5 Wonderful Years!

For our anniversary trip this year we went to San Antonio, TX. Loads of fun. Before I go into the trip, I've got to give a shout out to my Sunni (and her Josh) for watching our boys. You folks are great--we love you and our kids love you, now that I think about it, is there anyone in this world that doesn't love you? Anyway, about the trip...I'm not going to go into details :) but I will say that we had a blast. We went to Six Flags, The Alamo, the River Walk, the San Antonio Temple, and did lots of shopping. During the whole year we are pretty frugal and tight with the money (eat Toasted Rice cereal instead of Chex, ya know what I mean?) but we set a little aside for our annual trip and have ourselves a shopping spree. It's actually pretty funny, we think we're huge spenders when we give ourselves $150 each and buy things like running shoes, earrings, t-shirts, and cooking gadgets. Yeah, we're wild.

It's only been five years of marriage, but I practically rely on these anniversary trips to keep me functioning. I remember our honeymoon and how amazing it was to leave everything behind and just enjoy my Jesse-time. There were times when I felt like we were the only people on earth--it was just bliss. And although you can only have one honeymoon, these trips sort of serve the same purpose for us--it's a chance to just be Anika and Jesse, we get to leave everything behind for a couple days. I'm a huge believer in doing whatever it takes to celebrate the milestones in a marriage, it keeps me sane. I hope we can keep up our tradition. Anyhow, here's some pics from our trip this past March:

It's too dark to see behind us but this is us at the River Walk

At Six Flags Fiesta Texas

In front of the beeeeee-autiful San Antonio Temple

It was a well rounded trip, we got in a little of everything. The River Walk was romantic, Six Flags was just plain fun (I forgot how much I love roller coaster rides), The Alamo was educational, and the Temple was rejuvenating. I can't wait until next year, it's Jesse's turn to plan the trip so we'll see...

Collin's Haircut

This was actually about a month ago, but I'm a blog-slacker. Collin was seriously overdue for a haircut (just check out the shagg in the picture). I don't know why it takes me so long to finally get around to cutting his hair, it's not like he dislikes haircuts or behaves badly when I try to cut his hair. On the contrary, he is surprisingly good about sitting still and being patient while his mom has to go over and over his hair to get the perfect taper. I'm bound to get faster and better the more I cut his hair, I'm actually pretty good at Jesse's and it only took me about 4 years. Ha! So, in the mean-time I'm grateful to have this angel-child who sits still for me. I guess he was sick of being shaggy because when I ran the buzzer up the back of his head and he saw the hair fall onto the apron, he said, "oh, tanks mommy"! Then when I was really cookin' and he was watching lots of his hair land on the apron he said through a nervous laugh, "oh, niiiice". What a cutie! Oh, and just for the record, I have always wanted to be called Mama, but for some reason, Collin has picked up on the term we use for mom when we try (notice I said try) to speak Spanish, so now he calls me "mami". Oh well, even if 'mommy' isn't my favorite term, I'll take it gratefully, I'm just glad to be his mom.

Here's the shaggy boy waiting for his haircut

Lucas was just as good and patient as his brother as he sat and watched from his swing.

How does he do it?

Lucas has done some pretty weird and funny things lately. He is 9 and a half months now and he is (I know every mom says this) ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE! For about a week now he has been mobile. Not crawling yet, but he can scooch on his belly and push with his feet to get places. He does get on his hands and knees and seems like he's almost ready to get going with the crawling thing. Anyway, here are some funny pics of this cute kid.

These PJ's were beyond repair after Lucas' toe got through with them

Got him out of bed and his hair had been matted into this curly-q, should we have named him Clark Kent?

This is how I found him this morn when I came into his room, I don't know how he got his arm out--crazy kid.

I had to include this pic, it's one of our favorites. Let me tell ya, this is kid is as good and sweet as he is beautiful, we are so blessed!

My handsome valentine

I could go on and on about how wonderful Jesse is. He continually amazes me with his goodness and yummy-ness. I honestly cannot imagine a better husband or friend. And he's SO handsome too, which "a man ought to be if at all possible" (little quote from Pride and Prejiduce). Anyway, I hadn't intended to make this a Jesse-blog, I was just wanting to put up some Valentine's Day pics. We had heart-shaped toast and eggs for breakfast and heart-shaped tortillas with our enchiladas at dinner. The next morn. when I got Collin up he saw the rose petals I had sprinkled on the stairs and said, "Uh, oh, made a MESS!!" It was pretty funny.

Jesse at breakfast

Another handsome Valentine of mine with his heart-shaped tortilla

Making "pan-kates"

When we get Collin up in the morning and say, "let's go eat breakfast", he responds with, "Yea!!! Make pan-kates"! On weekdays we usually eat just eggs or oatmeal, but on Saturdays, we give into his cute request. He just loves these things. We got started making these kind of pancakes and have never gone back. It's a recipe from my dear friend Cammy Mansell in Ft. Sumner, they're kind of crepe-like thin and yummy!

Collin likes to "help" Papi make pan-kates and pulls a chair up to the island

January review

In an effort to keep our readers updated on the year (this blog is meant to replace our yearly letter after all) we're going to post a few pics from last month. Of course, we wouldn't have to do a review if we had just started in January like we intended. Sounds just like us, good start, aye?

Collin going down the slide--tongue out, as usual

We had our traditional Williams family football game while we were all together over the Holidays. Kinda cold, but still very fun. I didn't get many pics of the game, but I sure took plenty of Collin. He and his cousins played on the jungle gym while the "big kids" played football. Lucas just watched all of the action from the side lines in his car seat.

Lucas all bundled up

Another tradition with the Williams family is a get-together with all the girls at Village Inn, no boys allowed :) and everyone comes in their pajamas. Jeremy (Jesse's brother) was married last year and that added the final Williams girl to the bunch. This was the first year with the complete group of sisters, all 6 of us together and it was a whole lot of fun. I can't wait for the next one!

The Williams girls: Anita, Rachel, Cadi, Anika, Rachel, and Bonnie

Here are some more pics of the girls, left to right: Anita, Rachel, and Cadi

On the other side of the table: Me, Rachel, and Bonnie

While we were visiting the folks, Jesse got pretty handy with the tractor/back-hoe and dug a huge trench for Papa (Jesse's dad) to run his pipes for the well. We had nice weather for a January and spent some time outdoors throwing the football and frisbee. Collin sure had a good time playing in the dirt.

Jesse just-a-digging away

Collin liked to sit with Jesse as he drove

Collin playing in the trench with his cousin Justin

And so we begin...

Here we go folks, the Williams are officially joining the blogging world! We figure this may be a better way of keeping our loved ones updated on our life happenings, but then again, that only is possible if we keep this puppy updated. Some of you who have recieved our Christmas letters (that arrive near St. Patty's Day) may be skeptical of how well this is going to work, we'll see... Wish us luck!