Free Range Family

Our Christmas was a blessed one this year. There are so many things to be thankful for, so many people who have supported and helped us. Thank you all! To the YMCA ladies that donated a ton of gifts to my family: bless you. To the WTE mamas who also sent our kids gifts, sometimes even from across the country: bless you too. To the friends and family who gave us presents, gave us money, helped us out with food, sent us a Christmas card, helped us find a place to stay for Christmas morning: bless you all so much. I can't even begin to put into words how endlessly grateful we are for all of you, you are just amazing people. You are who made our Christmas special this year. Not the gifts, the money or the food, but YOU. I don't know what our Christmas would have been like if we didn't have our loved ones. We are so lucky to have them! We spent our Christmas Eve with my family at my parent's house and with the in-law's at the Village Inn, as per tradition. Uncle Camer...

Did you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and/or a great first day of Hanukkah? We did, that's for sure! Oh, our families are all so good to us, they love us no matter what. I get so sentimental around the holidays (or maybe I am all the time lol) and I remember all my fond memories with my family members. We are so lucky to have such a great group of people who love my children and surround us with security, happiness, hope and love. They help us with so much and we are endlessly grateful for them! Love you guys! We started out our Thanksgiving morning with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the tv. We had toasted bagels with strawberry cream cheese and cereal for breakfast. Alan and Anna both enjoyed watching the parade. Alan really liked the Power Rangers, Finn and Jake, the Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles and Spongebob. He was also quite excited to see Santa at the end. Anna enjoyed watching all the marching band performances with the dance teams, the Mad Hatter dance gro...

Happy Thanksgiving Day! Gobble, gobble says Alan's little turkey! For Thanksgiving this year, we plan on going over to Grandma Amber's house for a Thanksgiving lunch. We hope to also stop by Great Aunt Marnie's house to see Great Grandma Marcia and cousin James! Then we will be headed up to Great Aunt Carolyn's again for Thanksgiving dinner. It should be a beautiful, amazing day of love, family and thanksgiving! I hope everyone is also prepared to have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We all have so much to be thankful for! I know that we as a family sure do! I am so very thankful for my awesome family! We are truly the Fab Four, always together no matter the weather! I love my husband so much! He has been working his butt off at work and recently got a promotion! Great job Lon, we are so proud of you! Both of my children are so wonderful too. I am so thankful to have such loving, smart, silly children! Alan is such a little smartie, he is always asking qu...

I apologize about not posting yesterday like I had originally planned to, I was so looking forward to sharing with everyone our wonderful Family Sunday at the pumpkin patch. But something quite traumatic happened Monday night and though I still am not fully sure if I am ready to share this, I need to for my daughter and my family. It happened how it happened and though I am not happy with the way it all went, there is nothing more I can do about what happened that night. I have made peace with that night and all of its scary events, and I hope that you can too. Please no hurtful comments, they will be removed immediately! Please realize that we are all still recovering from this, I will not tolerate hate towards anyone, including the dog.  It was no one's fault, just an unfortunate event for everyone involved, especially sweet Miss Anna. Disclaimer: This post is quite graphic and traumatic. I do not want to leave any details out, everyone should know exactly what happened. If yo...

Yay! I am finally able to post about another one of the BEST days of my life! Oh I have waited all week to share with you readers about this great day, but with our crazy life right now I have yet to have the chance. But before I start on my wonderful happy post, I have to update everyone on our family. We are officially moved out of that horrid house and away from that awful man, fully moved out by yesterday at 3:45 pm. Only an hour and fifteen minutes before we were supposed to, I was quite proud of us! It rained heavy all day yesterday too, so we moved most of our possessions in the storm. I had to bag every box we had packed so that things would not get ruined, it was SOOOOOOOOOOO much work lol! Wow... As if winning the case and removing us from his property wasn't enough for him, our landlord also felt the need to harass us all day yesterday by stalking us and driving around the house over and over again until we called the police on him. :( What a creep! I am so glad that w...

I want to give a big shoutout to my brother-in-law and my future sister-in-law! They are getting married at four at the same courthouse that Lon and I were married at. I am so happy for them! Congratulations Uncle Tyler and Aunt Sam, we love you guys so much! We wish that we could go to the ceremony, but we cannot get the time off of work to attend. However, we will all get together soon and go out to celebrate! And they are waiting until Christmas time to have their reception, so that all of the Andersen and Jacobson family will be able to attend! Huzzah guys! We love youuuuuuuuu! We wish you both nothing but love, happiness, and financial success! Baby Benton is also two months old today! My word, I cannot believe it has already been two months! I swear just yesterday Aunt Natalie was still pregnant with him! He is getting so big too, loves sitting in his Bumbo chair because it makes him feel like a big boy (it amazes how much he is like his oldest cousin). And loves hanging out wi...

