Jace - Ballet?

Tonight Amber was playing the piano and Jace started dancing. He must be watch Aliece practice her dance moves because he was actually quite graceful. It is funny to see him dance like this because typically he is definitely all BOY. He loves to wrestle, throw things, and torment his older sister, Alayna (today he kept sitting on her head while she was trying to take a nap on the couch).

He just has these graceful spurts that really surprises us here and there.

See the video below:



Or click on this link to get their directly: http://ht4.org/saving673

Broken Pipe!

While we were in Idaho at the call family party on Saturday, Jake called me from Provo to ask if he could borrow our truck. Shantell was doing a demo at a nearby Albertsons and somebody brought her a table that ended up being the wrong size. The table they had hoped to have would have fit in their car. This one was a little bit longer. Jake decided to call me to see if he could borrow our truck so that he could return the table to the family that dropped it off.

I told Jake that we weren't home but that he could feel free to come on into the house and get the keys to the truck and borrow the truck.

And while later Jake called my cell phone once again. He told me that there was water spraying all over in the garage. It looked like it was coming from our furnace closet in the garage. He shut off our main water line there to stop the flooding. He said that there was water all over in the garage and that the roof of the garage was soaked so that the insulation was hanging down fairly low.

I asked him if he could stay there for a little bit and I would call my neighbor who is a furnace guy. I called Ken Kosmicki and asked him to run over there and take a look at it with Jake. He quickly headed over there and assessed the situation. He told me that looked like it was a pipe going into our humidifier on the furnace. He said that he thought it would be something that he could take a look at that evening. He was just heading to the Ward Christmas party but he would come back later to see if he could fix it. He said that it looked as if the flooding in the furnace room had fried the motherboard and possibly the blower engine. He and Jake said that it was making some weird sounds and was not functioning. Jake told us it was 50° in the house.

Amber and I were really hoping that the motherboard on the furnace would be okay. It didn't sound like it would be okay -- if indeed it had fried it would be the third time we would have replaced that motherboard since we moved into this house two and half years ago. All instances have been freak accidents that haven't really been related to each other. It was kind of stressful to think of going home that evening from Idaho, arriving late, not having heat in the home or possibly not even water to the house. Not to mention, a huge mess to clean up in the garage.



Jake was kind enough to run back to his home and bring back a box fan and his kerosene heater. He set them up in our garage and waited to see it if the heater would help make a difference in drying out the insulation. The initial results looked hopeful and he called me to let me know that he thought it would be able to save the insulation. Jake also mopped up a lot of the water that was on the floor of the garage.

By the time we arrived in Provo and got to our house, we found Ken Kosmicki hard at work in our garage. He told us that he thought he would have to replace the motherboard. He actually did replace the motherboard but found that it was acting the same as the old motherboard. So he took the old motherboard and dried it out on a heat lamp that he was using. Once he dried it out it seemed to function okay. He also had to clean up the burners to the furnace. They were full of ice from the spraying water. He dried them out and got them working again also. After an hour or so at our home he got our heat back on and also our water. It ended up not costing us anything since it appears that both motherboard and burners were salvageable -- and ken is a good friend who was willing to donate his late-night holiday labor. There is still a chance that the burners will go bad here soon, but were excited that at least we have a chance that they will be good still.

I left Jacob's heater on in our garage all night last night. I woke up every 40 minutes or hour to check on the heater to make sure that it still had plenty of fuel and it was not smoking too bad.

I am really grateful to Jake and Ken for acting on the spur of the moment to help us save our garage, our plumbing, and our furnace. I don't know what we would have done if we would have arrived that night and opened the garage to pull the Van in -- only to see hot water and steam pouring out of the furnace room. We would have been overwhelmed to cleanup the huge mess, wonder what the damage was, and go without water and heat for the next day.

We owe Jake and Ken big time for their service to us. Thanks guys!

Censoring Missionary Letters

I know that Amber's brother, Jake, has to have commitment and determination to serve a mission because, despite the letters he receives from our kids, he is still in Brazil.

Often times Aliece and Alayna will write things like, "I miss you, when will you be coming home?" or "I miss you so so so so so so so soooooooooooooo much!", etc. Jake never seems to complain about it though.

Today, Alayna was having Amber help her write her letter. We knew we had to censor this letter because it began...

"Dear Uncle Jake, I don't know if this was such a good idea. Maybe you should take a break and then go back on your mission later."

I have a feeling that this particular letter will be revised before it goes out under Alayna's name!

Call Christmas Party

We had a lot of fun at the call Christmas party on Saturday. The party was held at Clair's church house. That is one of the best church houses in which to hold a party. There is plenty of room for fun and games in the gym as well as a separate area for eating food and visiting nearby.

It has been quite a while since Amber and I have been able to go to one of the call Christmas parties. It was fun to see family again that we have not seen in a very long time. There was a great turnout for the event. There were a lot of little kids running around that I did not recognize. It took me most of the party before I was able to know which child belonged to which couple. I can't believe the family is growing so much.



Jen and Amber were asked to prepare a program for the party. At first, they worked out a good program that involved songs, scriptures, and other things. However, as certain people were unable to attend or were sick, they decided to scale the program down to make it very simple. The program ended up being a sing-along. People would be able to choose a song that they wanted to sing and tell about a Christmas tradition. The little kids that wanted to dress up as Nativity characters were invited to do so in front of the piano in costume to sing the songs. This involved little kids and they had a blast. We all enjoyed sitting and singing some of the Christmas classics.



