John & Jenny?

I snapped this picture of Jace and Chloe tonight when Jen and Dave arrived in Arbon. Mom mentioned that it looked just like Jen and I when we were little. Although the roles are reversed as Chloe is the older of the two, there is quite a resemblance.

Heart Attack?

After snowmobiling, I saw Dad shoveling snow from his pickup. We parked the snow machines and put their covers on. Then I grabbed a shovel and told Joe that I was going to help Dad because I had seen him shoveling. He was ahead of me and said, "All I see him doing is lying on the ground." I got to his view point and saw Dad in the position seen in this photo.



My heart skipped a beat as I wondered what on earth would have happened to Dad to put him on the ground like this. Then I remembered that he said he had to replace a soft plug heater on the truck. To my relief, it was the heater and not the heart that was the cause of Dad's prostrate position.

Snow Play

The wind finally let up this morning leaving quite a pleasant day. I took the kids out to play in the snow. We had a great time climbing drifts and scaling the piles of snow Dad made while clearing the driveway and outbuildings.


After sledding and playing "King of Bunker's Hill" Joe and I took Aylee and Johnathan for a snowmobile ride on Jake's snow machines. With all of the drifts in the field we got some good little jumps going. The kids had a great time. Johnathan admitted, however, that as we were riding he was holding on tight to me afraid he would fall off. He later told Amber that he was praying in his head over and over again that he would be able to stay on the snow machine. I thought it was funny because I stopped several times to ask him how he was and if he was having fun and he would excitedly say "Yes!"

Snowed In

Amber, the kids, and I came up to Arbon for the New Years weekend. The weather was great coming up, but Dad warned us that a winter storm was blowing in that night (Saturday).

We stopped in Pocatello to see Grandma Dorma and then headed out to Arbon, clear skies all the way. When we got to the Valley, the scene changed immediately. Winds were coming from the south and the visibility was really limited. When we turned down the lane we were immediately thrust into large drifts of snow. Sliding and snow flying into the windsheild, we made a haphazard trail to the house.

When we made it our kids made a quick exit from the van to the house. Joe followed about forty minutes later. We were glad he made it in time because the weather only got worse.

On Sunday they cancelled church due to the west blizzard that had blown in. I took this picture of Joe standing by the kitchen window. All the windows had snow blown into their panes. It was cool to hear the wind whipping around all day Sunday. It is always fun to be snowed in - playing games, keeping warm, and hearing the wrath of the winter elements all around.

A Typical Holiday Weekend

I was hoping to spend a nice holiday weekend with the family. I tried to ban all electronic devices from coming with us, but Amber snuck the laptop. This is a typical picture of how our weekend was spent. I sat around trying to converse with everyone, but they just had their noses stuck in the computer.

You all know how Amber can be when there is a computer around. I don't know why I thought this weekend would be any different. -LOL :-)

Jace Meets Grandma Call

On our way to Arbon on Saturday, we stopped into Pocatello to see Grandma Dorma. I didn't think of it being Jace's first time meeting Grandma Call. I didn't have the camera with me so I took this picture with my camera phone. It is not the highest quality picture, but at least we captured the moment.

We had a nice visit with Grandma, but we had to keep it kind of quick as Arbon was experiencing the beginnings of a west blizzard and we wanted to get out there before we were snowed out. We made it just it time too!

My mom gave us an outfit that I used to wear, so we tried it on Chloe. She was pretty cute in it but every time she would sit down the snaps would blow open, but at least we got a few pics, before she completely grew out of it.

I've got a long way to go to be as good as my brothers-in-law, at picture magic but here it is.

Hitting the Slopes

I had promised to take Johnathan and Aylee skiing this week. They have been really excited for the past two weeks for us to go skiing. Today was the promised day.

At about 12:30 we headed out to BYU to rent some skis. Once we were outfitted with skis for the kids, we headed up to the Sundance Ski Resort up Provo canyon.

Once we got to the resort we there was a huge line of cars. We waited for probably 20 minutes in the car until we got into the main entrance of the resort. There were people directing traffic. Once we got up to them, I rolled down my window to ask where we should park. They said that the parking lots were all full and that we should come back tomorrow. I tried to explain that we had just rented skis and that tomorrow would not be an option. The lady told me she was sorry that it happened that way, but that they could not fit us in the lot. I asked about the people leaving the resort. She said that I could circle around and enter the line of cars again and hope someone had left.

