Fun Times

Ever since Tyler finished school, we have been having so many fun times here in Pocatello! We wanted to share with y'all some of the fun pictures we have captured of Leah and other random events.

 Leah asleep in her highchair because mommy was taking too long to make lunch! 

 First time Leah tried spaghetti! She got so dirty!! Don't you just love the noodles on her head! 

 Tyler loves this picture of Leah! She is just the best little girl! She took her first steps on Saturday to her Grandma Andersen! We are hoping she will start walking a lot while we are in Texas!! 

We laughed so hard when we saw this sign!

This is pretty much what we are surrounded by in Pocatello! There are mountains everywhere! We just love Pocatello and all of the fun things we get to do in such a beautiful city! 

Tyler's Birthday/Trip to the Zoo

We had such a fun time this weekend celebrating Tyler's 25th birthday! Leah and I had fun spoiling our hard-working daddy. He got a new razor, a couple of WWII documentaries and lots of books!

On Saturday, Tyler's mom came down and we went and ate pho (a Vietnamese noodle soup that Tyler got addicted to on his mission). Tyler is not much of a cake-eater, so instead I went and picked up a Banana Cream Pie from a super yummy restaurant we have here in Pocatello! On Sunday (Ty's actual birthday) we got to teach primary, which is always the best way to spend church and then we came home and Tyler grilled hamburgers for us while we attempted (unsuccessfully) to watch the eclipse.

 On Monday we decided to go to our city's zoo!! It is not super big, but it was super fun! It is filled with rescued animals that are native to Idaho, so we saw lots of bison and coyotes, and rock chucks. Here is Leah in front of a peacock (not native to Idaho, but really annoying). She did not know what to think of all of the animals, but she had fun.

 Here is Tyler in front of a grizzly bear!! He is a regular Timothy Treadwell! This bear just kept going in circles and getting super close to where we were standing. It was kind of scary, but really neat to get that close to a bear. Two seconds before this picture was taken I saw a snake on a rock and ran down the hill to get Leah and I away from it. Tyler does not believe me, but the snake was going to attack Leah and I!

 This is how Leah spent most of the day! Isn't she soooo cute when she sleeps! I love her cheeks!!

 Here is Tyler and I! I just love my honey!

 We had such a fun time at the zoo! Pocatello is such a wonderful city and we are having so many fun adventures together!

Utah Adventures

Here is a picture of Tyler while he was working on one of his many 20+ paged papers this semester. Leah loves to be close to her daddy, even when he is in his scholar mode!

For conference weekend we decided to have a fun trip down to Utah to see my brother Ryan and his adorable family, and for Tyler to go to his mission reunion. We had never been to the new Church History Library. (Right? We should have been the first people to be there!) As we were leaving Tyler ran into Richard Turley, the Assistant Church Historian, who also co-authored a really good book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Tyler was star struck! 

Then we went to a couple of bookstores, that were so much fun for Tyler. At Benchmark Books (the single-best LDS bookstore in existence) he met Curt Bench, who was really involved in the Mark Hofmann case in the mid 1980s (and is also kind of fun to learn about). Tyler was again, star struck!

Then we went to another bookstore where Tyler found a Hebrew edition of the Book of Mormon. These are extremely rare and REALLY expensive, but Tyler was so excited to touch one! 

 We met up with my wonderful sister in law Alison, who was in Utah for a work trip. We were so happy to be able to spend a little while with her and to hear how her and my brother Zach are doing! We sure miss and love them!

 After, we went to Tyler's mission reunion. He loved President and Sister Crockett, and they sure loved him! Teri Crockett is in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so look for her next conference!

 Finally, we made it down to Provo to spend time with my brother and his family and to watch conference with them the next day. Leah and Robert are super close in age and they sure have fun when they are together!

Here is Eric and Beth who are always so fun to be around and to hang out with when we go to Utah! We had such a fun Conference weekend with all of our family and friends! 

Easter and the rest of April

We have been having some really fun adventures the last few months. When we were living in our basement apartment we could not fit our couch down to where we were living, so we bought this cute chair from DI, but as you can see it is a little...dated! My wonderful mother in law saw the potential in the chair and helped me reupholster it! We got the fabric for a good price at JoAnns and then we recovered it! We loved how it turned out! Now all we need is a prettier couch, but we are in no rush! The top part of the chair is what it used to look like and the bottom part is what we recovered it in.

 We had a wonderful Easter Sunday! We helped substitute for a primary class, which was so much fun and then we came home, dyed Easter eggs and then hid them for our Easter Egg Hunt! Leah had so much fun running around the house with Daddy finding all of the clues and eggs that the "Easter Bunny" hid! Here is Leah and I in our Easter dresses! The bunny I am wearing around my neck was had carved from my dad when I was 9 years old. I have worn it every Easter for the last 14 years proudly! I love you Daddy!