During the program, Chloe wanted to come and sit with me. She sat with me for pretty much most of the program. It is fun to have her as a niece! She sure is a cutie.



As you can see from the photo, dad really and got into the program. Dad has had a really bad cold for quite a while. Due to his cold he cannot sing. Being a tried and true Andersen, since he could not sing he chose to do the next best thing -- sleep!

Our kids had a great time playing with second cousins. It is quite fun to have all these little kids in the family again. It is funny how it goes in cycles. It is very nostalgic to sit back with the adults and visit and at the same time watch our little kids running around and playing. It made me think back on the games and activities we did as kids with our cousins that are now adults and now sitting alongside us visiting and watching their children play. Time goes by way to fast!

Family Snow Time

We couldn't let the first real snow from the week go by without being initiated in our backyard. We had promised the kids that we would go play in the snow, however, with everything going on we didn't get there until it was really dark. However, the kids really wanted to go play in the snow and Amber thought we should do it. I reluctantly got dressed in my snow closed to go out into the cold and freeze my tail off.



Amber bundled Jace up into his snowsuit. This was the first time for him to be out and playing in the snow with the snowsuit. He was really excited to get out and play in the white stuff. He could hardly move in his snowsuit, however, he made the most of it and rolled around in the snow a lot.



We topped the evening off with a quick game of Fox and geese with trail the older kids made in the backyard. Everyone had a great time, and we ended the evening with some hot cocoa.

Aylee's First Violin Performance

Earlier this year Aylee joined the elementary school orchestra. The instrument she chose to play with was the violin. Over the course of the semester she has been practicing both the piano and her violin as part of her daily routine.

Tuesday night we all headed to the school to listen to the orchestra performance. It was short, sweet, and fun. All the kids looked spectacular in their orchestra clothing. Aylee of course was the most beautiful person there. She did a terrific job and it was fun to hear different musical pieces that they have practiced over the semester.

I am always amazed that people it can play more than one instrument. The piano is definitely difficult enough for me. Aylee seems to have picked up the violin pretty well. With no one-on-one instruction, like she has on her piano lessons, she has done a good job picking up a lot of that on her own.

It finally *Really* snowed!

We finally got some real snow that actually stuck to the ground on Tuesday! The kids were really excited to wake up in the morning and see a 3 inch blanket of snow on the ground with more coming down. I thought it was pretty cool too, until I remembered that I needed to get out and go shovel the sidewalk. That little activity made me 40 minutes late for work -- good thing I did some work early in the morning while everyone was in bed!

Alayna had a friend come over after her preschool class. They both were very eager to get dressed in their snow closing go out to play in the beautiful white stuff in the yard. It had a lot of fun and topped off their activities with a warm cup of hot cocoa when they came back into the house.

Finishing up the Book of Mormon

On Monday our family finished reading the book of Mormon together for the very first time. It has taken us about five years at 10 minutes a day with each child reading every other verse to travel over those 530+ pages.

The kids were excited to finally say that we made it! Somehow, they got the mistaken idea, however, that since we finished the book of Mormon as a family we don't need to get up early in the mornings to read anymore :-).

Amber would like to start a more topical Scripture study program for the morning routine. That is a little bit more work for us in preparation. I don't know how well it will go off, but were willing to try it out. Let us know if you have any ideas that might assist us in a topical study of Scripture with the kids.

Jace in High Heel Shoes

Amber employs sly methods in trying to get me to find a job that will allow me to work from home more often.

Today's tactic was to call me at work and have me guess what my youngest boy was wearing. She proudly announced that he was learning how to walk in high heel shoes by using Alayna's Barbie Princess high heel glossy shoes.

She even shot a video for proof - and to embarrass him when he is a teenager. See the video below:



If you don't see the video above, you can go to this URL:
http://ht4.org/buff362

Our First ever Dance Recital

Well, the long awaited day finally arrived! Today was our family is very first dance recital. Aliece has been taking a dance class for the past few months. Tonight was the final performance of the semester.

Aliece was really excited to wear the various costumes that she was to perform in during the recital. She looked spectacular! She has always loved to dance and so we thought we would try her in a dance class this year. It has been something that she has really enjoyed.

I doubt that we will continue it on again for another semester, because we typically let the kids only do one sport or paid activity a year. Sometimes we fudge on it a little bit. However, the fees for the recital alone weren't astounding $50. That was above and beyond the monthly class charge.

I hope we have not started a precedent with a dance thing. During the entire recital Alayna could not be kept in her chair. She had to be dancing on the floor in front of us. It was quite funny, and I can see her getting into it also.

My Boys!

As we were saying our family prayers last night, I happened to kneel in front of our couch. Alayna came by and knelt beside me. Johnathan then came and put himself beside Alayna.

During Aliece's sweet and thoughtful prayer, Alayna put her right arm across my shoulders and then placed her left arm across Johnathan's shoulders and whispered really quietly, "my boys!"

She is definitely a little mother hen!

Chuck!

While I was making dinner the other evening, Jace discovered how much fun the griddle box could be. Jace is at this stage in his life for he loves to throw things. His latest trick has been to go to the top of the stairs and throw toy cars through the banister and watch them crashed to the ground one floor below.

In fact, due to his excessive throwing passion the kids have all nicknamed him, "Chuck".

Anyway, as I was making dinner, Jace took this big griddle box and started chucking it all around the house. I was pretty impressed that he could pick up the box -- not because it is particularly heavy, but rather because of its length. He would pick it up and throw it across the room. He had a blast!

