Aylee Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

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John Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

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Aliece Wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving

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Alayna Wishes You a Happy Thanksgiving

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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!