I just have to take a moment to say that I have THE BEST group of hip hop students ever! They rocked last night's dress rehearsal like it was no body's business! I am such a proud teacher right now! This recital will be so awesome! Shopping with Aunt Sam was quite a feat with Alan and Anna but we still managed to have a good time. And I spent my own money on my first piece of clothing since BEFORE I had my children lol. I felt really guilty about it at the time lol, but I had to get a nice dress or something to wear for the recital Saturday. I didn't have anything nice to wear except for skirts I have owned since highschool and I am honestly tired of matching them with one of my boring tops. I was excited to go shopping at Ross because I love their reduced prices and their clothing too! I found a very cute strapless top thats black with blues, reds and yellows. It fits my students' first dance costume soooooooooo perfectly! They are supposed to wear primary colors ...

Today is the big day for me! Well kinda lol, today is my dress rehearsal for the dance showcase this Saturday. My kids will be in full costume for their dances and I am excited to see how it all looks. I am very anxious but excited too! We will see how it goes! :) The kids and I are going shopping today with Aunt Sam. The kids are excited, we should have a lot of fun with her! I don't have any extra cash lol, but I might try to get Aunt Natalie her birthday present at some point. With her birthday coming up this weekend, I am running out of time to get her something lol. I also have to get Alan's glasses fixed. Crazy man has officially broken his glasses for the first time lol! :) Oh well, at least it was just one of the ear pieces. This morning, Anna surprised us all by pulling herself up on the ottomon! We had just had her standing up with us holding her for a bit, and Lon set her down on the floor to play while he got ready for work. Miss Anna army crawled over to the ott...

I am feeling very scatterbrained today. Like I am really REALLY missing something very important, but I cannot seem to put my finger on it! Maybe its my brain I am missing lol... Be prepared for one WILD post because I cannot even remember what I was going to write about for this weekend. Wow. I. need. some. sleep. Teething sucks, for mama and baby lol! Anna, can we go to bed for more than three hours tonight lol? You can nap during the day but I can't! :) This weekend was fun for us. Saturday was Aunt April's birthday shopping spree. I had to take the kids with me so it was more like an "Aunt April Shopped While I Chased Kids Around Spree" if there is such a thing lol! She did get a cute shirt and a top for dance though. And we had yummy tea. We had a great time! I am getting so close to my dance showcase, its nerve wracking! I have been losing sleep on it, work choreography wherever I am at, have been loading dance picture after picture for last minute i...

Today is Uncle Tyler's 27th birthday! Uncle Tyler always has this little joke he tells the kids and his family. He says, "I always tell everyone on April Fools Day that tomorrow is my birthday but no one ever believes me and I don't get it!" This always gets the kids to yell at him, "Because its April Fools! They think you are fooling them!" :) Makes me laugh everytime lol. Tyler's mother has a slightly different story, about how she refused to have a baby on April Fool's Day and did everything she could to wait to have him. She was successful and had him the next day. It doesn't matter when he came, we are VERY glad he is here today! Uncle Tyler is a busy man with work so we have yet to make plans with him to celebrate. Lon and I would like to take Aunt Sam and him out for dinner and drinks. Hopefully soon! :) Happy birthday Uncle Tyler! We love you so very much!

Today is a busy one for us. I have a ton of errands to do before Alan's make up gymnastics class. Then we have a birthday party for one of Alan and Anna's friends. We are so excited he is one!!!! :D Last week was quite scary for my family. March 8th, Lon was involved in a car accident and then had a tooth pulled later that afternoon. The rest of that weekend, he was quite ill. Feverish, not able to eat anything, delirious and in a decent amount of pain. He was on some pain killers but they only seemed to make his stomach hurt. By Monday, I was worried about him. He had lost a decent amount of weight, and the fevers had not subsided without lots of medication. Tuesday passed and Wednesday, I decided that he needed to go in somewhere. My car was not working, so Lon's brother and his fiance took him to the Walk In Clinic for me. Lon was immeadiately sent to the Emergency Room. His fever was in the 100s and he could barely walk at that point. Sam told me she couldn't bel...

I have so much to be thankful for, I am still realizing this everyday. I know I have been MIA, but we are still getting our new place figured out. Earlier last week, my cousin Blake and his girlfriend Maddie had their beautiful baby boy. He was born at 5:30 in the evening and is a healthy seven pounds! They named him James. :) What a sweetheart he is! We have yet to meet him but cannot wait! I bet he is just gorgeous! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The children let Lon and I sleep in some and when I woke up, I made a big breakfast of eggs and bacon for everyone. Alan and I made four dozen pumpkin cookies for everyone, it was quite a bit harder than making cupcakes with him. There is a lot more to making pumpkin cookies than just mixing everything into one bowl. But they turned out fabulous nonetheless! Everyone enjoyed them, a complete success! First, we went to Great Grandma Carol's house. Aunt Carolyn and her whole family were there, including the adorable Miss Sophie. My...