I took a little video of his feats of strength. You can view it below:



If you cannot see the video, you can click on the following link: http://ht4.org/dainty181.

Andersen Traveling Performers

Amber and I were visiting the other day and decided that it would be a fun idea to go and visit some widows in our Ward during this Christmas holiday period. Our family is getting large enough, and the kids are getting old enough, that we are able to have a small performance that is actually enjoyable to watch. The kids are getting better at their piano lessons Amber has taught them some fun Christmas songs -- we thought it would be a shame to let all that talent go to waste.

On two different occasions this week, Amber has coordinated with some widows and the Ward and we have gone to their homes and done a small, 10 minute concert for them.

Aylee, John, and Aliece all have some Christmas pieces that they play on the piano. Alayna then sings "Santa Claus is coming to town". Our entire family then sings a song from the polar express.

The kids have done a wonderful job behaving themselves and sitting still while the others perform. We are not there too long to test the kids patience, but long enough to make it meaningful visit with these wonderful women.

The kids themselves have been very touched by these visits. The widows we have visited have even ended up in some of the prayers offered by our children after the visit. I hope that these will be treasured memories that the kids hold with them and think about during future Christmas seasons.

Using Technology to Solve Family Problems

Note: if you have not read our blog about our Wii points system you may want to read that first. It was posted this week also.

Anyone who has eaten a meal at our home knows what a challenge it can be to keep the volume at a respectable level with five excited children when we are seated around the kitchen table. Each of our kids have something very important to say. They are also passionate about what they have to say. They often have to fight their way into a conversation by elevating their volume. Some of our children can do that easier than others! Needless to say, it almost can get to the point where you want to bring ear plugs to eat a meal.

Earlier in the year, we instituted a system of ranking a person's volume to a number between one and five. Amber had this idea and she has instituted it into our family with much success. Before an event such as a meal, we explained to the children that the appropriate voice for this event is a number two, or number three -- etc. The kids often practice the different volumes when we call out a number. This really works well, however, we still have meals were Amber and I are constantly repeating that we should be speaking in a number 2 or 3 voice.

As most of you know, human judgment is definitely subjective. Sometimes our children argue that we are wrong in our voice assessment. To alleviate the problem of human judgment, a few of us in the family decided to employ the use of technology to help us maintain the appropriate volume level during our meals.

Johnathan recently built a robot with our NXT robotics kit. This robot is that he built stays in one place but it has a sort of crane arm that can rotate 180°.



We wrote a program for the robot (his name is Robby). Since Johnathan had added a sound sensor to Robby, we were able to program Robby to stay still until the volume reached a certain number of decibels in the room. When it gets loud enough, Robby's arm rotates a few degrees.

Aylee took some Wii points and arrange them in a semi circle in front of Robby. The idea is, Robby initially points to the first Wii point card in a semi circle. As our volume gets loud he moves his arm a few degrees in the circle. Every card that gets passed up by his moving arm becomes lost. By the end of the meal the kids get to keep the number of points that Robby has not covered yet.

We tried this at the breakfast meal because Jace was still in bed. (Jace is always so loud that it really won't work when Jace is around.) The kids were the ones telling the adults to keep their voice down during breakfast. Remarkably, there were only a few loud voices during the entire meal and the kids only lost one or two of the eight Wii points for that meal!

Earning a Wii, a Dime at a Time

The kids have been asking for a Wii videogame for quite some time now. Over Thanksgiving, we saw the ads for several different Wii's and the kids begged that we buy a Wii. It got to the point where every time I went to the store Aylee or Johnathan would say, "don't forget the Wii!"

Amber and I haven't yet been ready to purchase that new of a videogame. We don't like to spend the money on it, and we know that the games will also be expensive. However, the pleadings of our children are reaching out to us.

On Monday we decided to tell the kids that if we earned enough money together we would buy a Wii as a family. I made a chart on a piece of paper with 500 little squares on it. I explained to the kids that if we were to buy a Nintendo Wii for the family it would probably cost about $500 for the number of controllers etc. that we would need. Amber and I told them that they could work on buying the Wii two different ways. One way is that they could contribute money. For every dollar they contribute they get to mark off a square on our Wii chart.

I also printed out a bunch of business cards that we called: Wii Points.



The cards can have any value that Amber and I assigned to them. However, the most common value is 10 cents.

The kids can earn Wii points by listening the first time they are told, by being polite at social functions, by being quiet at the dinner table, etc. The options are endless!

We introduced this just before family home evening on Monday. If any of you have been to a family home evening at our house you understand what a zoo it can be. Kids will not sit still, kids will talk out of turn, kids will wrestle with each other, and the person giving the lesson is often frustrated and wonders about their effectiveness.

I set out 10 Wii points just before family home evening. I told the kids that they could keep all 10 Wii points if they were reverent, and stayed put in their seat and didn't talk out of turn during family home evening. I explained that each infraction would result in me taking one of the points away.

The children were amazing! They all sat still in their seats and they raise their hands if they wanted to talk. The lesson went off very well!

We have been using our Wii point system with terrific results. I don't know what we are going to do once we buy a Wii!

The Lights are Up!

On Saturday I finally got into gear and set up lights in our front yard. I don't really know why it has taken me so long this year to do this, the weather has been great every weekend practically.

We accidentally left our Christmas lights that are hung on the roof up all year long. We didn't take them down when we took down the other ones because Amber thought it would be fun to leave them up for valentines day since they were red. However, when February rolled around we forgot to turn on their lights. And then, we just never got around to it.