 Here is Leah in some super cute bunny ears that my sister in law Ellen sent us! She loved wearing them and was fascinated by the pink sparkly part!

 This is a picture of our mud room where Tyler and I love to go and read! We also have a lot of plants that we keep out there that we love to tend. This year we were excited to be able to plant a garden! We planted three tomato plants, and lots of cucumbers! We hope we will get something out of it. I love this picture because Leah loves to go out in the mud room and wave at all the cars that pass by the house! She gets so excited to see them!

 Tyler says he will treasure this note forever! Tyler loves to tease his poor little nieces. This past Saturday we were able to hang out with them after a family funeral. This was the conversation Tyler had with his niece Grace. (Note: Grace and her family have chickens that like to sit by the window and look in on us while we sit in their living room.)
 Ty: Hey Grace!
Grace: What?
Ty: Chicken Butt!
(Grace runs to nice Aunt Kacey and turns red in the face from anger then exits the room hastily!)
A few minutes later Grace returns with a note that was nicely wrapped up for Tyler with lots of bows. As you can see from the picture below, Tyler had fun continually teasing his nieces for the grammatical error. (Grace did not write the note, but had her big sister Rachel write it for her, which made it even funnier!) Tyler deserved to be called a "but head" after what he did!

Happy Valentine's/St. Patrick's Day!

Hello From the Andersen crew! We have had some fun adventures the last couple of months. We did end up moving into our new apartment and we just LOVE it! Compared to our last place it is a palace! Below is a family picture of us on St. Patrick's Day! We had to pinch daddy since he decided not to wear green! Tyler wanted to have an authentic Irish meal on St. Patrick's day to celebrate our Irish heritage! We had "Fish and Chips" and IBC cream soda! It was soooo yummy, but not super healthy!
Here is Leah enjoying her time with her daddy! She loves being able to snuggle with her daddy! And don't they both have the cutest smiles!
This last week we went to a technology fair at the Hold Arena on campus. It was super fun to go and walk around together. Here is Leah giving her best "Go Bengals" cheer!
Leah got to meet Wall-e at the fair, but she was not quite sure how to react to the robot. This was the coolest robot and it even played all the sounds from the movie!
Here is Leah an I at our niece Rachel's birthday party at the beginning of the month! We have so much fun hanging out with our family, and our nieces are sooo sweet with Leah!
Leah likes to "Feast upon the words of Christ". After Leah destroyed a few of our Ensign's we learned to put them in a place where she could not reach them. Just look at that innocent face. Leah is starting to crawl and has her first tooth coming in! I love how big my baby is getting!
These were my Valentines on Valentines day! We had a fun day with heart shaped pancakes in the morning, a trip to Walmart in the afternoon and Chinese food for dinner. It was a wonderful Valentine's day, especially since we got to spend it together as a family!
In February Leah and her cousins got to go to a princess Tea Party at Tyler's old high school! It was so much fun to see all of the different princesses and to hang out with Katy and her girls! Leah went as a fairy! (Thanks Laura for the amazing Tutu and hairband!)

My Sweet Leah!

Hello again! For my birthday I got an amazing camera from my parents so that I can capture all the fun we have with our sweet little Leah! Leah will be turning six months on February 13th! She is such a wonderful baby! She is pretty much sleeping through the night, rolling around like a rolly polly, starting to scoot backwards, and is LOVING all of the new foods mommy and daddy are feeding her, as seen below! Leah loves taking naps on the silky side of our bedspread. She goes right to sleep as soon as I set her on it.
We went out to eat for my birthday and Leah had a wonderful time being able to sit and look at mom and dad while she played with her "Gary the Giraffe". (Technically the giraffe is called Sofie, but we renamed her and gave her a sex change for the heck of it!)
Leah loves her BUMBO! Although, she likes to lean to one side so she can escape out of it. We love our Leah and all the fun we have with her!

Lack of Pictures/Possible New Apartment

Today was one of the best days I have had in a while! This afternoon we went to go visit my amazing mother-in-law and see where she works! She is an aide for a special needs class at Blackfoot High School. We had so much fun hanging out with her students and letting them play with Leah. They loved having a baby there! Then we went to go look at an amazing apartment!! It is a huge three bedroom apartment that Tyler and I can stand up in without bending down (like we have to do in our current apartment!). It is about a block away from campus and would be perfect for our little family while Tyler is finishing up his degree. We have sent in the application and hope to hear back on Monday whether we got the apartment or not. Please keep us in your prayers and keep your fingers crossed! I would have added lots of photos by now to show you our current apartment and how big Leah is, but my camera software does not work with Tyler's computer. Until we figure something out, there will be a lack of pictures on my blog. I apologize because I know one of the only reasons I look at blogs is to see all of the pictures! Hopefully we will have an eventful couple of weeks moving in to another apartment and making that feel like home!