Me too.

I have totally been affected by the recent Nie Nie accident. I've been reading the Nie Nie Dialogues for about two years now. Shy Girl even had two giveaways there earlier this year. Here is what Stephanie gave to me each time I visited her blog:

-a new energy to do things I wanted to do anyway, like make more healthful meals for my family, enjoy my daughter a little more, and pamper myself sometimes

-creative new ideas to help make motherhood more like an adventure, like have a back-to-school feast, make an easter egg tree or organic art

-a reminder to live in the moment

-a new interest in loving my husband a little more publicly

-a reminder to take a break sometimes. (I really liked that picture of her kids locked outside. Is that weird? I just thought it was awesome that she would post that.)

Well, apparently, I am not the only one who reads her blog and not by a long shot. Stephanie and her husband were in an accident in a plane a few weeks ago and are in for months of recovery. The blogging world has completely banded together in their behalf holding online auctions on dozens and dozens of sites to help ease the financial burden of their recovery. I just read in the NY times that the total of these auctions might be around $100,000.

I'm completely enthralled with their story and keep up on it on Stephanie's sister's blog here.

It's pretty amazing. Donate here to help.

For your viewing pleasure: "Pattycake" or "Pat-a-cake" or whatever it's called

...with hiccups.

Provo, Baby!

We finally got into our apartment and had a ton of help in the process. A super special thank you goes out to my parents, my cousins: Suzanne, Karen, Carly, Chris and Geddy, and to our friend, Justin. Just think of this as your lovely hand-written thank you note; I'd love to send you all one, but let's face it, I'm terrible at sending hand-written thank you notes, although I'd like to be really really good at it. I'm sorry. But thank you- we couldn't have done it without you!

This is what our apartment looked like the day after we moved everything in:


The Bubbush liked it as long as she had her bagel and cream cheese. Don't worry, when things are more in order, we'll post more pictures of our new place.


One great thing about our new apartment is that it's in Utah, which is where most of my family lives. So, for a special treat we got to go to IKEA with my sister and her Lily last week.


Lily and Elly are just as far apart as Emma and Lily were. Keri dressed her girls alike and Elly has inherited Lily's end of those clothes. They love to match each other now and people think they're sisters. It's pretty adorable.

Utah welcomes us with foreign visitors...

We had just seen each other at the beach the previous week, but when we got to Utah, we were so happy to see my family welcoming us to the mountainous state. We stayed with my parents until our moving truck arrived, so it was a little bit like yet another vacation. The weekend began with an exciting event that was my nephew Daniel's 6th birthday party. Tim's kids have been really into the movie The Karate Kid, so that was the theme of the birthday party. The best part of the party by far was the foreign visitor...Mr. Miyagi:


He did an awesome job entertaining the kids and teaching them "the way of Karate"...respect. He even gave each of them a headband with that looked just like the one Daniel-san wore in the movie made by my amazing sister, Keri:




He showed them how to fend off evil attacks from ninjas (a.k.a. Emma):



Then, we had some delicious Batman cake. (They didn't have a Karate Kid cake at Albertson's, I don't know why. 1980's teenage romance movies are often the theme for kids' birthday parties.) Elly truly enjoyed this cake. I did not truly enjoy its blue frosting on her cute little dress, however. So, she got to eat hers in her nothinz.


After the children had filled the stomachs with sugary desserts, we naturally steered them right towards the tire swing. Brandon was the hit of the after-party, giving all the kids a turn to experience one of his crazy powerful underdogs. So, when the kids had had enough (just kidding, that would never happen) we kicked them off, so we could have turns:






I did get on the tire swing, but I got a little too dizzy and you don't want to see the evidence of that. Instead, I chose this lovely picture of two sisters sitting pleasantly on the hammock for you:



Thanks for the great welcome, Utah! We love it here already.

Little Pioneer Girl

I forgot to post this picture of Elly at our ward's Pioneer Day celebration. My sister, Keri, made this dress for her Lily and the hat was Emma's. Strawberry sandles courtesy of Target. Actually they weren't courtesy, I had to pay for them, but they came from Target.

Beach Vacation #2: Fowles Fam

Our marathon vacation continued in pleasant Ventura Beach, California with my side of the family. The Bubsh again fell in love with the beach (although, from this picture you may not be able to tell).



Dad, Tim, Cody and Brandon had an athletic game of flies up on the beach:

And this time, Brandon got be out there on the boogie board. I was seriously awesome.


We stayed at the very posh Ventura Beach Marriott where we swam, did laundry, enjoyed the convenience of the concierge lounge and watched a wedding from our window taking place by the pool area (not my choice of perfect wedding spots, but the bride seemed happy with it).


One day, we took a short trip up to Santa Barbara where we rode this thing:

It's a bike built for 6, or a "sexcycle"...yeah, that's right.

We also went to the Marine Museum there, where Elly pet a shark. We also got to watch a starfish turn itself over. Just believe me, it was cool.


Elly and her two cousins created a puppet show at the museum with the sea creatures...


...and this is what the audience looked like:

At least Keri and Mad are feigning interest.


We capped out the week with family pictures on the beach. They were a bit of a disaster as nobody realized how super, crazy, windy it would be right on the beach. Hair creations were completely ruined, and people who wore skirts were indeed sorry. But, it was beautiful lighting, so that's good.


Some of my favorite parts of the vacation were watching Elly play in the sand with her cousins, eating at Andria's seafood (it was amazingly yummy), eating that one pizza at that one park by the beach (also crazy good pizza), seeing Elly interact with cousins, aunts, uncles and Doc and K-ma, and having hors d'oeuvres with my siblings. All in all, it was a fantastic vacation. Thanks Doc and K-ma for a wonderful time!

Who's idea was this?

On August 1st, we began our marathon vacation with the extended Anderson Family in Irvine, California. And yes, it was my idea to have a family photo in the hot tub. What can I say, I believe it was the only time the whole weekend we were all in one place all together. This is our entire family...in swimsuits. Enjoy.


We played all weekend with cousins in the pool, on the grass, and in Aunt Karen's house. (Thanks, Aunt Karen and Uncle Lee!) We listened to the Anderson siblings debate over ridiculously tiny details, as usual. And we had an exciting game of Trivial Pursuit where we learned, among other things, the disturbing fact that Andrei Agassi had a romance with Barbara Streisand at one time. This is the epitome of the title word "Trivial", to me.

Then, we all played for one last day on the beach- my favorite day of all. Elly was completely at home at the beach. She loved playing in the sand with cousin Gigi (they are 4 months apart).



Brandon had an equally awesome time playing with his cousins...and brothers...and sisters. Boogie boarding is a must at the beach...

There was also some serious volleyball played. Check out this shot where Brandon spikes the ball and sacrifices his shoes in the process. This is just an example of how seriously this game is played among Andersons.


I thought this was a good photo op. I don't know why I'm into the back of us all of the sudden. But, I think it looks cool.