Now when I turned on the lights on the roof they were a dull whitish pink due to the fading throughout the year. Well, I wasn't going to get up on the roof and take them down and buy new ones this year, so I decided to buy other lights accentuate the yard. Amber made a couple of trips to different stores to give me the various lights that I needed. We ducked out three or four of the trees as well as our little well around the pond.

It took a few hours, but I was happy to finally get up some decent lights for our home.

Provo Christmas Parade

On Saturday, Amber suggested that we take the family and go to the annual Provo Christmas Parade. I have never been to the Christmas parade, Amber took the kids last year while I was in school. Amber claimed that they gave out a lot of candy at this parade and due to the cold weather the competition is not so fierce.

We bundled up the kids and headed downtown to pick our spots. We got there early enough that we were able to walk up and down the streets and stop and get a hot cocoa at various warming checkpoints along the route.



It was a beautiful day for the parade, and we stood in the sunshine and it wasn't too cold. Amber was correct in that there was a lot of candy handed out at that parade. By the time the parade was over we were able to fill a 2 gallon bucket with all the candy that our family received! You know, that is almost as good as Halloween. Except that other people dress up and walk around and you just have to sit there and you get the candy!



After the parade was over we walked around and looked at the candy windows. The theme this year was "was the night before Christmas". The kids always enjoy looking at the candy scene creations.

Later that evening we return to downtown to attend the living Nativity presentation that is provided annually by one of the Provo stakes. This year, it was done in the Provo Tabernacle rather than outside. That was a nice change so that we did not have to sit out in the cold for 20 minutes but sit in the rather comfortable seats of the Tabernacle.

As I was reflecting on the warm weather, I realized how different this year has been so far from last year. Last year when Amber took the kids to the Christmas parade, mom and dad were in Provo visiting. They came to the parade also. During the parade dad had a snowball fight with the kids. It garnered so much attention that dad ended up in the paper the next day. Well, we haven't had any snow really to talk about. We've had a skiff here and there that is melted right away. No snowballs for Provo yet.

Advent Creche

Aylee has really been in the mood for Christmas this year. She has made countless homemade gifts and activities for her siblings. One such activity is a twist on an advent calendar. She designed a manger scene using the computer to create three brown sections for the manger. She also took pictures of each individual item in our nativity on one of the end tables. She printed those pictures and cut out each member of the Nativity.

For each day of December, she lets one of her siblings glue on a nativity piece to the manger scene. This advent nativity hangs in the playroom for all the kids to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

I am always amazed at the creativity that comes from Aylee's mind. She is always busy creating and inventing. She loves her siblings so much that they are usually the recipients or the audience for her creations.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

The Sunday after Thanksgiving Amber broke out our Christmas decorations and we spent time with the family decorating the tree. This year the ornaments will go a little bit higher so that Jace doesn't have too much fun with all of the glass balls and porcelain ornaments.



If Amber would have had her way, the tree would have been up and decorated the week before Thanksgiving. Luckily she is pregnant and therefore tired that day so that my resolve was stronger than hers and I waited until after Thanksgiving. :-)


While all of the kids were busy hanging ornaments on the tree, Jace ran back and forth excited all the while gnawing on a nativity lamb from Mexico.

Andersen Family Bailout !

Welcome to the Andersen Family's Automaker Rescue!

After the awesome time together at the Thanksgiving gathering, our family is on a mission. With the economy sliding downhill and our sacred auto industry on the brink of utter ruin, we're banding together to exercise our way to Detroit to bail out the automotive industry. Along the way, we're hoping to bail out of those unwanted holiday pounds that seem to gather while consuming treats at our family events.

For every minute you exercise, you'll be traveling down the highway to the distance of one mile. Along the way you'll stop in different cities on the route. Your current location will be shown on this page.

We all started the trip on December 1st.  The goal is to reach Detroit by the end of January so that we have time to save the auto industry -- and in turn, help save the world!

To enter your workout, go to WorkoutZone. To see how you are coming on your destination, go to our Holiday Challenge Page.

Good luck!

A Presentation on Mexico

The other day Aliece was given an assignment by her teacher to provide a presentation to her class about Christmas in Mexico. Aliece had to do a little bit of research in order to prepare for the presentation. One part of her research was to call her uncle Joe. Since Joe served his mission in Mexico, he was able to provide her information that helped kickstart a fun presentation. She also did a little research on the Internet (or rather Amber did that for her).

Once they had decided on the topics to discuss, Amber printed out a variety of pictures to act as her slides. Aliece then colored each picture intricately and Amber printed out her script on the back of each of the pictures.

As an activity for the children to do after the presentation, Amber and Aliece made small paper bag piñata is full of candy and other goodies. Data string to the back so that it could be hung and beaten like a regular piñata.

Before the presentation, Amber found some clothing items and let Aliece dress up in them to look more authentic.

Amber went to Aliece's class for the presentation. Aliece did an absolutely wonderful job on her presentation. The kids all enjoyed it. They had some good questions afterward. Once the questions were over, Aliece handed out at the paper bag piñata's and let the kids decorate them. It was a big hit!

