Switcheroo

Sorry so long between posts, but the last couple of weeks our family did something interesting that was taking all my time. Darren took his "paternity leave" (two weeks paid leave when your wife has a baby) and took care of the kids all day while I worked from home. Pretty sweet, huh? Well it got even more interesting. I'll try to give you the short, non-boring version. I sat down at my computer two weeks ago to get to work (I work less than part-time for my Dad's computer software company creating animations that teach computer design software.) Sorry, you're bored already, aren't you? So it turns out that my antiquated computer can't read a DVD to install software that I needed and it can't run on my old operating system. And nobody had thought of this previously. I was so frustrated! But as luck would have it, the whole family flew out to Utah the next day on Darren's company because there happened to be a recruiting event I was invited to at BYU. How about that?! So for the past two weeks I have worked from my parent's basement while Darren watched the boys upstairs all day. Joseph was thrilled to be able to spend more time in Utah. I was excited to have a complete break from my kids and activate my brain all day being productive for this company. And Darren was excited for the break in work. But I think I can speak for both of us when I say that it didn't take long for both of us to miss our former roles as care-taker and wage-earner. My intellectual high wore off after about a day and I longed to shut down that computer and run upstairs and scoop up my boys. And I got to hear Darren a couple of times complain about how hard it is to care for two kids all day. I gotta admit, I thoroughly enjoyed that validation. I did really enjoy the work I did for my Dad (yes, I am really done now; my computer has given me no choice in the matter). What a blessing it has been to work from home all these years I've been married! But what a blessing it is to also know that I love my job as mother and homemaker, and have a loving husband who works his butt off all day so that I can stay home with our beautiful kids. We are truly happy in our roles in our little family.

We love Portland

We just got to spend another fun weekend with family in Portland. We went down for Darren's best friend's sister's wedding (did you get that?) and we got to hang out with Darren's brother Marc and their family. We went to Marc's HS team's football game (Go Tigard Tigers!), had a great time at the pumpkin patch and went swimming at the YMCA. The wedding was very beautiful too. Joseph and Justin have cousins just their age that they love to hang out with. Aren't they the cutest? It's so great that we live close enough for them to play together once in awhile. They're good buddies. Thanks for having us, guys!

Highlights from our week in Utah

It's always so good to spend time in Utah with family. Joseph could hardly contain himself when I woke him up and told him it was time to leave for the airport for Utah. The combination of an airplane ride and seeing his grandparents was almost too much excitement for him to handle. Justin did very well on his first airplane ride. Thankfully (since I flew there by myself), there was room for Justin's carseat and he slept like an angel the entire way. Darren met us there for the weekend and I went with him to a recruiting dinner that his accounting firm puts on at BYU every year. It's basically a free date night for us. Well, for me at least. Darren had to work a little bit in answering recruits' questions. I just got to eat the yummy dinner and chat up the recruits' wives. We even had free babysitting (thanks Mom and Dad)! Justin got to meet a couple of uncles, great grandparents and lots more extended family for the first time. The rest of the fun is summed up in the pictures below.



Joseph and Justin with Grandma and Grandpa Anderson



Cousin Alexis and Joseph pretending to sleep. This was their favorite game to play with Grandma. They pretend to sleep until Grandma wakes them up with her tickling. They played it over and over! Grandmas are such good sports! I couldn't get over how cute Alexis was mimicking how Joseph holds his precious blankie while he sucks his thumb.



My sister's neighbor is a firefighter and gave us a private tour of his fire station. It was so fun! Joseph was super shy at first, but really loosened up by the end. He climbed in the ambulance and the fire truck. He also tried on the gear, as you can see.



Here are my two favorite golfers, teeing up at good old Trafalga with all the fam.




We were also lucky enough to be a stop on my sister and brother-in-law's trip through Utah. Too bad it couldn't have been a longer stop! One day wasn't long enough for me! Here's my boys with their adorable cousin Easton.