We left and re-entered the long line of cars. This time the stars were aligned properly because as we reached the lady, she got a call on her radio that someone had just left the parking lot. We were ushered up to the lot where we found the coveted parking space.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hitting the bunny hill which is free. Johnathan got a refresher course on skiing and Aylee just enjoyed herself as she skied all over the beginner slope.

By the time we were done, I would take a rest here and there and the kids would take the rope tow on their own, ride up to the top and ski down to the line for the rope tow again.

We had a great time. However, the next time I take them, I don't think the bunny hill is going to suffice. This is going to be an expensive tradition!

Take Five

Sorry for all the posts today, but working from home often yields lots of funny stories....

Amber needed to get something to eat, so she put Jace on my lap as I worked. He did well for the first twenty minutes, but a few minutes ago, he started crying. I was busy in thought writing a program for work and so I just let him struggle and cry on my lap.

In the middle of one cry, he stopped suddenly and his head fell to the side. I thought maybe something was wrong, so I quickly looked down at him, and he was fast asleep.

I had to write it down as I thought it was pretty amazing....of course, if you ask Amber, she'd probably claim I can do the same while talking, typing, reading, and driving. Maybe he just gets it from me.

I can't see where I'm going!

I am working from home in our office right now. As I was working on a program, I heard Alayna pleading for her mommy. In a panicked, yet not screaming, voice she kept repeating, "Mommy, I can't see where I'm going! I can't see where I'm going!"

I saw Amber walk into the entry way to check on Alayna. She laughed as she saw Alayna upstairs by her bedroom hallway walking aimlessly back and forth with her pajama tops half way over her head so that the neckline was directly over her eyes.

With a little help from Mom, Alayna's eyesight was restored.

"Make Out Barbie"

Aliece wanted a Barbie for Christmas really bad this year. Santa Clause decided to give her one, but he wanted to choose one that had modest clothing as positive reinforcement for Aliece. He looked long and hard and finally found the "Island Pricess Barbie". This Barbie is about the only one with modest clothing.

We have learned a lesson, however, modesty does not necessarily mean that Barbie has good morals. Jace was having a hard time calming down yesterday so Aliece put Island Princess Barbie in his baby swing with him. Forget the rattle! When I walked into the room I found Jace and Barbie totally making out. Needless to say, Jace was content sucking on "Make out Barbie's" face for a couple of hours.

We're going to have to keep an eye on this boy.

Joe's Picture

I wanted to post a copy of Joe's picture here on the blog so that we would have it for posterity's sake. It won't last forever on the Channel Six news website.

Nice job on the picture Joe! That is pretty cool.

Channel 6 News Picture of the Day

The channel 6 news features a picture of the day on their broadcast and tell who submitted it and where the picture was taken. I submitted two pictures about a week ago and one of them was chosen to be featured today, 12/27 on the 10:00 broadcast. Here is a link to their website where all the pictures are featured. http://www.kpvi.com/Global/link.asp?L=244257&nav=menu546_3_1
Juliadee saw it and called mom and dad. That made me really excited.

Coming Out of the Closet

Today Amber and I threw the Christmas Spirit out the window and spent most of the day cleaning out our walk-in closet. When we moved into the house, my back was still not the best and so I stuffed a lot of "stuff" in our closet. That stuff has not see the light of day since our move. Over the past year and a half, our stuff has been joined by more stuff - not to mention the accumulation of unneeded clothing. After several hours of sifting, judging, and tossing, our closet is now clean and is truly a "walk-in" closet.

One of the things that I found in the closet was a bag of mission memorabilia from Brazil. The picture above is me holding a Brazilian pine nut that I brought home with me to show Mom and Dad. I remember being so amazed that their version of our pinky-fingernail-sized pine nut was as big as my entire thumb!

I decided that the nut now belonged in the garbage (as Johnathan did try to eat it before I told him that the nut was 13 years old!). Before I chucked the nut, I wanted to take this picture for posterity sake.