October - Now

I thought I would post a couple of pictures updating life here in Modesto. I have now started to get at least one day a week off and even sometimes 2 days off. I have really been taking advantage of it and doing small overnight trips to all the really beautiful destinations here in Northern California. I have visited the northern coast on Hwy 1, it is really awesome up there. Also visited Monterey (my favorite), Carmel, Salinas, Watsonville (where all the raspberries and strawberries come from), San Fracnisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz (one of my favorites), Reno, NV, Lake Tahoe, Hollister, Gilroy (garlic capitol of the world) and the Napa Valley. All very neat places to visit and all within a couple of hours from Modesto.
Being a big fan of christmas and the season, when I got back and settled in from Thanksgiving, I went out and got my christmas tree. I had to really haggle with the old redneck coot that was selling the trees. I finally got it for $35 although his initial price was $60. I reminded him that the local grocery stores were selling trees for $20 although they weren't as nice.
Today my cord of Almond wood was delivered so I spent some time stacking it. A cord of wood is a lot more than I realized and it took me a couple of hours to move it and stack it. Now I have a roaring fire in the fireplace.

Aylee Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

Or Click HERE.

John Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

Or Click HERE.

Aliece Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

Or Click HERE.

Alayna Wishes You a Happy Thanksgiving

Or Click HERE.

PVC Pipe Guns

The other day I checked out a cool book from the library. It is a comic book that has a simple chapter story. At the end of each story, it teaches you how to make the thing the story was talking about.

The favorite chapter in the book was about a PVC Pipe Marshmallow gun.



The kids have been bugging me all week to help them make this gun. While Mom and Dad were down for Thanksgiving, they showed the comic to him. Being the congenial grandpa that Dad is, he told the kids he would help them build their PVC Pipe Guns. On Friday we went to Home Depot and got all of the PVC connectors and pipe necessary.

Dad spent the next hour with the kids assembling their guns and gluing them. When they were good enough to test, the kids were thrilled to see how far their marshmallows would fly and, much to Amber's chagrin, how hard they can hit.



Needless to say the kids are wearing some huge smiles while Amber has banned mini-marshmallows from the house :-)

Happy Thanksgiving

For thanksgiving we had all of the Andersen Family in Utah. We all worked together to make the thanksgiving feast. Everyone made something and we were able to all sit in the same room and enjoy the culinary delights of the day.

We were excited that Jen, Dave, and Chloe were able to make it despite the health problems Jen suffered earlier this week. Jen was in good spirits and hardly acted like anything had been wrong.



Our kids were excited to see their cousin as well as their aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Johnathan Performs at Thanksgiving Program

Johnathan and his grade-mates at the school performed an awesome thanksgiving program for all of the parents. The boys and girls all dressed up in cute little Native-American costumes and sang thanksgiving songs for all of the parents.

After the program there was a huge feast of parent-delivered cookies, crackers, pies, etc. We had a great time!

Watch out for Elf-Yourself e-cards

==== I wrote the following post in generic form because I'm going to paste it on my technology blog also ====

On Saturday, I had received an email-advertisement for an online e-card generator hosted by jibjab.com. It is a holiday ecard named "elf-yourself". You upload photos of you and family and friends. You then stick your uploaded faces onto their website and they transfer them to a bunch of dancing elves. You can select the type of dance that the elves perform. In the background there is a holiday jingle to wish your recipient a happy Christmas.

After I successfully made the ecard, I showed it to my children. My 10-year-old daughter wanted to make one of her own. I helped her load the pictures onto the computer and she skillfully cropped the faces so they fit well on the elves. She was so proud of her newly created e-card that she posted it on our family blog.

When I first watched her e-card it was very cute and I told her she did a good job. Later that day, she tried to show the card to one of her friends. However, we found that the e-card would not load properly. It almost appeared as if the e-card had expired.

The next day I received an e-mail as well as a comment from that blog post. People were upset by the content of the e-card. I loaded the blog post up into my browser and sure enough I found the content of the card to be different than what my daughter had originally created. In fact, it was somewhat obscene. It was definitely inappropriate for a 10-year-old girl as well as all of her friends that she sent a card to. In the place of her card, was a Valentines Day greeting -- a striptease that someone else had created in jest for a friend.

Somehow, the unique key associated with my daughter's card expired early (within the day) and someone else's card took the newly available key. Thus, the card that we intended to share with everyone else no longer existed -- instead they would receive a card that was definitely inappropriate and offensive.

Luckily, jibjab.com allows you to purchase your flash file (e-card) for about four dollars. This way you can ensure that the card you made is going to be the card that your recipients receive. I am not angry at jibjab.com for this mixup - I am sure was just a random technological foul-up. But it has taught me a lesson -- as long as your information is hosted by someone else, on someone else's server, you can never truly be sure of it's presented result.

So, don't thow out the paper greeting cards just yet -- ecards may look fancy and fun, but you just never know what your recipient will end up seeing!

A visit from the Boswells

We had a great visit from the Boswell family who have been living in Coppell Texas. We have known the Boswell's since our college days at BYU. We have gotten together sporadically throughout the years and we have a great time on every occasion. They were heading up to Park city for the week to spend time with family at a timeshare. They stayed the night last night and for the first part of the day today.

Of course Amber and I had a great time visiting and catching up with Scott and Erin. If we thought we were having fun reminiscing and visiting, it would be nothing compared to the excitement and animation that our children expressed during that time. Erin and Scott have four children. The four children that they have are all within just a few months of the age of four of our kids. Johnathan is the only one without a matching partner in crime. That didn't stop him though, as he was right in the middle of the thick of things. It was crazy, and it was fun. It was very relaxing to be able to visit with a family with a similar number of children so that we did not have to apologize all the time for the noise in the racket being made by the little ones all about us.

Aylee and Megan worked on a fun chopsticks duet while they were here and we took a video of them performing. It was a lot of fun. The kids had fun playing and running and visiting. Of course, when it was time to go, our kids were pleading for them to stay -- even asking them to come and live with us!

