Merry Christmas!

(These are from a screen shot so quality is not great, but you get the idea.)

Happy Holidays from Eagle Mountain! We are grateful for the opportunity to pause to reflect upon our loving Savior and how much we have been blessed this year. We have experienced incredible triumphs and some overwhelming trials, and have felt the hand of our Savior through it all.

Here is a quick summary of our 2015:

Eleanor turned three years old in January and celebrated with an Elsa cake and homemade pizza – her favorite. Eleanor also had the opportunity to model some princess dress-ups for a company called Little Dress Up Shop. To say she enjoyed it would be an understatement! She has grown up so much this year and has become the best big sister. She is currently taking a ballet/lyrical class that she loves.

Scarlett turned two in October with an Anna themed cake and has turned into quite the troublemaker. She can hold her own against her sister and makes up for her petite size with a very stubborn and demanding personality. But her sweet hugs, kisses and endearing “I love you” melt our hearts every time. Scarlett talks non-stop and absolutely loves music. Taylor Swift is currently her favorite and she pretty much knows all the songs on her latest album.

April spends most of her time chasing after the girls, but she did pick up running this year and participated in two 5k races and her first 10k race. She also became Primary President in our ward and enjoys working with the more than 170 children in primary and nursery each week. She has been working on Christmas gifts all year long and is excited to finally have everything complete by Christmas.

Kevin changed jobs this summer, and now works for a small document management company while also pursuing his dream of starting his own business. Most of his free time was spent hard at work in the yard growing a beautiful garden. All of his hard work certainly paid off and we were able to can lots of salsa, spaghetti sauce and pepper jelly from the abundance of tomatoes and peppers.

Kevin and April had the incredible opportunity to travel to Germany for Kevin’s sisters’ wedding this summer. We visited Frankfurt, Furth, Nuremburg, Munich, and Schwangau and had the trip of a lifetime. Highlights include canoeing down the Penikt River, exploring beautiful churches, filling up on delicious German cuisine and gelato, celebrating Lenette and Chris’s marriage, and touring the Neuschwanstein Castle.

The summer stayed busy with a family trip to San Diego to visit April’s parents and a drive up to Washington state for the Anderson Family Reunion. So many fun memories were made. We felt so spoiled with all that family time.

Thank you for being a part of our lives and for all of your love and prayers this year. We hope the holidays being you much joy, love and laughter. Merry Christmas!

Love, The Andersons

Frog Creek

For the actual family reunion, Kevin's parents very generously rented out this amazing house for all of us to stay in for a couple days called Frog Creek. Kevin's mom and his sister Tania did an amazing job planning the schedule and  activities so we were never bored. The girls were in heaven and crashed pretty hard every night. Eleanor still asks if we can go back to Frog Creek. 

There were many moments that I didn't capture, but they were all so much fun. I know we would all agree that the part we loved most was that everyone was there. I'm sure blessed to be part of the Anderson family. 

Pre-Anderson Reunion 2015 Activities

Later on in July we drove up to Bremerton, Washington to spend time with Kevin's family. His entire immediate family and their families made the trip and it was an incredible couple of weeks with many fun memories.

We arrived about a week before the the actually reunion and got to spend some good down time with his siblings who live in Washington and Lenette and Chris who flew in from Germany. I'm pretty sure the girls loved every second of this trip.

Eleanor building blocks with Daddy. 

Trying out the swing at Uncle Mike's house. 

Playing with cousin Jake in his backyard. 

Picnic with Grandma.

One day we headed over to "Castle Park". The girls had tons of fun of course. Especially when Lenette and Chris arrived. 

This was a favorite spot of Scarlett's. And she was never without all Grandma's baby dolls and beds. 

Eleanor was not going to be left out of playing basketball with the boys. 

Sometimes she got a little too cozy with Grandma's flowers. 

Scarlett sort of forced cousin Emma to be her friend. 

Giggles with Daddy and Grandpa.

Another day the girls and I headed to a park by the water. It was recently renovated and the equipment was really nice. The girls had a blast. 

 These two got along so great. Sometimes a little too great. Haha.

Story time with Grandma is the best. 

Grandma was kind enough to let the girls help with the baking and cooking. I love memories made in the kitchen. 

Eleanor loved drawing with Uncle Chris.

Friday evening was Lenette and Chris's Open House. Everything was set up on the deck and turned out beautiful. The weather was a bit chilly when the wind picked up, but the food was a delicious! 

The next day our little family took the Kingston Ferry to Kirkland for a birthday party. Scarlett fell asleep in the car, so just Eleanor and I wandered around the ferry a bit. 

 I am so grateful that the timing worked out that we were in town for little Tierney's 1st birthday party. Christy is one of my dearest friends from growing up and it was so good to see her.

After the party we headed to the KidsQuest Children's Museum in Bellevue. We got in free with our Thanksgiving Point membership. It was a fun little stop for the girls.

We also stopped by the Seattle LDS Temple for some quick photos. 

Both girls ended up wearing the same Utah State shirts, totally unplanned.