Going through my mission items made me think of Elder Jake Reed who has just spent Christmas in the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I am excited for the adventures and memories he is going to make over these next two years.

Fox and Geese

On Christmas we let each of the kids choose an activity that they wanted to do for Christmas. Since we received a nice new blanket of snow Christmas morning, snow games were definitely on the agenda.

Aylee chose to play Fox and Geese in the snow. She told us that both of her Grandmas have told her that they used to play that game. I vaguely remembered having played it as a grade schooler.

We put together the track and reviewed the rules the best that we could all remember. The rules were off a bit due to a foggy memory, but our rules worked out just fine. All the kids had a great time running the track and avoiding the fox.


Just for fun, I looked up the rules to Fox and Geese and thought I would share them with you all in case your youth catches back up to you and you become involved in a game.

Fox and Geese
Tramp down the snow to make a big wheel and a hub. (Looks like a wagon wheel with a big centre.)

One person is the fox, and the rest are geese.

The fox tries to catch the geese and the first one caught becomes the fox.

All participants must keep inside the paths.

If a goose steps off the path he/she then becomes the fox.

The only safety for the goose is in the hub, but no more than 2 geese in the hub at a time.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from John, Amber, Aylee, John Jr., Aliece, Alayna, and Jace Andersen!

Fun Filled Christmas Eve

Last night Amber and I let the kids all sleep out under the Christmas Tree in order to usher in Christmas Eve. Jace opted to sleep in his crib, however :). We had pretty much every inch of space occupied by a sleeping body. Amber slept on the sofa and I crashed next to Alayna. The night went fairly well despite the sleeping furnishings available in the living room.

I remember as a kid, Dad telling us how he liked to lay under the Christmas tree and look at all the lights. I used to do that too. I remember laying there closing my eyes slowly to watch the lights change into shining star-like orbs - what a fun, peaceful feeling it was, too! I think the kids were able to do the same thing last night as they lay by the tree slowly falling to sleep.

We had a great Christmas Eve. Amber and I spent the early afternoon taking snapshots of the kids and editing the prints to look half decent in a 10x13 frame. With a little creativity, we narrowed the 200 some odd shots into five awesome portraits. It is always a difficult thing to get these young-uns to hold still long enough and pose with a natural smile to capture their youth for eternity. After some sweat and tears, we finally can saw we accomplished the task.

We set the computer up to Google Earth and Norad Santa to track Mr. Kringle's progress around the globe. The kids would run the computer every few minutes to check up on the magical trip (I have to admit, I was right with them too).


The evening started with a very fancy and delicious meal prepared by Amber with place settings arranged by Aliece (of course!). We were living a bit on the edge tonight and gave the kids the fancy champagne style glasses for dinner. Not a single spill ocurred! Wow!

Music and scripture were the concluding portion of our evening as we sang songs around the piano (with accompanists: Amber, John Jr., and Aylee) and watched the "Joy to the World" DVD put on by the Church.

The kids then eagerly rushed to bed as the internet reported Santa's arrival into the Eastern part of North America. Aliece was very concerned that we all would not be asleep in time for Santa's arrival!

Amber and I have wrapped up our remaining presents - there are not too many as we have decided to cut down on gifts this year - all around the board. We're hoping to focus the season more on the Savior as our Christmas gift. Hopefully it turns out OK. We're going to cross our fingers that our two gifts per child limit will be well received.

Well, I am going to get to bed so that Santa doesn't see me up and skip over the house - that would not bide well with the children!

The Pains of Child Portraits

One Christmas Eve activity that I hope never becomes a tradition in our home is trying to get portrait shots of our children.

Amber thought it would be a good idea to do this on Christmas Eve since I was home in the afternoon and we all had nothing better to do.

It took a few hours with hundreds of pictures such as these before we were able to get some pictures that we could work with.

Aylee and Johnathan don't have as bad a problem of sitting still and posing for the camera; Jace is too little to move too much on his own; but we sure got some doosies of our two younger girls.

At one time I just set the camera on continuous picture mode and I followed Aliece around the house as the camera automatically shot a picture every second.

With a little photoshop we were able to doctor some pictures up enough to get so awesome portraits. Can't wait to show them off!