Reflections Awards

Today was the reflections awards ceremony for the kids at school. Aylee, Johnathan, and Aliece all contributed and submitted items to be contest.

Aylee got a trophy and two ribbons. She got a trophy for a piece of literature that she wrote. Her ribbons were from a computer drawing she made of a soldier and a photograph she took of a sunset.


Johnathan submitted one item this year. He received a ribbon for his item -- a photograph of one of the marigolds in our garden.


Aliece was excited to get her very first trophy from the reflections competition. She won her trophy for her single item -- a photograph of a chicken that she took during a field trip for school.

The kids were excited about their prizes when we were excited to be there to watch them received their awards.

Classroom Behavior Monitoring Form

Amber and Aliece's teacher have been working on ways to help Aliece focus more in class and be more obedient.  The teacher has been implementing some techniques we use at home with Aliece, and we have been trying to implement some of the techniques she uses in her classroom.

One such technique that the teacher is using is that she gives Aliece a Classroom Monitoring Behavior Form each and every day.  The form has three sections:  Morning, Lunchtime, and Afternoon.  Each section has a frowny face and a smiley face.

The teacher circles the appropriate face for each section of the day and then sends it home with Aliece.  The bottom of the form has some comments.

Aliece's behavior has greatly improved with this system and it gives us a chance to follow up with her at the end of the day.

Last week, Aliece got two smiley faces and one frowny face.  The comments said that she was really good except that after lunch she kept pulling a sucker out of her pocket and licking it throughout class - even after being told to put it away.

We talked to Aliece and told her she is not to bring candy to the classroom.

Today, we got a form home with another two smileys and one frown.  The note today:  "Now instead of candy, she is eating toothpaste".

Sure enough, there was a half tube of the personal (travel) size of kid's toothpaste in her pocket.

I am not sure if the teacher was laughing as she wrote her comment or frustrated.  Either way, we got a kick out of it.  We are definitely going to be on our toes with this one for many years to come!

Toughen Up Kid!

Amber has been riding bikes with the kids to and from school each day.  She has a jogging stroller that she is able to pull Jace and Alayna with.

Anyway, Amber has been reporting to me that Johnathan has been the slowest one on his bike.  They all ride to school and Johnny is way in the back.  He acts like he just has no energy.

We have been getting on his case telling him that he can ride faster than his sisters.  We are always telling him to hussle up.

Well, tonight, Amber asked me to check out his bike.  She watched Johnathan today and she said either he is really out of shape or something is wrong with his bike.

After dinner tonight I hopped onto John's bike and and rode it around.  Oh, man.  The thing was hard to pedal.  It just would pedal very quickly.  Plus his pedals are now warped and bent a bit so that during the pedal motion they bend here and there and it is hard to keep your feet on them.

I played around with it and pulled some plastic netting out of the bearings on his rear wheel.  There was a good 10 inches of it in there.  I hopped back on and voila!  it was much easier to pedal.

We still have the issues of the pedals bending wierdly, but this should really help him. 

Now I feel badly that we have been giving him such a hard time!

I'm Not Done!

I had a four hour commitment at the church this evening. Amber was home with the kids starting at 4 PM. She made the most of it and baked some yummy lemon squares. While she was making the lemon squares, our backyard neighbor could be seen in her kitchen window making something in their kitchen. She must have noticed Amber doing some cooking because she called a little bit later asking what Amber had been making. After Amber explained, our neighbor told her that she had made some pumpkin cookies. They both decided to swap half of their desserts so that instead of one dessert we could all enjoy to desserts.

Jace had been eating in his high chair. After he was done eating, Amber presented him with a pumpkin cookie thinking that he might like it. She was very right, indeed! Jace devoured that pumpkin cookie. When he finished, he made a loud yelling sound that appeared to be, "I'm not done!"

Aylee looked at Amber and they both asked each other at the same time if Jace really said those very words. His cookie was gone, he had eaten it so quickly. So, Amber took his tray off of the high chair and put him down onto the floor. He freaked out, screamed, and beat his hands on the floor as he continued to throw himself prostrate on the ground. Amber and Aylee decided that Jace had indeed spoken those words. Whether they were those words specifically or not it sure sounded like it and his reaction made it appear as if he meant it!

Surprise Visitor

For church today I had taken Jace to the Spanish branch. Amber took the rest of the kids to our home Ward. This is our standard procedure on Sundays. During Sunday school I had about 15 minutes to run home and create a flyer in Spanish regarding some service opportunities that the church has requested that our stake perform over the next couple of weeks.

I didn't have much time so I raced into the house with Jace. I set him on the floor and told him to go play and then I ran into the office and started typing up the Spanish flyer. While I was typing I heard loud banging noises from what sounded like upstairs. I first wondered if Jace had made it upstairs so quickly. I know that he has the ability to do so at that speed, however, the noises were so loud I couldn't imagine that Jace could be making them.

I quietly stepped out of the office and found Jace in the entryway near the play closet. I stood there and watched him play for a few minutes to see what in the world he was doing because so much noise. After just a few seconds I heard the sound again. Two things concerned me, it was not from Jace, and it was coming from upstairs.

With the fight or flight instincts taking over, I had a long debate in my mind that only really lasted a second or two. The question was what do I do with Jace versus what do I do to find out who was in our house. While I stood there trying to figure out the best course of action a head popped out into view up the stairs. I jumped about 2 feet high and then realized that it was Aylee's head that I was seeing.

