIRATE HANNAH

She was being so funny and extremely cute, but of course I couldn't capture the cute pirate face. Dang camera delays!!