Halloween 2012

(This post has been written for over a month! Just now publishing it!)

This was a fun Halloween for our family!  Kicked it off with a trunk or treat party at church on the 27th!

These are our lovely friends, the Francoms!  Love these three!  Aren't they SUPER?!

..:: Halloween night ::..

We had a blast trick or treating with the Gardner family and Grandma & Grandpa Wanlass!

Started the night out at Grandma & Grandpa Couch's for some pictures! 

After pictures, we headed over to aunt Shanna's for dinner and fun!

all of us

So blessed.  I love our little family.  

So behind and this is why!...

Nursing school has invaded my life, Shem's life, and Maycee's life!  It is a disease that can be cured.  It's called graduating this December!  Praying that I can make it through this extremely hard semester.  Pray for our family of three that we can all come out alive...mentally, spiritually, physically...

Next post will probably be when we get family pictures in November.  Well, maybe sooner...maybe later... :)

P.S.  I love my iPhone.  And I love church.  And most of all I love my family.

The End.

my little monkey

It's been so fun getting into the swing of things being a mommy.  I truly am dreading school that starts in less than a month!  Last night Maycee was my little helper as we baked cookies for daddy.  Then, as we were cleaning up, she pulled up her chair to the sink to help me rinse off dishes!  My dream come true...baking and cleaning with mommy.

the 4th and little Maycee

Our 4th of July was a relaxing day.  We spent it just the 3 of us.  We went out to lunch to redeem a free meal at Cafe Rio and had dinner at Cracker Barrel to make ourselves stuffed!!  After we finished at Cracker Barrel we planned to go down to Tempe to watch the fireworks.  What do you think happened?  Well, Maycee had a meltdown, we got tired, and decided to stay in.  How boring.  No, not really.  I loved just chillin with the fam!!  Happy Independence Day!!

The wreath I created, with inspiration from Pinterest.  Cute, but not in love with it.  Festive though!

Maycee and I hung out outside while Shem took an afternoon nap.  She finally rode her bike around!!  The first time ever without me having to steer her!  Go Maycee!

Then, this afternoon while Maycee and I were playing in the front room, I had to grab a few pics of her.  Of course, there was a bribe involved for smiling at the camera...frozen cookie dough balls.  Am I bad or what? Ah!

One little birdy

 This is our 5th bird in our 3 years of marriage.  I had been wanting a Fischer's lovebird for the longest time and we finally found one!  He is only 3 months old now, but we got his when he was 4 weeks.  He stayed at the store until he was weaned off being hand fed.

Notice the stance?  This is why he is named Spike for now.  He's a little rough around the edges.  Maybe we'll change the name once he gets out of the "puppy" stage. 

We are happy to have him with us minus the fact that Maycee tries to murder him every day.  Not intentionally, of course.  :)  I will update with more, but here's a short run down of what's gone down the last few months...
1) Shem got a job!!!!!!!!!!
2) I finished semester 3 out of 4 of nursing school!!!!!
3) Maycee has graduated to a toddler bed
4) Maycee is officially out of diapers and potty training herself. Lol!
5) We moved out of our family's care and into the real world again!
6) We love our  new ward
7) I'm a stay at home mommy for the summer and making the house a home!

More to come once I finish up the last 3 photo shoots I have to edit!!  Anyone need a photographer this month?  Lol!!
Check me out @ Anlyn Photography by Andrea Wanlass

Our Savior

This was a wonderful Easter.  I know that the Savior lives.  I love that my religion focuses on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I know He had to come to earth to prepare a way for me to live with Heavenly Father.  I love this Gospel and I love my Savior.  Happy Easter!

"One of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."

who doesn't love...

Who doesn't love conference?!  It was a wonderful conference weekend.  Came across these from Nick Sorensen; inspiration from conference talks.  Love em.

2 year birthday!

Catching up with some memories of last month.  Can't believe it's March already.  So happy :)

Got a few shots on the day of M's bday and on the day of the party.  It's been so delightful to be the parents of Maycee.  She is so funny, like I always say.  Not a day goes by that Shem and I don't adore and smother her with lots of  love.  Such a funny little lady.  :)

Maycee woke up early for her bday!  She got a vintage classic radioflyer trike!  She can hardly ride it, but she LOVES it.

That day we went shopping at Buy, Buy, Baby and then met up with grandma and grandpa Wanlass at Chik-fil-a.

 
...and ended the night with some Angel food cake with Grandma Couch...

She wanted the Cool Whip more than the cake!  

....Day of birthday party....

We made cupcakes!  Maycee is such a big help at taste-testing everything :)

The e-vite!  (designed by me)

And the party (didn't get lots of shots...next birthday I'm getting a friend to take all the pics!).....

Best friends:  Nixen and Maycee (Cee-cee)

Those smiles!!

She almost pro at blowing out candles!

Lauren!  This little girl is so photogenic!  I love it!

Presents!

More cake!

 Happy birthday, Maycee Lynn!!!  Love you, little girl!!

..

The end. :)

That one random post..

I love getting comments from my friends/readers :)  It's nice to know others like to know what's going on in our family!  Thank you guys for your love and support!  Love you all!  :)

Andrea:  So...I am a little mad at myself today.  I don't think I mentioned it on here, but I cut my hair and donated it back in October.  The feeling was great and it was so nice to have a new do.  BUT...4 months later (NOW) I am regretting it!  I miss my long locks and even worse...I just got my haircut 3 weeks ago AGAIN to keep it looking good.  So, I like to act on impulse and decided to do straight across bangs to be fun.  BIG MISTAKE.  They are very cute and my stylist did a fabulous job, but it's totally not me!  I'm in denial about this....I'm in the process of growing my hair out yet again.  Long hair, I'll see ya in 2013 :/ No pictures for the moment, like I said, I'm in denial.

Shem = a funny dude.  I love him.  We sold our bird, Jax, in the fall and Shem is bird-sick.  He signed up to volunteer at Cage World for now until we have the time to care for a bird again.  In fact, we go to Cage World often and we've had our eye on this beautiful fischer lovebird.  He looked like a dinosaur the first time we saw him a few weeks back when he was brand new...pretty ugly.  Then we visited him last week and his feathers are coming in nicely and he is so pretty!  Shem is currently looking for a job that is close to school and home so he can ride his bike.  We have one car and it's hard having to share it while working around the incredibly inconvenient schedule nursing school has to offer.  We are counting down the year until I'm finished with school to move out and get on in our lives!  He's half way with engineering, too, so YAY!  Hoping this year goes by ultra fast!  And hoping I don't regret wishing that...

Maycee, well, she is amazing.  She is two...WEIRD!  I am so amazed at how many words she knows and objects she knows.  We have a book of 100 first words and she knows almost every object on each page!  She's way too smart!  And she can be quite the chatter box, formulating small sentences.  And what's the best is being a mommy automatically makes you fluent in toddler lingo.  I love being able to communicate with and understand her!

Some things she is saying:
"babble" -table
"peese" -please
"nack" - snack
"mote" - remote
"do-et" - let me do it
"nammies" -pajamas
"low" - hello
"luv u" - I love you
and the list goes on...

So, I have some pictures to put up but I'm feeling lazy.  Maybe I will get them up over the weekend.  For now, I'm fiddling around and re-arranging the blog.  I do that a lot.

Happy Tuesday!!

My Valentine

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction."

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

Shem, this is what describes our love.  I love working toward a goal with you.  I love you.