Apparently, Aylee got sick during church (said she didn't feel well) and went home to rest. She had heard Jace and I return home and make noise. So, she thought she would trick us -- and she surely did!

Classy McDonalds?

Saturday was the dedicated day for my monthly date with Aliece and Alayna. Sometimes I do their daddy dates together when they want to do the same activity. One of their favorite activities for a daddy date is to go to McDonald's to eat hamburgers and play in the play area.

Recently, our local McDonald's was closed down for a couple of months while they did some remodeling. They really have spruced up the place with the remodel. In fact, when you walk into the McDonald's, it appears that you walked into a Starbucks or some other trendy little hip restaurant. There are curved partitions, high leg tables and chairs, and even a glass wall with the McDonald's logo on it with a waterfall flowing on both sides of the glass.

Even the play area was remodeled to give you the sense that there is more playspace even though they didn't enlarge the area at all.

When asking the girls what they wanted to order, they both replied that they wanted six cheeseburgers each. Being the wise parent that I am I told them that I would order one a piece and if they wanted more I would buy them more. Of course, Alayna only the bun portion of her first hamburger, and Aliece completed one cheeseburger. After their handful of fries, they were full and ready to go play on the play area.

I was really surprised by the trendy look that the new McDonald's has. They really have worked hard to change their perception of being a kid place to a place for adults and business people to grab a cup of coffee, and read their paper. I guess we'll see how it goes!

John's Challenging Sweeping Job

We were hurrying last night to get our kids to the babysitter in order for Amber and I to go to a high priest's social. We didn't have much time between when I arrived home and when we needed to leave to drop the kids off. We quickly made them some food and let them eat it. It was getting time to go and so I ushered in all the kids to hurry up and get into the van. Johnathan still needed to do his sweeping chore.

Stressed, and trying to hurry in order to get his chore done before we left, Johnathan grabbed the little sweep vacuum that we have and hurried to get it set up. In the process, the vacuum fell onto the laundry room tile and the compartment containing all of the dust and debris from previous sweeping episodes came undone -- dirt, dried food, paper, and everything else went flying all over the floor.



Seeing the mess, I hurriedly told Johnathan that he had better get out the broom and do it by hand that way. I continued to load kids into the van and I heard Johnathan exclaim in despair and fear. I went over to him to find the in his haste he tried to grab the broom that had fallen behind the refrigerator in the garage and used his weight as a leverage to pry it out from behind the appliance.



The result of his efforts yielded a broom with a severely bent handle. He was trying to straighten it as I got there. Seeing as I gave a talk on patience on Sunday in church, I decided I had better not fly off the handle (no pun intended). So I told him to just go ahead and sweep with the bent handle the best he could. In the end we had to leave before he could get the job done. We rushed out of the house leaving a pile of dirt scattered around the broken vacuum, a bent broom in the middle of the kitchen floor, and the remains of Hawaiian haystacks from dinner decorating the dining room area.

Everyone survived, and believe it or not we let the mess stay overnight. First thing this morning it got cleaned up and no one was hurt in the process.

The church ground

The other day, I was working on the fence around the project ground and Kevin Garn ( The guy that bought Gail Wood's place) stopped and visited a while. He said he was still interested in the ground and would put a pencil to it to see how many cows he could run on it. We didn't talk price though. However, he is still interested. Maybe something will come of it.
Wednesday, Cody Evans installed the pump and controls.
Today, Roy Fowler from the NRCS came out to inspect the project. He was impressed and said he would get in touch with me later next week. He said they might not be able to pay on the water part until we actually had the system up and running but the fence should be finalized. We may be able to still get the money on the water too where they already paid for the pipeline. We'll know maybe next week.

If it all passes, we will have it all done. I asked about not having the perimeter fence done and he said it wasn't a problem since they don't pay on it anyway.

Happy Veterans Day

The fifth grade classes at the elementary school hosted a patriotic tribute on Veterans' Day. Aylee participated in the event. She both sang and had a recitation part in the program. Aylee and her class did a tremendous job.

They had all of the veterans stand up and be recognized at the beginning of the event. It was touching to see those who have served our country.

Caching - Big Van Style

Saturday ended up being a fun day for us. We started off the morning by raking leaves and doing some other yard work. I had some wiring problems under the ground that led to my flagpole. I worked on finding those issues and repairing them as well as enhancing the covers for the different electrical connections under the ground for the flagpole and for the pond.

Aliece and Alayna had a piñata movie party at one of their former primary teachers homes. During that time Amber and I took the kids to the library. Aylee and Johnathan needed to find some new books that were more challenging. Amber and I are going to start a little book club with the kids in order to challenge them to read more difficult books. After the library, we went to Kmart and bought some real bottles of pop. Those are going to serve as our prizes for kids the finish their larger chapter books.



Once the girls got back from their party, we decided that we would spend some time geo-caching as a family. We have been playing with the idea of purchasing a larger Van for a time when our family will need it. We had some neighbors that have a larger 11 passenger van. They let us borrow it so that we could take it around town and use of geo-caching just to see how I felt and to see if it was too big for us to manage easily. It is definitely not a minivan. However, I think we could probably get used to the idea of driving a larger Van around when we'll have to.

After finding about three geo-caches and swapping toys and other knickknacks, we topped off the evening spending some quality time at the Golden corral restaurant. We all stuffed our faces greatly, and had a good time.

The Last Days

A co-worker told me a story yesterday about his 14 year old daughter. It was funny enough that it kept me laughing the remainder of the day. Hopefully it will do the same for you.