Andersen Ranch & Farm : HOME

Andersen Ranch & Farm : HOME

Since John usually does not congratulate himself, I thought I (Amber) would congratulate him in being a member of the 500 minute club. He is at 730 minutes today, but I don't know if that includes his workout this morning. Way to go, John!

New 500 Minute Club Member: Shantell Andersen

Just wanted to welcome Shantell to the 500 Minute Club for our Andersen Fitness Challenge. She came in this week with a total of 540 minutes.

Keep it up one and all!

Gingerbread House Party!

Joe had the idea of getting together last Saturday and making gingerbread houses and just hanging out for the day. I was the lucky one who started last and benefited from the knowledge of what was working and what wasn't. It was quite the construction process, and amidst the broken grahm crackers and soft frosting, we all got some kind of house (or factory) built in the end. I ended up making some good homemade paste that worked much better. It was a lot of fun.

I'm attaching pictures of our finished products . . .and yes, the "boy" with jelly beans up his nose would be my sweet husband :)

Chloe Walking!

Well, I think it's official . . .our baby is walking. She still does a lot of crawling but she has been practicing quite a bit. She walked a lot on the weekend and Monday, but then yesterday she wouldn't walk much at all. It's so cute to see her figuring it out and how proud she is of herself. It's exciting to see her reach this milestone, but it's also sad how fast she is growing up!

I got some video of her walking but it's pretty dark. I'll have to get another one and post tomorrow.

At times Chloe picks a favorite toy for a few days and carries it around with her. Well, the last few days it's been a cow and she has learned how to "moo". So she carries the cow around and "moos" several times throughout the day. There were many times yesterday when I thought something was wrong as she would spontaneously start moo-ing.

Chloe is saying "mama", "dada" and has also said "papa" a couple times. She is starting to say some of the animal sounds and sometimes it sounds like she is saying so many other words. She jabbers all day.

Well, that's our update on the focus of our lives :)

Getting Jace to Laugh

Last night Amber had Jace laughing. I caught the tail end of it on video.

For those getting this off of email, you can get the video at:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3728524717628295277&hl=en

1st Visit to Santa

We had our ward party the other night and had tons of fun. At the end, Santa came and all the kids lined up for their visit. Chloe seemed like interested and watched him from a distance for a while. So we decided we'd see what she really thought of him . . . but it didn't go too well. Dave tried to get a few pictures but it went so quick. As soon as I set her on his lap she freaked out. Oh well, everyone needs to have a tramatic Santa experience, right? It's just part of growing up.

1000 Minute Club

Congratulations Joe for entering the 1000 Minute Club on the Andersen Family Fitness Challenge. This indicates that Joe has exercised over 1000 minutes since November of this year.

Lets keep those hearts pumping and legs moving!

Hair Affair

Yesterday was pretty much a crazy and complicated day for Amber and I. For me, nothing seemed to work out very well - for Amber, it was busy, hurried, and frazzling.

Sensing that the day was progressing so, Alayna, decided to integrate herself into the theme of the day by cutting her own hair. I came home to a nice pile of hair on the counter - no, not just one experimental snip, but it looks like she did two or three nice cuts of four or five inches of hair at a time.

There are just some days that we LOVE this stage in life! At least our family home evening turned out well (see yesterday's post) and by the end of the day, we were in good spirits, albeit in an exhausted way.

Festival of Lights

For FHE tonight we decided to take the kids and look at Christmas lights. I popped up some popcorn, and then Amber convinced me to convert it to high calorie - fat loaded caramel popcorn. We loaded up the van with kids, Christmas music, and caramel encrusted kernels of popped corn.

We went to Spanish Fork to their Festival of Lights. It is a drive-thru light display put on by the city. The kids had a great time seeing all of the light creations. Our van was brimming with Holiday Cheer as we listened and sang Christmas songs and chowed down on our treat.

Fitness Update

This morning I created a web page on the Andersen Ranch website that gives a summary of our three month fitness challenge.

You can view the page by clicking on the Fitness Challenge available on that page.

I have divided us into some different winnable categories:

Cardio Exercise Leaders (Most Cardio Exercise Time)
Weight Lifting Leaders (Most Weight Lifting Exercise Time)
Weight Losers (Most percentage weight loss)

I have also create a couple more categories that EVERYONE can attain so that everyone could win something.

