Bradley wearing a crocodile costume and crawling

(This reveals our master bathroom, which currently doubles as a closet and hallway since the plumbing is only roughed in and there is no floor, tub, shower, etc. )

Playing chase and growling

We do this a lot.

Bradley turns one and rides a horse

Cute, right? We're in love with him. Don't feel obligated to watch any of these videos. I'm going to be posting a lot. I can't stop watching them. I love my family.

Movie Time

Happy Valentime's!

These are our family pictures from Valentine's Day breakfast. I love them. I love my boys. It was a wonderful day celebrating our love for each other. Grandma and Grandma Anderson gave us our all time favorite valentines. It was actually a little bag that you had to smash really hard, after you smashed it, it would grow itself into a blown up balloon valentine. Super cute. Among other things.

I love that Bradley is totally in to looking at the camera, but not being happy about it. I also love that Nigel loves bacon. I also love that Micah is so completely supportive of me all of the time every single day of my life. He is wonderful to me. I also love that Nigel had the idea to wear his red and black shirt and put a little red heart sticker in the middle of it. I also had a lot of fun at Singers Company on Valentine's Day. Those girls are pure gold.

I also love that we got to go out to dinner with half of my siblings for a fixed menu four course meal that knocked our socks off just enough, but they've been knocked off more before...

I love that I found a babysitter the day of Valentine's Day for a dinner reservation we had had for at least a month. So typical me, but it worked! I found a great babysitter!

So much to love in life. I wish I had a picture from our dinner together.... Callie? Christine?

Happy Birthday Bradley!!

Micah was really in to taking pictures from behind the balloons so these are the best we got of the monumental event. He did it! Bradley thrived! We all did it! Those first five or six months were a doozy, but they're long gone now and we're all so much the better for them. Truly. Well, maybe Micah is still catching up from his sleep deprivation, but he does have a wife who loves him more than ever because of it so we'll count him as better off too.

Bradley has seven teeth and has been cutting his eighth for who knows how long. I haven't taken him for his one year check up yet, so I don't know how tall he is, but I'm guessing he's a tall skinny kid with a little head. His record for walking has been thirteen steps all on his own. He's gotten pretty used to holding on to my hands and running all over the house. As soon as I let him grab on to my fingers he usually knows exactly where he wants to go. No matter where he is in the house he makes his way upstairs to Nigel's bedroom to the chair swing.

He loves to play in Nigel's chair swing. And I think it's pretty fun too.

I'm pretty sure he knows how to say mamamamama and dadadadada and a two syllable version of thank you and when he wants something he says nanananana.

Bradley is so smart. The other day I was holding him in our bedroom and he was watching Micah put his shirt with buttons on. He paid attention the entire time Micah was doing the buttoning. Then Bradley looked at his own shirt and started fiddling with his buttons. I think that's really smart.

Bradley is really passionate. Against my better judgment Micah gave him a bite of a pancake with syrup on it a couple weeks ago. Somehow Bradley automatically knows all foods that have sugar in them and wants them desperately. He physically freaks out whenever he spots a sugary food and throws all different levels of passionate tantrums because I won't give him sugary foods. He's already had french fries and chicken nuggets, but I'm going to try to hold off on sugar for as long as I can.

His passion reminds me that he is my son. I remember some pretty passionate tantrums of my own as a three year old, and I'll be honest, as a teenager. I should ask my parents' opinions of my passion as a child and growing up because I think it will require some special parenting skills. The scripture in Alma that talks about bridling your passions so that we can be filled with love has always been a guiding influence in my life. Hopefully I can teach Bradley to love that scripture early. We can both keep learning how to bridle our passions together.

Bradley sleeps like an angel! I can't even remember when he started sleeping though the night, though I should have made it a national holiday because he was such a rotten sleeper before. His acid reflux issues didn't let him get more than 30 minutes of sleep on his own for a long time. We tried everything to help him get better. I think finally he just got big enough to handle digestion better. That and Gammie tickle his feet three times a week. She does foot zoning and really the only thing I know about it is that when we skip a week Bradley won't take an afternoon nap because of tummy issues and he wakes up in the middle of the night. When we stay on schedule he sleeps perfectly. We will stay on the foot zoning schedule.

Bradley has blond hair that got a little bit curly when we visited California last November. He has blue eyes. He is in love with Nigel. I love watching them play together. Bradley loves to have people around. We've had a full house almost since the beginning of December with Jordan and Ruth's family visiting, then all of my siblings and their families for Christmas, then Hannah's family, then Christine's family, then all of Micah's siblings and parents for Grandpa Anderson's funeral this past week. During the breaks in between the visits Bradley seems restless and lonely. Which I think is also something he may have inherited from me. I really love having family around.

I think Bradley's biggest accomplishment this year has been learning how to go to sleep on his own. I absolutely love having a baby that we go through the sleep time routine with, ending with laying him down in his bed and saying good night. He just looks up and smiles as we walk out of the room to leave him cooing until he falls asleep. I'm so proud of him for having this skill!

He is such a joy to have around. He has a sense of humor already, and we all love having him in our family. I think he will always be the dazzling boy in our family. Bradley is dazzling and one year old!

We were happy to have Coveys and Mia for Bradley's first birthday dinner.

And here is our family picture on Bradley's first birthday. Taken just after Bradley's bath and right before pajamas.

Happy Ground Hog's Day!

Here we are all together right before putting the boys to bed. Bradley looks like he could be angry, but he was freaking out with happiness to be able to see himself on the screen of Micah's phone while we took a picture. Seriously, he loved it.

So much to write about. The ground hog (who's name I can't remember, and if I could remember it I probably couldn't spell it) saw his shadow today so 6 more weeks of winter.

Micah's Grandpa Anderson passed away today. He was 96 years old and ready to go. Micah, Bradley, and I visited him today while Nigel was at school. It was a blessing to be able to see him before his spirit left his body. It was such a remarkable experience to visit he and Grandma today. I held Bradley the whole time and watched Grandpa sleeping. Bradley will be one year old a week from today, and there we were with a great man almost one hundred years old. Life at its beginning and end.

Grandpa Anderson will be remembered for generations. He was such a faithful, hard working man. It's impossible to realize how much good he has accomplished in the world and how many people he affected deeply through his love and service. Myself included. He always made me feel loved and special.

The power of God was in their home. It was emotional to be there, but not overwhelmingly so. I have never experienced death in this proximity. Death in this way is a good thing. The only think I can think of to describe Grandpa's body is expired. He was done living here. I know there were other spirits waiting for him to release his spirit from his body.

I keep thinking of the scripture in Alma when he was teaching his sons about the resurrection. "...the spirits of all men, after they are departed from this mortal body, yea the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life..."

I think that the spirits who were waiting for Grandpa's spirit to leave his body have a roll in taking him home to God. That's not the end, but the beginning of the rest of forever. It's just a beautiful thing to me to die and have spirits of loved ones there to welcome you and comfort you and take you home to God, your creator.

Lots more to write about another day. Family starts arriving tomorrow for the funeral, which will probably be on Wednesday. Lots of work to do.

I love Grandpa Anderson. I am grateful for his long life and legacy of love, service, hard work, joy, and honoring the priesthood of God.