"My daughter came to me last night and was distraught. She had tears rolling down her face as she declared, 'Dad, we are in so much trouble.' I asked her why. 'Dad, the scriptures say that in the last days there will be abominations (Obama-nations) .'"

He tried to console his daughter but, she was dead set on it and just kept saying, "No, dad really! We are in so much trouble!"

Well, people I guess we know for a fact that these are the last days! :) I thought it was hilarious!!!

President-Elect O-Bomb-A

At dinner on Wednesday, after the presidential election, I was discussing the election results with our kids. Amber and I were asking them what kids at school were saying, etc. Aylee told us, "Well, I wasn't surprised when I heard the Obama won early this morning."

Alayna retorted in her four-year-old Amelia-Bedilia style understanding, "I didn't hear A BOMB go off this morning, I was still sleeping!"

Amber and I laughed our heads off as we realized that when we were talking about Obama, Alayna was thinking we were saying 'A Bomb'.

Hopefully her innocent mix-up is not an omen!

Why I like to vote in Utah

As I was preparing to vote intelligently this week, I was reviewing the voter guide that came into the mail a few weeks ago. When I got to the Governor's race, I came across the following Libertarian candidate. Oh, I just love voting in Utah!


SUPERDELL Dell Schanze for Governor

Text from the Voter Guide:

Qualifications: "SUPERDELL is your only choice because YOU didn't file. Huntsman took away your freedoms and raised taxes more than any governor in the history of Utah. Springmeyer has admitted that he doesn't care about the constitution. The definition of the word insane is voting for the same people while expecting change.

There is not question that Dell Schanze is different. There are only 3 people on the ballot and SUPERDELL is the only one that is NOT socialist. If you are unsure then fill your heart with love, completely open your mind and pray to God earnestly. You can't afford to get this wrong and will be held accountable for your choice."

Happy 35th Anniversary Mom & Dad!

Amber and I wanted to take a minute and wish Mom and Dad a very Happy Anniversary. 35 years!! We have all been blessed by your marriage and your lives together. Thank you for being an example to all of us.

I know that our kids will be well off if we can be the kind of parents you have been to us.

Have a great anniversary!


Click HERE if you can't see the full card below.

A Happy Andersen Halloween

We had a great halloween this year. Amber ran herself ragged between school halloween activities, Novell activities, and neighborhood trick or treating. The kids had a blast though, and of course, nabbed a lot of candy!

John Jr. - "Jack Alien" (One of his invented superheroes)

John Sr. - Elvis

Jace - Cowboy

Aylee - Mulan

Amber - Wicked Witch

Aliece - Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

Alayna - Snow White

About the time we finished our Trick or Treating, Adee and Adam arrived. We are excited to have them spend the weekend with us!

I'll be home next weekend

Hey, just wanted to let you all know that I will be in Arbon on the 8th and 9th of November, next weekend. I have a 3 day weekend so I thought I would head up there. I would love to see anybody that would like to be in Arbon over the weekend (siblings, spouses and families) but I know we will all be together over Thanksgiving.
I am really looking forward to spending time together over Thanksgiving. Miss you all.

Joe

BYU Alumni Networking Event

I was invited to represent Novell at a recent BYU alumni networking dinner. The purpose of the event was to help students network with experienced professionals to talk about their career paths and the importance of networking in their professional lives.

The event started out with some hors d'oeuvres and uncoordinated mingling. I was able to meet quite a few students and visit with them about their career goals and aspirations. I also met the coordinator for career placement for the technical majors at BYU. We talked about some possibilities of getting Novell some exposure with BYU students. I am really excited to work on improving our relationship and letting the students know of the opportunities and technologies that are available at Novell.

After the mingling was over, we were ushered into a banquet hall at the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni building where we sat at tables and visited with students that were assigned to our table. I met a lot of talented and exceptional young people who are going to be leaders in their chosen profession.

I was honored to be selected to attend this event. It is always a wonderful thing for me to associate with college students -- especially those from my alma mater.

Raking Leaves

Tonight we donned the rakes and employed the shopvac for blowing power and we start gathering all of our leaves in the front yard. The kids have been dying to have a leaf pile to jump and play in.

Amber waa heading to the temple. However, the kids were having so much fun raking, she decided to stick around and join in the fray. The kids had a blast -- Amber and I had a fun time too.

We still have plenty of leaves on some of our trees, so I imagine this was just part I of our raking activities this fall!

FHE at the Food Bank

The other day I was doing some research on the Utah County food Bank. I discovered on their website that they have a weekly family home evening and night at the food bank for families. They accept children of all ages. You just have to sign up and get an available spot.

A couple of weeks ago I signed up our family to attend this family home evening. The kids did a great job there! They were definitely our children in the way answered nearly every question that was asked and they were energetic in their participation during the evenings activities.

We had a fun little 15 minute lesson that was followed by a tour of the food bank. We then ended the evening by doing a little service project where we made little Christmas stockings that will be filled with candy and given to some pf the children of the patrons of the food bank.



It was a fun experience for our children to be able to see how the community assists those in need. I hope that it will help make a difference in their attitude towards the things they take for granted and the blessings that we have in our life. I hope my children will always be generous and lookout for those that struggle.

As the Bible says, this is pure religion.

Pumpkin Carving Lunch

Today during lunch we carved pumpkins in preparation for Halloween this weekend. Each of the kids played a major role in the design of their jack-o'-lantern. We had fun sitting around the table talking, drawing, and cutting away at our individual pumpkins.