These are the 500, 1000, and 1500 Minute Clubs.

Help me think of some fun prizes for those that win the various categories or reach the club milestones.

The results so far:

Cardio: Joe with 910 minutes
Weights: Amber with 200 minutes
Weight Loss: Janae with 3% loss

With Joe and John in the 500 Minute Club.

Let's show 2008 what we're made of!

Good Luck Elder Reed!

I took the morning off of work today so that Amber and I (with Alayna and Jace in tow) could run up to Salt Lake can intercept Jake during his lenghtly layover in the Salt Lake airport on his way to the Missionary Training Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

We had a great time visiting. Jake introduced us to a mexican restaurant called Barbacoa. We had a couple of burritos together and talked about his upcoming experiences.

He sure looked great and ready to go serve for two years. His leaving has had a great impact on the kids. They have been talking about him serving a mission so much lately. They themselves want to be better missionaries - thanks largely to Jake's example.

An Incarnate Corner

Just like the rest of our kids, Alayna has grown up with a fond attachment to her blanket. Ever since I can remember she has identified a special corner of her blanket. It used to be hard to tell which corner it was, but she could always tell. It is easily identified nowadays as it is the most worn and elongated corner of her blanket.

Whenever she is tired or upset her thumb goes in her mouth and her special blanket corner goes in her nose, on her eyeball, or any other special facial orifice.

Her blanket has always been something to her. She often plays that it is a baby or some identifiable being. Her blanket is very special to her.

The other day we were sitting at the table eating dinner. She was getting tired and wanted down from the table. As a sign of her anticipation all she could talk about during dinner was how her "corner" was tired and how she needed to get down and put her "corner" to bed. I guess the "corner" has not elevated to a new status - a corner incarnate.

Doing the Dishes has Never been more Fun

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=2567161681578760131&hl=en
I caught Amber and Aliece jamming out tonight while working in the kitchen. Tonight was the kids' choir concert at the school. They did an excellent job. Amber plays for the school choir and gets to be involved with the kids in that activity. It is fun to see the kids perform.

Household Generosity

Forget waterfalls in the kitchen ceiling, the Andersen family has decided to be even more generous this Christmas Season by shedding more dollars off to needy repairmen within Utah County.

Tuesday morning we woke up to a cold home - down to around 60 degrees. None of the kids wanted to leave their beds to get up and go to school. On Monday I had reprogrammed the thermostat so that we wouldn't keep the house so warm during the night. I figured I must have mis-programmed the device. I went downstairs and worked with the thermostat only to find that a programming genius such as myself couldn't and didn't make a mistake in programming the unit.

I took my troubleshooting to the furnace closet only to find the Furnace's motherboard blinking a diagnostic code. I called our friend Ken Kosmicki and asked if he could take a look at it (He works for Gunthers Heating and Air). His diagnosis was a bad motherboard. We had the motherboard replaced June 2006 when lightning hit our house. The component had a one year warranty, which just ended in June. Our replacement cost: $300.

Now that we have worked on the plumbing and the furnace this week, we're trying to find some other needy repairman or appliance center to contribute to. The dishwasher was sounding pretty sick last night, maybe there is a "poor" salesman that we will donate another few hundred to in the coming weeks.

In the News...

On Saturday, Amber took the kids to downtown Provo to see the annual Christmas parade. The Andersen crew who were staying at a hotel nearby for Jace's blessing, joined Amber and the kids.

An unplanned highlight of the parade involved some observers (aka. Grandpa and Grandkids) getting caught up in a fun snowball fight. A reporter for the Deseret News saw the ruckus and snapped some pictures of the whole affair.

I think this photo they included in the paper includes Aylee and Alayna with Grandpa dodging snowballs in the center.

Jace's Blessing

The Andersen Clan (minus Dave & Chloe - who were in the middle of a nap ritual).

We sure had a great time this weekend with everyone who came down for Jace's blessing. I always have a hard time having so many people over because it doesn't feel like we get to spend a lot of time together. But, it ended up being a nice Sunday.

Thanks for coming and sharing this special day with us!