April update

It was finally warm enough this week to take Sam to the church field next door and play frisbee! It was so fun. We even all put our Awesome Andersen shirts on to go play. Seems like not long ago this shirt completely drowned him. Now it's a little tight on his gut! :)Speaking of family sports I must add in that last Monday in our weekly one on one game at the church next door I beat Caleb! Granted he doesn't allow himself to shoot in the paint, but even so he usually beats me. I couldn't miss! Oh and we butted heads really hard during our second game and unfortunately it was the front of his head (hard part) and the side of mine by my temple (soft part). It must've bruised internally or something b/c it made my jaw hurt; I still can't quite open my mouth all the way! All for the love of the game. :)
Our neighbor/friend/renter Leila took our family pictures for us on Friday. I hated the wind, but without it the weather would've been perfect! We went over by the river where all the ducks are and Sam was in heaven. He loves animals, especially ones he's never seen before. Oh to be in the mind of a (almost) one year old. The pictures turned out okay... there would've been a lot more good ones without the lovely wind but we still got some good ones. We went to lunch afterwards at Jaker's and used part of a gift card. It was delish. I love meeting up with Caleb in the middle of the day! Especially at Jaker's... jk. :)
Last weekend Sam I went down to Utah and saw lots of old friends! Caleb had to work late Friday so he couldn't come. LAME! But we had fun anyway. Friday night was my mission companion's wedding reception (Kristi Peterson) in Provo and I saw lots of old mission friends and President and Sister Ashby were there too. Then I drove up to Draper for a get together with some of my high school cross country friends. It was SO fun to see everyone and their cute babies. Janae, Carolyn, Lindsey, Heidi, and Ann Marie were there. I stayed at Rachel and Ben's house in Springville Friday night. I love being at their house. They recently got a couple dogs and Sam loved them but instead of running away from him like the dogs at Gma and Gpa Baker's house, they wanted to lick his face and ears! He wasn't so fond of that. Saturday morning I dropped a baby gift off for Shirley and then went to Alyssa Jolley's baby shower, my friend from SVU bball. It was fun to see a couple other old teammates. Sam did SO good with all the driving. What a champ. I did turn his carseat forward facing for part of the drive and he definitely likes that better! Too bad they just changed the law and they now have to be rear facing until the age of 2. GRR! We stopped in Salt Lake on the way home to see Stephanie and Jonathan and it was so cute to watch Jonathan and Sam together. The 3 month gap between them is getting smaller and smaller.
The Miskins in Unit D gave us their 30 day moving notice this week so we're on the hunt for new renters. They've been awesome for the past year and we've become great friends with them. They came over Saturday after him and Caleb and Juan Cabrera (unit A) got back from the Priesthood session and they said of their new landlord, "It felt like a business transaction, not like... meeting family." We wondered if the friend/landlord thing would be tricky, and sometimes it kind of is, but overall it's been great. Our renters are some of our closest friends! Hopefully we'll find good ones to replace the Miskins.
I finally got my bread to turn out this week! Rachel suggested I decrease the rising time and baking time, and it worked! Don't know why I didn't think of that. I guess the slightest elevation/temperature difference can really change things. I'm proud to say it's been about 3 months since we've bought any bread.
General Conference was this past weekend and it was great of course. We brought Sam's walker to the church and he cruised around in the halls. We never get sick of watching his little bum shake as he walks around with that thing. He looks like an old man in a little body. I suppose we come into the world and leave it doing most of the same things! Sometimes we can hardly stand how cute he is!! I really love this stage -- he is sleeping well, eating well, and he pretty much entertains himself all day exploring around the house. His new thing is sharing. If he has food in his hand he tries to give some to everyone else. Pretty cool that it's just instinctive for kids to want to share. We love our Samuel boy!